Latest / The ROI Online Podcast / [Feature Friday] Brett Trembly, Esq. on Hiring, Firing, and Delegating Your Way to Freedom - The ROI Online Podcast Ep. 61

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[Feature Friday] Brett Trembly, Esq. on Hiring, Firing, and Delegating Your Way to Freedom - The ROI Online Podcast Ep. 61 · The ROI Online Podcast

• 0:04
  Brett Trembly: For me, I'm thinking, Okay, if I can set up a system, you know, that gets the info I need from that business owner, what would you like to talk about this month or focus on, I can put that into a spreadsheet, and somebody can pull out of that and do all that work for me on the back end that I just have to approve. Okay, that's an assistant, that's a worker bee, someone who you know, needs to have some some brain cells and is good, but they're not doing the creative thinking or division. I'm thinking of myself, Well, let's say I found someone like through gets that up for 1850 a month.
• 0:40
  Brett Trembly: On my second sale, I'm already profitable. And I'm just gonna go out and grow the company and see what kind of bandwidth one assistant can do. Maybe it's five, maybe it's 10. And now I know my skews. I know how many clients for assistant than I need to have. And I can scale my company this way.
• 1:00
  Steve Brown: Hi, everybody.
• 1:00
  Steve Brown: Welcome to the ROI online podcast where we believe you.
• 1:02
  Steve Brown: The courageous entrepreneurs of our day, are the invisible heroes of our economy. You not only improve our world with your ideas, your grit and your passion, but you make our world better. I'm Steve Brown. And this is a place where we have great conversations with winners just like you while we laugh and learn together.
• 1:32
  Steve Brown: Brett Trembley, welcome to the ROI online podcast. Hi, Steve.
• 1:37
  Steve Brown: Thanks for having me. You know, I was looking forward to this conversation. Of course, everybody that's listening right now. And they're wondering why they need to be interested in this conversation. And so I'm telling you Brett's coming with some really cool stuff.
• 1:54
  Brett Trembly: He's got a company called get staffed up.com. He's has a law firm, a successful law firm in Miami.
• 2:03
  Brett Trembly: He's got a book coming out soon called the danger zone. And we're gonna have an excellent conversation. Brett, tell us a little bit about your backstory.
• 2:12
  Brett Trembly: Yeah. So Steve, when I when I found that year from Amarillo, I that was exciting to me. And he, you know, now that I'm on the East Coast, anytime I get to meet somebody from back in the southwest, that's nice. I grew up just outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico. And when I when I meet people out here in Miami, the response that I used to get was, oh, wow, I've never met anyone from New Mexico before, you know, seemed it's like, it's like one of those states that you skip over, you know, like, in your mind, you know, or California is, you know, Texas is meat, you know, of course everyone's heard of Colorado and Arizona but but New Mexico, we just, I guess we have that inferiority complex for that reason as well. So, but now, but now when I meet people, you know, they say, Oh, yeah, breaking bad. I love that show.
• 3:02
  Brett Trembly: And so for better or worse, Breaking Bad put us on the map.
• 3:09
  Brett Trembly: So grew up in, in, in, you know, in New Mexico, I went to college there, I went five years. So I my fifth year at Eastern Mexico university, I think I had three or six hours a semester. It was a victory lap as they say just to I was student body president and I was I was just having a grand old time. And five years wasn't enough so I decided I wanted to still delay adulthood and go to more school. And I settled on law school. And once I once I got into Miami, that was a no brainer for me. I wanted to see something different something new. And I remember Steve driving on the campus as I moved out here and started law school without ever ever visiting Miami or been to Miami it was it was one of those things like what am I not gonna like you know, right so it was either that or go back to university in New Mexico for law school and so I drove across the country with my old man in my my Jeep Grand Cherokee you know, loaded to the top I pulled up I drove onto campus and it just one of those moments that hit me I just said I'm not leaving. And and I just I loved it you know from from day one, the trees the water, you know, there's more water and one view of your eyes when you're on the beach than there is in the entire state of New Mexico Of course. And you know, there's just a lot going on here. It's International, it's very cultural. And you know, I don't know there's there's good things and bad things about every city I certainly like visiting back home. But for now, you know, this is this is where I make a living so i've you know, got married I have three kids now and several businesses and and because of the Coronavirus, I'm working from home more than ever and that parlays nicely into what we're doing. It gets stopped up So Mr. New Mexico arrives in big time Miami, and you're beginning law school?
• 5:09
  Brett Trembly: What are you learning about yourself at this time? I'm learning that I really enjoy being on my own and, and alone, if that makes sense, but there's, I'm definitely not is it's it's kind of become trendy to call yourself an introvert.
• 5:26
  Brett Trembly: But, you know, introvert and extrovert has to do with where you get your energy. And I definitely I love leading groups I love being, you know, I was always captain of whatever I was doing and, and I love the the team and the mission and the rallying, and I love building teams, you know, in business.
• 5:45
  Brett Trembly: Now, there's just a lot of similarities. But at the same time, I really recharge and enjoy my alone time and my thinking time, and I and I think being out here and not knowing anybody, um, you know, we had I moved out in 2005. And within a month and a half, we had hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. Wow. And Katrina hit only a few weeks. And look, I'm starting to meet people. The first week, I was I was living in the fraternity house on on campus, because it's a private school. A lot of people don't know that about the University of Miami.
• 6:21
  Brett Trembly: They have live in sort of house dads in the fraternity houses, and I was doing that on scholarship during law school.
• 6:28
  Brett Trembly: And, you know, so I knew people but it was so brand new, you know, my first hurricane, I ended up in, in a suite on campus with a friend. And then I remember my, my first Thanksgiving, you know, I didn't want to ask anyone to go to go to Thanksgiving with them. And it was enough enough time to fly home. So I saw a joke that I had, I had spaghettios, you know, by myself, and and I enjoyed it. You know, I didn't I never looked at it. Like, you know, poor me, I don't have I don't have all my network here.
