How To Build Your Empire With Stacy Tuschl - Eventual Millionaire :Eventual Millionaire

Entrepreneur, author, speaker, philanthropist and the creator of She’s Building Her Empire – Stacy Tuschl

Here’s what you’ll learn about How To Build Your Empire:

– How to use the “Parking Lot” system to know WHEN you need to hire.

– How to find and hire a great high-level manager to free yourself from all that stuff you hate.

– A “homework assignment” that weeds out applicants who aren’t a good fit.

– The one time you should NEVER hire someone.

– How to negotiate a win-win salary. (And the one thing you need to be very careful about.)

– The best way to onboard your new team members, and how to train them so they meet your expectations? without having to read your mind.

Stacy’s Website:

ShesBuildingHerEmpire.com – Spark Your Creativity, Ignite Your Passion & Build Your Empire.

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Jaime: Welcome to Eventual Millionaire. I'm Jaime Masters and today I am so excited to have Stacy Tuschl on the show. She runs an amazing site called shesbuildingherempire.com and it's so amazing to find a serial entrepreneur that is a female and a mom and has done brick-and-mortar and online stuff because, I'm sorry Stacy, but it's really hard to find people like you. Thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Stacy: Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Jaime. I'm super excited to be here.

Jaime: Okay, so tell us a little bit about the offline business so that way we have a correlation and then what you're doing now online really quick.

Stacy: Yeah, so with my offline business I started, really just for fun, right out of high school when I was 18, I decided to teach a middle school dance team. And we did it in my parent's backyard, so I wasn't charging, this wasn't gonna be an actual career, I was going to college. And all of a sudden I had 100 kids three years later coming to the backyard. So we decided okay, maybe this really could be a business and, you know, at 21 I incorporated, rented a brick-and-mortar space, opened up shop and, you know, the rest is kind of history.

15 years ago, that's when that story was, you know, today we are two performing arts academies in the Milwaukee area teaching music, dance, acting, we have a fine arts preschool. Now we have 900, almost 1,000 students coming to us every week, 40 employees, a lot of part-timers though because we are an after school activity, and we're grossing over $1 million a year. So it's a pretty crazy transition the last 15 years.

Jaime: Yeah, from backyard to 1,000 people. Awesome. Well, and that's the funny thing, I love that you can sort of show that even - no matter how young you are, even if it's brick-and-mortar you can start things without brick-and-mortar because everybody assumes that they have to have so much overhead in advance. Okay, and now you do - I mean, you coach and you do lots of things and you have amazing stuff online. So tell us a little bit about that because then we're gonna transition into all sorts of fun stuff.

Stacy: Yes. So I think a couple years ago, I would say two, three years ago, I started to really kind of get bored. And that's gonna sound so crazy, but when you're used to working so hard and all of a sudden you're building these systems and you're delegating and you're building a team, you're going, but what's left for me? What do I get to do? And that was not fun for me. I needed that challenge.

So it started to organically happen just like the dance studio. People would say hey, you know, how are you doing this? Can I pick your brain? I'd go to lunch for free, I'd Skype for free, it was just me sharing and I realized, hmm, maybe this could be another business. You know, maybe I could be doing this. And it was so much fun I loved it, just like I loved dancing I was now able to do this.

So I did get into the online space and it's very different than brick-and-mortar, but I love how I can go to an online, like a live event and a conference, and get all of these online techniques and go home and use them in my brick-and-mortar, right? So it's kind of cool how I can transition both, but they are very - it's a very different world in the online space.

Jaime: Well, and it's funny. I think people don't understand how easy - I mean it's still - business is business, we're just [inaudible] [00:05:49] distribution tactics, I think anyway.

Stacy: Yeah, I agree.

Jaime: So it's funny because when you said oh, we had so many systems I didn't know what to do, all the entrepreneurs that are listening are like you suck. No, I'm kidding. Because they're not there yet. So that's exactly what we want to talk about today because, like you said, if you were the only one in this business trying to teach 1,000 students you would die. So what did you do? Because this is one of the most elusive things, I think, is A.) Hiring and being like let me find the right person, what to pay them. So you have a whole system for this so we're gonna walk through what that is. So how do we go from no bad-ass team to a really, really awesome one that actually supports you? And I know that's a lot, but ready, go.

Stacy: Okay, so first of all, I always say yes, I have 40 employees, however, I was a solopreneur. I started by myself and I hired one person at a time. And that's the biggest thing that you can take away from this is it's one person at a time and it's just taking some things off your plate, getting that, you know, rhythm and routine with that employee, getting them up to where they need to be and then going hmm, what else do we need to take off our plate. Because what I found is when I hire somebody underneath me, you know, it might be 40 hours a week and all of a sudden they're dying and they're going I need help, I can't do all of this. And then we kind of hire somebody underneath her.

So it's just, you know, hiring one person, getting those systems in place, figuring out what do we need, what's the best use of our time and money right now. You know, where do we start? And then we go from there. So just little by little is all you're gonna do.

Jaime: So how do we figure that out? Because that's the piece. People always sit there by themselves and go where do I start. I only have this much money because cash flow's usually a thing. And what's the most important things taking off your plate? And again, we don't have to start with just like your assistant for the first thing, but let's talk about how do we find our right hand? The one that's actually gonna take a big, meaty part off of our plate.

Stacy: Yeah, so I love when I'm - you know, because even though I have the brick-and-mortar that is a, you know, very well-oiled machine, this online business, I'm still building my team and growing systems and I'm duplicating everything I've done in the first one. So I'm with you. You know, I'm still in it doing all of that. So it's very fresh in my mind of what I'm doing as well.

