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Rob Buffington 14:22

Well, it’s funny that you chose that as the example because that’s exactly where I am leading day to day right now. As with you know, the bigger the organization gets things are no less busy. But what we do is we just we like to build from the ground up we’d like to promote within wherever possible. And so yeah, we like to give people the opportunity to rise but there’s also a time to go with outside hires and bring experienced people too.

Jeremy Weisz 14:49

Yeah, so like, I guess then we’ll start there with Gordian Financial what what is the next position you’re gonna put in place as you because you’ve stepped out of these other businesses. We’re not really managing the day to day. What is the next Step What position or personnel you put in place or people for Gordon financial so that you start to step away from that one.

Rob Buffington 15:08

At this point, we’re looking for a head of account or not a head of accounting, excuse me, a head of the company, a president or vice president to run the division under Gordian Business Solutions. Obviously, somebody with a strong finance background, but not necessarily an accountant by trade, but they need to know enough to supervise the the accounting teams we have in place. And that’s a difficult one, because it’s, it’s Yeah, that’s a fun one. Because it’s not just skills, they have to have your philosophy and your heart, they have to take care of your people, they have to have the same.

Jeremy Weisz 15:43

what point do you find is the right time to do that?

Rob Buffington 15:47

For you, usually six months before I do it, I usually wait a little too long. I’ve always said that as the as a business owner, as a manager, whatever the role may be, you have to protect your time, first and foremost, your time, your mental energy, all of that. And so I’ve always even going back to the days of my first company, I’ve always asked myself, is this worth X dollars, I would take them out, I would put that on my time and distort it was $100 $100 an hour. And at the time, that seems so arrogant, because I my last job was working security making 20 bucks an hour. So that was a that was a pretty ambitious leap. But it was such a great thing I did because it made me say Well, can I get somebody else to do this for me? So I can focus on growing the company and focus on sales and stuff like that. And that number keeps growing. So the question becomes, number one, is the company healthy enough to bring in an outside person, you can’t bring in somebody to a dumpster fire and expect them to lead with it. And the reason people get stuck in this feedback loop is because they can’t get the company where it needs to go to bring in outside help. And so they keep going around in circles. So you have to get to the company to the right place. You have to be willing to let go emotionally, you have to trust somebody else with your baby. And you need the objective criteria in place to track how things are going. Love it.

Jeremy Weisz 17:14

So let’s take the Gordian Staffing, then what were some of the key positions you had to put in place there so that you can step away?

Rob Buffington 17:23

So we have a Director of Operations Mexico and a vice president of customer development. And one foot one runs the the Mexico operation one runs the US operation? And then they both report to me.

Jeremy Weisz 17:41

Got it? There was another? You know, we were talking before we hit record, just to give a greater understanding about what you do. There was a company, I think, that has over 700 staff and more than 10% You helped with? What were the some of the things you did there.

Rob Buffington 18:02

Were as with any company, we started with them. Couple positions, hey, let’s give it a try. Let’s see how things go. And then it was more and more and more than pretty soon as five or 10 a month and we just had regular onboarding days. And it was just a well oiled machine. And same thing, to my knowledge, they’ve never cut a domestic employee, but it’s a high turnover. economy right now people are leaving. And it also helps them create new positions that maybe they wouldn’t have done without the lower cost of labor. So yeah, we’ve been able to partner with them for several years now. And now they have over 10% of their staff with us,

Jeremy Weisz 18:40

you know, you have a high volume of, in general helping people hire, what are some of the mistakes people make, when they’re they’re hiring?

Rob Buffington 18:53

Probably the most most common is that they’re hiring because they need help. And they don’t have a clear plan of how that what that helped. Looks like. They come to us because they’re drowning. I need somebody like, okay, great. What do you want them to do? Well, I need help. Okay, what kind of help? And that’s one of the things we do is we help them walk through it and say, Okay, I need somebody who’s going to answer phones 50% of the time, and I’m gonna have him do ap 30% of the time, and then they’re going to check social media 20 We help them put it into objective criteria, because too many people, they’re drowning and my heart goes out to them because I’ve been there. Some days, I’m still there. But they don’t have a plan. They don’t realize it’s going to take more time up front to train that person. So you actually lose productivity the first couple of weeks in time you build your way out of it, but most people think it’s kind of like a, you know, a plug and play system where they just show up and fix stuff. But you have to lead. So I’d say that’s the most common problem we run into. So you

Jeremy Weisz 19:57

say to someone Hey, map out all of the tasks or things you want someone to do. And if they have that, when they contact you, it’d be much more fruitful relationship.

