Latest / Buying Local Podcast / The HR Ninja Lisa Boucher | Buying Local S3E47

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The HR Ninja Lisa Boucher | Buying Local S3E47 · Buying Local Podcast

• 0:00
  All right, well, welcome back everyone to Buying Local.
• 0:02
  I'm your host, Mike Nelson from 5 Towers Media, joined today by
• 0:06
  an old friend. And I don't mean old like World
• 0:09
  Lisa. I mean, just we've known each
• 0:11
  other for a long time. A long time.
• 0:14
  Lisa Balcher, welcome to Buying Local.
• 0:17
  Very excited to have you. Thank you.
• 0:20
  I'm excited to be here. Thanks for the invite today.
• 0:22
  I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, of course.
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  So Lisa, I, you know, I'm trying to think I, I think we met
• 0:29
  originally through was it B and I back in the 2008 to 10 range
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  maybe. I think we had met briefly
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  before that through something with the chamber and then really
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  got to know each other through B and I.
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  Through B and I, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Chamber tracks we've. I've always been a big fan of
• 0:49
  the chamber, especially the Adirotinac Regional Chamber.
• 0:51
  Unsolicited. That would be the one.
• 0:53
  Yeah, yeah, I've, it's always been a great chamber.
• 0:57
  I really like it and enjoy it now under Tricia and her team.
• 1:00
  But it's always been good. Met a lot of great people
• 1:03
  through it. Yeah, I'm a huge supporter of
• 1:06
  the chamber. I think they're doing amazing
• 1:07
  stuff and the growth in it has been great the last few years.
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  So excited to be a part of that. Absolutely, absolutely.
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  And I, I unfortunately I've not been able to get to any of the
• 1:16
  events the last few months, but I know he has.
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  That's how I. I met him, yeah.
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  Yeah. He gave me a great cold call
• 1:27
  when he started working for you. He just called me up and we had
• 1:30
  a nice chat and then we've had lunch and he's gonna.
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  Do bad things? How did he do on the cold call?
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  He was great. He was great.
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  I really like the way he did it. He was like, look, I'm just
• 1:40
  calling to connect, let you know that we're here and he did a
• 1:43
  great job, so you're doing well with him.
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  I told him he couldn't have a better mentor in the business
• 1:47
  than in. Well, you know, I'm trying, I'm
• 1:51
  trying, but he's, he's a good, he's a good human all around.
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  So I, I like Matt a lot and we're, we're lucky to have him
• 1:56
  So good. Glad to hear he's not.
• 2:00
  You know, for the record, when I was cold calling, I don't think
• 2:03
  that people said nice things about me after my cold calls.
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  So I'm glad that Matt is doing a lot better than I did.
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  You know, that's, that's the goal, right?
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  Do better than your teacher did. Absolutely right.
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  Teach them to be better than we were.
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  Absolutely. Absolutely.
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  That's great. So Lisa, I know God, what were
• 2:22
  you doing when I when we first met?
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  I don't was it? I was probably working at the
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  accounting firm or the bank when we first met one of the two.
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  Yeah, so long ago. My old man brain does not want
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  to recall. But irrelevant, right?
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  What? What are you doing now?
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  Lisa, tell us. I I was excited to hear about
• 2:41
  what you've got going on now. Yeah.
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  So back in May, I launched my own human resources consulting
• 2:48
  firm. I have branded it the HR Ninja.
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  I have been in human resources for over 25 years and in many
• 2:55
  ways with small business, with non profit supporting my
• 2:58
  husband's own small business and also have been in the martial
• 3:01
  arts world for over 30 years and now own my own martial arts
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  school. So that's why I call it the HR
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  Ninja. I do.
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  I do. I am actually registered in
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  Korea with the Mutaquan. I'm a six degree black belt in
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  Taekwondo and I have my own school chartered through them.
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  So I knew that you were Black Belt, and it was funny because
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  when Matt mentioned your name, I was like, hey, you better be
• 3:23
  careful with her, man. She'll kick your butt, dude.
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  Like, hey, we were laughing about that, but I didn't realize
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  that you had your own school too, so that's exciting.
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  Yeah, it's very small. I don't do a lot of advertising
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  'cause I don't have any other instructors, so it's all me.
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  But I've got about 10 consistent students.
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  I'll have one testing for black belt by the first of the year.
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  She'll be my first process black belt through the school and I'm
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  excited for her. Nice, nice.
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  Yeah, I know we want, I know we want to talk about HR, but like,
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  you know, obviously I really like the martial arts world.
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  How long does it take to get a black belt in Taekwondo?
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  If you are super committed, you can do it in three years.
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  Three years and that's doing like what, like 5 classes a
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  week? Now, 2 to three classes a week,
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  you can be there in three years if you're super committed and
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  you're willing to practice outside of the room.
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  You can't just be those couple of nights a week.
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  So, and this particular student, she's highly committed, she's
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  doing great. She's gonna be amazing.
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  That's awesome. Very cool.
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  Yeah. Well, congratulations on your
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  first graduated black belt. That's.
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  That's thank you. Thank you.
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  It's kind of a. Yeah, it's kind of cool that
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  it's a woman too, that it's a woman owns school and it's a
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  woman that's going to be the first black belt so.
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  Yeah, are are, do you find that most of your students are women
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  at your school or is it a mix? We are heavier on the female
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  side right now than the male, but it in the beginning it was
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  more male and then it balanced out.
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  It just happens to be more female right now.
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  Not intentional, it's just the way it's worked out the.
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  Way it happens, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
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  So I guess we know where the ninja part comes in for HR Ninja
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  then. So, so help me understand and
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  our listeners understand, you know, as a, for the kind of
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  service offerings that you do, do you act as like just an
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  advisor or are you an HR or like an outsourced HR department?
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  What kind of things are you doing for for your folks?
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  Yeah, it's a great question. It could be either or.
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  So some of my clients call me, they have a situation, they just
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  need a sounding board. Maybe they have an HR person,
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  but they're not quite as experienced.
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  And so they just need somebody to say yes, you're on the right
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  track, you're doing the right thing.
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  Let's talk through what next steps are.
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  Other clients need projects done.
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  So for instance, maybe they're switching payroll providers.
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  They don't have the time and the ability to really make that
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  happen well and flow through. And I've done that many times in
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  my career. And so I work with old payroll
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  provider, new payroll provider, plus client to seamlessly make a
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  project happen. Or somebody has no HR and they
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  can't afford a full HR person on team.
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  Or maybe they don't need a full 40 hours a week.
