SPEAKER_01 0:00

Happens when I bring new team members, all of that is that I sometimes tend to micromanage them instead of trusting. One of the best bosses I had, he would know micromanagement. He would say, Hey, I think you can do this. It's hire. This is how you gotta do it, but I think you can do it. So, what is the best way to go about the stuff? You you think you should micromanage people or at the beginning, and then whenever Jet.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Hero Business Handart. Let's get into it.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Yes, let's go.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

So this is episode three on our six episode series of Soulpreneur to Enterprise.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Yes, it's all about breeding a real team.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Building real teaching.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Building a real team and we are doing it. We are doing it. So hope, any anything, anything interesting happening to you for the last few weeks.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Something interesting did happen, actually. So one, I went to Theo Vaughn last night. That was fun. That was a good experience. I've never seen him live before. Um, two, a little birdie told me that you're having an arrogance problem.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Yes, yes, and yes. My mom. Yeah, how do how do you know about that? Did my mom tell you on Monday?

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

She told you?

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

She can keep her mouth shut.

unknown 1:22

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

We're speaking Spanish about you.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Yes. So that is that is a cool. Yeah, no. Uh, yeah, so that so I guess what is what is arrogance? How would how would you define arrogance? What is actually arrogance?

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Arrogance. Let me let me look at it. Arrogance, yes. Uh we need an exact definition here.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

What is arrogance?

SPEAKER_00 1:39

In my opinion, arrogance is like having a big head, all the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

And it's when you think or you know how great you really are, and it's an inflated, overbeating sense of personal superior superiority or self-importance, characterized by looking down on others, disdain, and a refusal to accept feedback.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Often rooted It's worse than I thought.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Often rooted in deep-seated insecurities, feel of failure, and a lack of self-awareness. It is characterized by contemptuous behavior and and inability to admit mistakes.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Oh, okay. So arrogance sounds a little more harsh than I thought.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Well, what would be what would be the standard? Well, what would be the right word to s to talk about arrogance in business and with your time?

SPEAKER_00 2:40

So arrogance, at least in my opinion, in a business, like you said, yeah, that is more of people externally viewing you as arrogant because you value your time and you know how much your time is worth.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

But a lot of people don't understand that or can't comprehend that when they are not doing that themselves, and maybe when they haven't experienced that before either. Which I think is it's common in the elite professional world. When I say that, there's like two versions of professional world in my head. There's like the base level, like CPAs, base level attorneys, etc., who just work for big firms and they're like very base level. They're not like the executive, they're not the owners, they're not the partners. And same for like doctors, medical, or it's like the small town ones, right? Yeah. Not the elite, not the best, not the partners. And those that that professional experience, they don't value or hold their time as big of a priority, I think, as we do, or other the other version of professionals do. So when people experience professionals at this level, it seems arrogant to them in their opinion, because they're outsiders looking in.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

But I'm not saying that that they that they're any less than like people who are like us.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

At all. I'm not devaluing that. I'm just saying that it's a different life.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

So when you're outsiders looking in, you don't quite understand. And then your thought process is, oh, they're arrogant.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

That makes sense, yeah. And and this is where that conversation came from, though. So I was telling my mom about this busy season, I have started protecting my time more. And with that being said, part of protecting my client, my time more is that last year I used to help a lot of my family, a lot of friends and family do their taxes for free, for almost like really cheap. Like do it with an 80% discount. But what happened and what I realized is that like with friends and family, they don't they usually don't follow the process. They want you to make with you, they want you to go out of your way to help them out. And something that could take 20 minutes, it takes like two hours because now they want to make with you.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

So and then that that can, I mean, at the end of the day, that harms your business that you're working so hard to grow and build. It doesn't matter. So if and that's the thing, is like I feel like a lot of times friends and family, they don't understand that, but when they do, they pay for it. Like they they want to help you.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Yeah. And the ones who don't, like, but with the same with me is with my friends and family. These friends I had to like slowly let them go and tell them, hey, sorry this yeah, I would not be able to help you with your taxes. Those are clients that only have a W 2.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Or staff like that. So it's pretty easy. It's pretty easy. And I tell them, hey, I'm not the best person to help you out here. I'm not going to give you the service you need. Because people like this, they are getting a refund. They get a W 2, they want their taxes try away. But I'm like, no, I don't have I'm working on other clients, even though it's really easy. I cannot step out for 20 minutes just to your taxes and then.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Well, because 20 minutes can cost you 500 bucks, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Yes, for real.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