So what I've been doing is I use Trello. I'm a big Trello person and I will have these parking lots, what I call, where I'll stick things in there and I'll say, you know, I don't know that I need to be doing this specific task. I think I could probably outsource this. So I just kind of throw it in this parking lot that's sitting there and it starts to build up, these tasks that don't necessarily need to be done by me. And then when I decide okay, I need to hire somebody, I'm doing too much, I'll go through that parking lot and figure out, you know, what is one chunk of things that would make sense for one person to take on?

What's great in this space is you no longer have to hire somebody for 40 hours a week. I mean, you can hire somebody for five hours and say you're just gonna help me with my podcast, you're just gonna help me with social media. So it's really incredible the world we live in today with sites like Fiverr, where you can just find somebody right now, really quickly, to do something one-off for you, right?

My only thing with that is I'm okay with hiring somebody for five hours a week or just a one-off project, but I like to keep this library of people where I can go back to them, right? I don't wanna keep going to Fiverr one time or Upwork one time. I wanna keep experimenting until I find somebody I really like and then I kind of keep giving them more rope, so to speak, to say okay, we're doing great, let's do this. Or hey, do you wanna come on consistently every single week where you may be having them on retainer or something like that.

And it's the same thing for your right hand. It's, what are those big jobs that aren't $10.00 an hour, right? That need a little bit more time or it's a higher level job. So you can't expect to pay, you know, somebody in the Philippines for $3.00 an hour or somebody in the United States for $10.00 or $20.00, you might be paying $30.00 or $50.00 an hour for somebody who's like high-level tech, right? So I think it just depends on what do you need? What are your weaknesses?

You know, for me, I hated copyrighting. I'm not - I can come on Facebook Live and just talk to you forever. I don't want to sit at a computer and write a long form sales page. So that was a struggle for me and I invested in a copyrighter. But I have clients who, they're phenomenal at writing. I'm like I don't think you need to invest in that. I think you could spend your money someplace else. So you really have to figure out where your weakness is here.

Jaime: Oh, huge, definitely. And most people don't pay attention. So how do you - well, I don't wanna go down that path because I have a whole - I will link to the how you find your strengths post that I have also done so that way we can also go deeper.

Stacy: Perfect.

Jaime: Because you're right, people need to find that first and foremost because we don't need to be hiring someone that's the same as us and being like oh, wait, I don't have anything to give them because I'm doing it all, or they can't do it as well as I do. Okay, so let's say how do we find - let's say, especially in the online space, a project manager or something like that, sort of the higher level. So where do you go? How do you find them? What does that look like? Even in your offline business I'm sure you hire managers, right?

Stacy: Yeah, so with something like that, if you don't have somebody in house, you're looking to hire somebody high level, I am very particular with how I go and post a job posting. So, you know, I do use sites like Upwork. I might even use Craig's List because you don't have to do it locally, or you can post it in a couple different cities depending on what you wanna do, but I can kind of get really technical here and share some really high-level things that we're able to weed out applicants.
Jaime: Please do, please.

Stacy: Yes, yeah.

Jaime: Everybody needs this.

Stacy: So this is great for a very common job like an assistant or a project manager because a lot of people feel they can be that person. So you're gonna get tons of resumes, right? So what I like to do is kind of give them homework assignments without them realizing it's homework, right? So the big thing that I do is I always tell people, you know, please email this email address and in the subject line put this. And I make it a little different where there might be, you know, like the brackets that are 90 degrees and it's got a subject, you know, attention this, or personal assistant needed, something like that.

So the last time I did that - and I don't say personal assistant because everybody knows that phrase. I might say executive assistant or executive, something just a little different, a little off because you'll see very quickly who follows instructions and who doesn't, right? So the last time I did this we had 17 different variations of the subject line, okay?

Jaime: I love that [inaudible] [00:12:14] you did.

Stacy: 17. I did because I'm like this is teaching moment here. I have to show people how to do this. I actually wish I would have had more statistics on just how many resumes did we get in all, you know, how many actually did it correctly, how many did we even open, right? Because we don't open it unless the subject line is correct.

Jaime: Yes, good weed out. Yes, exactly. It's competence, people. This shouldn't be this difficult.

Stacy: Completely. Oh, my goodness. And that's the person I want. I want the copy and paster. I want the person to say this is what it's supposed to be, that's what we're gonna do. So one of the things that I'm doing while I'm looking through it, those brackets stand out like a sore thumb. So what's great is when you have it go to the specific email, you can just keep deleting those subject lines that are incorrect and it's gonna leave you with maybe five, or like a handful of people who actually take the time to do it correctly. So pretty easy.

Jaime: Saves us so much time. And your assistant can do that, just weed them out, it doesn't matter.

Stacy: Absolutely. Right.

Jaime: Perfect.

Stacy: Yeah, so when it's a system like that there's no, well she kind of did it right. No, no, no, it's only look at these. So absolutely you can delegate this to anybody. I mean, if you don't even have an assistant, you can say to your husband or a friend, could you just help me weed through these? I mean, that's how easy this stuff is.

Then when you go into the email there's a couple more homework assignments. And one of the things I say to people is share with me the three reasons you think this is a great fit for you. And it's a really great, kind of open-ended question where you're gonna get some good information. Sometimes information, you're going, I wish she didn't say that. I wish she didn't say she's so glad it's part-time because she's looking for a full-time job later and this is just temporary, you know, things like that. So it's really great for that open-ended question. And then we'll say, you know, attach your resume, please don't put it in the email body itself.

So you've got these three things right there and the more particular you are, the more people will fail on one of those tasks that you give them. So by the time it's all said and done there's not many people left. They kind of weed themselves out for you. So what's great is, you know, I don't have to jump on the phone with everybody. Now I can continue to weed out.

And with this specifically, we will have somebody in front of me maybe do an interview with them quickly. So I only have three people that I actually have to jump on the phone with and figure out if they're a great fit. And by the time they come to me, they're all pretty amazing, right? It's kind of hard to pick which one you hire because they all have made it through so many loops, right?