• 6:59
  Brett Trembly: And, and I and I took that. So a lot of people it's like, well, you know, how did you come into Miami without family friends, you know, a lot. There's, there's a lot of private schools here. So if you go to high school, you have really good business networks. And a lot of that a lot of the private schools out here, colleges, and I had none of that. And people ask, Well, how did you how did you build your business? You know, you're you're basically just came into Miami, and here you are. And I don't know, I just never looked at it as a, an impediment. I never let it get in my way. I just kind of do my thing. I've never really focused on obstacles. And and, and I guess from the outside, now that I have kids, I see a lot of the things that I did when I was younger. And I think oh, well, I could see how my parents would react to that now. But when you're just going through things, Steve, you know, I'm just not the type of guy who's very good at stopping and saying, oh, wow, that was a good accomplishment, or a big accomplishment. Or wow, look what I'm doing. I just just keep going day to day. So it's interesting, because you go on, you start a law firm, and you you build out a law firm, but here, you're independent, you're you're thinking that you're more of an introvert. Are you saying that you are and yet you build a an excellent team. Where does that come from? I yeah, so I love I love leadership. I love being in charge of a mission.
• 8:27
  Brett Trembly: Yeah, I hate using the the analogy of like, more time and stuff because God, you know, God forbid, we nothing that we do is even close to what goes on in the real, you know, combat and military and but, you know, I guess the analogy is there's there's peacetime generals and wartime generals, and I've always liked the the fight the mission, let's build something let's attack, you know, let's let's focus on, we want it to become different in Miami in terms of how legal services were delivered, and we were going to show people that we could be different. So those things get me excited, I love the missions.
• 9:07
  Brett Trembly: And then if you have core values and you have a mission and you focus on them and you and you make them a part of your business where you hire and train and retain or fire based on your core values, you start to get people around you that are excited to be on the same boat and they they want to roll with you There's nothing wrong there's very few things more frustrating than having employees constantly fighting against the current and pushing back and you and I you know have a little bit of this discussion about hiring and people then you know, Millennials this and kids that and it's it's always everyone else's fault except the leader. Nobody I've met says I suck at hiring. I suck at leading. I'm terrible. I need help or I should have very few people. I have heard A few people say that. And as Tony Robbins said, there's no, there's no such thing as a bad team, only a bad leader. Because the leader is the one hiring and the leader is the one rowing and building. So you're making the decisions as the leader, you have to look at yourself if things aren't going right and figure out why. And if you have bad employees, and why did you keep them. And if you don't want bad employees next time, put more effort into the recruiting and hiring process and become the type of business that's going to attract the people that that you want to work with and around. And, and if someone doesn't fit in your culture, you need to let them go, because it's respectful for them and for you, so they can go find their culture. And I looked on your website, Steve, you know, nobody's wearing suits and ties, you've got a very, like, fun, casual bunch. And that's going to attract more of the people that like that, that are going to resonate with ROI online. And so, you know, go ahead.
• 11:04
  Steve Brown: No, I'm wondering, if you always found yourself in a position of class president or leader of as you were growing?
• 11:12
  Steve Brown: Is that innately in you? Or where did you learn it? Did you have a mentor? Did you have someone that really exemplified leadership to you? Where does that come from?
• 11:26
  Brett Trembly: That I have pondered before. And I think it's a little bit of both, I'm naturally you know, I've got the red hair gene. So I'm naturally kind of fiery. You know, I wish I was more even keeled but but I can, I can have a temper and get very excited at times. I was very competitive. I think some of it comes from, you know, sibling rivalry. And having an older brother who was who was good at sports that I had to live up to. Part of it comes from i was i was shorter.
• 11:57
  Brett Trembly: Growing up, I didn't hit my growth spurt until, like, seventh or eighth grade. So you know, and, and, but, but that, I think that's, you know, so there's nature and nurture there. But the big thing for me is my father, every summer would take a week out of his schedule and be a camp counselor at something called rotary Youth Leadership Awards. In New Mexico and Southwest Texas. Every summer, they took one kid one boy out of every high school, voluntarily, of course, and put them in a leadership camp. So you had some of the the best and the brightest from around the region. And it was a full week where you were in cabins, each cabin would give themselves a name, and then they would compete on sports, on speaking on on, you know, just, it was such an incredible, incredible week. And because my dad was in rotary, and he liked those things he started bringing us from when we were kids, so when I was like five or six, I would go for the last weekend. And I would be around these these amazing, older guys. And as a young boy, of course, I looked up to them that was that was like, I want to be like these guys. And so I learned, you know, we had to come up with kind of your, your chance, and and how to compete as a team.
• 13:15
  Brett Trembly: And man, I just ate that stuff up. I still I just love it. I did that all and then I started going for the entire week so that they let me stay and I was basically one of the team, you know, in seventh grade, eighth grade, ninth grade. And then I of course, when I was old enough, I did it myself. And I you know, I just think it's a lot of factors. I don't know, I do think leadership can be learned. I think anybody can reinvent themselves. And it's pretty cool. When you see somebody totally just decide, you know what, I'm going to be this person who I know a girl that was like in a dead end job and she's like, you know what, I'm just gonna influence women.
• 13:52
  Brett Trembly: I'm going to work from Colorado and Miami, I'm going to split my time. I'm going to I'm going to be a coach virtually. And I'm going to turn into a thought influencer just out of the blue and then she did it. And and I love that kind of stuff. I think people you know, life's short, do do do what you're called to do. It doesn't matter what age you are either, you know, culture for me.
