• 47:53
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Burnout reduction, team management, business growth, scalability, automation, job descriptions, onboarding, remote teams, work-life balance, leadership strategies, employee retention, business systems, AI integration, business stages, team dynamics.
SPEAKERS
Damon Pistulka, Leslie Hassler
00:00
So,
Damon Pistulka 00:07
all right, everyone, welcome once again to the faces of business. I am your host, Damon Pistulka, and I am excited for our guest today, because we have none other than Leslie Hasler, we’re going to be talking today about building and managing a team to reduce burnout. Leslie, thanks for being here today.
Leslie Hassler 00:31
Well, howdy, I’m excited to be here, so we’re gonna have a great
Damon Pistulka 00:35
time. This is awesome having you. And Leslie has a company called your biz rules. She’s in Dallas, Texas. We were talking about the lovely weather in Dallas this time of year, other than a little bit of wind, but I’m excited to talk today, because you’ve been helping business owners, do you know, make their businesses run better, make their lives less crazy, and and really start to generate the kind of results that they want. So we always Leslie. We always like to start back at the beginning. So where this tell us about Leslie and how Leslie got into doing what you’re doing today.
Leslie Hassler 01:17
So we’ve been your best roles as a over a decade old, but this is my second business. My first business, I tell everyone, was my prison. This is my playground and that prison, if you will. My first business was a lot of my learning ground on what not to do. Lot of times I’ll explain it as I have. I feel like I’ve earned an MBA from the school of hard knocks, failed a couple of subjects so many times I, you know, I had scars from them. But really, that business that I built was everything I didn’t want. And when I came into this business and I was searching for something better, I had a couple year period where I say I was just in conversation with God, and I was just like, Okay, this ain’t it? Yeah, it’s not this what? And so asking that question over and over, and believe me, I think I asked it of myself 1000 times easily, I got to zero in on what it was that I enjoyed about being an entrepreneur. And the truth was, I love business. I didn’t love the business I was in, but I love business, and I have a mind that just sees the puzzle or sees the gear works of a business and wants to set about fixing them. And I was like, Okay, well, then what do I do with that? You know, it’s like one of the questions. I’m like, Yay, I know what I like to do. Whoo, what do I do with that? And really came into what is now your biz rules. Um, that’s why I say this is our playground, because we get to work with so many amazing businesses that are doing good work and transform their business so that it works actually harder for them than they’re working for it, but that process is just not intuitive, and so that’s where we like to really get in and kind of go side by side partner work, get our hands a little dirty with our clients to fix the things that are just not working as they should.
Damon Pistulka 03:22
So as you’re doing this, what are some of the things that that you really enjoy about what you
Leslie Hassler 03:31
do? Um, I love watching how our business centers change, to be honest, if they’re worn out, worn down and worried about everything when they are coming in to see them develop the level of confidence to be the owner, to be the leader, to make, you know, the decisions quickly and with confidence and to be able to take the risks that are necessary in order to be able to grow and scale. That alone is huge. But there’s just fun moments when you know, because we work part of what we do, and we explain it as like we’re your fractional C suite, before you might hire the C suite. So we work in all the elements of the business. And one area that we do work in is in the financials and helping, you know, almost that fractional CFO, we have that expertise on team. It’s just to watch the owner go from, oh my gosh, I’m worried about paying, you know, making payroll, to, hey, I need to buy a new car. Can I buy a new car? And you go, Well, how much do you want? And they’re like, I’ll be conservative, 40 grand. You’re like, yeah, that’s not a problem, you know, because we’ve done the financial work in the business that they can do that and not have it be a detriment to the business when that is fun, fun to pay for those kinds of things in our lives, and that’s really what your business ultimately should give you the ability to do. Yeah.
Damon Pistulka 05:00
Yes, yes. So what is a common theme that you see when you’re when you’re helping these people?