Rob Buffington 20:09

So something I’ve told people when they call me and I feel like they’re not ready, as I say, I’ll make you a deal, I want you to take a three by five card or like a, you know, a yellow legal pad or something, and carry it around with you. And, or it can be a note on your phone, you know, pull up the Notes app, every time you think of something that I wish I had somebody doing that just just jot it down, and just do that for a week or two. And at the end of it, I want you to take a look at that and see if there’s a job description in there. Because it’s not going to be 100%, it’s gonna be like 80% of the tasks Max. People will say, I want a graphic designer that can also do my taxes and can do, and it’s like, some things are not compatible. So you got to you got to make them work. But one of the best ways to get started is to just start tracking things like, Oh, I wish I had done that, oh, I wish I had somebody who did that. And just let the list accumulate and see what comes with it.

Jeremy Weisz 21:03

And then it sounds like people can then just categorize it. And maybe there’s chunks of positions within that list. Exactly. Yep. Love it. Let’s talk about partners, and some of the learnings from partners. That you mentioned before. You know, it’s not always the case. But in that case, you had some learnings from from having partners?

Rob Buffington 21:31

I did. Yeah. And I gotta be careful because I have a non disparagement agreement with. Yeah, short version is what I mean, like,

Jeremy Weisz 21:41

what would you do differently next time, I guess you could say,

Rob Buffington 21:46

jump in front of a train before doing business. I would have vetted them a lot, a lot closer I was younger, the the way it happened was I put my offer in for the building services company. I couldn’t qualify on my own because I was you know, I was broke. I didn’t have enough to collateralize with for a seven a loan. And I got through due diligence. I got my offer accepted, I couldn’t qualify. So I had to withdraw. They were the second place offer. But they heard good things about me because I talked to the seller, and I got to meet some of the people. So they approached me about running it. And I was I was young and I was kind of all awed by the idea of like, venture backing and all of this and and in hindsight, it was just it was just being foolish.

Jeremy Weisz 22:34

From what you’re saying? I mean, it all seems natural, right? It’s like they have funds, you want to run it?

Rob Buffington 22:40

Yeah, yep. Yeah, I didn’t vet them properly, we were very diametrically opposed in our worldviews and what success meant, not that I don’t want to make money if a business doesn’t make money. It’s not a business to charity, which has its place too. But the difference is I wanted to put the long term investment and I wanted to take care of the people I wanted to bring in raises, make things better have a very good place to work, as opposed to coming in with the corporate raider mentality of where can we slash costs? How can we amp up production? 200%? Just things like that.

Jeremy Weisz 23:18

How do you you know, it’s tough? And you know what to say specifics. But um, sometimes it’s tough to unravel those situations, you know? Because I mean, I don’t know if you had ownership of it. But if you did, it’s even tougher to unravel.

Rob Buffington 23:34

Yeah, and I had, I had minority ownership, and I was also the one on the loan. And so they couldn’t buy me out. But I couldn’t force them out, because they were majority owners. And in the end, I just had to say, look, this is not working. Either. We all go down together, or you let me buy you out, and I had to pay through the nose at an exorbitant rate. And five years later, I’m still making payments. But But it got us to where we needed to be. And it’s a completely different world. But yeah, it was not fun.

Jeremy Weisz 24:05

I guess that’s the conversation. So either you buy them out, was there consideration of them buying you out, but like,

Rob Buffington 24:14

I would have gone for that. But they didn’t want to put the word they needed a stooge to do the work. And so if I left, they would have to be there every day doing the work, and they had no interest in that.