• 14:14
  Brett Trembly: Because it's something that has to be deliberate. And I was trying to figure out a good way to define you know, an example of what culture is is not being bags and free coffees and, and those things, but there's something deeper. And I was watching I think it's chef on Netflix, there's a series where they they interview these, these big deal chefs, and they go back to their backstory and why one of the episodes it really started to sink in to me to create great food. You have to have great ingredients but these guys went even deeper. And they wanted great soil. So they bought their own farm. And they started to take control of the quality of the ingredients by controlling the quality of the soil. And then it just kind of hit me that a great culture is like great soil for an organization, if you can make that soil healthy, and new, nutritious and clean, then the work and the people that are attracted and grow there is impacted significantly.
• 15:36
  Brett Trembly: How do you feel about cold?
• 15:36
  Brett Trembly: Yeah, no, I think that's, that's a really good analogy. And, and you can have the same soiling and grow beans or you can grow corn, or you can grow I don't know, you know, squash whatever you want, right. So you're, I think it's to take it a step further, you've got to have the great soil or the culture and then deliberately choose what crop you're going to grow with, with the right with the right strategy in place. And that's, that's comes back to then recruiting the type of people that are going to join your mission. So if your passion is to, you know, I don't know, you know, change the environment and climate changes is your big thing, you're probably not going to go work at let's say, General Motors, right, like their diesel division, I'm just throwing some things out there. Like, that's, that's just not what's gonna speak to you and, and culture is about being honest. We asked people at the law firm, and my law firm Trembley law, you know, we ask people look, our part of our hiring process, we give a quiz and you have to write what our core values mean to you.
• 16:55
  Brett Trembly: Because we just tell you what they are and how we define them.
• 16:57
  Brett Trembly: And our mission. And our mission is to protect the economy, one business at a time. And Steve, you and I believe this, each together, even though we hadn't met until recently, that business owners are the backbone of our economy, we're the ones providing the jobs and and we're the ones keeping the economy moving, we still employ more than half of the of the, you know, the American workforce sector and the American workforce. And so, you know, if you if you don't believe in business, and you know, this is not political, this is just economical. Like, if you think that, you know, everyone should be paying 80% in taxes and businesses are evil, you're Why don't come work with us, you know, I don't want to get into philosophical debate with you.
• 17:44
  Brett Trembly: But that's okay, that that's not this is not the culture, what's the wrong soil for you, and being very clear on what is the right soil. And then once you sprout, so to speak, what we're going to talk about and those, those are five core values, then, you know, I think you're gonna start to grow the crop.
• 18:04
  Brett Trembly: So the five core values, I think, are super important.
• 18:08
  Brett Trembly: There's a great book, I really highly recommend. It's called vivid vision by Cameron Herald.
• 18:12
  Brett Trembly: But it helps you write the story of your organization three years from now. And you think about your challenge as a leader, as you need to attract the right people onto your team. And this, this is very significant. It's a huge competitive lever if you get it right. But how can you take what's in your head and communicate it clearly. So that you can attract the people that love it, and would thrive in it, or repel the people that would be like, not be on board about it. And you have to declare it, and you have to state what you believe. But there's, there's a, in that book, there's a great framework to start to identify that and pull it out of your head and get it on paper so that it's, you can actually draw the right picture so that people see the same point on the horizon that you're going to how did you come up with your five core values? And what are they?
• 19:17
  Brett Trembly: Okay, so yeah, let me let me make this point too. So there's a there's a quote I like that says, your business plan is what you are, but your culture is who you are. And a lot of people fall Let's face it, a lot of business owners skip the business plan in general. But the ones that do you know, that they're just focused on? Well, I need this in marketing, and this is what this department's gonna look like. But what about your vision? And what about the culture part of your firm? So I'm glad you brought up that book. Because getting it down and writing and then communicating it is very important. Our five core values are on our website, and we remember them with an acronym, which is risky beavers that tickle koalas. It's kind of an it's kind of an inside joke, but we have Our t shirts that that have trembling on the front, and then they have a risky beaver that's tickling a koala. On the back, it's kind of a symbol for us to just remind us of the core values. So the are for risky radiate positive energy. That is, to me the most important core value I do not like being around negative people, you don't have to be you know, the the class clown and be loud, and you know, fake high fiving everybody, but you got to be a positive person, you know, negativity is, is contagious.
• 20:36
  Brett Trembly: And so that's no good. And then it's be responsible, be a team player, take action. And the last one is kick ass. And some people say, Wow, you have a curse word on your website. It's like, Well, you know, we're a little bit edgy, too. That's, that's the kind of clients and, and team members that we want.
• 20:55
  Brett Trembly: We want people to know that look. So we do we do business law, franchise law, trademarks and litigation. And so when, when you're when you have a litigation team, our goal, our goal at the firm is to keep business owners out of court.
• 21:10
  Brett Trembly: But inevitably, sometimes you're going to end up in disputes that unreasonable people don't work out. And, and we're gonna take no prisoners, and you got to have, you know, be trusting in your team, that they're gonna, they're gonna go to bat for you.
• 21:25
  Brett Trembly: And, and, look, we don't want a stuffy boring law firm either.
• 21:30
  Brett Trembly: So I really like having that that core value out there, it's hard to, to walk the line of professional, but also sort of new and different without going too far with it. Because some people, you know, they want to have the open workspace and the beanbags and, and, you know, ping pong tables and have the, the kegerator, you know, in the middle and have that be the focus, and you can't have that at a law firm, either, in my opinion, if you're going to be a serious law firm, which we are, by the way, we've got 10 attorneys, 25 people, I, I also I do have to give it a little bit of credibility, because you know, get snapped up is a very quickly growing business, it's a lot of fun. But some people get get the shiny object syndrome, and they're not successful with with with their business. And now they start a bunch of other ones. And you know, I just want to throw that out there that this is not just a distract me side project, you know, this, this is real, and it comes from a good place. So where, where did this culture mission really show itself? Was it at the beginning of your business? Or did you learn your lesson?
