Cassidy Arbeli

Cassidy is a serial entrepreneur that has been in business for 10 years all while being a mom to 3 magical humans. I have experience launching several successful businesses and now helps other small business owners start, scale, and sustain their businesses so that they can FINALLY live the life they dream of.

https://linktr.ee/JRBolton

Transcript

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Welcome to the Josh Bolton show where he does interesting and inspiring conversations. And now your host, Josh Bolton. Alright, let me introduce myself. Go for it. Okay. Hi, I'm Cassie, our belly, I'm so excited to be here today. I'm a serial entrepreneur, a mom of three. And I'm going back to my roots to get back into helping others scale their business gain profit, and buy some time freedom, because that's ultimately what we got into business for no matter what industry you're in. And I'm super excited to be here and talk a little bit about female entrepreneurship, and how I scaled several businesses with only two employees and was able to remove myself from the equation. Wonderful. It's an absolute honor to have you on. So, um, can you tell me a bit about your entrepreneurship up and coming story? Yeah, okay. So it's a really long was, it's been about a decade now. So I will kind of keep it short and sweet. But I did grow up in a family that was, you know, very heavy and entrepreneurship on the male side of our family. And I kind of always had this vision of being a business owner one day, just because that's what I saw. And that's what I thought, you know, was like the ultimate goal. And I went to school, and I did the school thing. And I have my Masters, my bachelor's and my masters. And I got it in industrial and organizational psychology, which kind of helps link my love for psychology and business together. And I've really decided that I wanted to open a consultancy one day, like a business consultancy where you can come and have everything your business possibly needs, whether it's an attorney, a CPA, a PR person, insurance, like anything you can think of that a business needs, you get to come there and so called one stop shop, consulting firm. And I ended up actually being recruited to be an insurance agent, which is like, not something you dream about as a little kid, like, right, you know, you don't play with your dolls and try to sell them life insurance. It's just not. Yeah, it's not what I did when I was little. And so the reason I did that, though, was it was very low investment. It was something that I knew was in demand, and people needed it was residual income, which I really loved. And I was like, you know, what, what do I have to lose, I don't have to invest a lot. Like if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. But this is my chance to partner up with a brand that's already established, and really see if I'm gonna be good at this entrepreneur, ship, you know, type thing. And so I started there. And because I was able to build that residual income, just meaning that I had very consistent income month after month, year after year, and it just kept growing, I was able to take some of those funds, and for the last five years, open another business ever since. So when I say serial entrepreneur, I mean that I have several business ventures that I own or I'm partnered with. And now I spend my time managing those on a very small scale, which we'll talk about, I'm sure soon. And, you know, I really, now after 10 years of doing this and having multiple businesses, I really want to kind of go back to what I wanted to do in the beginning. I'm not, you know, saying I'm gonna open this big firm anymore, but I really love working with clients, one on one, helping them strategize and figure out how do they maximize their business and really design their business to work for them. Because when I first started business, I realized I was handcuffed to my business, my business became a burden. It was me being a glorified employee, I was making less than my employees, right, and all this risk and all the struggles that entrepreneurs go through. And it looks so glamorous on the outside, but the reality is, it's actually really, really difficult to have a profitable business. It's not something that's where they say most businesses fail in their first year or five years, right? Because it's just it's not easy. And there's no place you can really go besides like the hard knock life of just doing to learn how to really successfully start, scale and sustain a business unless you just go in and either have a knack or do a really good job learning the business foundations. Even if you went and got a business degree. It's not the same as going into business for yourself and actually starting a business. It's like things that you're taught about business acquisitions and things from like a century ago, right? So it's like not even the education you would need to really run a business successfully. So For me, I'm all about going back, putting my hand out and saying, hey, I've done this, I've been there, I've created a formula, I've used it five times, now, I have time freedom, I have financial freedom, and I want to help you get that too. And it is the most. I don't even know the word I want to say, cuz I'm just kind of thinking like, it's just so incredible. And the feeling that I get, when I see the people I work with actually take the steps and actions and it clicks for them. Like, this morning, I kind of listened into an interview