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  And so fractionally, I can go in so many hours a week or a month,
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  sit right in their office if necessary, and be their HR hat
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  for them and their employees to bridge that space that they
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  need. So what does an HR person do?
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  I, you know, obviously the, the hiring thing, right?
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  Like people think AR and they think hiring, right?
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  But I know that there's a whole lot more that goes into it.
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  And I know probably most of us small business owners are not
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  doing all the things that we're supposed to be doing with
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  regards to HR. So help me understand all the
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  things I'm not doing that I should be doing, Lisa.
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  Sure, I'll try not to call out anything out here on you, Mike.
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  Don't want to get in trouble. The the reality is what you just
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  said, though. You're so busy starting and
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  running a small business and you're an entrepreneur with a
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  vision and a dream and you're chasing it, but you don't know
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  all the little side pieces that go with that.
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  And you know you need a lawyer and you know you need this coach
• 6:55
  and you know you need that, but you don't think about HR because
• 6:58
  you think you're doing it. It's just people.
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  HR is more about hiring and firing.
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  It's about if you're going to offer benefits, what's the way,
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  best way to offer that and what do your people really want.
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  If you're going to have conversations with your team and
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  truly teach them to be a team and what your culture is and how
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  you want to run your team, it's those conversations.
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  It's open enrollments, it's keeping you compliant.
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  Just knowing that in New York State, there are so many small
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  rules that even a small business of under 10 has to follow.
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  As simple as are you notifying people in writing when their
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  wages are going up or down For some reason?
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  We have a lot of small businesses in the area that are
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  seasonal. In one season they get paid one
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  rate and another season they get paid another.
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  Are you making sure you're in writing, telling your folks what
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  their rates going to change and when and what that looks like?
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  So a lot of compliance is in HR that people don't think about.
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  We help look at insurance. What do you have for insurance?
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  Not just health insurance, dental, but actual insurance on
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  your business. I had an insurance license at
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  one point. I have an accounting degree.
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  I've worked in the accounting world.
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  I've got some operations experience, so I can come in and
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  look at the whole and help you figure out what's missing on the
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  HR side. So we we process a lot of
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  paperwork, rewrite a lot of policies.
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  We Polish your handbooks, but there's a lot of training,
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  there's a lot of communication we can do.
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  And so if somebody has a small business and they can't afford
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  an HR person, but they want me a few hours a week, I can be the
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  person your employee comes to and says, I don't understand how
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  my paid time off works. I don't understand how paid
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  family leave works. I don't know what I need to do
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  to grow here. I don't understand how our
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  annual review process works. I can be that person that has
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  the time to really listen and have those conversations.
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  What do you find, or I should say, who do you find that you
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  work the most with right now from like a size and scale of
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  business? Typically 50 and under for the
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  employee size. They tend to have an HR of one
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  or an HR of none. And they have ACFO wearing 6
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  hats trying to keep it all in the air.
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  And they're much more proactive or reactive than proactive.
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  Where I can come in with fresh eyes and say if we tweak a few
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  things here, put a couple extra things in place, this becomes
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  easier and more efficient. I love working in the blue
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  collar space. My husband owns his own
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  construction business. I love those guys because that's
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  where you can have the most open, honest conversations with
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  a human being because they tell you how it is and they're not
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  afraid to tell you how it is and they lay it out for you.
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  Mike, you've been there. And you know, those are some of
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  my favorites. But I also like the office
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  environment because professionals want to come to
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  work and be seen and talked to in a certain way.
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  And especially the generation coming in.
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  People keep saying the young generation doesn't want to work.
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  It's not true. They want to be treated a
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  certain way at your organization.
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  So how do we bring them in to understand what work really is,
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  but help them help us with our culture, to make our culture
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  better as they come in? Yeah.
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  Do you do you find that culture is a lot of how you're working
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  with organizations? Sometimes, yes, sometimes they
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  come to me first and it's more about we need a handbook, we
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  need a policy. There's this new rule out we
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  need help navigating, but it turns into a culture
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  conversation. So a good example is I did a
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  handbook for a woman who has a small financial advisory firm.
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  She now hired her second person. She said, I want to make sure
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  that my employees know what's available to them.
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  I want to have this handbook as a guide book, she said.
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  But I'm afraid when I present it, they're going to think that
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  I'm just giving them rules and they're doing things wrong.
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  She was. So I don't know how to present
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  this, he said this is our opportunity to explain to them.
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  I want you to have a place to go that gives you the guidelines
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  for how we work. I want you to understand the
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  benefits you have so you can use them to the best.
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  And I want our culture to feel like you're getting what you
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  need. And if you don't, you know how
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  to come talk to me. I want our culture to be that I
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  truly support employees 1st and I don't want to have to worry
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  about understanding what they get.
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  And so put it in writing and gave her all the talking points
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  to sit with her staff. And she's creating culture from
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  the beginning by letting them know these policies are in place
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  to support you, to give you the expectations and the milestones.
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  And I want to be there to walk this journey with you.
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  Lisa, how do you handle organizations?
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  And I know it's typically, excuse me, typically smaller
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  organizations, family owned businesses that, you know, quote
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  UN quote, don't want to be corporate and they don't want
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  to, you know, seem like there's some sort of corporation and
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  they don't want to lose that family feel, but they still need
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  some of these things. Like how do you address that
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  concern I guess? A lot of small businesses feel
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  that way and it's funny. People will go, we're a family
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  here and you are and you aren't, right?
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  You're a family to a point, especially if you employ family
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  and you're family owned. But you still have to, at the
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  end of the day, remember these are employees that you're paying
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  and you have expectations for. You can marry those two things.
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  You can give your employees everything under the sun, but
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  you also still have to have expectations set around what
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  they have to give in return. So when you have those honest
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  conversations right from the beginning, from the minute they
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  walk through the door and they start working with you, honest
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  conversations are people hitting their mark?
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  Are they working the way we hope?
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  Are they working the way we expect?
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  How do we want them to treat our customers?
• 12:30
  How do we want them to treat each other?
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  We can set that from the beginning and build that and
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  still give them everything we want and create that family
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  feel, but still know they have to meet expectations.
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  At the end of the day. People don't like open, honest
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  conversations, but the best conversations we have ever in
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  life are the hardest ones. When we open our heart and talk
• 12:51
  about the reality of what we all need.
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  And when you can do that for the employee, they then in return
• 12:57
  know they're safe to come have a conversation with you.
• 13:00
  They're not worried about getting fired if they need a day
• 13:02
  off for a kid problem. They're not worried about.