• 22:43
  Brett Trembly: Several years? Yeah. Yeah. So yes, you asked me how, definitely learned this is several years into it. So we have, there's a system called traction. It's the entrepreneurial organizational system, it's really now operating today. It's really I love it, it's sweeping the nation, tried to do it myself for a year that went horribly, I implemented it at the firm. And what we did, the first retreat we had was we we sat down, and we just threw out all of the words that we thought described us and who we want it to be. I mean, this is like a two or three hour process, right? Like it's separate, go think for a while and then explain why. And then we started, we slowly started bringing those into, we got rid of some of them. And then we voted. And then we talked them through and you voted on more. And we eventually got down to the 10 and then to the seven into the five. And then we had them. And then we had with the whole team, we had an acronym contest, or a mnemonic phrase contest. So everybody got to come in with with how they wanted to, you know, name it. And that's how we came up with the with the risky beavers mnemonic phrase. That's all for the law firm. So with get stopped up, we took all these lessons, and we implemented them for day one that's up has been running on traction from day one, we've had our core values since day one.
• 24:07
  Brett Trembly: And we do the same thing because get staffed up recruits. We've got, you know, hundreds of people now working for us in Latin America. And during the interview process, it's the same thing. We're asking about our core values and and what makes you incredible. And it's I don't want to beat a dead horse too much. But But you could say most of our core culture relies on on the core values, and it's worked out for us very well. I think that's a good horse to be for a long time. That culture thing, I think is something that every employee innately desires and craves. And yet they're often disappointed and they wonder why they're and they're not happy at work. And they there's this wrestling match. I call it a stupid tax.
• 24:52
  Brett Trembly: If you don't have these in place, it's invisible tax. that destroys morale over a long period of time. Because you think about the new people that come to work for you, they don't show up saying, you know, I'm really gonna suck at this job.
• 25:10
  Brett Trembly: And I'm just gonna write this as long as I can until I get found out. And then I'll just look for another one, they don't do that, at least, I don't believe the majority of them do, I think most of them show up thinking like, I'm going to make the most of this opportunity, I want to be a good employee, I want to contribute. And so they come in, and they, they run into these little rules that don't make sense, or are just stupid, and it'll cross their mind, well, that's a stupid rule, then they'll go, oh, but I want to be a good employee. So I'm going to put that aside. But over time, those rules, or those processes are those things that don't make sense. will, will diminish their enthusiasm and commitment to the organization over time, and they couldn't sit down and go, Well, it all began with this first stupid rule I ran into. And I'm blue truly believe that.
• 26:08
  Brett Trembly: Focusing on your culture, getting these things, right, is like a huge competitive advantage, to success just to make a business last for years.
• 26:23
  Brett Trembly: That's hard enough, but if you can get this in place, you just reduce a lot of friction and hurdles.
• 26:30
  Brett Trembly: Yeah, and and, you know, your team will know when you're full of it, because when you don't enforce your, your core values, then they think, Well, that was just a bunch of baloney this, this hiring and onboarding process, because, you know, this, this guy that I'm working for, or under, or this girl doesn't, you know, she, you know, laughs at our core values, and she doesn't live up to them why she's still here. And I've had employees tell me that they appreciate how fast we fire people. Because, and, and I, you know, the other thing is, when you fire someone, it's not like they're a bad person. And you're right, they're wrong, it doesn't have to be an ego thing. It's just, you know, you need to move on from people that that don't fit or that aren't getting the job done. Because that there is a there's a place out there for everybody to find a home. So what I'm hearing and a lot of your your vocabulary and conversation here is that this became something very important to you. And I think that you recognize many entrepreneurs wrestle with getting this clear and finding good people for their business and beginning to delegate, or beginning to do the things. Talk about your example that were when you started your law firm, how you were trying to do everything, and you finally came to a realization. So my first two and a half years were a big struggle. I I wasn't happy at the law firm that I worked at directly out of law school, you know, I appreciated the opportunity, but I was just felt like I was in a rut. And I had always known that I would be in charge, I would always knew that I would own my own business someday. I mean, I had candy machine routes and and I always came up with ways to make money as a kid that was that was the other part of my personality. I was always looking for ways to do things and do them myself.
• 28:35
  Brett Trembly: And so when I started my law firm, and I started networking, I was like, This is gonna be easy, and it's gonna be great, because I'm so wonderful. Now, I didn't say, I'm so wonderful.
• 28:48
  Brett Trembly: That was part of my ego that I didn't, hadn't explored and didn't realize, and that that can serve you well for confidence, but it can hurt you.
• 28:56
  Brett Trembly: Because then you think you have all the answers, you're not going to seek help. And you can do everything yourself. And I was so afraid of hiring someone to help because I thought if I had to fire them, that everybody would say I'm a failure and the whole world laugh at me, as if people have the time to sit around and think about me all day. But but that's the fear of failure was what was was holding me back. And I this is my anniversaries. We're filming this, you know, almost on my anniversary, which is 11 111 when I started so I got nine years coming up here in a few days. And so this is 2011 you know, so for the first two and a half years, I was licking my own stamps, answering my own phones, sending my own faxes because it was 2011 and, you know, I was barely getting to any legal work, which is the only way that I could make income from my law firm. So I finally had an epiphany. You know, I have A coach at this point that finally just like, kick me so hard made me do it. I hired someone for 30 hours a week, a law student, she's not a lawyer, you know, very happy for her. We when we talk, we, you know, we always make this joke, she was my first employee. And and I doubled the revenue the business that very next month. And it's like, wow, wow, oh my gosh, that's incredible. Well, if you do the math, and you're in your billing one hour a day, and now you do two, that's times two. I mean, right? It's, it's really not rocket science. But I will give myself credit for the fact that I took the lesson and I absorbed it. And I believed in it, and a lot of people have success. And then they say, Oh, that was a fluke. That won't happen again.