of one of my clients, she's hiring some more team members, and just kind of replacing some people on our team. And all of a sudden, I heard her speak in a way that is completely different, and how we've worked on in this interview, then she would have two months ago, right. So like, just, I'm so proud of her. And it was just like, so spot on. And I can just tell that all the work that we've done up until now, it's finally resonating and that she's she's getting it and that she's on the right path to get to what it is that she told me she wanted. And so it's just an incredible feeling to really be able to show up for others now in a way that I wish I could have found people that would show up for me, right? So instead of me having to have struggled for so long, I wish there had been a place. And not just that, you know, just a place to that was kind of coming from the female aspect, as opposed to the male aspect, especially because I'm started in such a male dominated industry, that I felt very lonely in being a mom, and being a woman, whether that was in sales and marketing, and just like whatever, right, it just felt really lonely. And I have some of the things that kind of we talked about, just like that, I think really helped me when it came to my entrepreneurship journey. And specifically a little bit more, you know, being a female. But that's that's pretty much the long story. as short as I can make it. Yeah. As I'm listening with it. That could be that could just be the whole episode right there. Just talking about that. Yeah, probably. It's been a long time. But yes. So I'm curious. You mentioned two things. The first one I want to touch on and then we can get to the other one later is the your five steps you recommend? Yeah, so some of the things that I think really made a huge difference for me in the last two to three years, and also what I've really talked about. So I have a Facebook group for female Insurance Agency owners. And the reason why I have that is because like I said, it's such a niche that I feel like very male dominated. And I really get to show up for women that were just like me who really need this court. And so I talked to them about these five things constantly about how to make their experience better. Okay, sorry. I was getting attacked, you might have to edit that for okay. Yep, I will. So the five things that I recommend. First one is actually something that somebody had told me once, and it was someone I admired. And I was just like, oh, wow, like it just clicked. And she said, I still don't know what I'm doing. But I show up anyway. And I think that's one of the things was like, wow, I admired her, I thought she was so accomplished. Like, I just wanted to be like her right? One day when I grow up. And the fact that she admitted one, she still shows up scared, she still doesn't always know what she's doing. But she does it anyway, she just shows up. And for me, everything that I've done, has, most of the time been messy. It's not been perfect. But the fact that I showed up, and I took that next step is what made the difference between me and other people who didn't make it. And so I definitely say like, no matter what, show up messy. And I think for women, sometimes we have to show up messy because we've got kids of that household to take care of. And we've got a lot of other things on our plate. So that brings me to number two, which is understanding that we have a special talent as females, the special talent we have is to be able to have empathy and nurture relationships and using those relationships to advance in our career advance in our business, but also help our community while also being able to multitask like nobody else. Because before I had kids, I literally say this all the time. And I'm like, I don't know what I did with my day. Because I still had 24 hours. And now the amount of things I can accomplish in 24 hours in an hour even is like mind blowing compared to what I did before telephone right? So like we have this special talent. It's not saying that men don't but I definitely think women are better at it. It's just kind of my opinion. The third thing I think that's really important is you really have to understand that you have to own your voice when you're a female in business. Because if you don't, nobody else is going, other people are going to own your voice for you. Meaning that they will speak for you, they will decide for you, they will, you know, use your voice against you sometimes. And so it's really important for you to understand that it's your responsibility even more as a woman, to use your voice and to own it and not be afraid to use it. And then the fourth thing is, make sure that you spend some time finding your tribe, because there are, there are women out there and I have found them in abundance that were before. I spent five years feeling really lonely feeling like I was the only person going through this and I wasn't, and not being afraid to look for those other women, I mean, even just one or two that you can kind of hook arms with and just say, hey, you're on a journey, I'm on a journey, let's just be there to support each other will make all the difference in helping you show up messy, and helping you continue to try to do your best to own your voice right to empower you, they'll help you they'll support you. And I think that's those are the five things. Understanding your two speciality is understanding that you've got to find that tribe to help you show up messy even