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  Can I really have a conversation about I've stepped up to the
• 13:08
  plate, but I need more money If that is set up front from the
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  very first few conversations when they come in, we are like
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  family here, but we have expectations.
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  We have to meet. Then those conversations can be
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  had and that comfort level can be there.
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  It's interesting I it's you know, we live in such AI don't
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  want to say just like a policy driven world.
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  I feel like right now, right with business, especially when
• 13:38
  it comes to the HR component, there's so many requirements.
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  You know, there's the sexual harassment training that you
• 13:44
  have to do with every employee every year.
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  There's, I know they kicked around this whole retirement
• 13:51
  thing that you had to provide if you have more than 8 employees.
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  Did they ever actually put that into place?
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  That that is rolling out for 2026.
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  If you have 10 or more employees, you either have to
• 14:03
  enroll them in some sort of plan or you have to prove you already
• 14:07
  have a plan available to them. So yes, that is coming out it.
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  It's a great provision because there's so many people that
• 14:15
  don't have retirement. Employers do not have to put
• 14:18
  money into this particular system if they enroll through
• 14:21
  the state. So it's giving people an option
• 14:24
  for retirement they don't have. What's hard is sometimes the
• 14:27
  implementation is very difficult for an employer, so they need
• 14:30
  somebody to walk them through how to make that happen.
• 14:33
  So yeah, that is one of them. When they came out with required
• 14:37
  paid sick time, that one's hard to administer and understand
• 14:40
  that. Luckily a lot of the payroll
• 14:42
  companies embraced it and they're running it well to make
• 14:44
  sure it's being done, which is great.
• 14:46
  But then there's paid family leave, which most small
• 14:49
  companies don't understand how it works and their employees
• 14:52
  don't understand how it works and that it's offered.
• 14:55
  But their employees are paying a small amount every week for this
• 14:58
  insurance program that they don't even know they have, and
• 15:02
  they don't know they can use it. Yeah, there, there's a lot out
• 15:05
  there that gets put in place. It's very difficult.
• 15:08
  Yeah, it's, it's kind of tough to keep track of it sometimes.
• 15:11
  As far as the thing like that four O 1K retirement plan thing,
• 15:15
  it was like, you know, I think they rolled it.
• 15:16
  They first talked about rolling it out in 2022 I think, or maybe
• 15:21
  it was a while. Ago.
• 15:22
  Yeah, yeah, it was a while. Yeah.
• 15:25
  And then it was like, you know, they kept waffling and changing
• 15:28
  and, you know, one of the very smooth roll outs for these new
• 15:32
  policies. But yeah, it's a lot.
• 15:35
  And, you know, not that running a small business isn't enough
• 15:37
  already without having to keep track of all that stuff.
• 15:39
  So now do you, do you work with organizations that kind of like
• 15:43
  track that make sure it's happening, make sure they're,
• 15:46
  you know, if they if they have to have it, that they're doing
• 15:49
  it and that kind of work or. Yeah, absolutely.
• 15:53
  If they're unsure of what they need to be following and what
• 15:55
  they need to be doing, or even if they're doing with their
• 15:57
  payroll company but they're confused on what it is, I am
• 16:00
  happy to come in and help get all that organized and
• 16:03
  understood. Help them look at their options
• 16:05
  and see what they need to do. And you mentioned payroll
• 16:10
  companies. I know, you know, we use ADP
• 16:13
  through Caitlin Rositano, and that's been great because it
• 16:16
  tracks, you know, like for the sick time anyway, it tracks the
• 16:20
  sick time as we go through, which is nice.
• 16:23
  I don't know if it tracks the families.
• 16:28
  It's. Probably taking the deduction
• 16:30
  out for the paid family leave but it's not explaining to them
• 16:33
  what it is. There's a great New York website
• 16:37
  and your insurance provider usually offers information on
• 16:40
  that as well. And one of my favourites was
• 16:42
  Shelter Point and an organization I worked at.
• 16:45
  We used Shelter Point and they have a wonderful website to walk
• 16:48
  employer and employee how paid family leave works, which is
• 16:52
  great, but it's not something your payroll provider's gonna
• 16:55
  help you track and deal with. That's not one of their
• 16:59
  specialties, right? So that's where I can come in
• 17:01
  and help you with those leaves, figure out leave for everybody.
• 17:05
  And and what is family leave? I'm like this is wild to me.
• 17:08
  I don't even know what it is. I should probably know this.
• 17:12
  That's a great question. There's two different types of
• 17:14
  family leave. So there's a federal called
• 17:17
  family. I'm not gonna, I'm gonna forget
• 17:19
  what exactly it stands for. It's FMLA.
• 17:22
  I'm going to throw it with the letter state for just because
• 17:24
  you specifically asked me, but the federal side is FM LA.
• 17:29
  FM LA only applies to employers with 50 or more employers.
• 17:33
  And it's not a paid leave. It's an unpaid leave available
• 17:36
  for up to 12 weeks based on certain needs for health
• 17:42
  concerns or disabilities, and you work with your doctor to get
• 17:45
  approved. And it can be taken
• 17:47
  intermittently, all at once, whatever it's needed.
• 17:49
  But that's an unpaid for larger corporations and that's federal.
• 17:53
  What came out through New York State and it was pre COVID.
• 17:57
  So I'm going to say maybe 1718 was paid family leave through
• 18:02
  New York State. It'll cover a few different
• 18:04
  things. It'll cover the birth or
• 18:06
  adoption of a child, taking care of a sick family member.
• 18:11
  There's something in there for leave for if your spouse goes
• 18:15
  into the military. There's one other than I'm
• 18:19
  forgetting now. But anyway, there's four things
• 18:21
  that we'll cover. The one we see the most is care
• 18:24
  for a family member and or care for a newborn.
• 18:28
  That allows paid leave up to 12 weeks.
• 18:31
  You can take it intermittently, but it has to be in a full day
• 18:34
  or you can take it all at once. Right now it's paid at 67% of
• 18:39
  your paycheck. It is deducted.
• 18:41
  There's a small deduction out of your paycheck every week that's
• 18:44
  going to help pay for that insurance policy, which your
• 18:46
  employer is also paying a portion of, typically through
• 18:50
  the same provider that you're buying your disability insurance
• 18:52
  for. So it goes side by side and paid
• 18:57
  family leave is in place to pay you when you need to take that
• 19:00
  time off from work and the employer has to provide you work
• 19:04
  when you are back. I've seen most people take it on
• 19:08
  an intermittent basis, not all at once, and it's really nice
• 19:11
  that they can do that way. So for instance, if you're a new
• 19:14
  parent, you can take every Friday off or every Thursday and
• 19:17
  Friday off for within the first year of that baby's birth up to
• 19:21
  12 weeks of time, which is beautiful 'cause you can slowly
• 19:24
  come back to work plus do some of your own child care and not
• 19:27
  just through your child into child care.