Leslie Hassler 05:10
There’s, there’s typically several problems that are, that are at play. So I will say that more often than not, somebody in the business, most likely the business owner. But even if it’s not the business owner, it’s the team is burning out, and part of that is, is that you’ve reached that glass ceiling, if you will, of the way that it’s worked in the past is working against you now, because what you may or may not know, and I know with the work you do, you probably see this too. Your business goes through stages to where you have to break it down and build it back up in order for it to take that next level. Times we only can see how the business needs to operate for this next short period, until it starts to plateau, maybe retreat. That’s when things get really hard. But that’s the sign that you’re you’re actually at this point in time. So you need to take a step back, break things down a little bit, rebuild it back in a more scalable way, and go forward. But people just get too stuck, because they just don’t know that what they’re been doing in the past isn’t working anymore. Yeah, that
Damon Pistulka 06:19
is very common when you see the businesses get get plateaued like that, because it it just you don’t even realize that a lot of people that the owners will and the team, they’ll be working like crazy doing what they’re doing. And it slowly builds and slowly builds until everyone is just maxed out and and, like you said, the only way to do it, to go to the next level, really, is to rethink how we’re doing things, and re reestablish who’s doing what across the team, and probably add team members, even at the right yeah, to be able to do that and more specialist in what, in what’s happening in the business. And that’s so hard thing for people to do, because it’s reinventing,
Leslie Hassler 07:03
yeah, and you know the the concept of even going from a generalist to a specialist, what you just kind of alluded to that was in blitz scaling. And especially if you look at blitz scaling, they talk about moving your team through the stages of being that family to a tribe, to a village to a city, and as you’re moving, the composition of your team is changing, and oftentimes, like we were just saying beforehand, the biggest problem is, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. That still exists, even in the team, they’re very often times there’s somebody on the team who got you there. They were great, but they’re really not the right person to help you get to the next level. And so that brings us into this area that we just call the shed, if you will. It’s like, if you think of a snake that is rubbing against the maybe a brick or something trying to shed its skin, it’s because the structure of the of the skin, it’s is now constrictive, and so it has to shed the skin. Well, the business is going to go through that same kind of of exercise, of shedding in order to be able to grow, in order to get into a more expansive area and and fortunately, or no, it depends on how you want to look at it. Team members are part of that shed. But if done well, it will be something that is good for everyone, but you have to be strategic, right? And you gotta have a plan and lean into your values to execute that very well. Yes,
Damon Pistulka 08:39
I’ve not heard it described like that before. I’ve taken people through it many times, and that is, and taken organizations through many times, and it’s really tough, because those are the people that got you there. Those are the people that you know could have been the people that allowed you to really start making a living from your business, Yeah,
Leslie Hassler 08:56
but you’re loyal to them, right? Yeah. It’s so hard to make that difficult choice.
Damon Pistulka 09:03
Yes, yes, it is. Well, we’ve got Alexander. He dropped a comment here. Thanks for stopping by day, Alexander, your strategy is a light at the end of the tunnel. If you don’t have a strategy, you can hit a wall. Yes, you definitely need to know where you’re going, and that strategy certainly helps in this. The the one thing that I do want to bring up, because it was this, I saw somebody execute this a few years or about a year ago, when we were helping a team that now they’re, they’re past the the last shed, okay? And because I The other thing is, if you really scale your business a lot, you will shed several times. I mean, it just happens. It has to happen. Yeah, it’s natural. It is natural. But the point I’m trying to make is that on this is that people are not happy in those situations, those people that you’re so loyal to and they’re so loyal to you, they will work themselves into just absolute misery. They will, they will work them. Into misery. They will come to work. You will know they’re not happy. They will even sometimes even straight up say they’re not happy. So when you make these kind of changes, you’re often allowing those people, giving those people the permission, almost because they don’t want to leave, because they feel that, deep sense of bond and family and everything else, like you said at the beginning, but allows them to go find something that is much better for themselves. And
Leslie Hassler 10:30
I have yet to see a situation to where that wasn’t the truth and it’s, it’s difficult in the moment. It’s difficult in the moment for everyone, because it’s, it’s you go through grief. You’re, you’re ending a relationship. And I don’t think we talk about the grief in the business for business owners enough, but it’s a stage. It’s a thing. But nine times out of 10, I was talking to one of our clients to where we had that really difficult decision. I’m like, this employee is underperforming. It’s a morale decliner. It’s a drag on your energy. It’s a drag on their energy. It’s gotta be done. And so we crafted something right that that honored the employee, honored their commitment. And a year later, my client was saying, she goes, remember so and so. And I was like, Yep, she goes. I ran into her. She’s doing phenomenal. She’s thriving like I never thought she could thrive, and it’s such a hard thing to let go. I’m so glad we did it, though, and that’s the story I hear more often than not, is you are giving them the permission to step into something more fulfilling than what you’re being able to provide to them.