And it's not just you anymore. It's not like it's yeah, you have to provide. And that's where I'm coming from, too. It's not just you, it's not just me, it's not just us, it's an entire team of people who we're hurting and doing a disservice to our clients and our employees when we don't.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

And right now, as we are right now, I've been telling people, hey, I'm no longer in business. Like Jet is Jet.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Jet's retired.

unknown 6:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

Jet's a podcaster now. Jet is a podcaster now. Like I'm not, I'm not a task.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

He'll give you an autograph, maybe a selfie for like Yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

So what I tell people is like, if you want to, if you want me to help you with your taxes, you have to go through white glove. And if white glove is not the right fit for you, I'm sorry. Like I can refer you to other person that's going to be a good fit. So the situation came because that is this friend that she tested me on like the week before, and she's and she's saying, and she said, Hey, can I meet this Sunday with you for two hours to get my taxes done? I'm like, first of all, it's a Sunday. First of all, you haven't asked me how busy season is going, how busy are you? I think you're busy. So I'm like, I'm not even replying to you. Because like, and on Sunday last weekend, we were working a lot. I was I worked at work Saturday. I gave up to go to church to work on Sunday. And I'm like, I have class I need to take care of. Can you imagine if I have already busy season was kind of tough? Can you imagine if I would have given up two hours of my day, that would have become four hours of my day, how much in the deeper hole that would have put me, and then how much more time I will have to work at night or less hours of sleep I will get. So what I was telling my mom, hey mom, look, this person tested me, I did not reply. And I didn't reply to it. Uh, because I'm like, I'm not even wasting time to reply. My mom said, Hey, you at least should have said something to her, like, hey, I'm sorry, I'm really busy, I cannot help you out with the butt. At the same time, I'm like, I don't care if you get mad or not, because this person is a friend, but it's kind of far, far away friends. Like, I don't care. I don't care. I don't need to reply to you.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

So what I've told my mom is like, hey, well, and like the well, like the technology though has created such a thing, or people think they have access to you all the time when they should not.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Then you know, like people think that because they have my phone number, they can text me and they can get an answer right away. And if they don't, if they don't hear from them, I just do the stuff, you know what I mean? And so so with that being said, uh yeah, so that's where it comes. Like my mama came from that, and I'm like, Mom, like yes, I guess I could have replied to her. Yes, I give you that. I should have replied. I want to be nice, but at the same time, it doesn't matter. I don't care.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Well, when you reply, it opens it up to more conversation, and then yeah, sometimes they will continue to pressure, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

You know, I guess you went through that other time, though there was a client, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Oh boy, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Yes, that's okay. We can we can talk more about later. So, okay, perfect. But so this is the stuff like we had to make these choices because now we have a team, you know, we have White Glove. White Gluff is the team, and if people don't want to understand the why, doesn't understand, doesn't really want to help you, doesn't understand the new process, doesn't understand the system, then they may not be the best clients to go around. So let's talk about here, like so hire.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

So I have a question for you actually. Okay, how did it feel when you hired employee number one? Like when you hired your first employee, how did that feel as a business owner?

SPEAKER_01 9:38

It felt good. I needed the employee number one. It felt good. It felt good.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

How did you feel successful at that point? Yeah, like I remember I am at the point where I am employing people now.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Yes, I'm providing an interesting. I remember I started business and I I had to hire employee number one within six weeks of it. Because whenever I started the business in January, my first goal, the first thing I was praying for, is this hey, I just want to have my calendar full with staff, with appointment. So I was really good at that. And then I got a lot of clients, and then I'm like, oh, but I did not realize it. For me to go to all of those appointments, I had to step out of the office. And to step out of the office, I didn't have time to prepare to prepare the task retain. So I'm like, okay, cool. So by within the third week of January, I was freaking out. I'm like, crap, I have to I have to do all of this event to keep growing the business. It's just myself. But I also have to do the task retain, it's really hard, and I have now a lot of clients. So I had to hire employee number one. Then it felt good. It felt good that I could go to events and I had somebody working, getting stuff done, being productive. So it felt good. Well, what about you? How was your experience?