though you don't know what you're doing, just show up anyway. And just make sure you use your voice. I think it's really, really important. It is I just want to add in on your comment about moms are the best at getting things done. One of my other guests, she runs a consultancy it firm, something like that. And like it was just one of those as we're talking about remote work. She's like Josh, just, you know, like, not to be weird or anything, but she like, the best employees are moms. She's like, because they will get shit done. Because she like she to try to shoot for one that just has like a five, six year old because she's getting real, she has to work now kind of thing. And you got Yep, I agree 1,000%. Because when you have kids, and you're responsible for this little human like, and I mean, dads are too, right. But still, you know, it's 21st century, but still, women are mostly in the traditional sense, still kind of the 80%, even if you're 50%, you know, like the ones that have to handle all the things. And it's funny, because part of my brand now is called the make it happen captain, it was actually given to me, I didn't, I embraced it, somebody called me that and I embraced it. And I was like that is so true. Because if there's one thing that I think I'm really great at is just immediately taking a problem, breaking it down and strategizing how to solve it, like how to just take a step forward into getting out of that, you know, crappy situation. And I think that's what moms are great at, like, even when they might have crap on their hands, right? Like, they literally will find a way to just push through and get to the next thing because we don't have a choice. And I think that's one of the things that's great about showing up in business is just thinking like, success is inevitable, I just got to keep showing up. And not necessarily feeling like Well, I didn't hit success for year one. But like, knowing that it's still on its way, and not always feel like there has to be this timeline. The other thing too, is like I was just driving into my office today. And I had talked to somebody recently, they're looking to hire a bunch, or they just hired a bunch of people, they're really stressing out about their profit margin going down because they have this huge payroll expense. Now when I said, You know, I feel like sometimes we try to rush things when it's not time yet. And we don't allow ourselves to enjoy where we are right now in our entrepreneurial journey. Meaning like, even if you can bring home five $6,000 a month, and you know that in a year, you can scale a little bit more and maybe make seven to $10,000 a month. And then after that, right, like, you can continue scaling and still enjoy life. Maybe it's not the finer things life, maybe it's not as fast as you want to get there. But owning a business is really about a long game, if you want to have that to build you wealth for the long run. If you're just opening a business and you're just gonna like make money really fast, you're probably not going to last you might make that money but it's not going to sustain itself. And so just really talking to them about them thinking like oh, okay, well, I'm living a good life. I'm able to make decisions. I have some time freedom, like not being afraid to also enjoy this process. And knowing that it's going to get better with each step because you're taking the time to make the best decisions possible for your business without just rushing things. And screwing it all up in the process. Right. Right. Yeah, especially the running gun approach everything that can you can indirectly drop balls here and there what you needed set up metaphorically a different position kind of thing. Yeah, I also find that people don't do the work to build a good foundation. So they can continue to do the things they want to do, and have a strong foundation, because we all know if the foundation isn't good, and you keep building on it, it's all gonna crack and crumble. And that's what I work on with my customers or my clients is that sometimes we have to stop, take a step back, build that foundation back up, and then say, Okay, now we've done the work that we should have done, you know, either before we started our business or day one, and now we can actually scale and what happens is, when they do that, they actually we, you know, 10x their business in six months. And they probably would have been out of business in six months, if they didn't do the work that we did together, which they should have done original. That's what I find is really the problem. So. So I'm curious for you, especially with the foundation statement, what's the difference for the entrepreneurs for revenue and profit? So easy. revenue is sales and profit is what you take home. Right? So I think, I think people complicate. And they get confused, too, especially nowadays, in the online space, I found everybody talks about being six figure entrepreneur or seven figure entrepreneur, right? And it's like, well, what does that actually mean? Like, I have a business that makes four to five, seven figures a year? Does that mean that I take home four to five, seven figures here? No, right. But I can walk around saying that all day long. I can really count my business last year made $5 million. Great. And I could sound like I'm a millionaire just by that business alone, right. And I think that's what people don't always understand. Like, that's not what you need to be glorifying. You need to be glorifying the fact