• 19:29
  So paid family leave is a beautiful law they came out
• 19:31
  with. It can be very hard to
• 19:33
  understand when it's used, how it's used, how to put the
• 19:36
  paperwork together, which is where the employee and the
• 19:39
  employer sometimes stumble and need help.
• 19:41
  And I can help with that stuff. Yeah, OK.
• 19:46
  I mean, yeah, obviously I'm stumbling.
• 19:47
  I didn't even know that it was a thing so.
• 19:51
  I can help you. And I know, and I'm obviously
• 19:54
  paying for it, it sounds like so.
• 19:56
  You are. What other kinds of things do
• 20:01
  you see out there, Lisa, that you know, small businesses or
• 20:04
  even larger sized businesses are probably not doing that they
• 20:08
  should be doing? Oh, that's great there.
• 20:11
  There's so many things, Mike. I think sometimes we are
• 20:15
  assuming what our employees want and not really asking them.
• 20:20
  And I've been in this scenario where as a team leader you're
• 20:23
  thinking, this is what my people need.
• 20:25
  I know what we need to bring in. Let's plan this training.
• 20:27
  Let's plan this benefit. Let's bring it in.
• 20:30
  And they're like, yeah, that fell flat.
• 20:31
  That wasn't what we needed. And so it's how do we get the
• 20:35
  information out of employees? Because lots of times employees
• 20:38
  are afraid to tell us what they think, even though we're truly
• 20:41
  want to know. They're afraid that it's going
• 20:43
  to get them in trouble or create a problem.
• 20:45
  So I think one of the biggest things I see is just true
• 20:48
  communication out there between employees and employers, and how
• 20:51
  do we have open, honest conversations where everybody's
• 20:54
  in a safe space? I've done it by just going out
• 20:57
  and looking for employees and having conversations with them
• 21:00
  and building that trust in that relationship so when the time
• 21:03
  comes, they know they can come to me.
• 21:05
  But the big thing we have in our hands these days are surveys and
• 21:09
  putting information out to employees.
• 21:11
  Sometimes we're giving amazing things like we just talked about
• 21:14
  paid family leave. They don't understand they have
• 21:16
  it or how to use it. So most of the time when we
• 21:20
  implement a policy, when we create a new benefit, when we
• 21:24
  bring in a change of some sort, it's not about what we've
• 21:27
  brought in or haven't brought in.
• 21:28
  It's how we're communicating with employees and how do we
• 21:31
  break down that barrier and have real conversations and honest
• 21:35
  conversations and train our leaders to have those
• 21:38
  conversations. So many people are put into
• 21:40
  leadership positions and they're not giving the tools to succeed,
• 21:44
  to have these conversations, to be that bridge.
• 21:46
  I think that's really at the end of the day, every problem or
• 21:49
  situation that's brought to me comes down to communication and
• 21:52
  how we're talking about things. So if you come to me and tell me
• 21:55
  I got all these employee issues, well, why?
• 21:57
  Well, it it comes down to what are the meetings you're having?
• 22:00
  What are the communication you're having?
• 22:02
  People aren't using the benefits.
• 22:03
  I don't understand why they don't understand what the
• 22:06
  benefits are. So how do we train them better?
• 22:08
  How do we have better conversations?
• 22:10
  It just really at the end of the day, it comes down to those
• 22:12
  relationships. You know, as you're talking
• 22:16
  about that, I, it makes me think about, you know, my current
• 22:21
  state of our company. You know, we're small business,
• 22:23
  half a dozen employees and every one of my employees is out
• 22:28
  straight. I'm out straight as the business
• 22:30
  owner. We're all wearing multiple hats.
• 22:33
  And even though we're trying to simplify some of our product
• 22:36
  offerings to make things a little easier on us and on our
• 22:40
  clients and do a better job on everything, right?
• 22:45
  You know, one of the challenges is, you know, we, we have a
• 22:48
  weekly meeting on the calendar every week.
• 22:51
  Typically I'm the one that cancels that meeting because
• 22:54
  there's so much happening and they, you know, pulling
• 22:57
  everybody into a meeting for an hour to 90 minutes is I know
• 23:00
  every one of them's like I'm so busy.
• 23:02
  I don't want to go to this meeting.
• 23:04
  And I have that same feeling like, but it's a, it is a good
• 23:08
  place where we're able to communicate with each other and,
• 23:10
  and have conversations that we might not be able to have.
• 23:13
  Do you, I mean, other than just gutting it out and doing the
• 23:17
  meeting, like do you have any kind of advice for how
• 23:20
  organizations that are small like mine can communicate on a
• 23:23
  more efficient basis without having to suck everybody's week
• 23:28
  away with meetings? I think there's a time for a
• 23:32
  meeting, there's a time for an e-mail, there's a time for a
• 23:35
  phone call, there's a TAC time for whether it's Slack or Teams,
• 23:40
  constant conversation. That can work, right?
• 23:44
  So do I need to talk to you immediately?
• 23:46
  It's probably a phone call or a text to say, hey, can you talk?
• 23:50
  Do I just need an answer By the end of the day?
• 23:53
  Maybe I know you check Teams more than you look at e-mail.
• 23:56
  So I send you a Teams message. Do I need the whole team to know
• 23:59
  or do I need one person to know? What I will say about team
• 24:03
  meetings is if you as the leader continually cancel, you're
• 24:06
  setting the example that they're not important.
• 24:10
  So if they feel you don't think they're important, they now
• 24:13
  don't think they're important. So they think they can easily be
• 24:15
  like, Mike, I can't do this meeting.
• 24:18
  What is the purpose of your meeting?
• 24:20
  What do you really drill down and talk about and what do you
• 24:23
  take away from the meeting? If your meetings are just being
• 24:27
  together and talk about what we're doing for the week and
• 24:29
  then we walk away, it's probably not good use of all your time.
• 24:34
  That could be a slack, hey, here's where we're going to be.
• 24:36
  This is my schedule this week. If your meetings are about I'm
• 24:40
  struggling with how do you support me?
• 24:42
  Is this meeting our end goals? Is this meeting what we what we
• 24:46
  said we wanted to meet for our goals for September, for the
• 24:48
  quarter, for the year. Then those are meetings you need
• 24:51
  to be having because that creativity that comes out, that
• 24:54
  conversation is very, very important to keep your
• 24:57
  organization running further. So I think you as a team have to
• 25:01
  sit down and agree, What will our meetings be about?