SPEAKER_00 10:57

It felt great. I mean, I was like, okay, I'm really doing something. It's a real business. Like I'm providing income to a family. I'm putting food on the table for someone else other than me.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Right. But like, like you said, some you don't realize because when you're a W-2 employee, you have one job, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

And like sometimes like in jobs, like I would be promoted and I had multiple jobs, right? But like technically, I'm just doing the work.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

When you're a business owner, you're doing the work and then also sourcing clients and employees and et cetera. So that was uh definitely a big change.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

So and then like after two, three weeks, whenever the staff got busy or of whenever I unboarded the employee, uh, I realized, oh wow, now now I have more responsibilities. Now I have a set a set a set of new problems here because now I have to, you know, I have to train them. I have to teach them. I have to onboard them. Like I remember like I had to buy laptops, I had to buy monitors, I have to figure out all of that. Like, and then I have to train to teach them. I have to, I didn't have any good systems. I was keeping track of all the work in Excel, and then just daily I was telling him, hey, can you help me with these clients?

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Mm-hmm. There's always progress. And when there's only two of you, it's easier to communicate. So let me ask you this did you hire because you were stressed or because it was a strategy?

SPEAKER_01 12:27

That's actually good. Actually, that's actually a great question because I was stressed. Because I had so much work, those first three weeks, I'm like, oh, cool. If I want to keep doing this, I need somebody here. I was just stressed. I couldn't like, hey, I need to figure this thing out.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

So a lot of business owners do that. They hire over stress and not to increase the capacity that their business could take on. So that's the opposite way that you want to hire, because when you do that, you end up hiring the wrong people and you get into big messes. So like the wrong people are hiring friends for convenience, um, hiring two junior, um, so you're still doing everything. Yes. And hiring without clear role expectations.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Yes. Yes, that that has happened. That's what I think both that actually described my first hire. Yes. Hiring from friends or convenience hire. Uh, you know, uh I read one, she uh she was a sister of one of my friends. Uh hiring to junior, she don't know anything. So employee one. And now you you know a lot now. She does know a lot. She does know a lot now, but hiring to junior, if I will have a shout out to employee number one. Yeah, employee number one. Uh so and then hiring without clear role expectations because it was the first time we hired.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

She rolled with it though.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Yeah, she did roll with it. We should bring her up and tell her the her side of the stories.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

I would love that idea.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Yeah. Yeah. Hey, whenever whenever you're seeing that, uh employee number one, I won't uh let me know if you want to come on the podcast and just talk about uh white glove and your experience here. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

I like it. Okay, so then what is the right hire?

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Experience one. At least starting out is is part-time, part-time experience people.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

Okay. Because I feel and someone who owns their task and can think on their feet.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

But I think that comes with experience, though.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Yes, yeah. So experience and someone who owns it, owns their work, and they're not just just going into complete things, they're just to show up to get a pay for that.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

And they also need to understand where where you are in business and to take ownership in that, and they want to be part, and they want to be part of it, you know?

SPEAKER_00 14:46

Yeah, they want to be part of it.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

That's good stuff.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

I I like how you're going to just keep rolling, keeping it.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Let's talk about delegation and how you actually delegate. Because I feel like most people think, oh, I'm delegating, but they're not properly delegating. They're barking orders without explanation, without training, without proper understanding.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Yeah. Sometimes I feel I can be delegating stuff that because I don't give proper instruction and I don't give it to the right person, it's just whenever it comes to me, I probably it took longer than if I would have done it the first time.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

That's true. But I feel like also people end up paying twice for the same work.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Because they assign tasks, they hover over the task being done, right? And then they end up redoing everything because the task wasn't done properly. But that comes back to proper training and SOPs again, just like we talked about in the last episode.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

Yes. How do you do that when you're such a small business though? How do you believe how do you develop good training? Because it doesn't make sense to step out for a week to week to shut yourself off just to train your new hire. Like, how do you deal with that?