that you're taking home this profit and what is your profit margin, because somebody who is making half a million dollars a year and can take home 80% of their money, could be making more than the person who's making 5 million a year in revenue. It just, that's what's important. And so when I meet with my clients to you know, and just myself, like, I want to be profitable, that is my number one goal, my number one goal is not to be the top in sales. My number one goal is not to be, you know, the most known brand or anything like that, like I'm all about what am I taking home financially and what is going on my pocket, while also helping the people that I employ, have that same mindset and help them grow their own income and wealth and financial freedom to it's so important to me, it's such a part of my brand that I also kind of oozes out into anyone who works with me. So, you know, that's, I think the biggest difference between revenue and profit, stop looking at the top line and really pay attention to that bottom line. Yeah, especially with employee expenses, and whatever else, you need to make sure you're pulling in enough to pay for that then pay for yourself to own 100% one of the my favorite books, actually just one of my favorite authors. His name is Mike mccalla wit calyx. I don't know, I've said it before, for some reason. It's becoming a tongue twister. But he's written books like profit first, which is a really good one. I don't know if you've ever read it or talked about it before. But it really kind of flips the whole equation of like, revenue minus expenses equals profit, which is what? Traditionally, business CPAs taxes like everything really looks at, right? They're like, Okay, well, what's your revenue takeaway, your expenses, and this is what profits leftover. This is what you get to take home, whatnot, in this book, or in this whole theory about profit first, it's really about like, hey, how much do you want to make? And that's what I do with my clients do I'm like, you want to make 10 grand, you want to make 20, you want to you want to make 100? whatever the number is, what do you want to take home? Great. Now let's figure out how many sales you have to make, and how we can keep your expenses low enough so that that profit goes home with you. So it's really about thinking about your profits first, and then getting the equation together to generate what that profit is, as opposed to letting it be kind of like a byproduct, or, you know, a result that just is by default, instead of you really designing what it needs to be. So it's one of my favorite books, and just the whole theory of like, Oh, I can decide what my profit is. Are you going to make that profit year one, maybe even your five? Maybe not, but you're at least on the path to know this is my goal, this is what I'm working towards. So you're keeping the profit in the forefront of your mind as opposed to it just being like a byproduct? Yeah, that that's the the thing. I joke with a lot of my like martial arts buddies, because they're all entrepreneurs, but they're like, Oh, yeah, I pull in this much money and I'm like, but how much do you get to keep because yeah, you mean may have made 10 mil this month, but Like, do you actually get to keep that? Or you only get to keep like 200,000? kind of thing? Right? And I can't tell you how many businesses I've worked with that, you know, are million dollar revenue businesses, and they're on the verge of bankruptcy. How many times have we seen like major brands? Like go under, right? And you're just like thinking to yourself, like, how, how we know they made money, like, how did they go bankrupt? What happened? And it's really just a bad management of finances at the end of the day. That's interesting. So then what are some insights from your perspective as the entrepreneur people should look into for finances? Yeah, so in all of the businesses, one of the number one things that I think really has allowed me to stay on track of that profit mindset is even to this day, I have a process and I call it money Monday. So every Monday I spend about an hour, and I go through a routine that I built for myself, and it's really about, I check transactions, I check bills, I check money in money out. And even though I probably don't need to anymore, it's my way to kind of have that relationship with my money. You know, just like you're dating someone, or just like in a marriage, you have to make time for it. And my money is important to me, like, I don't put crazy value into money, where like, it defines my worth, or anything like that. But like, let's face it, like we all want money, we all want to build wealth, we all want to be profitable, or we all want to have like that freedom, right? That financial security and that freedom. And so for me, every Monday, I spend that time, it's an hour week, not gonna kill me. And I go through, and I really check my money. And I think that's what helps, has helped me constantly like, I am not too good to try to find better rates for vendors, or products, or expenses that I have, regularly, I am not too good to sit here and do some bookkeeping. Like, if I if my businesses are important, to me, this is something that I have to commit to. So I think that's one of the big things and then me like I almost get a high now off of generating more profit and, and making that profit margin higher than I used to from sales. So in the beginning, it was like, Oh, I just sold like this big account. And it's so exciting. But