• 25:03
  How will the agenda run? How long will it be, and how
• 25:06
  will we stick to our agenda and what we want to do?
• 25:11
  I can tell you I'm going to give Wendy Waldron a plug.
• 25:13
  I'm sure you know Wendy. Yeah, yeah.
• 25:16
  With the EOS method, if you'll take nothing away from what
• 25:20
  Wendy teaches, that level 10 agenda is one of the best things
• 25:24
  I've ever seen implemented in a business.
• 25:27
  I would, I would recommend if you guys are struggling, look
• 25:29
  into that for sure. But you come together as a team
• 25:32
  and agree on what your meeting's going to be and what you're
• 25:35
  going to take away from it Because if you're having a
• 25:36
  meeting to have a meeting, it's pointless and don't have the
• 25:39
  meeting before the meeting to talk about the meeting and then
• 25:41
  the meeting after the meeting to discuss the meeting.
• 25:44
  Then nobody wants that at the end of the day, right?
• 25:47
  And the other thing I would say is employers never want to hear
• 25:51
  this, but when was the last time you looked at the size of your
• 25:55
  team, the responsibilities everybody had and said, do we
• 25:58
  have enough team members? And everybody will say to me, I
• 26:02
  can't afford another team member.
• 26:04
  Can you afford to lose 1 because you're overworked and
• 26:07
  overwhelmed and they never feel like they get enough done?
• 26:12
  What will the revenue difference be if you brought another team
• 26:15
  member to open up those other people's schedules to do more of
• 26:18
  the things you really need them to do?
• 26:22
  Yeah, that's, I mean, that's one of the bigger challenges I think
• 26:25
  all small business owners face, right, is you hire someone.
• 26:30
  But I'm, I'm, it's more about fear than it is really about
• 26:32
  affordability, right? Like especially depending on
• 26:35
  what you do. You know, I just I just
• 26:37
  interviewed Joe Cerrone. If you know Joe from over at
• 26:40
  Cerrone Plumbing and Heating, I interviewed him on our Blue
• 26:45
  Collar Startup podcast and we were talking specifically about
• 26:48
  scaling and growing your business.
• 26:49
  Because for people that don't know Joe or that business of
• 26:53
  where he's taking it in the last 10 years from really kind of
• 26:56
  coming in to work with his dad and then taking the reins, he's
• 26:59
  done a fabulous job of growing that business.
• 27:02
  And, you know, I joked with him, I'm like, from the outside, Joe,
• 27:05
  it looks like it's been nice, slow, controlled growth, you
• 27:08
  know, very smooth. And he, he was like, yeah, it
• 27:11
  might seem that way on the surface, but, you know, one of
• 27:14
  the things he talked about that I really liked was when you're
• 27:19
  hiring people to try to, in the beginning at least start to hire
• 27:22
  people that are going to be revenue generators and get so
• 27:26
  that way, it makes it easier, right?
• 27:28
  Like you feel better about hiring someone that's going to
• 27:31
  help you increase revenue than, say, hiring administrative staff
• 27:35
  that are going to, you know, not necessarily increase revenue
• 27:38
  directly. They may do it by taking things
• 27:41
  off your plate. But he said that that was
• 27:45
  helpful for him and that, you know, focusing on hiring like
• 27:48
  service techs as an example that he could put out there at a
• 27:51
  billable rate. He was like that.
• 27:53
  That was that was nice. But at some point, he still had
• 27:56
  to bite the bullet, right? And hire some administrative
• 28:01
  people that sooner or later you just got to do it.
• 28:04
  Yeah, it's a hard balance, but but I agree with what he's
• 28:06
  saying is if you can bring in the billable money first, then
• 28:10
  you can feel a little more comfortable bringing in that
• 28:12
  admin person who's going to support the people out making
• 28:15
  the money. And it frees them them up for
• 28:17
  more admin so they can keep going and doing the thing right.
• 28:21
  So I totally agree that's a great idea.
• 28:23
  But yeah, eventually you have to staff well or you will lose
• 28:27
  those staff members and and they won't tell you.
• 28:30
  They'll just get so tired and so burnt out that they'll just walk
• 28:34
  in one day and be like, dude, I'm done.
• 28:35
  I can't do this anymore. And I've already got this other
• 28:38
  idea or opportunity and I'm out so.
• 28:42
  Yep, that's a tough one. I think we've all been there.
• 28:46
  Yeah. And you lose people lose good
• 28:48
  people that way sometimes. So it's, it's a challenge.
• 28:51
  Yeah. What?
• 28:53
  So outside of that of that side, you know, obviously it's funny
• 28:57
  that you mentioned earlier too that like the CFO ends up having
• 29:01
  to deal with, I don't know why we do that to CF OS, right?
• 29:04
  Like we always put the HR function under the CFO, which is
• 29:08
  kind of laughable, right? Because a lot of great CF OS are
• 29:11
  not at all people oriented. So like, you know, putting them
• 29:15
  into that HR role as well as always kind of funny, you know,
• 29:21
  obviously that's kind of like why you exist though, right?
• 29:25
  Is so that people that maybe they do have ACFO, maybe they
• 29:28
  don't, maybe they're doing the CFO stuff and the HR hat.
• 29:31
  So you're really that that outsourced solution is that, is
• 29:35
  that fair like? Yeah, I think when you look at
• 29:38
  really good entrepreneurs and business owners, when they first
• 29:42
  start, they're the ones in the trenches.
• 29:44
  They're doing everything and they have to because financially
• 29:47
  they have to to get it off the ground.
• 29:49
  But at some point if they can't stop back and truly be the CEO
• 29:53
  and the visionary and they're doing all the admin, how do they
• 29:56
  truly grow their dream to what they want it to be, right?
• 29:59
  I go back to the old Jack Walsh adage of I surrounded myself
• 30:03
  with people smarter than me that had the expertise I didn't have.
• 30:06
  And that's what you really need to do in business is what are
• 30:09
  the parts and pieces you can't do and who do you bring in to do
• 30:13
  that for you? So for instance, when I started
• 30:15
  in business with my background, I probably could have set up my
• 30:18
  LLC, done all my contracts, everything myself, but that's
• 30:21
  not my expertise. So I hired a lawyer and I hired
• 30:24
  an accountant to do those things for me.
• 30:26
  Same idea for a small business owner.