SPEAKER_00 16:01

That's why you hire people with experience.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

That's a good point. So you don't have to train them.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Yeah, it's well, and it'll be a little small training just so they understand your business. And I always say, like, don't bring someone in and just expect not to ever train them because they're so senior, right? Like, we have a new person in the accounting team. She's very smart, very good at she's been doing it for 20 years, accounting work.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Very good at what she does. She knows how to do it. She knows more than I probably more than me. She's very like elbows deep into accounting, right? However, we still did training with her to explain to her the white glove way. Yeah. And every business should have that. They should have their own company, let's say a branded training where you say, hey, here's our expectations and how we treat our clients, how we behave internally. Do we send emojis to clients via email? Right? So we don't. So that's the kind of stuff that we are creating internally as like a culture, and how we want to be viewed externally from the world and from our clients. Yeah. And the experience that you want your client or customer to have. So training is still necessary, but I think you can do it in a leaner way with experienced people and having them almost shadow you. So that's how we do it on the accounting side, is when a new accounting team member comes in, they shadow every team member.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Yes, I agree. Uh yeah. And I feel also like every company is different. Every company communicates differently. Every company has different lingo. And that is just part of the culture. And as you're starting your business, it's really important that you define your culture. You define what is your culture about.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

And it may change, but I think a lot of times you'll have like a basic set of rules or ethics, maybe, that that are important to you and the reasons that you started your business. So I think that that's another foundation of your business to make sure that's established.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Yeah. So what is uh something that happens when we like bring new team members and all of that is that I sometimes tend to micromanage them instead of trusting. And one of the most me professionally, one of the best bosses I had, he will not micromanage me. He would say, Hey, I think you can do this. It's hard. This is how you gotta do it, but I think you can do it. So, what is the best way to go about the stuff? You you think you should micromanage people or at the beginning, and then whenever they can you trust, do that, or then you let you trust them and review their work. How do you deal with that?

SPEAKER_00 18:37

So I think micromanaging is never the answer. If you have to micromanage them for them to get their work done and do it properly, they're not the right team member for you.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

So the best way to do it and handle is you hold their hand temporarily for whatever duration makes the most sense for your business and for their role, coupled with their experience, right? Yeah, because everyone's experience is different. So if they have 20 years in accounting and they're become they're coming into a role that they're very familiar with, then you set expectations. Um, you set them up for success by setting proper expectations and defining success. So that's one of the things I think people make a big mistake on is not defining success.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

When hiring new employees and when delegating. So we're going back to delegating. But when you're when you're delegating, if you're not defining the success of the project or the top or the role or the task at hand, then how will they know if they're doing the thing the right thing? That's a good point. But to answer your, to go back to, we're jumping, but to go back to answer your question, you said micro, yeah, so we're not micromanaging, but I but you will need to check. So we do for our new employees on the accounting side, we do daily check-ins for about a week, and then we do weekly one-on-ones for the next month.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

And then we check in with them at 30 days, 90 days, six or sixty days. So I think you don't micromanage, but you check their work. So when we have a new employee, they copy the manager on everything that they do, which especially and they always get checked for any kind anything they're gonna send out to any clients, like any PDF, like any reports, any answers to questions. Yeah. We check them really closely for a few weeks to like a month or two, depending on their level. Yeah. And then after that, they will just copy me in or the manager in to ensure consistency and um just having a second eye on things.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

That's so cool. That's so cool. Yeah, no, and yes, and that's the only way you can grow a big team. And like it's just trusting people and trusting people to do the right thing, and then whenever people make mistakes, it's okay. You know, you learn from those.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

Micromanagement's expensive.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

Yes, because you're kind of slowing down, you know what I mean. If you go into micromanaging bar, you just do the lose good people when you do that. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

For sure. Yeah, I think I'm definitely stepping into a season of stop micromanaging. Like, hey, I trust you to do the right thing.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Just go at it. If you make a mistake, we'll talk about it and we will fist it up and make sure it doesn't happen again. Uh again, uh for sure.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Uh so the three most common mistakes for delegation, so not delegating properly, number one is not defining success.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Right. And then number two is not no training or documentation. That's for the SOPs and the proper training. And again, even if it's a really lean or light training of just your business, right? And number three is micromanaging instead of trust.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

Yeah. That's that is really good. And that's really good. So, but I feel like it cannot just be like, hey, you just you set the expectation and all of that. You also have to make sure That it it gets done.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