Jaime: Well, that's what we want because our time is extremely valuable. What are some of the questions that you have your assistant ask them on the phone the first time to weed them out? Or is there like - like I loved this person or I didn't love this person? Do you care about that?

Stacy: Yes. So I would say it's more about just being very natural and it's personality. You're just talking, you know, so what do you do in your free time, tell me about your family, what do you value, right? What are things that you value? That's a really great one because it kind of shows - people really have to dig deep and figure that out. So I'm not here to say do you know Microsoft Word? Do you know Facebook? We don't even care about that stuff because a lot of times those things can be taught, right? Those can be mastered.

I'm really hiring on personality, especially if this is a customer service position, or we're hiring somebody who has to be very detail-oriented. We wanna see those little things in there. So yeah, it is really great to have that kind of next step. We also have made people do video interviews for us where before we even jump on we'll actually say would you send us a one minute video maximum, you know, explaining a couple things that we said. Again, when you give them homework, not a lot of people will do it, right? So they weed themselves out again. If you make it harder you're getting the people that are really, truly dedicated and serious about this position, which is what you ultimately want.

Jaime: Heck, yes. Okay, so walk me through a little bit more because I know we have a lot to cover too. So when we're going through and you're actually making the decision, what are those big pieces? Because that's the other piece too, you're like I hope they're good. And I like to say you need at least two really, really amazing people because if you only have one and you're like oh, I guess they're better than the rest, that's not necessarily good either, right? So we want two, but how do you specifically do it?

Stacy: Yeah, so I do like to have at least three options to compare. I don't like picking somebody out of desperation because they're my only option. Yeah, being desperate and hiring is the worst combination, you can't do it. So I do like to have at least three because I think you're just gonna have this gut feeling of this one felt right, we connected really well. Because you have to work with this person, you have to be able to jump on the phone and have meetings with them or meet them in person depending on your business. You wanna enjoy the people you work with. So I do think it's this gut feeling of this was great.

But there are some red flags that can pop up and you have to make sure that you're paying attention to that. So, you know, sometimes I'll have people that will apply that I can just tell, not just tell, but they'll explain to me that they eventually wanna have their own business and they're not looking to stick around for the long haul. You've gotta be careful. Now sometimes you're going, well, this is just a temporary position so if she can give me a year, great, that's perfect. But if you know you're gonna be putting all your eggs into this basket, you're hoping she's sticking around for a decade and she's probably not, you need to know that because you don't wanna be investing in the wrong person and have them just basically come in, grab all your ideas, and head out, right?

Jaime: Lesson learned. Yeah, they're like I downloaded your brain, now I'm good, I'm gonna go. Yep. Okay, have fun, love you too.

Stacy: Completely. And it will happen, just you have to be careful. Your gut isn't always gonna be completely right, but you just have to go with that feeling. And if there's ever a feeling of this doesn't feel right, go with that, 100 percent. Every time I've been like eh, I'm not sure, okay, maybe we'll try it, it's always ended badly.

Jaime: See, I don't - I hadn't tapped in enough. So I used to be like it's based on the data and they did this and blah, blah, blah. And I remember hiring and being like, huh, no, nope, nope, that was dumb. So now I actually meditate on a decision beforehand because I can't shut off my own logical brain enough to actually do a gut check, which is fun. A lesson learned also. All right, continue.

Stacy: Yeah, so I would say just, you know, going off of that gut, going off of yes, what is that data, but then also saying to yourself is this a job that anybody really can do. And if I have the systems in place, we can make sure she excels, right? I mean, sometimes it's about what do we have set up ahead of time to get her started and then what's the accountability we have. Because if you're gonna hire somebody and hope they're just somebody who can just do it themselves and they're not that person, great, well then it's gonna be an issue.

So if you're needing somebody, and here's a great example, I'm a horrible manager. Horrible. So the person directly underneath me has to be somebody who can - I can just spit things out and she's a checklist person to go yep, done, done. And then she's a good manager, right? So you gotta find that complementary person. But if you're both these creatives where you're just like oh, we should do this and nobody's writing anything down or holding anybody accountable, it's a really bad combination too. So you've gotta figure out your weaknesses.
Jaime: Well, I have a question. So most people are going, what makes a really bad manager? I'm gonna jump to that because most entrepreneurs are like I'm good at everything. Oh, they just have to deal with me because I'm - you know? So how did you figure out you're a horrible manager and what makes somebody be able to tell that?

Stacy: Okay, so when you are in a management position, you have to be able to give that feedback or that instruction of what's happening, but then you need to make sure it actually happened. It's all in the follow-up. And I'm not a great follow-upper. I'm just going -

Jaime: Most entrepreneurs aren't. We're like oh, wait, yeah, what, no. Yeah, okay.

Stacy: Yeah, I assume if I give you something you're doing it and you're doing it exactly how I wanted it and that doesn't always happen. So I have managers in place to make sure that when I - like I'll have a leadership meeting once a month with my team and I will just shoot things out in the air going oh, we should do this, we should do that, and my managers are writing notes. And then they're going, who do we delegate that to? And is this really the best use of our time? Where should we head in that direction?

So I know that we're following up in those situations. I don't have to follow up, it's being handled for me. So that's why I say I'm a bad manager because I never think to say, oh you did that thing I talked about last week. My mind's already on next week, not on last week. I can't.

Jaime: And that's what every entrepreneur wants and so what's unfortunate, though, is if you make a bad hire and then you're trying to do both, it sort of goes all over the place and you think it's them - well most of the time. You're like oh, it must be them. I'm not - you know.

Stacy: Completely. You hire them and think oh, she's horrible. When no, we really just weren't giving them the tools, we weren't giving her the feedback, holding her accountable 100 percent.