Damon Pistulka 11:39
Yeah, that’s, that’s awesome, because it really makes a huge difference for the organization and for them, because, you know, the entire team, the rest of the members that are there and ready to move forward with the company, or in there, you know, want to move forward with the company, even they’re, you’re all being held back by the people that aren’t ready to move to the Next level to readjust roles and what people are doing and really see the business go to the next level and and because those are some of the early employees, those are typically the people that whether they may not have authority on the organizational chart, they have a lot of authority just because of time and time and service, it makes a huge difference. Makes it very hard for the owner to implement changes that they want to change.
Leslie Hassler 12:25
Yeah, it does. It does. It’s part of it’s part of the process. But I think it’s a critical one, especially the first maybe three you have to go through, because I don’t think you get the process that needs to happen in order for your first time, it’s a little clumsy, unless you’ve got a guide like us that it’s helping you through. But truly, it’s when you start to see that your business needs the ability to adjust from a personnel standpoint, then you start to build your business in a different way, and you’re not so reliant on the the magic of your employee in in as much as relying on a system that actually translates and spreads across all employees. And that’s a really important moment of scalability. And you know, in your world with exits, it’s really super critical. With exits, it’s how you show that. You know, there’s no over concentration upon any one person, any one team member, in the business, and that brings value to your business, especially if you do look to sell it in the
Damon Pistulka 13:32
future. Mm, hmm. It makes a huge difference. It makes a huge difference. So let’s talk about your holistic approach to helping these business owners. Because you talked about the, you know, kind of hitting several of the C suite areas before these businesses are ready for the full time people in those roles. Talk about how that really what you’re doing in those roles, you know, typically, and then how that really benefits having that one stop shop for resources.
Leslie Hassler 14:02
So it is a huge benefit for our clients. And the way that it looks across a company is that they they have a main problem, if you will, when they typically come into us, and we tend to assign a strategist whose specialty is that main problem. But then on the team is operations, HR, marketing, sales, finances, you name it, we have team members who come in and pour into the business for whatever length of time to solve the next problem. What I have found for a lot of growing businesses is that, again, you have, you think you have that one major problem, but one problem in a business, let’s say it’s a marketing problem. Is very rarely just a marketing problem. Yes, it’s usually a money problem. It’s usually a people problem, it’s a system problem. It is not just this piece. And so by working holistically across the business, we can tackle the problem, or even sometimes the. Problems behind the problems, to fix it once and for good so it sticks, and you’re not having to reinvent the wheel every you know, 6090 days, because you’re actually not fixing what’s wrong. But for a lot of other businesses you might need, you know, if your main core need is team and systems, you might have a marketing problem pop up. It’s not big enough for you to go get another consultant or another firm to address. We can just absorb it. We can take it on. We we can address it and be able to move on. So in this way, we tend to get greater traction, and we tend to get strategies that have greater leverage. It’s not just like a, what a one hit wonder. You know, it’s, it’s one thing that’s actually impacting several different parts of the business. So our clients get results quicker. They become profitable faster. They can grow exponentially. And I think that’s, that’s really the benefit to doing the work the way we do the work. Yes,
Damon Pistulka 16:01
that is a great point, because, you know, like you said, you can get greater traction and leverage, because you can address those issues, those ancillary issues, as they come up as well and quickly, rather than having to go out and search and find somebody to help in that area or this area. Because that, if not addressed, is going to hamper the growth. It’s going to hamper the the forward progress of the of the business itself. So that’s a great point, and it is really where the multidisciplinary approach to a small business really pays off. I mean, when you can, when you have a founder and a few team members, and then you can bring someone on, like your resources, that that you guys have there at your biz rules and and add that as an augmentation to the team. Now I’ve just added all those resources that I don’t have to go out and find. And when things come up, we address them, we get and keep right on moving, rather than we have to stop find somebody that’s going to help us make sure it’s the right person again, because we haven’t built this trust, right? So as you’re doing this, I think one of the things that you can help people with is because you’re there working on that first problem, you’re establishing the race relationship. And they know, you know, this is how we do work, and if it fits well, then the next thing that comes up, they’re more comfortable having you, your team, handle that, yeah, because they’ve already got an established relationship. They know how your quality of work and how you do it, and you can take over that much faster than somebody else. So
Leslie Hassler 17:35
yeah, and I love that you shared that actually I haven’t even put that together for ourselves. So thank you for that. Yeah, but it is the trust factor, and it’s how we build leverage. Is that we don’t have to relearn, you we can just get in and know what the what the workings of the business are. So it’s it’s easier to fix. It’s quicker, because hiring people, it takes time. It just takes time. You know, it can take 468, weeks, and sometimes that’s just precious time. Yeah, really precious time.