• 30:28
  Lots of times we lean on the CFO because they're really smart and
• 30:31
  they're really educated and we know they're just going to make
• 30:33
  it happen because your numbers person never let's anything fall
• 30:37
  through the cracks. They make sure things are done.
• 30:40
  But as I talked to somebody who's ACFO recently, she said to
• 30:43
  me, I need you to help me with this client.
• 30:46
  She's a fractional CFO for this client.
• 30:49
  She said he's growing at the speed of light and he's just so
• 30:52
  far ahead of me. I cannot keep up with him.
• 30:55
  And HR is not my specialty. So I need you to bring him the
• 30:58
  compliance side of HR so we keep him compliant and in business as
• 31:02
  it grows. And I think that's what's hard
• 31:05
  is, you know, you need to spend the money on it, but it's hard
• 31:08
  to get yourself there and let go and let somebody else do it.
• 31:12
  But it's like interviewing an employee.
• 31:13
  You interview the people and if they're the right fit and the
• 31:16
  right mindset, then they're going to help you grow in
• 31:18
  exponential ways you never would have seen coming.
• 31:21
  You know, that just triggered a question too, Lisa.
• 31:25
  So like thinking about the hiring process and, you know,
• 31:29
  obviously as an HR outsourced HR solution, you're probably going
• 31:32
  to be involved in some fashion with the hiring process.
• 31:36
  And do you do actual interviews for your clients?
• 31:39
  Yeah. Yeah, interviewing is actually a
• 31:42
  fun thing to do. Yeah, I love.
• 31:44
  Yeah, well, for some of us, some people hate it.
• 31:47
  Because they really. Yeah, I love people and I love
• 31:51
  getting to know people. And I'm my husband will tell you
• 31:54
  I'm extremely curious and I will ask a lot of questions to the
• 31:57
  point where you're like, that's just enough.
• 31:59
  Just stop talking to me. And he'll kid me.
• 32:03
  He'll tell me. But like, she can talk to a door
• 32:05
  knob. I swear to God I will talk to
• 32:06
  anybody. What do I like about?
• 32:10
  I know eventually I want my own, but I'm not.
• 32:12
  I just don't have the brain power for it yet.
• 32:14
  Mike, it's trust me. I've already figured out what it
• 32:17
  will be called. It's going to be great.
• 32:22
  Interviewing is really just about getting to know people and
• 32:25
  finding out how they work, right?
• 32:27
  And if you, somebody taught me early on in my career, if you
• 32:30
  ask a question and you sit back and you're quiet long enough,
• 32:33
  they'll tell you everything you need to know about them because
• 32:36
  the interviewee is very nervous and they're going to fill quiet
• 32:39
  space with information. And so think about your podcast,
• 32:44
  right? Like there's moments you're
• 32:45
  like, oh, I was hoping they were going to keep talking, but they
• 32:47
  stopped. If I'm quiet for a second, will
• 32:49
  they keep talking? And it's, that's just how the
• 32:52
  people work. When they're nervous, they'll
• 32:54
  fill a silent space. And so I love getting to know
• 32:58
  people, talking to people. And for me, when you're
• 33:01
  recruiting for your business, it's not just about the position
• 33:03
  in front of you. It's what else are we going to
• 33:05
  have in the future? Because this may be a candidate
• 33:08
  I want to keep in touch with because I want to put them into
• 33:10
  something else. And so a good example of is that
• 33:14
  is we interviewed somebody for a position and they didn't quite
• 33:18
  fit the position, but they knew it was somebody that needed to
• 33:21
  be part of this organization. And I went to the CEO and the
• 33:23
  operations director and said, I don't know what else we need but
• 33:27
  me, we need this person on our team.
• 33:28
  How do we find a space for them and sat down and put our heads
• 33:32
  together and said, we need to hire this person to do XY and Z.
• 33:35
  That is her expertise brought her in and she brought so much
• 33:39
  value to the organization and is still there and growing in that
• 33:42
  role. You have to look past what you
• 33:46
  need in the moment and or connect them to somebody else.
• 33:49
  I've connected them to other employers before and said, I
• 33:52
  know you didn't get the role here, but you should look over
• 33:54
  here. This person has a roll open that
• 33:56
  I think fits for you and helped people find jobs elsewhere.
• 34:00
  I just think it's our job in recruiting, whether we're with
• 34:02
  an employer or or a recruiter or consultant, to help people find
• 34:06
  their fit in this world. That's fair.
• 34:11
  And so I'm just curious, you know, obviously when small
• 34:15
  business owners like myself, we have a really tough time letting
• 34:20
  go of control of things. And you know, it's I think over
• 34:25
  the years I've heard so many small business owners say the
• 34:28
  words like I'm just going to do it myself, like no one can do it
• 34:31
  like I do it. So how do you bridge the gap
• 34:34
  between control freak business owner like myself?
• 34:39
  I'm in recovery on that. I want you to know, Lisa, I'm
• 34:41
  trying really hard. I'm.
• 34:42
  Glad to hear. That, you know, but I definitely
• 34:46
  earlier in my career, you know, say 10 years ago, I definitely
• 34:49
  was like, really, it was really hard for me to let go of things
• 34:52
  like this because you're not, you know, someone else isn't
• 34:56
  going to ask the right questions.
• 34:57
  They're not going to know who's going to be a good fit for our
• 34:59
  team. They're not going to know what
• 35:00
  I'm looking for in a, in a candidate.
• 35:03
  How do you bridge that gap with your clients?
• 35:08
  Listen, first of all, if I don't know you well enough, I can't
• 35:11
  bring you the right candidate. So I have to have a long
• 35:13
  conversation with you before I ever start recruiting for your
• 35:16
  business because I do need to know what are your expectations?
• 35:19
  What are the personality traits? What are the things you really
• 35:22
  need? We can teach skills all day
• 35:25
  long, but we can't treat, we can't train the personality you
• 35:29
  need and the the God-given traits in that person that you
• 35:33
  need on your team, right? We can teach the skill.
• 35:36
  You can teach somebody how to do a podcast, but can you teach
• 35:40
  them how to be a good interviewer?
• 35:42
  Maybe, maybe not, right. So that's the first thing is I
• 35:45
  have to get to know you really, really well as a client and
• 35:47
  interview you first. And then maybe the first time I
• 35:51
  recruit for you, you, we do it side by side so you can see what
• 35:54
  I do and you're comfortable with.
• 35:56
  Hey, I do think I can hand this over to her, but you also have
• 36:00
  to look at what can you be doing with your time that better grows
• 36:03
  your business, makes you money, versus what is it costing you to
• 36:08
  be the one in the room for eight interviews, to fill one position
• 36:11
  And you're spending 24 hours on that process.