like, I don't get to keep that money does matter. So now for me, it's like, I almost get a bigger high when I can increase my profit margin. That, to me is the focus. And when I think Tony Robbins says it, but like, we're focus goes energy flows, it's kind of like a saying that he says, so like, I really think that when you decide that that's your focus, and you, you know, show up consistently to hold that relationship, that's what's made a huge difference for me, because even some of the businesses I have like, are not astronomical revenue generating businesses, but like, they make really good money. And they're not really hard to manage. And that's where I also think kind of the idea of like, having less employees, and being able to remove myself from the equation has been great. But they're really profitable. So I just think I just focus on it. And I spend time doing that. If that kind of answered your question. Yes, it did. So I have a question for you. How did you figure out the streamlining process of writing under protocols and pretty much having your employees just automate the business you check in like, whatever time of the month, you need to check in kind of thing? Yeah, so to be honest with you, it all came from like everything burning down. So it was almost like rising from the ashes. And really nothing burnt down. It was just me, I went through a period of burnout. And I could tell my team wasn't happy, I could tell like things would shock me well. And I really wanted to be like, you know what, this doesn't have to be this hard. It doesn't have to be as complicated. Just because people have said it is just because I'm noticing other people struggling doesn't mean I have to like that doesn't have to be what's written in my books, right. And I was like, we've got to find a way to keep it simple. I don't need 30 employees to get this job done. And I went to the drawing board. And I started to look like, and this was with my first business. So I had no other businesses before this. I went to the drawing board, I said, Okay, I'm gonna write down every single job we have to get done or task, whatever you wanna call it in this business operationally, every single day, week, month, whatever. And I wrote it all down. So I wrote all the jobs out. And then I looked at it and it actually categorized into four different sections. It was sales, service, marketing, and administrative. And then I said, Okay, now I need to decide what's priority, what the workflows are and what the processes are. So I wrote those all out. And once I did that, actually, my team helped me which was really, really helpful. Because they do this all day long, and so they could kind of tell me Hey, like, here's the process. And once we did that we went through. I don't know, if you, you could call it almost like, like a string. You know, like when you string pasta, like we come straining through the process and saying, Okay, what can we get rid of, like, what step doesn't have to be here, and will still get the result. So we really, really, really got it down to like three to five step processes for each thing. So that it was just like, simple and just easy to follow. And once we did that, with all the jobs, and we had the processes, really, really simple, I said, Okay, now it's time to go from me doing doing all these processes, to giving them to you guys to do, right. So I gave these processes to my employees at the time, I had size in my insurance agency. And everybody kind of took some processes on themselves. And what I started realizing is that we did such a good job, that I didn't need five, I went down to three, three of them split up all that stuff. And then automation came into the world, which was amazing, right? And so we started automating a lot of these processes, and even got down to the point where I had two employees. And what was great about that is I was no longer doing, I was spending some time in the deciding phase, meaning like they were doing the work. And then if there was an issue or something, they would come ask me, and I would make a decision. And then they would go back to doing their work. I started to slowly try to get away from deciding meaning, okay, you two employees have been with me long enough, you've seen the process that we do. Next time you come ask me a question before you ask me, I want you to do some research and try to solve the problem on your own, I will not punish you if something's wrong, like I'm not gonna like I really want us to phase out of this. So we started to phase out of me making decisions to them fully taking responsibility for the positions they had the jobs they had to complete and what results they were taking ownership for. So now I'm in the delegation phase at that point. And as I was delegating all I was really doing was spending some time every week kind of managing, so holding them accountable, like okay, here are the results you did, here's all the tasks that you completed, like all of that stuff. And what happened was these two people, because there was only two when it wasn't over comprehend, kept it really, really simple. And we automated a lot of things like texting, calling, data tracking stuff like that. My two employees were able to really work on mastering their positions and taking initiatives to do better and better every time. They came to me with ideas on how to streamline their work. When I wanted to hire another person, they were like, No, we don't need it, we got it. Like, we'll handle all