Damon Pistulka 18:06
Yes, it is. And that the that time. I mean, it does it’s it costs money, it costs you growth, it costs you growth and forward movement. So as you’re doing this, what are some of the things that have cropped up recently, in the last year or two, that have really been new or changing, problems that that you’ve seen,
Leslie Hassler 18:28
um, I would say the thing that we’ve added, as in our work, the work that we do with our clients, obviously, is adding technology. We’ve always been a tech forward firm, but really being able to help our clients use AI in a way to automate and to activate, if you will, client work, and be able to accelerate what they’re doing. And I’m talking about more than just like go into chat and ask it to write an article. There’s there’s layers in there. So that is one of the, probably the biggest changes in the last 18 months. I know, holistically, a lot of our clients are in that hiring mode getting ready to, you know, offload more of what’s on their their plates into somebody else’s. And it’s so interesting. We tend to go through themes in the business. And right now, we are doing a lot of job descriptions and onboarding plans and setting up, you know, interviews for some clients where, like, you’re interviewing needs some work. So let’s work on that so that you get the right person in the door faster and in really, when you’re thinking even long term about your team, the team that you’re building as a small business owner actually starts with that job description, and we do them a little different. We focus a lot more on attitude, because you can teach a skill, but we need people who care. And that is the number one heartache that I hear from from business owners, is. I can’t find somebody who cares. I can’t find somebody that will do the work. Well, if your job description is focusing on the work, you’re going to have a hard time finding the person that cares enough to do the work. We think if you find somebody that cares and identifies with the mission, vision, values of the business and that heart connection is there, then the work gets done because these people are motivated intrinsically by their innards, you know, and how they’re wired, not just extrinsically by a paycheck. So it really starts at that very front, if you will, of getting that right team in place. And we just different businesses, different industries. We’ve seen this all prove to be true. You follow this, you do the work, it will generate a high quality team member.
Damon Pistulka 20:51
Mm, hmm, so you mentioned job descriptions and onboarding, yeah. How much is onboarding changed in the last five years? Um,
Leslie Hassler 21:02
not as much as it should. Um, our here’s what I think I see. The the challenges that will bump up against people is that a business owner is burned out. They’re tired, they don’t feel like they have time to train. They feel like they’re hiring and paying somebody to do the job. So they should know to do the job. We actually assume that nobody knows how to do the job, that everyone is starting from ground zero, and our onboarding plans are actually 90 days long, and they are to the T this is what you’re doing for the next 90 days. Now what’s helpful with this? This means that the team member can actually work independently, because they already have a checklist, they have a process that they’re going through. There’s resources for them to access. And I will tell you, we don’t even produce all the resources, but if I need you to learn a program, I’m going to go out and leverage the programs tutorials, right? And I’m going to give you that as an as a starting place to go. And then we build in check ins and touch points and tests, if you will, because that first 90 days is going to tell you a lot. Our firm happens to be remote. A lot of our clients have remote teams. You have to be more diligent with a remote team to get them to be an effective remote team. And if you’re just expecting somebody to know what to do, you’re not going to get the results that you’re looking for. So I think it takes a lot more pre work, if you will, homework in those onboardings, to be able to generate a quality employee that’s engaged and really active in the business.
Damon Pistulka 22:38
Yeah, I agree. And the intentional things that you have to do for with a remote or even a hybrid environment is to create those water cooler moments, to create those those other kind of things that we naturally get when we’re around people, you know, in the same space. And that’s that’s one of the things that I think that some of the people that have chosen to go hybrid, which I personally think, if you’re, you know, you’re in Dallas, I’m in Seattle. Traffic is a nightmare, and some combinations, you know, and when you look, you look at people that that are driving an hour plus each way five days a week to be able to allow them to go, okay, maybe you have two days that you don’t have to do that. Maybe it’s even one day they don’t have to do that. It’s a huge thing to their life, right? Huge.