Jaime: Definitely. Okay, so when we're actually making that offer, because I know you have sort of a system in place for this also, you're like okay, we're gonna make the offer. A.) How do you negotiate the price so that way it's a win-win? We don't wanna low ball people either. And then I know you have a little set up on how to do this so?

Stacy: Yeah. So I have mixed feelings on this and some people have very - you know, they're very set in their ways of it's a position that is $30.00 an hour, that is what it is. And then there's some people that say no, you know, every person is different. They bring different experience, so they might be higher end. And I kind of lean towards more of the negotiation and these aren't set prices, right? Because how can you have the same person - or two different people, one who is just so fit for this position and then another person who has to kind of learn that position be making the same wage? It just - it doesn't seem the right way to go for me in my business.

So I don't have these set numbers of okay, this position is $20.00, this position is $30.00, and a tech person's $50.00. No, that's just not how we do it. So there is kind of some negotiation. I do always try to let them talk first and see where are they at, right? I never - just one of those things. You never wanna be the first person to shout out a number because you wanna know where they're truly at.

So know that when you are negotiating, you know, sometimes I've seen a lot of people actually do it a little bit lower. So they might be like well, you know, I'm hoping for at least like $18.00 to $20.00, but they might be really going in their head like I really want $22.00, but I really wanna get this job so if I just get in there at $18.00 to $20.00. So you've gotta be careful because a lot of times people will be like yes, $18.00, you're hired. And they're not really happy and they're not really hoping for that price point.

So don't just go with the lowest number and say well, that's what she asked for. They're trying to do it as low as they can and you're trying to do it as low as you can and you've gotta figure that happy medium. So be very careful and pay them what they're worth. You know, really give somebody a number that they feel great about. And how amazing would it be if somebody said, you know, I'm looking for $18.00 to $20.00 and you said great, you know, we're looking at $20.00. You know, even to go to that higher number if that fits in your range.

Jaime: They're like, wait, really?

Stacy: Yeah, you're not expecting it. That was like the number they were really shooting for but they - they might even say that hoping you gave them $19.00, right? So be very careful and don't just go with the lowest number. I think that's a bad way to start your relationship because you want them to feel valued.

I also love having this probationary period without really calling it that, right? Where it's going hey, I have this two week project, it's gonna be at $20.00 an hour or, you know, $300.00 a week, whatever it's gonna be at, and then when you say listen I really liked your work I would love for you to come on. And now you maybe up it a little bit to show them that you're part of the team and you're valued. So I do like kind of going above and beyond without overpaying because I realize when you overpay sometimes they just keep expecting more and more and you're like?

Jaime: Because that's the other thing about starting low you're like ooh, there's lots of room. I could give bonuses, I could give - you know, I could actually give raises every six months or every three months to show them that they're doing well also. So it's kind of a fun thing to try [inaudible] [00:23:47].

Stacy: Yeah, I mean, you've gotta figure that balance out.

Jaime: Yeah, okay, so tell me about this probationary period though. How long have you seen it worked? What sort of projects can we do? And is that weird being like oh, by the way, I'll fire you in two weeks? And is that enough - I mean, you're not gonna say that, but you know what I mean.

Stacy: Yeah, yes.

Jaime: Is that enough time for you to really understand what they're good at, especially if they need skills?

Stacy: Yeah, so I would say this is gonna vary. And it's really more on a project basis. So our last person that we hired, we hired a new social media person who was gonna come on and work 40 hours a week for us. So we actually have her two full weeks of 40 hours and said here's what we're looking for. We are - and we actually said to her we're hiring a few different people for two weeks. We just wanna see who's a great fit and then we are gonna have somebody come on with us full-time.

So you can have more than one person experimenting with you. You know, only give one person Facebook, give one person Instagram. You can let them try out certain things or say you're only gonna be posting on these days and times, right? So you could have them help you. So I think everything is gonna be different. You might have some website tasks that you need help with so I love hiring on a per project or just for like a short window.

You could even say to somebody, I've got a big launch coming up and I'm looking for somebody to help me create, you know, 30 graphics or a graphic a day or something like that. They don't have to know that this could ever be a full-time position. You know, you could let them know that this is just something you need right now and then say listen, I loved what you did, would love to have you join the team, here's what I have to offer. And you figure out if it's a good fit.

Jaime: And that explains it a lot more, especially if - I wouldn't be like oh, go ahead and quit your job and then oh, wait your two weeks - right? So even doing it per project that's after their job and then you can test them out that way. That's actually a really good idea. We usually end up testing also, but for like two months to really start trying to see and they know and we put metrics and all that fun stuff. But what's tough is if they've quit a job before and they come over and you're like eh. Now they probably would have failed anyway, but still. But still, I like the shorter terms and you can really start to see if they can excel and/or not.

Stacy: I'm the worst firer. I make sure I am not that person because I just feel so bad. I can't let them go and if they're with me for two, three months, you know, you've done some kind of connection [inaudible] [00:26:05] it's just like oh. So I would rather do shorter. And yes, I'd rather be flexible and say you can do this in the evenings after your job that you already have or I'm just looking for a couple hours. You don't have to go full-fledged 40 hours a week. This person that we had do that didn't have another job so she was able to jump in immediately.

Jaime: Perfect. How do you tell if she did a good job and didn't do a good job and you want to or not? Because that seems kind of gray area-ish also.

Stacy: So I think you have to understand that nobody can just read your mind and they're not gonna come out and just give you everything you want on day one. But what you can expect is when you give feedback, you want it to have improved round two, right? So week one is just let her do stuff and see how it goes, give feedback to see if there's any improvement in week two. So actually with our social media person that we just had done this with, at first it was okay, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted and I am pretty strict and I want it like this. But I gave feedback and she took it immediately and came back and delivered what it was supposed to be.

So to show that somebody can actually take that in and then continue to do a great job and to want your feedback, because if they don't want your feedback, and some people don't, it's gonna be a really tough challenge moving forward with them.