Yes, you have to you have to quality check.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

Quality check.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

And you have to quality check really closely and consistently for a little while. So that's why I always have them, like my accounting team, they send me everything before they send it out for like usually a few months. And even after they stay there, they all of our finan financials get approved by management before they go to our clients.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

Like how do you build accountability? I feel this is where most teams falls apart.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Yeah, no, I think you're right. So building accountability, I think it's a it's more complex than it. I I think there's a lot of layers to it, but number one is definitely building KPIs. So key performance indicators.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

So having those are metrics for each department, I would say. So say, hey, for accounting team, one of the KPIs is closing out all of your clients by the 15th of the month. So for March, right? For March's books, everyone for March or the quarter one financial should all be closed out by April 15th, which was a couple of days ago. So that's one of the KPIs. There's an example there. So for the tax team, can you do you have a KPI in mind that you could share?

SPEAKER_01 23:19

KPI in mind, no. The only thing is whenever I review a staff, I want to make sure I don't have to make any changes to it. You know? Whenever I review something, whenever staff comes to me for review.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

So a KPI for the tax team, could it be that they do five tax returns a day or something like that?

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Yeah, we had one, but it never happened. We had like three three days a week, three tax returns a week, but it didn't happen. Three tatteries returns a day. Okay. Three task returns per day, it didn't happen. It came down more like to two to two a day. Um yeah, I would tell you, I was really busy with staff. So, and whenever I feel like you be you beating a team, you're like, hey, I need this to get done. I'm not going to put pressure on you. Why are you not getting two or three tasks returns per day? I always try to understand why it wasn't happening. Okay, why are you not getting why are you not getting two or three task returns per day? There was a lot of stuff going on, it's just like two juniors. So a lot of that stuff was because they were two juniors. You know? Also, a lot of that is also in my end. Uh clients did not have really good accounting records. And a lot of that is uh lack of common sense. Lack of common sense in a lot of staff, and me having to probably also don't have good SOPs, but it's really hard to create SOP on the Tal department whenever there is so many little different stuff, and there is so much stuff SOP can do, but then you also have to use common sense.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

With SOP. So, how do you build that accountability? How do you make sure people have common sense? How do you teach common sense whenever you think people don't have any common sense?

SPEAKER_00 25:00

That's a great question. You know, if I knew the answer to that, I would not have to own an accounting firm. I wouldn't have to work a day in my life. If I knew how to teach common sense, I mean, I would have I would have had a book deal deal like 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Yeah, because I think that is the key. Like, because like anybody can know the technical stuff.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

Yeah, sometimes people common sense, uh it's like you're born with it or you're not. However, something crazy, at least that I'm realizing, like being a business owner, we're we meet so many people. Like it's my job to meet people every day, right? People are there's no common sense on this planet. It it's like five percent of people have common sense.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

Yeah, and so why is that so hard? Why is only five percent of people have common sense?

SPEAKER_00 25:46

But you know what? You know what I this is my theory, okay?

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Go out. I don't care, right? We're we're we're screwed. Let's go out. Go out.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Listen to this. Go out of my theory is that is that they have they don't have enough character, right? So they didn't go through anything that was tough in life to build character so where they had to think for themselves.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

That's a good point.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

That is my theory.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

And I've realized I cannot talk to people who haven't who don't have character or com and I feel like like common sense is built with character when you're learning how to like that.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

I think that makes sense to me. That makes sense to me.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

And like so, so if you never had to like really go through anything and like build thinking for yourself and thinking outside the box and not just like technical skills are so I mean, like anyone can get those because all you have to do is read a book, yeah. Or like take a class, right? And you learn to college. You don't have to think for yourself to have technical skills, yeah. But you have to think for yourself and think outside the box to have common sense.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

Yes, I agree with you.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

And then so it's so hard to work with people or hang out with people or even go on a date with someone who doesn't have common sense. I'm like, I'm getting to the point where I'm like, I don't want to waste my time. Like, I'm leaving the state.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

Yes, like I'm not gonna sit on the channel. I'm like, that doesn't make any sense. Guess, I guess, I guess how do you teach your kid common sense though? You know, like I've been like, I don't guess, I guess, I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Like, do you I mean like I mean that's a good question.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

Because if my kids don't have any common sense, I think well, I think the way you do it is is you're like you figure it out, you don't hand them stuff.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

That's good. So how how did I build common sense if my mom do did everything for me? I guess you didn't do everything for me. What what what happened then?