Leslie Hassler 23:29
It’s quality of life, right? And that for us is very own brand we’re growing and scaling to, you know, produce some profits, but also improve the quality of your life, the key. And even coming back to our team discussion, you know, and we’re kind of like indirectly talking about it in a lot of ways, but the key is, is that quality of life has to be present for every team member. It cannot be something that’s just exclusive for the owner or exclusive for one team member over the other. It’s going to be a standard, because this is what people are valuing so much more in their life. And our clients are all over the nation. So we don’t need to be in person, although we cultivate that same that same intentionality that we cultivate with our team, we cultivate with our clients, because there is nothing that replaces an in face, just straight up, hands down. I know I walk into a com, one of our clients offices, and if I’ve had this back of the neck feeling something’s off, I’ll spot it. I’m like, oh, there it is. But nobody could tell me, even if I asked questions, nobody could put their finger on it, and I can see it. So there’s a lot of value to being able to do that. But to your point, you have to be more intentional. You have to be more intentional with communication. You have to be more intentional with the team building. I was just, I kind of smiled when you said that, because we have a boohoo Yahoo Happy Hour set up for our company at the beginning of the of the next month, because we have one team member that’s, uh. Leaving us and transitioning, and we wish her the best, and we have two new team members. So we’re like, Okay, well, let’s do a boohoo Yahoo. Let’s have that moment to celebrate the team member that’s moving on, and welcome in the team member that’s coming in. Because my team is across the nation, just like our client work is, so sometimes we at least try to see everyone in person at least once a year. But we use, you know, we use things like conferences and marketing events as another way to bring people together, because then I have a business reason too. You know, it’s a it’s kill two birds with one stone.
Damon Pistulka 25:35
That’s a great idea to do that together, trade shows, conferences and things like that is really, really good. So as you’re talking about the title, you know, we’re talking about building and managing a team to reduce burnout. Now, everybody talks about burnout. Everybody you know, wants to reduce burnout. But what are some real world things that you can do on the building the team side to build the right team to reduce burnout.
Leslie Hassler 26:03
So I think one of the things you’ve got to do is really look at your processes and systems. So there’s a couple of things that tend to happen when you grow. Chaos tends to ensue, complexity likes to build and so we are consistently asking, How can this be simpler? How can this be easier? What needs to be automated? Where are we so proficient that we’re able to do X, Y and Z? This in our own business? If I give you a really concrete example, in our marketing, and we do a lot of content marketing, have for a long time, but we had a hard time getting ahead in the marketing, because you do this podcast, you know how much work goes into just supporting one major piece of content. If you’re doing that, you know, on a bi weekly, weekly basis, whatever it’s it’s a machine. You’re feeding a machine, and we work the process, got proficient at the process, then automated the process, then simplified. The process, then automated again. And this year, after about 18 months, we are now six months ahead, which is a feat. Oh yeah, our team is extremely proud of but it what it is giving us the ability to do is leverage in the team. So the team has gotten very good at the routine, which means now we can layer in more. Oh, how about we add in this as a marketing idea? And that is a marketing idea. We’ve launched a book last year, or a launch a book this spring. We couldn’t do this if we were bogged down with the same thing. So I think you always have to be looking at the operational side of things and asking, how can we make this quicker? How can we make this smoother? How can we take things off of people’s plate and and be able to still get the work done? So that’s it. One intention that we are, we have in our in our company we we bring to our clients companies, is always asking that question. I think the other thing we look at is, where are the bottlenecks? Where are the balls getting dropped? You know, and this is an important part. We had a client where one of the balls that were getting dropped is client expenses weren’t getting re entered to be able to be billed back to the client well, over a year that puppy adds up, and it’s like, well, they should know their work, they should know their job. And I’m like, I understand that. It sounds like a people problem, but it’s really not what it is. It’s a workflow problem, because your people are staying focused on what they’re doing. The work that they’re doing is very deadline driven. It incurs an expense. It’s like the side thing that happens. They bring the receipt. They say, I’ll get to that on Friday. But because you’re such a deadline driven business, there’s always something more urgent and more important. So in this way, we can’t expect them to work against the workflow. We have to find a way. And in our case, we chose an automation and some AI to take the workflow off the plate, because now we’ve removed the bottleneck. So I think you’ve gotta look at things in multiple different lenses to be able to to eradicate the complexity that just naturally builds if you’re growing and scaling at any any clip.