Jaime: Yeah, or if they're like well I think this would be better. You're like yep, but I'm the boss, so okay, no. My feedback does matter a little bit more than yours, unfortunately. So when you actually do onboard somebody, what are your expectations? Because I feel like in general entrepreneurs don't have a good set up of how much they do need to train and how they onboard and what systems are set up before so that way you can actually train them properly.

Stacy: Yeah, so I think we just assume they're gonna come in and they're just gonna dive in right away, but that's not the case. They're so nervous, they just wanna make you happy and they want you to tell them what to do.

So I always tell people that I want you to pretend like you're going on vacation. And what I mean by that is when you go on vacation you are working like a crazy person up until you leave, right? You're getting everything done so that next week you don't have to do anything. I want you to do that. I want you to pretend like you're going out of town so that next week your schedule is cleared and you are just there to work with those employees or that team member. Otherwise I think you're just setting yourself up for frustration, you're gonna blame the employee or the team member because you're assuming they're not doing it, but really you're there to help them help you.

So take that week off, get them set up, and then you can start to back away. And what's great is, they're not gonna need you eight hours every day. So when all of a sudden you give them something to do and they're working for a little bit, go back to your email, go back to a project, but at least you don't have a million interviews and schedules and things, appointments and all of that on your calendar. So I love to clear that schedule.

And then I think it's just so much better for you and for them because you want them to like their job as much as you want to like them, or they could quit on you, right? So you wanna help set up those systems as well because you wanna make sure that if they don't do this in the future or they don't work out you've got these systems set up for the next time. So to me that's a big system creation week while all that's happening.

Jaime: Ah, that makes so much - so I remember a long time ago my business coach told me a month - like give that as your No. 1 priority. And I'm like a month is a long time. But it really set up my expectations because beforehand I was like well, I can just do a little bit here and a little bit there. But I love your week idea because I think it creates that bond and/or connection a little bit better too because sometimes we're like oh, they're just like a contractor. You know, whatever, it's not a big deal. It's very different.

Okay, so how do - like run me through what that week looks like because I love the idea of creating systems so you don't have to do it again. So what do you do and how do you create those?

Stacy: So first, systems in general overwhelm people because they are going, I don't wanna have to do all these systems myself, where do I even start, you know, it's just so confusing. So what's great is this new person's gonna help you create the systems, right? You don't have to do them all, they can help you with that. So with that said, I would probably schedule every single morning to jump on and talk to that person, okay? Which might sound like a crazy amount of time, but they're brand new, they need guidance. And how great for you to set them up for the day, let them do their thing, and then meet them that next morning, right?

So I mean, I would even maybe have office hours where if they need you in the early afternoon or something we can come back and jump on so that they're getting that feedback, that guidance, because you're gonna find out very quickly how bad your systems truly are when you tell somebody to do something and they're going I don't know any part of this, right? You need step by step.

So we like to set up systems a lot now with video. You know, I would say most of them are video because it's something on the computer. Or even if I'm talking about social media. So let's say I'm showing my Facebook page. I'll screen share my Facebook page and say see this one' This one I like it, but the logo here, I think it should be moved down and these colors don't really match this and this font should be a little bit bigger. So when they can see it, it's so much more visual. So you don't even have to be in that meeting with them specifically. You could be sending them over a quick video tutorial of what they did.

So we have our people at the end of the day give us a report of what they did that day, they might have just been researching. So funny, the social media person actually emailed - or she put in this report, things Stacy always says. And it was like the word amazing and ladies and it was so funny. I'm like do I say that? That's so crazy. So she was [inaudible] [00:31:35] to learn my wording and how I say things and what feels off-brand. And to me that was so great that I could see her researching because you might feel like what is she doing today? She's been doing nothing. She's been watching all of my Facebook Lives and all of my graphics and seeing how I comment with people and engage.

So it's great to have that report of when did you work today and what did you do because you'll be surprised the things that might have taken them a little bit longer and it'll help you figure out, wow, they're kind of struggling on this, it should not have taken two hours, let's talk a little bit more about that.

Jaime: I love that. I love that she's - like that shows initiative also, which is what you're looking for because we can't actually tell them every single little thing to do forever. Okay, especially even if you are a good manager still.

So you tell me, where do you keep those? Because that's the other thing, I've been trying to research the best way to hold SOPs so that way - we use Dropbox and we have a whole thing and we have videos and it's all linked, but I feel like it's pretty cobbled together in general and most of the people I interview are like that too. So what are you guys using and how do you use it to be efficient with it?

Stacy: So we've been doing this for a long time, and this might be old school to some people, but it's one of those things where if it works, it works. So we actually have set up a private Google site that is only for our team.

Jaime: Like intranet.

Stacy: Yes, basically. So yeah, it's almost like a private website just for us and on the left side there's all these little tabs where we can actually say social media. And if you click on social media there are now all of these different systems, right? So there's all of these things that we can link to, connect to. So we're really stuck inside of Google. We do a lot of Google Drives, things like that. And what's great about Google Drive is if you're going, well I don't know how to upload a video into there or how do I put that, you can really have just a spreadsheet with links to maybe Vimeo or a Dropbox video.

So you don't have to learn how to upload all of this stuff into Google Drive, it's more of just that, you know, that home that houses all of those templates and then you just click here and it takes you somewhere.

Jaime: Yeah, because otherwise people, when you sign them on you're like oh wait, we have things every - oh, where's the - you know? Or the structure or whatever, there - Dan Martell calls it a playbook, but it's okay, this is all the things that we do have. We don't have everything, but if you look through this first you might not have to come to me, which is kind of important, right? How big is that?

Stacy: Well, and then we let them know there are those gaps. You know, what are we missing? Help us build that because we're not even thinking to add that in there.