this stuff. And at that point, I started spending my time designing my business to work for me the way I wanted it to. But also now I could take those that for those funds that I was making in profit and start investing in other things. And that's exactly what I did. So the next business I open, I did the same thing. What are all the things we're gonna have to do? What are the easy processes? Who can handle what? And I just did the same formula? And I did it based on what do I have? Like, what's my vision for this business? What do I want it to do for me? How much money do I want to make right profit first, and then I just started building the equation to fit that model. And within the year, we hit it, and then I did it again. And then I did it again. And I and I think people just overcomplicate it like that's really all you have to do. I think that we we sometimes just need somebody to tell us that or somebody to hold our hand to go through that process of just like this week in my program. With my clients, we actually are having them write down all the jobs they do in their business, because they won't do it. Right. They won't think about it, the overcomplicate it. They'll say Oh, like that's just too simple. Like, how is that going to help me and they start to see how the process really does work. And how they can start taking themselves away. I have another client too, who's just taking Friday's off for the last two months. Every Friday, she's taken off and like it's like amazing. It's incredible. It was almost to the point where it's like she could have taken it off anyway. And I just need to give her that permission or like Okay, look, take it off. I'm right here with you. Like if something happens, we can change the plan, but I'm challenging you to shut your computer off and just take the entire day off on Friday. And then we did it again the next week and the next week, right. So like, because she told me that was important to her. And so now it wasn't just about I have to run business. I have to work 60 hours a week. It was like No, no, I need to figure out how what my business was meant to do and how it can work for me instead of me constantly working for it. So So then, you mentioned a little earlier and that is the hiring process. What are some of the things you do? Like? I don't know, small little test or notes you take on the question the answer when it comes to hiring, like recruiting and all that. So I'm a huge, huge, huge believer in making your first of all your job posting, be a little bit more about telling the story of your company and what it is you're looking to accomplish, okay, and inviting people on a journey with you than necessarily just listing a bunch of job responsibilities and skills that you think someone needs to have. Because if somebody can read a job posting, that's more of a story, and that's compelling, and it's inviting them on this journey with you. And they still apply and say, Wow, like, I want to be a part of this company. I can teach skills, I can't teach somebody how to be a good human, I can't teach somebody how to be loyal, I can't teach somebody to, you know, to want to take initiative or to be innovative or to have empathy. These are things I can't really teach. So once somebody applies, there is a part of the job description that does give them a next step they have to take, if they don't take that step properly, like email, this particular email and have this in the job disk, or in the subject line, that I know they can't follow instructions, immediately gets rid of them. So there's, like little things that I use to filter through certain people that I know are struggling to be a good fit for me. And I only figured out what that was by trial and error, to be honest. But these are just some things that I've done. And then I do have them depending on which business it's for I do have them take certain assessments. One assessment I really, really like is the enneagram personality assessment. Have you heard of it before? I have most of the business entrepreneurs I talk to they use disc or Myers Briggs? I haven't heard that one. Yeah, so enneagram is a little bit more of like an intuitive one. It like I just know a lot about it. I've read a lot of books about it. So I feel like for me, it just really helps me understand a little bit more of where that person is coming from. And it's not a make or break. It just helps me understand like what interview questions, I want to be asking things like that. The other thing is, I'm a huge believer on behavioral questions. So behavioral interview questions, ask somebody to tell them about an experience they had, or a time that something happened. And so what that does is it creates the person being interviewed, it creates for them a space that they need to go into their brain and really think about a memory of something that happened. And it's really hard for them to just come up with an off the cuff answer, or try to live through the the answer. Because it's a behavioral based question. It just really like says like, for example, I can like, Hey, tell me about a time you got in trouble in high school and like, what happened, or tell me about a time where you were really pressured to close a sale, and you weren't successful? What happened, you know, things like that were like, you would literally have to sit back and be like, and think about a time that happened and start telling me the story. And I love that because it really helps me get to understand and know them