SPEAKER_00 27:31

Not not forever. And like and I know like your mom, she had to go to different countries and work, so you had to figure stuff out. But I think that's what it I think it's using your mind to figure stuff out and and not just like ghosting. But I I think it's a personality thing too, because I know some people who they should have the most common sense on the planet because like they went through a little thing, some things. And I feel like some people who should have the most common sense because they really they really went through it, you know, have none, like zero, absolutely non-existent. And I I don't know if it's like a brain problem, like they can't properly have brain functionality to be able to think for their self and they can only read the writing and like follow us instructions, or if it's because that they just don't want to, they're just completely lazy and they they're like, I'm not using any brain power. Which do you think?

SPEAKER_01 28:33

I think uh I don't know. I don't know why. I think it came down to character though. I think it all depends on the character, their personality, and all of that. So I guess the question is if you don't if somebody doesn't have common sense, they don't have character, they don't have personalities. So how do you build character personality as a person?

SPEAKER_00 28:55

I think and I I think it's a combination. I think some people are completely born with it. I mean, we've had this this is deja view, but I think some people are born with it.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

But most people have to build it over time. And I think you build the most like going through like not having things handed to you and having to make decisions for yourself and thinking for yourself. But it goes, it just goes back to like, are you lazy or are you just stupid?

SPEAKER_01 29:25

But this is the thing though. I I didn't think I don't think it's about laziness because there are a lot of hardworking people that don't have common sense. That is true. And I can work with somebody that doesn't have common sense, but it's really hardworking. But I can I know it takes more time. But it takes more time, but I'd rather work with somebody that doesn't have any common sense and work hard, you know, and there is a lot of people like that. But you have to understand them and figure out how to work that. So the key is this like for me for hiring, I want to hire people that are willing to work hard, have common sense, and I guess it comes down to character though. So, how do you you guys to keep accountability, you need to have character? How do you hire people with character? Or how do you figure out what is the character for people in the hiring process?

SPEAKER_00 30:14

What kind of quote are you you're really we're really trying to get into it today?

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Yeah, let's go at it. Let's go at it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

So to hire people with character, I mean, I think that's way easier said than done because you can't really explore like your the character like during an interview or two. So I think I think it really comes from just luck of the draw. And I'm sure if if someone is out there, if there's a I mean, I don't know if it's really luck, but I mean like from the hiring perspective, like you know, are you good with at discernment? But if there's someone out there who's like a hiring coach, business coach, and you want to come on here and talk about finding someone with character and who has like good values, work ethic, think on their feet, they actually can, you know, common sense, let it know.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

And that's really hard to do. And I feel now with AI and technology, people are asking questions more. People are studying loss in common sense. I'm like, you gotta figure out your common sense. And I I feel this is why I have common sense though. This is why I have common sense.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

Okay. So in Cuba, uh in the in I'm listening, I'm just pressing my early closest.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

In the elementary school was really hard. Like for these exams, I remember having to study 10 hours, like 10 hours, 20 hours before an exam. I would have to memorize like 20 pages of stuff to do an exam. And those tough moments, though, those are tough. You might like eight years old, having to memorize eight pages, and then like, and then I had my oldest brother, and he will make me memorize all of that. And then he would not he will make me say, like, when whenever I need to bring him here, the the way the way he educated me, because whenever I would I would do homework with them, he would always be yelling at me, like, use common sense. That doesn't make any sense. So that always stays stuck in my mind. He always would say, like, so it kind of differently, maybe. Um or maybe he developed it early enough by like whenever I was.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

So I wonder if there's something with that about common sense. Like you you create them as a child. And then when you grow and then like when you grow older, like maybe those pathways are not ever there.