• 30:44
  Brett Trembly: I'm not gonna hire any more, because I am so relieved. I didn't go to business, I need it. And you see a lot in the legal world, especially because get staffed up our virtual staff, we focus on staffing for law firms. That's our marketing focus. We have a lot of non law firm clients. But niches bring riches and it's just so hard to market to to a bunch of different markets. So I use the the lawyer example. It's like one guy, and as one paralegal who's really just doing everything, and that's that's his office for 40 years. You know, they never they never take the they don't do a Goldman Sachs 10,000 small businesses program, they don't read books, they don't take risks. And I think most of them if they say, but I'm happy like this, I'm comfortable like this, they're probably lying to themselves.
• 31:35
  Brett Trembly: Because they're just like, I was there. And I'm not condemning because this was me so afraid of the risk, and, and the fear of failure. And, and, and the overhead. And look, the overhead is real. But yeah, I mean, I, you know, I think that I learned the lesson, and I just started hiring and I made a plan to continue to hire. And the, the, there's a good book called what got you here won't get you there. You know, because before I had the core values and the culture in place, and it was just kind of me and running off my personality, I hire people, and then it worked. And we kept growing the firm. But those same people are not with me now. And it's okay, it's okay to hire and then have to fire it. People get are so hard on themselves when they hire someone and they train and it doesn't work out why wasted all that time, and I wasted the money. And I don't want to do that. Again. There's, there's there's a few other options, but you're gonna have to make the decision that it's part of it, you know, turnovers is part of it.
• 32:37
  Steve Brown: I want to pause here just for a moment and talk to you about a program that we have just released called ROI, quickstart Academy for authors.
• 32:44
  Steve Brown: Every day, I talk to business owners just like you who struggle with quickly getting their fundamentals in place, we want to create a great foundation, and we want to grow our business. But the things that are in our way, our lack of knowledge about the specifics, we should put in place, what kind of technology what kind of messaging and what kind of campaigns and that problem exists for authors as well. And we just chill so good with authors because, well, I'm an author, and I understand everything that you struggle with, you have a great idea, you have a great book, but what do you want to do, you want to get your book in front of more people, you want to make it easy for them to find you learn how they can schedule a time to talk with you hire you for a conference, or maybe sign up for the services that your book promotes. So what is the Quickstart Academy for authors?
• 33:37
  Steve Brown: Imagine working with a small group of like minded authors, and the experts from the ROI quickstart team, it's a great way to get your messaging clear to be confident with the technology in your marketing automation, and how to run a strategic campaign to get you more of what you want from the investment of your book. To learn more about the Quickstart Academy for authors, you can visit ROI online.com or click in the link in the show notes below. And now back to this episode. Yeah, and the other side of that coin is who if you have the expectation that the person you hire is going to be with you for nine years, or 10 years or however long? That's not a realistic expectation as well. They have lives. They have transitions, they get married, they have kids, they Yeah, who knows and it's okay for them to to go on and do other things with their life instead of just be in that chair every day and you know, gung ho about your company. That's just natural.
• 34:47
  Steve Brown: Yeah, life happens. Yeah.
• 34:52
  Brett Trembly: So you get snapped up came from this thing that you really recognize that It's important to you, kind of so I had the idea in 2017, of starting a company called the hiring pros and helping people learn how to hire. totally unrelated, but about the same time, my now business partner had lunch with somebody that he almost skipped out on it, that's kind of his funny story, learn learned that this, this lawyer had a staff person in the Philippines, and then my business partner disappeared for a few months kind of went into a rabbit hole. And when he resurfaced, because I used to talk to him almost every day, and I didn't even see him for two months, when when we could still see people in person. So, you know, he sort of resurfaced with five new employees. And I couldn't believe it. And I certainly couldn't believe what he was paying them, compared to, you know, the traditional payroll that we have here in the States, or administrative level positions. And I said, I need somebody can you find me a marketing assistant? And he did.
• 36:01
  Brett Trembly: And we just, he wanted to do kind of consulting, and he was going to help people learn how to do this, and they would pay him a flat fee. And I said, Well, you know, we, you could also turn this into a real business where you're the employer, and, and we just kind of went from there and early 2018, January 28, I think we said, You know what, let's do this together. I made the first two sales for his company. And he said, let's do this together.
• 36:31
  Brett Trembly: And that's how it gets wrapped up was born. So what's the big deal about get staffed up compared to other outsourcing options? I mean, there's a lot of those. And yeah, there's a lot of those. So tell me first helped me understand the value of getting knocked up compared to others. There are two main differences. In sort of inserted two genres, there are the United States based outsourcing companies, where you can hire you know, somebody for, you know, right, rather expensive.
• 37:11
  Brett Trembly: Lee will say, like, 35 $45 an hour to be a quasi executive assistant. And then your decision is, you know, how much do I want to pay them through a company?
• 37:23
  Brett Trembly: How many hours per week do I need? Right? So there's, I need five hours per week. So then, you know, I'm going to give them projects, that's going to take up about five hours per week.
• 37:31
  Brett Trembly: Totally different, not, not at all what we do. And then there's the the overseas, which is what we do, but most of the outsourcing companies are the same thing. They're playing time Tetris. So you're signing up with a company? And they're asking you, well, how much? How much time do you think you need per week of an assistant, you're like, well, I only need 10 hours, and I only need 15 hours.