a little bit better. But usually, within the first five minutes of an MRI, I'm like, Oh, this is going to work or this isn't going to work. It's a vibe thing, definitely see if this person is going to fit into our culture. So for me, I really go with my gut quite a bit. And then I also asked questions based off my core values on my business. So a lot of people don't know what their core values are, or they think they need core values only if they're like a huge company. But I have core values for each of my companies, even if I only have one employee, because they're almost like our guiding principles. They tell us how we want to behave, how we want to show up, what do we represent, who do we want to be? And like I said, I can't always teach some of these core values, or for someone else to be able to embrace these, I can teach skill, I can teach you how to use the software, I can teach you how to answer a phone, I can teach you, you know, even how to do a sales script, really, I just I'm not gonna be able to teach you how to have a personality, or like, how to have some fun or you know, that type of stuff. So those are the things that I think really like, for me when I'm hiring. Those are the things I look for way more than how many years somebody worked somewhere or things like that, like those are the ways that I kind of filter through. That's interesting. So does a college degree for you really matter? As long as they know this stuff? No, I have college degrees and I don't even believe in traditional education. So that's a whole nother topic. We could talk about for hours, like don't even get me started. Um, no, and I think, you know, that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I think somebody is experienced in life. And the struggles they've gone through and the way they've gotten over those mean way more than being able to read some books and memorize some information and take some exams. Like that does not matter for me at all. Interesting. That's actually one of the few things I've been asking different business owners. I had one yesterday and he's like, I don't give a shit about the college degrees, like, all it tells me is you're an expensive bitch. And that's about it. Yeah, there you go. Like really, it's, it's an honestly, like, unfortunately, sometimes that just gives them a sense of entitlement that like, Hey, I went through this education. And now I'm entitled to all this money, even though I've never had experience in your industry, your business doing what you want me to be doing, you know, like anything, right. And I actually can't think of any of my employees have degrees. I don't, I have to remember, I don't remember. But most of the people that do really, really well for me are are the ones who are just hungry, for bettering themselves and bettering their lives. And I work really hard on them with this. So another piece that I actually forgot to say was, when it came to really just doing less with more with my employees, I spend time finding out what's important to them. And what I mean by that is like, if I have a coughing spell again, okay, we're getting through this. This probably will be the last amount I can really get through. I'm finding out what's important to them in the sense of like, you want to buy a house, I had two employees who said like, It's my dream to buy a house. I'm gonna coffee. Talk about showing up messy, right? She's, like, builds up, and then I'm dying. Alright. I'm so sorry, I have to edit quite a bit. Sorry. It's all good. Okay, so I had two employees that told me like buying their first house was like, a dream, they never thought that they were going to be able to achieve. And because I knew that, I actually spent some money every month as they achieve in saving money for them to put down on their first house. And the longer they stayed with me, the more loyal they were all that stuff, like, I was able to help them achieve that dream. So in 2020, during a pandemic, two of my longest employees actually bought their first home. So it was really, really exciting. But like knowing that and saying, Hey, you know, you want to buy your first house, you talk to me consciously about how important this is, like, let's start looking, let's start dreaming. Let's put on a vision board, like, what would that do for your family? What does that mean? Great, you know, you need money, right? Like, you're not gonna be able to buy your house or afford a house, if you don't have money. And in order to get money, you have to complete all these jobs. And you have to call these people and you have to close in sales, you have to have this type of client satisfaction, or you have to help me create products, that people are going to be in demand, or whatever, you know, whatever the position is, but it really just helps them understand that like, we're not just here to generate money for someone else, we're here to better our lives. And I have employees who have been with me from day one, like almost a year, or sorry, almost a decade. And I you know, I don't think they would go anywhere. I think they're really happy. But it's because I'm constantly helping them uplevel their own life, too. And I know I mean, I'm not stupid, and they're not super either. But they know that in hindsight, the more successful they are at making money, the more successful I'll be and making money but it it ends up not being about that, it ends up being about hey, we're all trying to better ourselves together. So like, let's do