Jaime: Well, and what about changes though too because especially with social or just in general things change often, probably too often. It's a pain in the butt. And so how often do you update what those are?

Stacy: So here's what happens with systems. When you have somebody starting setting up systems they're accurate. And then all of a sudden they start to get really good at what they're doing and they don't look at systems because they know how to do it. So when you go to hire somebody new I always tell my staff don't ever assume this system is correct anymore, right? You just never know. So use it as a guideline, go through it, and you may be updating during that training. So what's great is you still have that first draft, but now we go to tweak it.

So systems get out of date just because the nature of our business and how things are changing, you know, nothing's gonna be the same all the time. Some will, some won't. I would say most won't. So really just use it as your first draft and almost your trigger of ooh, this is something we have to teach them. Okay, let's go teach them this. Okay, let's make sure that's correct. And I do wanna update them because like I said, if she doesn't work out and we have to fire her or let her go in a couple months, I wanna make sure that we don't have to redo it again with somebody else.

Jaime: Definitely. But you also don't wanna spend so much time updating SOPs when that's not a huge priority in any way, so who cares if they're out of date unless somebody's actually using them as best as humanly possible. I wish we just had AI to do it all for us. Like record my screen for me, I don't have to deal with this.

Stacy: One day. One day, I'm sure.

Jaime: That's what - I'll create that. That'll be great. Okay, so walk me through, so let's say - how do you know whether or not you're doing a good job or your manager's managing them correctly or all those pieces of going how do we know? Do you do employee reviews? You tell me more about that system.

Stacy: Yeah, so we do employee reviews and right now we do them every six months. I would say the first six month period is really just a smaller little intro of what's going on, kind of just a little feedback, because a year is a really long time to wait. And then the big year is, I would say, that big evaluation, raises, things like that. So we have this mini one and then we have this bigger one. But yes, we really do have - every position has different tasks and different things that we write down.

So not everybody's evaluation looks the same because we wanna make sure that we're really evaluating that specific position and does this make sense to move forward. We also have our team members - almost like this little survey, evaluation, that goes out to evaluate their managers, okay?

Jaime: Right. You wanna hear the backend too, yeah.

Stacy: We do. So it's link that we send out, they fill out this little - this information, the managers do not get to see those answers so it's private. It's just between them and myself and then I can see where are things happening and when you have more than one person under a manager, are there - is it one person who's upset and she doesn't like this person, or is it a common thing that you're continuing to see. So it's really great to be able to do that. Now I have such a great team that things like that don't happen as much, but it's because I've gotten - you know, 15 years of hiring and firing and finding great people.

But let me tell you, even just a few years ago I was going oh my goodness, why doesn't anybody listen? Why isn't anybody doing what I told them to do? So it is trial and error and, you know, you just keep hiring until you find that great person and then you keep them around as long as you can, but sometimes they start, you know, to fall away or fall, I should say, with what their job was supposed to be doing, right? They get to be very comfortable. So you have to be careful on that too. So it's just making sure that you're constantly talking with one another. Are you happy here? What can I do for you? Are you feeling supported? How can I support you more? All those questions.

Jaime: I love all - and do you have any templates or examples that you can - and you don't have to think about it right now, but we would love examples. Because the thing is you tell us about this survey and we're like great what [inaudible] [00:37:52].

Stacy: What's on it?

Jaime: Right?

Stacy: So I can definitely send that to you, yes.

Jaime: So anything you can share for after I will put everything in the notes so that way people can be like I have somewhere to start. It's most likely gonna be tweaked in general, but it's hard for us entrepreneurs to just come up with nothing out of the ether, right' So tell me a little bit more about figuring out what their - KPIs are key performance indicators or it sounds like you're having some sort of measurement and/or - how do you figure out what is right for what job, especially if it's vague or doesn't necessarily have a KPI specifically?

Stacy: Yeah, and you know, it's a really good point with the KPIs because sometimes you'll see when I give you this sample, is sometimes the questions on there or when we're evaluating them, it's not even about like the specific, like the main priorities, it might be going - because we have a brick-and-mortar, so we have both sides. Are they showing up on time? Are they showing up? Things like that going - because you can be amazing at your job, but you never hit the deadlines and you never - you know, there's certain things that you're just not hitting. So we measure specific things that really are detrimental to our business.
So you could be a great copyrighter, but if you're not giving to me on the deadlines and you're throwing everybody else off, we need to be aware of that. So you wanna just say to yourself, what are your expectations of this position? So this is something you should have set up for the job posting and then it's the same thing for the evaluation, right? Like this is what you were hired for, this is what you're being evaluated on, how do we get better at this.

Jaime: Do you pick - like what if they are doing a couple things wrong? I know you're supposed to tell them what they're doing well, give them some feedback, metrics hopefully, right? And then that way you can measure sort of less emotionally also. But what do - how many things do you give them feedback on in one sort of six or year-long review?

Stacy: Oh, great question. So in general I feel like this is a survey, right? Like this is one of those forms that you set up and maybe in Google forms, something like that. I never like to have more than ten things ever when I'm surveying my customers, my employees, whatever it is. First of all, nobody wants to take, you know, 30, 40, 50 questions, they want it to be short and sweet. So I always say - I just - I set up these ten questions and if I have a question No. 11 I go which one can I remove? Which one doesn't make sense?

I don't wanna go overboard either and you definitely don't wanna feel like you're nitpicking, right? You can't have a bad category every single question you ask so you do have to figure out what are their strengths. And if it is all bad, why are they still working for you?

Jaime: Exactly, right?

Stacy: Right?

Jaime: Wait a minute, yeah. Okay, perfect. So tell me a little bit more - because I know when we were talking beforehand you were saying that you can help with the dream team, right? To be able to have the managers really manage and actually care about your vision. And I think that's what's - people are like oh, well, it's a job or it's this. How can we really inspire and be the leader that we need to be in order to run the company that we want?