SPEAKER_01 32:40

I agree.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

So there's no movement.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

I think my common sense came from my oldest brother. Whenever he was helping me do homework, and I will study with him. He would say, like, hey, use common sense. You are you are not answering this right because you are not using common sense. You are just trying to memorize everything, and that that's not going to work. You gotta use common sense. But I think with what you said, this comes also down to character a lot. It comes down to character a lot as well.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

So you want to get back into creating accountability? So clear KPIs, regular check-ins, and ownership of outcomes. So creating accountability like for your team, for your new hires, for your employees comes down to clear KPIs.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

Which we talked about setting, hey, you know, your goal is two tax returns a day. Like that, that's your metric. That's what you have to keep to hit every single day. And then if they don't, find out why and fix it, or maybe you fire them and find someone else who can do those. Um, number two is regular check-in. So let's talk about that. So we did the scrum method, so we were meeting every day during tax season. Since tax season is over now for my team, we are doing a three-weekly meetings, so Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to make sure all of our projects are on track. Okay, so you have to define expectations for your employees. They're not implied, they don't know what you want them to do or how they need to behave or how they need to get jobs done and what they need to get done.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

And and we need to understand employees are always going to be employees. We work the same way. We are just going like, hey, you only pay me enough to do these things. And like, why will I do more? And then if you put if you if you don't set these expectations, right, I'm like, hey, I don't know what I'm going to do, so I'm going to do the very minimum. So we always have to understand employees. Employees are always going to be employees. I don't blame them. I used to be the same way.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Like, why why am I going to be why am I going to do something that is not that's out of your pay above your pay grade?

SPEAKER_00 34:43

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 34:43

Yeah, above your pay. So for KPI.

SPEAKER_00 34:46

That's why it's important though to assess your employees' time.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:49

Do a time analysis every so often to make sure the time adds up to what they're doing. Because if it doesn't, then they do they need more work or do they need training on efficiencies?

SPEAKER_01 35:00

Yes, that's a good point. And yes, and that's also where low-key micromanaging or they're just being the communicators with us because something you're going to realize people don't know what they don't know. Like they don't know the efficiency. So I guess if you don't micromanage people like that, how are you able to find the efficiencies if they would not know that they're not?

SPEAKER_00 35:19

That's not micromanaging. It's just making sure they have proper timekeeping. And when they do that, then every quarter or or once uh once a year, twice a year, go through and say, okay, the this cleanup on this task, it took them 14 hours on average. Is that normal? Is that efficient? Is that how it should? Okay, if not, then why did that happen? Is it over budget, under budget?

SPEAKER_01 35:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

And then you say, okay, how can I fix it? Is it my fault for not properly training? Or are they twiddling their thumbs to get extra hours?

SPEAKER_01 35:54

That's good point. We need to I need to start doing that. We need to start doing that.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

I have that in our calendar to do.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

When when?

SPEAKER_00 36:00

In May.

SPEAKER_01 36:02

Yeah, but but we have to do that weekly though.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

No. Weekly is way too much for our business.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

How often do we have to be doing that?

SPEAKER_00 36:09

Once a quarter. So I have it for May to go over. For May to go over.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

I think that's too long though.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

No. Why would it be too long?

SPEAKER_01 36:19

Because why why why are you going to waste a a quarter of inefficiency if you can stop it in month one? That that was the way I think.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

Well, because you can't catch it that soon. Because like one week, one week they might be super efficient, other week might might be inefficient because of people being out, because of client waiting for different random things. So it makes the most sense to have a bigger set of data with multiple clients, not just a few, to see a pattern and see, okay, okay, these are things that's happening. So weekly, at least for our business, it weekly doesn't work. I've done monthly. Monthly is okay, but it's a better picture if you do if you break it down by the three uh by months, then you can see a trend over three months.

SPEAKER_01 37:01

So are we supposed to be doing evaluation quarterly, taking them over that?

SPEAKER_00 37:05

Yes. I would like to start it. So I have that for our owner's retreat to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 37:10

But I also have that, yeah, I have that on our calendar for May, too, on both of ours.

SPEAKER_01 37:15

That is why it's important to have a business partner with a different experiences than you. Yes. You know, instead of background than you.

SPEAKER_00 37:24

Or you can just hire White Glove and Yes. Hey, we we don't uh yeah, we we've access for access to Harrow temporarily through White Glove.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

Yeah, yeah, you need a hero. Yeah, in your life, so for sure. Uh awesome. So KPI and so how for so for an employee, how many KPIs? So you just have to choose the most important KPI. What is a KPI, by the way? What is a KPI?