• 37:52
  Brett Trembly: So they've got a building in the Philippines, they pack it like sardines, you got a bunch of people in cubicles right next to each other, and you're going to maybe get somebody different, you know, often there's going to be a rotation, or, or you know, you're really selling yourself short, by only getting somebody that's going to be able to do projects for you, they're certainly not going to be a team member, or an employee. So what we do it get staffed up, Steve is we, we recruit 95% of our people are out of Latin America, you're talking Mexico, Central America and South America. And we are placing full time team members with you. Of course, they're virtual, because they're not in the office with you. Full time only, we only do 40 hours per week, that person is now a part of your culture and your team, they work for you and for you only. They just happen to be legally employed by us. So get staffed up does the recruiting and the placing, and I could talk more about the placing.
• 38:54
  Brett Trembly: Because we don't just tell you who you get, you ultimately get to decide who you hire. You pay us a flat fee every month as a contractor, so there's no additional taxes or fees. And we handle the withholding the taxes, the benefits, and the compliance, which is different in all those countries, which is it gets pretty difficult. And we have our client happiness team that stays on as a liaison to make sure that things are going well. Life does happen. You know, these are still human beings. So sometimes there's there's turnover and people quit and they leave and we replace them for you. We just go right back to the well and go and recruit someone else. So you're getting a new team member who only works for you for 40 hours a week for the whopping price of 1850 a month. So before we go deeper, I think one of the things that you You helped me have more clarity on all these businesses like mine We're having to figure out how to recruit good team members to deliver on the demand that we've created. And so we have to discern the level of a team member that we want to share in the burden. So yeah, I think the thing you helped me have clarity on was like, there's a minimum executive level than there's strategic level maybe. And maybe that's the executive, we, you know, they're bringing more strategy, and more business acumen, then the next level would be more tactical, where they show up, and they're excellent at stepping into a well defined system and following your system.
• 40:46
  Brett Trembly: talk more about that helps. I think that's a real important thing for someone that might be considering outsourcing. If they can start to have the proper expectations. I think they're more set up for success to find a better fit faster. Yes, thank you. Thank you for asking that.
• 41:03
  Brett Trembly: We, for example, we had somebody that that was a friend, like, all this sounds so great, you know, I can't wait to work with you guys. Because I just want to hand over all my marketing and never think about it. Like, okay, I guess we were not in alignment here. Because, first of all, that rarely exists in the whole world. Second of all, it's certainly not what we do, you know, some magician, it's going to pull out your vision and ideas out of your head. And, and, you know, just bring them to life. The last week, I'm sorry, but the last chapter of my or the segment, last chapter of my book, talks about that exact conversation right there.
• 41:42
  Brett Trembly: And that they're looking for, we call her Kelly, but her real long name is miracle. And so she doesn't exist, or he doesn't exist. Yeah, I like that. I like that name. So yeah, that just doesn't exist. So what we do is we're finding virtual assistants. But again, we use VA, because people know that term. But but these are full, they're basically your employee, just not legally. And they're not project based, either. But but they are assistance, they are not going to be you know, your, your CFOs, your CEOs, your CEOs, they're not going to come in and take over all your marketing. If you have, let's say you're starting a social media company here in the US, you're, you're going to get client accounts, maybe you're going to maybe you're going to sign people up for you know, you're gonna go to Mr. business owner for 1500 dollars a month, you know, we'll, we'll do all your social media, and we'll do you know, three newsletters for you a month, and we'll write three blogs. You know, that's a very common scenario. Okay, so that's not project basis, that's a monthly ongoing work. For me, I'm thinking, Okay, if I can set up a system, you know, that gets the info I need from that business owner, what would you like to talk about this month or focus on, I can put that into a spreadsheet, and somebody can pull out of that and do all that work for me on the back end that I just have to approve? Okay, that's an assistant that's a worker be someone who you know, needs to have some some brain cells and is good, but they're not doing the creative thinking or the vision. I'm thinking to myself, well, let's say I found someone like through gets that up for 1850 a month. On my second sale, I'm already profitable. And I'm just going to go out and grow the company and see what kind of bandwidth one assistant can do. Maybe it's five, maybe it's 10. And now I know my skews. I know how many clients per assistant that I need to have. And I can scale my company this way. So it's when you're working with no part time here and 30 hours there, it is so difficult, if you're serious about growing your business, to do it in a very, you know, scientific mathematical way. And when you design the system yourself, you know, for lawyers, for example, you can have a receptionist who's outsourced you can have your intake person, you can have a legal assistant, a client happiness coordinator, a personal assistant executive assistant, a marketing assistant and and you're still going to need to give them the projects and design the you know the systems and have the weekly team meetings but then you let them run with all the all the things you put in place. You know, systems run the business but people are on the systems. So if you if you need 10 people on a conveyor belt to get the chocolate, you know made and out the door. We now know because some of our clients have more than 10 team members through us that the average that they save in payroll a year Is 250,000 well, right, right. And so now that's money in the owners pocket. And I don't mean that greedy. I mean, like, you know, a lot of small business owners have such small margins that they're owned by their own business and they're miserable.
• 45:13
  Brett Trembly: But it also has allowed our clients to grow so fast that they can hire here domestically, we're not arguing that you replace jobs or you fire people, we're saying, add bandwidth, if you have, like all of our lawyers now at the firm, or at the partner level, all have executive assistants offshore through get staffed up, because now it's going to add to their capacity. So now you've created a job, you've helped the global economy, you've had the lawyer be way more efficient. And you've also passed on to the clients.
• 45:47
  Brett Trembly: Totally, I think that's an excellent way to look at it is that if your business is contributing to your community, adding value by the services, the things that you're providing, helping people get out of the ditch in a legal situation. And but you can only help one person a month. But all of a sudden, now you can help 234 or five, you can be making a big impact in your community.