Damon Pistulka 29:23
Yeah, there’s, there’s just really no substitute for for looking and simplifying and organizing. There really is because just eliminating the unnecessary work and automating and speeding everything else up with simplification or automation is is a tremendous, tremendous way to clean things up, that’s for sure. So when you’re talking about managing a team to reduce burnout, what are some of the things that leaders should be cognizant of? Should they be thinking about? Well, what might I want to be considered? In, in the in the leadership portion of leading that team, so they’re not going off the cliff, so to speak, to burnout.
Leslie Hassler 30:08
So I think you need to be in tune with your team. I don’t know that people necessarily actually sit down and talk to their team as frequently as they need to, and we do this on a pretty regular basis, a little bit more intensively as a new member is coming on stage, but we are always asking what their personal goals are, what their professional goals are, where are they getting stuck? Where they feel unsupported? Where do they feel really supported? What What value do they get from this working in this company? And sometimes, I think one of the two best questions to ask is asking your team member, well, what needs to happen in order for you to be 110% on board every day that you come to work, what needs to be in place that isn’t there? And listening and taking that seriously, but also fully communicating with your team. Is like, well, as the owner, this is the hunt. This is what I need from you to be 110% happy with. You know, everything that you’re doing all the time, having that frank and open conversation, I think, is really important our our team spans a lot of different ages, where, I guess, multi generational, if you’d say that everybody’s at a different life stage. So I know for our younger team members who are building families, you know they’re needing more time to pour into their family. So we we really ebb and flow with people. Um, we’re not like nothing that’s been designed in this business to be so rigid that it can’t evolve. And so there we ebb and we flow with them. But in order to do that, we have to be in constant conversation. I think the other part is, is ensuring that your team member takes time off. One of the things we do as a as a company, is we have low power mode. In fact, it’s next week for us, and it’s basically the 13th week of every quarter. So the last week of every quarter, we do not take any meetings, and we really try not to even have any internal meetings. Like the commitment level goes way down. And if you think about your low power mode on your phone. Certain things don’t operate as high as they might. We use that week to not relax, but to reduce the commitment level. So if you’re behind, you can get caught up. If you want to get ahead, you can get ahead. If you want to go for a walk at 11 o’clock in the morning for an hour and a half, knock yourself out go right? But when we come back in that first day of the new quarter, you’re expected to hit the ground. So it’s, it’s this natural recharge moment in the business that’s not a vacation. It’s just a a team pause, a team pit stop. We’re taking care of everything that that maybe did fell by the wayside, so we can feel like it’s not building. And this one little this little activity, has been really interesting to watch from a strategic standpoint, because it does perform a full on reset in the business. And any anything that’s spinning stops spinning and calms back down. Everybody just comes back with a better attitude, a better freshness, energy levels on that next week. So it’s been an invaluable part of things that’s not practical for every business, but you can build in instances of low power mode for your team to give them a break, because they’re not machines. You’re not a machine, you know. So that’s that’s just one a couple of strategies to think about when you’re really managing your team, especially if you have a high performing, high
Damon Pistulka 33:54
functioning team, yeah. And I think there are two things that I’ve seen that well, and two, if you’re managing global teams. That’s another thing, really, I mean, because we’ve got team members that are, you know, some are 1010, hours off. Some are three hours off. Some are 15 hours off. It’s, it’s, it’s all a lot around the world, a lot of companies do that now, you really have to get your team members set up and go, Okay, I know that my day is not your day, your day. We’ve already established what your day is. If I, if I send a message after your day, yeah, it’s not to be responded to. We have to set up these boundaries, because, you know, the business continues to run at different hours of the day for everyone. But we have to re we have to understand if something is absolutely that urgent, this is how it will be communicated, but, but an email that just reminds to hey, we need to get this done later on, or something or that, checking on something doesn’t have to get responded to that, you know, two o’clock in the morning, your time, right? It’s, it’s. Really have to get these people like this, because that all always on. As you said, you can’t go into low power mode and just go, I’m going to relax and just enjoy the world, enjoy my life. Yeah, it’s a huge thing.