SPEAKER_00 37:48

Key performance um indicator.

SPEAKER_01 37:51

Indicator or indicator?

SPEAKER_00 37:52

Indicators.

SPEAKER_01 37:53

So you like how many, for example, for you on your side of the business, how many KPIs do you have for each content?

SPEAKER_00 38:01

Technically, they have three, but so the first one is their monthly closings, right?

SPEAKER_01 38:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

The next one is average days for communication, like responsiveness for clients, which I think that needs to be company-wide. Yes. Because if they're not responsive within 24 to 48 business hours, there's a problem. And then number three is like problem solving. So, like how many days did it take you, or duration, or tries from the first initial onset of the problem to the resolution of the problem. And that one, I I have it set at five business days. I'm like, I think within a week, every any problem should be ironed out.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

Yes, I agree.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

And um, we've had we've struggled with that, but mostly on getting documentation and access from clients. That's been our biggest thing. But I think one to three, maybe even five KPIs, depending on the type of industry or business, but you really don't want to go beyond five. I think that's excessive for one role for your and then you can have you can have role KPIs, department KPIs. Like for the department, our KPIs for accounting can look like you know, more businesses like served and um keeping clients. So like our retention month over month.

SPEAKER_01 39:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 39:22

Um, because we don't do contracts, we're not into that. If you don't want to work with us, we don't want to work with you either. Um, and then like accuracy and then uh close books on time.

SPEAKER_01 39:33

So I guess sometimes like we just hire, it's fun, it's a first hire, and then we just vibing. And the dad is a lot of time with employee guam just vibing, and she can tell you all about it. Uh so but it's not about vibe, it's about the structural if we really want to go and take it to the next level. Exactly. That being said, this podcast is coming in May. So after employee guan, employee two, you get ready. White glove, public announcement, you get ready. May white glove is going to be a completely different business.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

Hey, May, we're gonna be coming out like an enterprise.

SPEAKER_01 40:09

We're coming hot.

SPEAKER_00 40:10

If you feel like your team isn't performing, look at your leadership.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

Damn. Why why why you put them on the spot? Look at your leadership.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:23

Yeah, that one that one hurts. I I didn't mean I actually just came out with her as method.

SPEAKER_00 40:28

Yeah, that was good. So, and the reason is on that, on the look at the leadership, because if it's the wrong people, then you need to fire them and get rid of them. Yeah, if it's the right people, then and they're still struggling, the team, it's because your leadership. So you have to properly set expectations and goals and KPIs and properly train, have SOPs available, have Loom videos available, make sure that they understand what they're actually doing, your expectations.

SPEAKER_01 40:54

Yes, I agree with you. And I know it hurts our ego. It it it hurts my ego because I think I'm I'm the best boss, the best person. But yeah, I need to hear it. Yeah, if mobile mechanics are performing, look at my lead leadership. If staff is chaos, look at the case.

SPEAKER_00 41:12

Because no matter what, it's gonna be on the leader to either fire and replace that person or to properly train and set expectations with that person.

SPEAKER_01 41:19

Boys at the top, the voice at the top, you know. So with the tongue at the top, the voice at the top, we set the expectations.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

Circles down.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

Yes, closed down. Do you want to sponsor segment closing?

SPEAKER_00 41:28

Then let's say this episode is brought to you by White Glove CPAs and Business Solutions.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

And this is where they're coming in clutch because hiring without financial strategies how people kill their margins. White Glove and Business Solutions help help you understand when to hire, who to hire, and what your business can actually support.

SPEAKER_00 41:49

That's where the CFO advisory and WG360, our new service, comes in and is really beneficial because it we actually can dive in and see, okay, who do you need in your business? How much can you afford? Who can you afford, and when can you afford to hire?

SPEAKER_01 42:08

Yeah. So you will not be guessing, you would you will be scaling intentionally, and White Glove will help you do that.

SPEAKER_00 42:15

But your systems, leadership, and expectations will determine everything.

SPEAKER_01 42:22

Be all smart, we will see you next episode.

SPEAKER_00 42:25

Next episode.

SPEAKER_01 42:26

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

Like, comment, subscribe, interact, all the things.