Stacy: Right. I think this is a big lesson learned many years ago was setting up leaders you no longer can micromanage and you have to pick your battles. You're trying to have them lead, but you're shutting down everything they suggest, okay? It's really difficult - and then they stop suggesting because they know she's gonna say no, right? You've gotta be really open to their ideas. So there are sometimes that I will say yes to something when I honestly don't even want it. And I don't really want to move down that path, but I'm like you know, she feels really strongly about this, it's not a big deal, it's not gonna move the needle one way or the other in that specific area and if she wants to see that happen, great.

Or in customer service, you know, if you have a department where you have customer service and there's this manager that's managing it and she's going, I think we should start doing this. You have to kind of step back and say well, I think that's dumb, but I'm not in the email, I don't do that, and I don't answer the phones and, you know, she actually has a great point of why she wants it that way so you kind of give them that full rein of if you're leading this department and I have nothing to do with it, I'm gonna trust that you know what you're doing in that area or we're gonna at least test it and we're gonna see, right?

So I kind of say yes to more things than I ever used to, but it's things that aren't detrimental to my business. Trust me, if there is something they say, they suggest, I'm going, we're never doing that. Like, just, no. This is why, we would never, I'm sorry, I can't. But then I make sure I can say yes to a lot of the other things that really don't make a huge, huge difference and they get to lead, right? They get to be in charge. And I think that's the biggest thing is leaders wanna lead and if you're constantly micromanaging it's just not gonna work.

Jaime: See and we as entrepreneurs are like but I'm a control freak and I would like to make sure that everything is exactly how I want it. I love the fact - and I loved your facial expressions when you're like no, that's dumb. How do you stop yourself from automatically doing that and actually being open? So for me I have to go oh, that's interesting and then I go away and come back and then talk about it. [Inaudible] [00:42:41].

Stacy: I wish I could do that. I am like no, I don't - no, I can't. So here is what I do. I have to really go okay, I get why you would say that. Here is the behind-the-scenes reasons why we can't do that or why it doesn't make sense for our business. So I really explain why is it a no because I wanna see if there's something devil advocates here where you can say well, but what about this. I wanna have that conversation. So I just shoot it out there, I wanna hear what they say. And sometimes they'll go oh, I didn't realize that's why you did it. Okay, that makes sense, right? And it just shuts it down and now they're on the same page with me versus just hearing no we're not doing that.

Jaime: Yeah, like no. Because like you said, the whole point - because they're human beings. We don't have robots yet so we have to deal with human beings and they have to actually care about your opinion and not just assume that it's always gonna be negative towards them anyway because then they're just gonna not do as well for their work anyway.

Stacy: And trust me, they love when you pick - like when you had this idea that was their idea, it feels so good, they're almost bragging like oh, I thought of that. Did you know that she put that in play? So it really gives them - like they feel like they are just part of this team and they are building it with me and I am not at the top. We're together. So I really, truly believe giving them those responsibilities, even giving people responsibilities in certain budget aspects where they're in charge of this department so yes, they get to make or break decisions on all of that.

You still get the final say, but let them decide. You know, when they start spending money, they spend it a lot better when they just say to you, can you buy this, can you do this and they just think the money is just never ending, right? Whereas when you say listen, here's the budget, spend it however you want but this is the budget for this specific thing, they get to feel that sense of wow, she really trusts me.

Jaime: I love this. How do you build that team feeling and culture? Is it a daily thing? What are some things that you do to really make sure that everybody is a holistic whole?

Stacy: Yeah, so it's not an easy task. I mean, there - that is not something where I can even say like right now everybody in my business just loves each other. No, we're like family and sometimes family, sisters don't get along and you're going why are they arguing again and then you've gotta kind of get in there as the mom to say listen, here's what's going on. So trust me, it's not always this amazing everybody loves everybody. But I can tell you, I know who loves this job and who's not going anywhere and who loves one another and wants to hang out.

And we have people that actually will - because remember, I'm brick-and-mortar, so I have people that actually get to hang out with one another. Or in my virtual business, when we get together, live together, we're going hey, let's do this, hey, let's do that because we just can't wait to see each other. So I think it's just that feeling of we actually want to spend time with one another, we want to be doing that. And it shows people too that it's not always all business. We can actually come and have fun together.

So I think it's important to schedule whether it's a retreat, you know, where you get to go and do something with one another. You can have a little work in there, but it also should still be a lot of fun stuff and just to show people that you care and you're really here to help them and take an interest in what they're doing and their family and all of that.

Jaime: I love this. Okay, and give me the line though, because I used to coach with salons and stuff like that and the amount of drama. I'm like this - I would never run a business like this. Or the interpersonal relationships, so like being able to go how much do you share as a business owner, how close do you want to get, where is the line of that, you know what I mean? And with each other. So give me some line [inaudible] [00:46:08] things.

Stacy: Yeah, so you have to be very careful, especially me. I come out in a space and I say I have a seven figure business, okay? And then I go into my building where some people might be making $12.00 an hour, right? So it is a little different. And what I do have to share is yes I make seven figures, but it takes a lot of money to continue to run this business and we have two - we own both of our buildings so we have two buildings that we have to pay the mortgage on and the heat. I will say things like well, we just put in an $80,000.00 parking lot, you know? I want them to know we bring in a lot of money, we spend a lot of money too, right?

Jaime: Because most employees don't - and I have a tangent on this too because most employees don't understand. They're like oh, we see all the inflow and then employees just assume you're rich or whatever. And you're like, dude, the net matters. I'll show you my expenses, net matters.

Stacy: Yeah, so it is - you have to be very careful and you don't just always share the good, you have to share some of that negative stuff to say listen, you know, it was a bad month, we had to pull from our line of credit, you know, we gotta make sure we jump up next month. So you can share things, but you have to be careful you don't scare them into thinking the business is tanking, I better start looking for another job, right? So it's this really weird balance of yes we're doing well, it costs a lot, but don't worry, you still have a job, there's security here. So it is that fine line of what are you sharing and what aren't you.