Leslie Hassler 35:16
Yeah, it’s interesting. You mentioned that because we have an escalation of communication, like with centralized communication, primary is, is, for us, it’s monday.com you know, secondary is slack, or casual conversation is slack. But if I’m texting you, I’m only texting you because it’s a 911 you’re you’ve ignored something for so long, I have to have a more immediate response. But that is, we really try to push that out. Yeah, and even if we remember that’s on like vacation, checking or responding to something, everyone’s the entire team will say, excuse me, you’re on vacation. Put your phone down, go away. We don’t want to see you. We don’t want to hear you. We don’t want to, you know, and that, think that’s the flip side of it is, you know, it’s like honoring that. But we we honor it as a team, and we’re like, No, you know, but I think especially as owners, there is something you have to constantly reiterate, because you’re in a position of authority. And you know, certain cultures, like the Philippine culture, is very respectful of authority. You have to be constantly reinforcing the that methodology of just because I send you this message doesn’t mean I’m going to be expecting a response, and if I do, I’m going to put it in all cast. Need response now, but I’m not going to abuse that either. It’s a mutual respect, right? And I think when you treat your team with respect, they treat you with respect,
Damon Pistulka 36:47
yes. And I think you you mentioned it too. Is, is about your team members helping to remind other people that, listen, you are on vacation. Yeah, we’ve got this that that’s it really helps when you have team members that understand that and will will actually pitch in and do what they need to do to make sure that that person can have a great vacation and time away from work. Because there really is something special about a team that will do that. And you can go off, you can go off for four days, weeks, whatever the vacation is, and come back and go, Wow, there’s a few things I have to take care of, but the All in all were pretty good, yeah, and everybody said, we got you, you know, that’s just, there’s just such a great thing when you see your teams working together like that, because it does just makes leaps and bounds to keep you from having people with with tremendous burnout,
Leslie Hassler 37:44
true, and keeps your retention and unfortunately, it’s more rare than it should be, yes, but we had two different team members take a month off in our company last year, and then a lot of people took Some time, you know, but it’s that point of understanding that somebody has your back, that you can’t do any of that really an antiquated systems, you know, we find that that’s comes back to that centrality we we call it the hive mind, if you will. But the central hub that we’re all pouring into, so that no one person has a silo of information which makes you more productive. At the end of the day, it feels like it’s more work, but it really isn’t, especially when you’re, you know, like I will be in a month in Tahiti, for a full week, when I just know I won’t have to work. I’m not even bringing my laptop, you know, I probably will put my phone in the safe, just like I do tend to completely try to unplug, but you having that’s freedom for the owner as well, and that is freedom for your team members. I just think it’s still so uncommon because the headlines and our social media is all about you must be available to me, 24/7, and it’s just, it’s not respectful as humans to other humans. And I think we can do it a better way, which is, I don’t know, part of our scaling rich philosophy that we we really try to install in businesses,
Damon Pistulka 39:18
yeah. So you, you, let’s go to that, because we haven’t talked about your books yet. You got two books. You put put one out recently. First this, then that. Let’s talk a little bit about that.
Leslie Hassler 39:28
Yeah. So first this, than that is really about the foundations of growth, because what we see is that people get confused with growth and scalability. And one of the major things to that people don’t quite understand is they think that they’re done growing, and then it’s all this endless period of scalability. But just like we talked about, where you’ve got to break your business down in order to build it back up, when you’re breaking it down, it’s actually a period of growth. So growth and scalability are dance partners that come together, but there’s. Some foundations of growth, and that’s really what we talk about in first this. And that not a primer. If you’re just starting up, great you’ll find this useful. But a lot of times this is really for people that have been in business a while and are at that first stage of breaking down. So that’s first system that covers a lot of ground. A great book available on Amazon, the scaling rich, which is the book that we’re talking we’ll be releasing soon, that is a little bit more of this, all this internal work that we have to talk about, and how we’re managing the team, and how we’re changing leadership styles. Our our book has a main character, Josh, who’s going through some rough times. And it’s so interesting because one of the story lines is that Nolan, who is a star rock star player, leaves the company and takes the client with them. We’ve had these situations happen, and as you and I have been talking, I’m like, oh, there’s no one. Oh, there’s no one, right? We can see where Nolan is. But one of the epiphanies that Josh has in the in scaling Rich is that he relied so heavily on Nolan when he thought he had a system, but really he just had a Nolan. So when Nolan went away, the system went away with it,
Damon Pistulka 41:15
just had a Nolan. I like that.
Leslie Hassler 41:19
So it’s really about building it back in. And how do you build this team, this structure, the company, to sustain employee transition, because it happens, you know, the average employee stays two years. How do you do that? And how do you reduce your over reliance on somebody like a Nolan? And how do you prevent a situation like Nolan from happening in the first place? It only takes you losing one client to one employee once, most people lock down the business, but there’s actually a better, positive, constructive way to do it so that it actually can grow and scale. Because if you lock it down, the thing is, is that you still own everything is the owner, and you just will never get the freedom that you’re looking for.