• 36:15
  Is it worth it to you, right? Or is there a better use of your
• 36:19
  time for me to bring that person in and I bring you two final
• 36:22
  candidates that you meet with and then you pick the final
• 36:24
  candidate. We don't leave you out of the
• 36:27
  process. We put you in the correct part
• 36:29
  of the process. That's fair.
• 36:34
  Yeah. It what it's such, for lack of a
• 36:36
  better term, it is a time suck. Hiring is like, I'm, I'm going,
• 36:41
  yeah, I'm trying to hire 2 positions right now.
• 36:44
  I've got it. And we have a it's not a short
• 36:46
  interview or hiring process. We have a 15 minute phone call.
• 36:50
  We have a first interview, a second interview.
• 36:53
  There's a, a test that we give most candidates depending on
• 36:56
  which role they're coming into. And then, you know, job postings
• 37:01
  and like, it's a lot of work. Yeah.
• 37:04
  And, and how are you focusing on the main goals of your business
• 37:07
  when you're spending your time on that?
• 37:09
  And when are you sleeping, Mike? Because I know you're you're not
• 37:11
  sleeping to make it all happen. No, I that's just it.
• 37:14
  I'm on my laptop until 8/9, 10:00 at night depending on and
• 37:19
  then back up at 5:00 in the morning.
• 37:21
  So it's, it's a lot. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
• 37:23
  Like hiring it is, it's a lot of work.
• 37:26
  And I like, I think, and this is not to my benefit, it's probably
• 37:32
  to my detriment, but I like, I tend to put off hiring for
• 37:35
  positions as long as I can because the process is just so
• 37:39
  awful. It's almost like hiring people.
• 37:43
  What's that? It makes it more painful for you
• 37:46
  because you've already put it off for so long, you're behind
• 37:49
  the 8 ball and getting done what you need done.
• 37:51
  But now it's painful because you're in a rush to do it and
• 37:54
  you want to get it done as quickly as possible to fill the
• 37:56
  position. Whereas if there were steps
• 37:59
  before that and somebody was taking over, I mean, just
• 38:02
  posting and gathering resumes and sorting through resumes
• 38:05
  alone takes you how many hours that somebody else could do for
• 38:09
  you and say these are the top 10 candidates we should talk to.
• 38:13
  Yeah, yeah, it's, it's a lot of time.
• 38:15
  I mean, I, you know, to your point, yeah, I definitely put it
• 38:19
  off and then like, but I'm also very structured and like, I will
• 38:24
  not allow myself. So the week that I'm doing those
• 38:27
  first 15 minute phone calls, I will not allow myself to
• 38:30
  schedule anyone for their first interview.
• 38:32
  I have to get through all the phone calls first.
• 38:34
  Like, and even though I need to hire that person now, I have to
• 38:37
  like force myself to drag it out because otherwise I'm going to
• 38:41
  rush and make a bad decision. And I it, but there's this, this
• 38:45
  little devil on my shoulder that keeps going, oh, just hire that
• 38:50
  person. You know, I'm like, no, I got to
• 38:53
  wait because I'm going to hire that person and then an even
• 38:55
  better candidate's going to come along because I just wasn't
• 38:57
  patient enough. But.
• 39:00
  Well, in in the old, yeah, the rule is hire slow, fire fast,
• 39:04
  but you don't want to hire so slow that you're losing
• 39:07
  candidates. So if you don't have enough time
• 39:09
  to really get them through the process quickly and well, you
• 39:12
  could lose really good candidates that way too.
• 39:14
  And I've seen that happen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 39:19
  And firing is just awful. I hate firing.
• 39:21
  Do you fire people, Lisa? Yeah, it's never fun.
• 39:25
  And how I walk, I walk into it a couple of different ways.
• 39:28
  And so I was just having this conversation on LinkedIn with
• 39:31
  somebody. First of all, most likely the
• 39:36
  person you're firing has made decisions to put themselves in
• 39:39
  this position. Rarely is it truly we're out of
• 39:42
  money, we're out of funding. It's rarely those things.
• 39:45
  And if it is, those people see that coming.
• 39:47
  Most of the time they've made decisions to put them in this
• 39:49
  place. So you have to remember that,
• 39:53
  yes, they've made decisions that put in them here.
• 39:55
  However, it is a human in front of you, right?
• 39:57
  And every one of us in our lifetime has probably been fired
• 40:01
  from something. We've all been there.
• 40:03
  We know what it feels to be on the other side.
• 40:05
  You have to bring the human side of that to the table.
• 40:08
  Be willing to deal with tears, be willing to listen, be honest
• 40:12
  about why they're being let go. When you look at somebody and
• 40:15
  say, well, it's just no longer a good fit here.
• 40:18
  They know there's another reason behind it and if it really is a
• 40:21
  good fit. Be honest, Say the skills we
• 40:24
  thought you had aren't fitting what we need here.
• 40:26
  The role is changing because of this or that.
• 40:29
  We've tried to send you to training, it didn't work.
• 40:31
  You're not meeting your quotas. We feel like maybe this isn't
• 40:34
  the right industry for you, whatever it might be.
• 40:36
  Or you blatantly disregarded the rules three times and we've had
• 40:40
  this conversation and now you're done.
• 40:41
  And this is the reason we're letting you go.
• 40:44
  It is actually more kind to be honest than to hide the reason
• 40:48
  why you're letting somebody go at the end of the day.
• 40:51
  And I think that people are so afraid of that hard conversation
• 40:55
  that they make it worse. I have literally had people hug
• 40:58
  me, cry and say I hate that I'm leaving, but thank you for
• 41:02
  everything you did for me while I was here, which tells me I at
• 41:07
  least did it in it in a human and a compassionate enough way
• 41:11
  that they understood that I tried everything.
• 41:15
  And so that's what I do. I cry after I fire people.
• 41:18
  I'll be completely honest. I practice the conversation.
• 41:21
  I do, Mike, I'm a crier. People don't know that I hold it
• 41:25
  well, but I'm a crier. I come by it naturally.
• 41:28
  My dad is a crier. If you've ever met my dad,
• 41:30
  you'll see him cry at some point.
• 41:34
  But I also at the end of the day, have gratitude that I'm the
• 41:38
  person that gets to have the conversation.
• 41:40
  So I know it's done well and with compassion.
• 41:43
  Yeah, yeah, it's, it's just so hard.