• 46:09
  Brett Trembly: Instead of buying this excuse that you're not hiring local people necessarily, you're still contributing significantly to the community in your you're going to be hiring local people, to some extent, where you may have never hired. Yep. Exactly.
• 46:30
  Brett Trembly: That's that that's a common scenario that happens with us, we sometimes run in, you know, in fact, some lawyer I, you know, I don't think she has much of a staff wanted to have me on her podcast, and then when she started asking me more about the companies, I don't agree with that, you know, you're you're outsourcing jobs. I said, Okay, look, respectfully, we're not a fit, then. And that's okay. But I think that's a short sighted view of things. Because if if, if the whole world becomes connected, and people can work from home and actually make a living, maybe we don't have to build walls, right? Maybe everyone doesn't need to run to our country, which provides freedoms and security that other countries don't, you know, maybe maybe we can help economically make an impact that way. Plus, you're like we said, you're gonna grow way faster, where you can start hiring people that domestically that you otherwise would have been afraid to hire, or now, you know, post post COVID maybe someone in different parts of the US, maybe it's still remote.
• 47:41
  Brett Trembly: Yeah, I'm, the way I look at it is, I am a core team that adds the ROI minus on to all of our work there and, you know, they're, they're inculcated into our culture, they love our clients, they, they want to protect and empower entrepreneurs, so, but they bring a unique value strategic value on to the work. So if you think of a NASCAR, you've got a pit crew, you've got the driver, and they can order a carburetor from a manufacturer. But when that carburetor comes in, they don't just put it in there and then go get them. They've tuned that thing. They add all sorts of other value on to that and that's exactly what's happening in this situation.
• 48:34
  Brett Trembly: Yeah, yeah. Look, here's here's the analogy that I use most often. It's It's his one on one of our trademark phrases that we believe in to our core.
• 48:46
  Brett Trembly: Sorry, we're gonna have to pause I'm on a podcast reported All right, you don't tell me where to where to pick up?
• 48:58
  Brett Trembly: Yeah, so we were talking about the NASCAR analogy. Hey, by the way this happens all the time.
• 49:02
  Brett Trembly: One of the episodes I had one of the kids comes in they're supposed to ask before they eat anything was sugar so that we had to get permission if a lollipop was okay, this is just the way things are i've i've had chickens crowing I've had cats walk through it's cool.
• 49:21
  Brett Trembly: Yeah, no, I know I normally have a sign up that says you know that is recording but it doesn't always work although that was so Okay, so look where there's a trademark phrase that we have is called delegate your way to freedom. Because I always go back to who I was in 2011 1213 and 14 when I started my business and I was so afraid to to hire. Some people think they have to do it all themselves because it serves their their ego and again I just talking about the ego is something that's like subconscious separate from us, not about like, you know, I think I'm so great. And just But it does serve some people's ego to say, you know, I can't, I can't give the legal work to someone because they won't do it as well as I will, you know, as if nobody else can possibly be as good as you. Well, that's just not true. But other people are just afraid of the cost, and they're afraid of the time that it would take to train people.
• 50:17
  Brett Trembly: And look, those are two realities that I think we're helping people overcome. But it's better to at least take the risk, right? But what would you rather eat Steve, except for maybe a few instances where you could think of one guy who has a restaurant and it's like, really small, but amazing food? Okay?
• 50:36
  Brett Trembly: Would you rather eat at a restaurant where the owner is the host, or the hostess, right?
• 50:45
  Brett Trembly: The the waitress, she's the line cook. She's the head chef. She's the chief marketer, she's the owner, you know, and she's doing everything yourself, I mean, something is going to suffer.
• 50:56
  Brett Trembly: It's either going to be the food or the service, or she's going to be serving one one table per night, which is, you know, what we're talking about, you can if you're only helping one one client per month, or would you rather eat at the restaurant where the owner says, I am not the best chef in the world, I'm gonna go hire the best possible chef. And then I'm going to hire the nicest host and hostess, and the best waitstaff and I'm going to train them. And they're all going to say the same thing.
• 51:23
  Brett Trembly: Because they're gonna, they're going to live by the same, you know, values, the core values that we have, and we're going to treat our people better. And that's going to be a differentiator, and we're gonna have the best food. I mean, for me, it's a pretty clear answer.
• 51:34
  Brett Trembly: And to many business owners, don't even stop to think about that, that's what they're doing in their business is everything themselves, and how, how just, man, if I could convince people, it's possible, just think about it, start reading books, start putting things on paper, and at the least, write down everything you do for a week, highlight your 20 least favorite things, and then just get rid of them, just delegate them, you know, start somewhere.
• 52:01
  Brett Trembly: Yeah, I like that analogy, because you think I've been to that restaurant where it was a special, unique experience. But there were idiosyncrasies, you know, that added to the thing, and so you had to be okay, that the service was slow, or right, or you had to be okay with, with some aspect that was you prepared your person you took with you. Now, don't, don't expect this, but the food's gonna be amazing, or what have you is going to be great. Okay, that's good. But it takes a certain amount of business acumen, to go to the next level and design the systems and hire the people who are going to run those systems. That's, that's exactly what you're talking about. That's why managers are so valuable. That's why businesses can make a lot of money because it's not easy. It takes a significant amount of planning and thinking and commitment and Aquaman systems design and pricing takes a whole nother level of expertise and running a business. So why would you resent someone that figured that out, then created jobs, that risked all this, there's no guarantee and, and just like the situation we're finding, then never, never imagined that your local government would come in and say, you have to shut down to save the world. That's not fair. But they stepped up knowing that whatever challenge they were going to run into, they were had enough to figure it out in some way. Yeah, that's why I love these people. Man.