Damon Pistulka 42:04
Yeah, yeah, that’s a great point. So what was the mean you now you’re on your second book. Now, yeah, that’s scaling rich. Yeah, with scaling rich the second book, what was really the the idea generator, or the light bulb moment that said it’s time for us to write some books.
Leslie Hassler 42:27
Well, first this, then that actually was written in 2018 um, we went through it, and knowing what we were going to write with scaling rich, we wanted to to bring it on brand. We got into it. We thought we were just doing light editing, and we completely rewrote the book, and that’s probably because our processes and our methodology was so tight, you know, four years later, that we needed to tighten up the book to reflect it. So that really identifies a lot of some of the back end work that we’re doing with clients, whereas scaling Rich has been sitting with me probably since 2019 and it just wasn’t quite the right time until 2024 is actually when we started writing it to bring it to life. And I think we’re in a we’re at this perfect storm of a moment where enough people are looking at the hustle and grind and going, what did I buy into? Yeah, and when is that going to pay off? Because I’ve been hustling and grinding for a really long time, and they’re looking for a more sustainable, more healthy, holistic way to grow their business. And a lot of what we’ve talked about this mutual respect with people, the you know, making the payoff happen at every level of the company, not just for the owner, those types of things. Actually what we’re finding create more sustainable, more profitable businesses than necessarily the hustle and grinded. And there’s a lot of reasons that we go through in the book. But I just think our climate, our business possibilities, the opportunities that exist today, they didn’t exist 10 years ago. Some of these didn’t exist five years ago. The rate of change is such that you can truly have this really unique business that’s just not a there’s not too many blueprints for it out there in the world. And that’s that’s the conversation that we’re starting, is just sharing with people that you you don’t have to choose between strategy and culture. You don’t have to choose between people and profit. You can do this in a very holistic, sustainable, healthy way and get it all.
Damon Pistulka 44:45
Let’s just take a moment there, seriously. I mean, it is, that is, I’m so glad you brought that up, because it is, it is not about working harder. I mean, everybody’s working hard, and if you’re not working hard to. Day, I don’t think you’re working, because most people in business have to work hard just as a to get through the door. Yeah, but owners and and how they how they run their businesses, can drastically change the performance by taking a different approach and and knowing that there are times and we are going to have to, but those times of rest, relaxation, reflection, planning, simplification, as you talked about, allow you to do it a much different way that doesn’t turn you into a burnt out mess, yep, yep,
Leslie Hassler 45:37
and that’s, that’s the whole journey that you see Josh go through and scaling Rich is that journey that is just really based on an inauguration of the clients that we’ve worked with. So I think, I do think it’s possible we’re, we’re, we’re on our soapbox with it.
Damon Pistulka 45:54
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Well, Leslie, as we’re winding down today, what I mean, it’s great conversation. Thanks so much. You what you’re doing with your biz rules, your team, helping small businesses, you know, really get their organizations in a state to where they’re not killing themselves, scaling their business, going through those plateau transitions to the next awesome phase of their business. What is the best way for people to get a hold of you? Get a hold of your team. Find out more about your biz rules and what you guys do.
Leslie Hassler 46:28
Sure we actually have a special page for your audience. It’s going to be at your biz rules.com, forward slash faces you can actually access. There’s a link for first to submit that soon as scaling rich comes out, that will be added to the page. There’s also a book guide that you can download. We have plenty of resources on the website, but if you’re if you’re wanting to see what might be possible for your business, if you’re wanting more profits, a little more freedom, and to have that really highly engaged team, then if you’d like to chat with us, there’s an opportunity for that
Damon Pistulka 47:02
as well. Awesome, awesome. So once again, all of you, Alexander, thanks for dropping the comments in your day. Appreciate it. Appreciate all those listeners. I can see we’ve got a lot of people online there that are not commenting. Thank you for being here with us today, and if you came in later and didn’t get it from the beginning with Leslie here today, go back to the beginning and go through the whole thing, because she dropped a lot of golden nuggets about how you can do some things differently in your business, leading your team to really help to reduce the burnout and make it a better place. Thanks for being here today. Thank you for being here today, Leslie, thanks for having me. It’s been a blast. Awesome, awesome. Well, we’ll finish up offline. Leslie, I want to thank everyone once again for being here. We’ll be back again next week. Bye.