• 41:47
  It's obviously it's probably the worst point of someone's
• 41:50
  employment, right, when you have to terminate, terminate them and
• 41:53
  have that conversation. But also from an employer
• 41:56
  standpoint, I'm also like, I don't know if I'm going to say
• 41:59
  something that's going to get me sued.
• 42:01
  Like I don't, you know what I mean?
• 42:03
  Like it's just, it's just a, it's bad all around for
• 42:07
  everybody involved. And to your point, like
• 42:09
  typically, I mean, we have had to have to let people go in the
• 42:12
  past because we overstaffed and got on the wrong side of the,
• 42:17
  you know, equation and, and had to slim down our staff because
• 42:21
  of that, which was bad business decision on our part to get
• 42:26
  that, you know, to get that fat with employees, so to speak, as
• 42:29
  they say. But also we've had to terminate
• 42:31
  people because like they're a bad apple and their attitude was
• 42:37
  poor. And it's like, you know, having
• 42:38
  those conversations, it's just like, yeah, yeah.
• 42:43
  No, it's never fun, right? And, and people laugh at me.
• 42:46
  We don't have children, but I've taught children and I have
• 42:48
  nephews and a niece. I've worked with enough
• 42:50
  children. Having employees is sometimes
• 42:52
  like having children. Oh yeah, for sure.
• 42:55
  If we don't have boundaries and expectations, how do we have
• 42:57
  these conversations to say you're outside our boundaries
• 43:00
  and expectations and you're here or you're not based on that
• 43:02
  decision you're making? Yeah, yeah, it's I definitely
• 43:07
  all the time. I mean, I, I think about my
• 43:09
  employees like they're my children.
• 43:12
  And I don't mean that condescendingly.
• 43:14
  They're just, I mean, also coincidentally, most of my
• 43:16
  employees are like 20 years younger than I am.
• 43:18
  So it's like, you know, they're all to me, they're all about
• 43:21
  kids, you know? Yeah, but you know, but you care
• 43:24
  about them and, and you're, you nurture them and help them grow
• 43:28
  just like you do kids. I mean, there's, there's a lot
• 43:30
  of similarities there, but. Yeah.
• 43:32
  And and that's what I liken it to.
• 43:34
  I don't mean it in a condescending way either.
• 43:35
  I mean it in a way of we want what's best for them.
• 43:38
  So we nurture those relationships, but we always
• 43:40
  give them boundaries and expectations.
• 43:42
  That's how they grow and they within the organization the way
• 43:45
  we need them to. And if they can't meet those
• 43:47
  boundaries and expectations, it's a clear sign for all of us
• 43:50
  that they're just not the right person to be in our
• 43:52
  organization. Yeah, that's a tough one.
• 43:55
  I know we're getting short on time, Lisa, but I, I'm just
• 43:58
  curious because we've, you know, we have talked about like right
• 44:01
  fit and culture and I know a lot of that stuff kind of gears
• 44:06
  towards vision and mission and values for the company.
• 44:10
  Do you get into that type of work with your organizations if
• 44:13
  they don't have a clear mission, if they don't have a clear
• 44:15
  vision or company values? I will a little bit if they need
• 44:20
  a help with it, but if it's a big project they're going to
• 44:22
  take on, that's more of a, that's more of a Wendy Waldron
• 44:25
  business. Consultation.
• 44:26
  That's more of an AOS thing. Yeah, You know, definitely would
• 44:30
  help them, like, come up with what are the words that you
• 44:33
  think you want your vision and mission to surround when it
• 44:35
  comes to the employee side? And so when I set up my own,
• 44:39
  they really were more pulled from my martial arts career than
• 44:42
  they were from my work career. And the biggest one for me is
• 44:45
  integrity and just always doing the right thing no matter what's
• 44:48
  happening. And I teach my students and I
• 44:51
  tell people in the world, integrity is doing the right
• 44:53
  thing even when nobody's looking.
• 44:55
  You make a mistake, you won't do it.
• 44:57
  You see something that needs to be done, you pitch it and lend a
• 45:00
  hand. And we never have egos and we're
• 45:02
  never too big to do anything. I mean, the last organization I
• 45:05
  was with for 12 years was a non profit.
• 45:07
  I was the HR director. But most big events I was behind
• 45:11
  the scenes taking out garbage and serving water because that's
• 45:14
  where they needed somebody the most.
• 45:15
  And it was never beneath me. I, we had kitchen help quit and
• 45:19
  I went out and mopped floors. Like when you get to a point
• 45:24
  where that's all beneath you, you've missed the whole point of
• 45:27
  serving people in this world. Yeah, whatever it takes, right?
• 45:31
  Whatever it takes. Keep cooking bottle washer.
• 45:35
  That's right, that's how we all start.
• 45:38
  So, so Lisa, people want to learn more about HR Ninja.
• 45:42
  They want to connect with you. Where do they find you?
• 45:45
  On the old Internet. Yeah, best place is LinkedIn.
• 45:48
  I'm on there the most Lisa Boucher or Lisa Voucher
• 45:53
  consulting. Either way you'll find me.
• 45:55
  It's very easy, easy to find Lisa Voucher and it's got the
• 45:57
  little ninja suit in between my name so you'll see it on there
• 46:02
  or my website lisavoucher.com very simple.
• 46:05
  OK, that's perfect. LinkedIn website.
• 46:10
  Lisa, thanks for that's easiest way.
• 46:12
  Thanks for coming on the show. It's great to catch up with you
• 46:14
  and hear about what you're doing.
• 46:16
  Thank you, it was good to see you and catch up after so long.
• 46:20
  Yeah, I know I and like we talked about before we start
• 46:22
  recording, you know, next time we'll we'll have you out to the
• 46:24
  farm and we'll we'll give you the we'll give you some eggs.
• 46:30
  I. Love fresh eggs.
• 46:33
  Nothing like a good fresh egg. Oh my goodness.
• 46:36
  I don't want to touch the chickens though.
• 46:38
  There's a whole chicken story I'll share someday.
• 46:40
  Someday that when you come out to the farm, we'll make sure you
• 46:43
  share the chicken story. I will share the chicken story.
• 46:47
  Oh, awesome. Well, thanks again, Mika.
• 46:48
  I appreciate it. And of course, thanks everyone
• 46:51
  for listening. You know, you can find us on
• 46:53
  Rumble, YouTube, Spotify, Apple and of course every one of our
• 46:57
  episodes on buying local dot US, you know, please like and
• 47:02
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• 47:04
  Spotify, hit the like button, hit the subscribe button and
• 47:07
  leave us a five star review, of course, and you'll hear from us
• 47:11
  next week, everybody. Thanks for listening.