• 53:47
  Brett Trembly: Exactly. That's exactly right.
• 53:50
  Brett Trembly: What put putting putting their their reputation, you know, their future on the line by taking risks. And that's, that's the real differentiator there.
• 53:58
  Brett Trembly: But it's not just the risk to start the business. Steven, I'm glad you made that point.
• 54:04
  Brett Trembly: Because to start a law firm, now, it's so easy. If you have a law degree, of course, you need a laptop, that's all you need.
• 54:11
  Brett Trembly: And it's not starting a business anymore so much that that impresses me it's the the risks after that to grow a business starting a business is easy. You just say hey, I just started a business. It's growing a business that is not in need.
• 54:27
  Brett Trembly: And there's so many steps along the way. That you know, people see though the overnight success that takes 10 years because there's so many moves that are that somebody is making. It's investing into their business to grow it and and it is kind of easy to get complacent to be comfortable. Comfort is the enemy of progress in my opinion.
• 54:45
  Brett Trembly: And and you know, all due respect to those people that are that are out there, pushing the envelope and taking the risks.
• 54:56
  Brett Trembly: So if I'm listening to this, and You know, I have this business, and I've been kind of wrestling with this delegation challenge.
• 55:05
  Brett Trembly: It's kind of cool to know that there's a company that gets that, and will help me to make sure I have, you know, but asked me about what systems I have in place will help me get set up for success when I bring someone on board to delegate as an assistant, that I think that's good. I think that's something that needs a lot of clarity.
• 55:27
  Brett Trembly: Because we've all done something and said, Well, that didn't work. But we were oblivious to what needed to be in place to increase the chance of success with that implemented. Hmm.
• 55:45
  Brett Trembly: How can they get ahold of you?
• 55:45
  Brett Trembly: Where should they learn more? In the fastest and easiest way is online, it's, you know, of course, www. Get snapped up calm. But if you go to get stuffed up, comm forward slash VIP, it takes you directly to a Contact Us page. I think it asks for first name, last name, email phone number, and where you heard about us. And I do want to have an offer for your listeners, Steve, is for anyone that goes to getstaffedup.com f rward slash VIP, in the Where d d you hear about us, if you t pe in Steve Brown ROI online R I podcast, we will we will g ve that person a $250 d scount, just because they they c me through you, you know, just a nice thing to do. For your l steners. That's awesome. I r ally appreciate that. My folks h ve listened to this, they get a lot of value. And that's r ally cool that you're, you're o fering them. So what's the one q estion that I didn't ask that y u would wished I would have t at you could have answered? W at you know what i would we d dn't really get into the cost s vings. Right? And I think that t at, that that hammering home t at point, because I was the g y that I was so afraid to hire s me like where am I going to c me up with, with, I don't k ow, $500 a week to hire s mebody. And when you hire a m rketing assistant in house and w ere you live in the country, o viously, the cost varies, Kay, b t let's say $45,000 for a m rketing assistant, when you're i the US remember, remember, y u got a lot of other things t at are hidden. So it's about 1 35 times what you pay someone i salary, what it actually cost y u and your business and I are t lking over 50 you know, a proaching 55 and that's on the l w end, you know, for somebody t at can handle some some m rketing stuff in house for y u. When you go through a c mpany like us, it's 18 for m rketing, it's it's just over 2 00 a month, but for your admin p sitions. It's 1850 a month so y u're talking more like 20,000 a d what I tell people Steve is b siness owners normally have 1 0 new ideas before they're d ne you know with their morning r utine or you know before t ey're out of the shower, and t ose business ideas end up b ing metaphorically like pieces o paper stacked up on a desk t at you never get to when y u're paying somebody because t is happened to me you know p etty significant salary and y u can't identify the return i's it's not a good business m ve and then it's constantly g inding at you and you want t at person to work faster and g t more done you want to see t e results. So when you have s meone that you can just give s uff to man get get get an a ministrative executive a sistant, or jump for the m rketing assistant. The d fference is kind of the e ucation in the background. You k ow and just to reiterate, we a e hiring talented people but t is is raw talent. You know and I know you do some cool things w th your academies and and c rtainly you can hire someone l ke this and put them through a academy because we don't do a y of the training we do the f nding. And you can you have s mebody that you can delegate a l these things to and try out. I is such a weight lifted off y ur shoulders, because I don't k ow about you but when I when I h ve these ideas I never get to t em it starts to like wear on m. Anytime you need to find t me and when you and you talk a out delegate your way to f eedom, when you have the a ility to just everything that c mes your way or knives that y u just hate get this done l oking at this respond to this p rson. It is so empowering b cause now you get to focus y ur time and what you want to d the highest and best use of y ur time and what is going to h ve the highest return and that i that is the that is true f eedom in my opinion. Getting t spend your time you You c oose. All right, that's e cellent. Delegate your way to f eedom. What's the other good q ote? Oh, systems run the b siness people run the systems.
• 1:00:13
  Steve Brown: Those are some excellent little gold, what we call golden nuggets. Right? made a really excellent guest. And I appreciate you for being on the ROI online podcast.
• 1:00:26
  Brett Trembly: Steve, thank you for having me. I really enjoyed our conversation, and I'm glad that we were put in touch.
• 1:00:33
  Steve Brown: Alright, that's a wrap. Thanks for listening to another fun episode of the ROI online podcast. For more, be sure to check out the show notes of this episode. And feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn where we can chat and I can help direct you to the resources you're searching for. To learn more about how you can grow your business better. Be sure to pick up your copy of my book, The Golden toilet at surprise, that golden toilet.com I'm Steve Brown, and we'll see you next week on another fun episode of the ROI online podcast.