One of the things that - I have a friend that does this. She actually has a yearly meeting where every single year they sit down and they share those numbers and they go here's what happened and here's what we spent and here's what our payroll was. And sometimes their minds are just blown when you hear these numbers.

Jaime: See and that's a - I actually fired somebody and they're like you're too personal. I'm like one of my company values, not that you see it, is transparency. I love you, you love me. This is sort of how we go. And I will share almost as much as I need to make sure they understand all positions, not necessarily scary stuff for sure. I even did a whole thing on how husbands and wives shouldn't necessarily scare - share all the scary things because it - you know, we'll figure it out, it's fine. That being said, where is that line especially when you're working with your employees on them actually connecting and communication issues and stuff like that. How do you deal with that?

Stacy: That's a really good question because sometimes you wanna, you know, just talk with them and it's more small talk. How are you? How's the family? But when they start to project all these problems on you, we've had that happen too where we had to have a meeting and say listen, we love you, we're here for you, whatever we can do for you we wanna know, but you can't keep bringing these problems into the building and share with everybody. Because you have to be careful too that they're not sharing it with your other customers as well, right?

It's one thing to keep it in the family with the employees, but to bring that to the customers you have to be very, very careful. And with social media these days it's really hard because you don't know who's friend requesting who and what they're seeing and what they're putting out there. And you've gotta be very, very careful. So there is that line of what feels right, the energy has to be there. Sometimes we have very negative people and they don't realize they're being negative, they're just sharing what's happening in their life and life isn't going that great and it can take everybody down, right?
Jaime: One of my company values is positivity also. Huh, who knew? Lesson learned, right? So I had somebody that we - I affectionately called Eeyore, very amazing, awesome person but hmm, you know? And it's amazing to sort of - especially when they're local and that sort of thing, you're like oh, if you bring everyone else down, I can't have that because we need everybody else to have that level otherwise everybody goes down. But it's hard to recognize that, especially when you care so much about them is, like oh - especially problem solvers. Awesome. I'll help, I'll solve it.

Stacy: Yeah, one of our problems was people not knowing when the time was to vent because everybody wants to just go oh, this just happened today with a customer. But there's a time and a place and you can't do that all the time, every time you see one of our other employees, to be like now this is what happened. Because now it's like you're just gossiping, right? There's nothing positive happening there. So you do have to be very careful and you need to set that level of expectation with your team.

Jaime: Yeah, when we go into companies it's like oh, wait, there's just a whole bunch of gossip. If you can get rid of those pieces, this is not a reality TV show, people. If we can get rid of those pieces who knows who's a good employee versus who isn't because it seems like it tanks absolutely everyone, which sucks. Okay, so what are your - I know we have to start wrapping up. I told you this was gonna go longer. So what are your final thoughts on hiring and the dream team? Because I know a lot of clients banging their head against the wall trying to find the right people.

Stacy: So I really just want you to understand that when you're going through this, every part of this is temporary. The hiring part is temporary, right? You hire her on, the training part is temporary. Just know that there is a bigger vision. You know, even if you have to put a post-it on your computer saying, you know, yes these next two weeks or month is gonna be tough, but it's gonna be amazing and she's gonna help you and it's gonna take this, this, and this off your plate and give you three hours extra a week or whatever that is, right? So I want you to be thinking about the big long-term goal and not how sucky this is right this second. You know what I mean?

So that's what I would tell you, but it's so worth it. I mean, every person you hire, trial and error, keep getting them better. I heard somebody say that, you know, if a flower isn't blooming it's not the flower's fault, it's their environment. And really make sure that am I doing everything I can? Sometimes it is the - I feel like sometimes it's like no, this flower is just - we gotta go, it's a weed, it's not a flower, right? So you gotta figure out what it is but you have to first say okay, it's probably my fault, where can I fix this?

Jaime: I adore all of this and the template and examples and everything because I feel like people, especially newer entrepreneurs that are just sort of hiring and don't have that experience from beforehand, literally it's mind-blowing to go through, right? So thank you so much. I'm gonna ask the same last question that I always do. So what's one action listeners can take this week to help them move forward towards their goal of a million?

Stacy: I would love for you to start that parking lot that we talked about. So go through your daily tasks right now. What are some things that you're not the only person that could do it? Kind of set your dream parking lot of my next hire. This is what she's gonna start to do and I would just take that off your plate. That's really step one and then start building on that every day or every week, something that comes to your mind and going ooh, I could probably delegate this. Throw it in that parking lot because that's gonna be your job posting pretty soon. You're building the job posting up.

Jaime: I love it. It's actionable for right now. So everybody, make sure you go ahead and do that, you can do it in Asana, you can do it in Trello, it doesn't have to matter just a parking lot. I love it. Where can we find more about you' I know you do content just like this so you tell me where we can find out a bunch more about you, Stacy.

Stacy: Yeah, so my brand, She's Building Her Empire, our website is shesbuildingherempire.com, the podcast, everything, that's the Facebook group. Just search for that and you're gonna find it. But, yes, lots of free content, lots of free things there so go check it out for sure.

Jaime: So if you like this, you'll like that. So make sure you go ahead and go check her out. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. I really appreciate it.

Stacy: Oh, thank you. Yeah, thank you so much. This was so much fun.

Tags: building a brand, business goals, business tools, entrepreneur podcast, hiring, how to be a leader, how to hire employees, jaime masters, millionaire entrepreneurs, millionaire habits, Stacy Tuschl, strategic goals, top entrepreneurs

Categories: All, Featured Millionaire Interview, Hiring/HR, Millionaire Interviews, Systems/Processes

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