this. So, yeah, I think that also made it much more successful for me and my efforts to be able to do less with more, and to be again, so probably, if I can do less with more, and I'd much rather give more money to the people that are there showing up and doing all the work, then spreading it out across more people that I don't really need, and then not having to spend as much payroll, right. So like that, again, ends up helping the overall profit margin and profitability. So that's interesting. So actually, one of my guests early on, and when I was talking to people, he he essentially, he runs his own like accounting firm in Texas. And that was the biggest one, he told me because I was saying like, Oh, your employees, some of them didn't for 20 years. He's like, it's not the money. He's like, I'll tell you that right now. He's like, it's because I make sure to learn them. He's like, he would have been something I don't know or understand. I just let him explain it to me. Yeah, he's like, don't be afraid to ask questions. I mean, obviously, there's certain things we can't ask. Right? But right. Don't be afraid to just like go for coffee or like take them out to lunch and be like, Hey, how's it going and like, a casual way that isn't intimidating, where they feel comfortable and confident enough to come to you. I mean, I've had employees come to me with the scariest things happening in their life and like they came to me before they came in to their spouse or their parents, or, you know, and it's funny because sometimes an interview is more getting towards the end, and I'm really planning on offering somebody a position. I'm like, Look, this is the type of place where like, you get locked up. And it's 3am you're calling me first. Like, that's the type of place that right? That doesn't ever happen, right? Like, hopefully that ever happened. That's not the type people I want to hire. But I'm just saying, like, if shit hits the fan, I'm here for you. That's the type of place you're being invited to work into. And like, that's what we expect from you, too, is like, to give us that dedication in the same respect. And I feel like that's the culture we've created. And that's what I want. It's part of my core values. That's not what everybody's gonna want. Right. But like, that's how we can cultivate what it is that we're looking for. That's wonderful. In the name of time, I'll just ask some Conaway questions. Yeah, perfect. So other than work during these lockdown times with COVID, what have you been doing to keep yourself busy? So me and my family actually really got into camping. So we've been RV a lot, which actually caused us to start an RV rental business. Which is we another thing we've been doing this year? Yeah. So funny. Right. But like, I thought I would hate it. But I actually love glamping. So we've been doing that. I'm old school camping. Yeah, no, I don't know if I could do it. Maybe? I don't know. I never tried it. Oh, I need a toilet. I don't know. But I love the outdoors. Like just being outdoors with my kids and my family. making all these memories, I think is amazing. So that's awesome. So then, what are some tips and tricks for an entrepreneur, someone aspiring to be like you? What were some advice you'd give them? Oh, man, I feel like I gave them pretty much all of the advice already. But one of the things I would just say like, one of the seasons, I'm kind of going through now after 10 years, is really deciding that, you know, I'm not here to keep up with the entrepreneur, Joneses like I call it to really like just decide what it is that you want in life and go after it and not worry about everybody else. I think that was I spent way too much time worrying about other people, I think people spend too much time worrying about other people. And if there's one thing that if you couldn't master not caring what other people think, like we talked about, right? Like, you'll be so much happier, do do it for you do what makes you happy, and everything else will work out, even if you have less. And especially if you have more. Because I you know you find the more money you make the more problems things happen. Or, like you can just lose your way. And as long as you can stay true to yourself and like, just do what's good for you and what makes you happy. I think that's what matters. That's beautiful. That's a brilliant summary. It's so true, though. Like I'm totally in that season of my life now that I'm like, hold on. Am I really doing this stuff? Because I want to work because I'm really trying to impress random people like what why am I doing this? Or why is it that I'm spending this time doing these things? Like is it really for me, and in the last two years, I've gotten rid of so much stuff and just been so much happier, like I have less than I'm happier, right? Like? So. Thinking about that before you really have to get to that point of removing things, and trying to just keep the things I bring you joy. That's wonderful. So then where are some places people can reach out to you, you website, socials? Yeah, so you can pretty much find me everywhere as unburden your business, and Instagram on Vernier business. My name is Cassie, our belly for my full name. And then I also have a podcast called onboarding your business, which streams pretty much everywhere. But you can find it on iTunes and Google and stuff. So yeah, I'd love for you to come hang out to Wonderful. Thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure to have you on. Thanks, Josh.