Jeremy Weisz 24:25

Got it. It’s tough. I mean, you also work with your wife. So what how does that work out? Oh, it’s real a partner and then a partner thing I

Rob Buffington 24:37

Yeah. And there’s some ways it’s really good. Some days it’s difficult. You know, bad days don’t always stay at work. So that’s fun. But at the same time, you have somebody who understands and appreciates what’s going on. How do you

Jeremy Weisz 24:53

like for someone? I mean, there’s a lot of people that work with family. What’s your learnings and advice around you? Navigating working with family.

Rob Buffington 25:02

Ah, set clear boundaries, don’t have them as a direct report if you can help, but it’s always good to have the objectivity. But at the same time be very sensitive to your your other staff because they may feel insecure about offering suggestions or stuff like that.

Jeremy Weisz 25:19

So it can be, it can be tricky. Yeah, totally. It’s it’s can be tricky. Sure. can be tricky. Oh, is there ways that you think about and I know, it’s maybe tough to do separating that work? And when you go home? Or is just you just use let it bleed into whatever you’re doing?

Rob Buffington 25:43

I don’t think I found that. If you find it, let me know.

Jeremy Weisz 25:49

Yeah, I’m not the right person to ask about that. You know, I want to talk about Rob, charity, charitable giving, profit sharing. Talk about the profit sharing first, how do you think about that? And how do you implement?

Rob Buffington 26:06

Sure. I’ve always been a big believer. You know, I am a Christian. I’m not definitely not a great one. But it’s who I am. And I’m proud of it. And so for me, tithing has always been part of it. And I’ve always looked at that from a business sense that that should be, I started at 10% of the business’s profits, go to charity, and 10%. Go back to the employees, some companies, we’ve raised that number. But I’ve always liked the idea that our interests are aligned. And rather than just, I’m doing my job, I’m getting my paycheck. The leaders of the company get to know, the better the company does, the better. I’d love it.

Jeremy Weisz 26:45

So in that situation, 10% charity 10% goes back to the staff. How do you think about distributing that? Just because people probably have different positions, different level different hours? How do you? Again, there’s not like an exact science. But I’m just curious, how do you think about distributing that back?

Rob Buffington 27:06

That is something I’m still working on to? It’s largely discretionary. We look at seniority, we look at output, stuff like that. We used to do it for all employees, we had to bring it back to the leadership team, because we grew so much, it just became, you know, you can’t divide a pie that many ways. So yeah, we just look at different things. And thankfully, I’ve got people with me that have been with me a while and they trust me to treat them. Right. And they know in the long run, they’ll do a lot better. Yeah, um,

Jeremy Weisz 27:38

I have one last question. Rob, before I ask it, um, you know, there’s several websites, but I’ll just point out to and you could fill me in if there’s any others, but GordionStaffing.com, and GordianFinancial.com. I know are the two main ones. I don’t know if there’s any others. You want to mention that we should point people to to check out also.

Those are the those are the main those are the big ones. Okay, cool. Yeah.

Um, my last question is just, um, you know, running all of these businesses, just wondering what your tech stack is, what do you like to use? Whether it’s with email, whether it’s project management, whether it’s communication, what are some of the, the software’s you use?

Rob Buffington 28:18

Sure. So for email, we use a program called HelpScout. And it’s similar to say, Zendesk, or fresh Freshdesk. And what it is, is it allows us to have all of our emails in one program, and you can give people access to seven different emails. And they work we have multiple people in the same inbox. So most of our companies run on like client care at Gordion staffing.com. And I shouldn’t have said that, because I’m gonna get a ton of spam. But we have all of our account managers and the whole Client Services Division work out of that box, and they can assign it to whoever they need, they can leave notes, it’s all in one place.

Jeremy Weisz 28:58

And that was yeah, that Nick Francis, the fees co founder, I think of HelpScout on the podcast, so Okay, check that episode out. Yep.

Rob Buffington 29:07

Well, I got some I got some recommendations for the guy, so call me because he’s got some weird stuff that needs fixing. But yeah, that’s a good we use Basecamp for a task management. We’re on G Suite, but we’re looking at moving to Microsoft. I got my 49 inch monitor. So I love that although it spoils me for when I’m not not here in the office, my travel. Yeah, those are those are the main ones.

Jeremy Weisz 29:34

Is there an internal communication use between offices or staff from remote standpoint,

Rob Buffington 29:41

we use Google Chat for most things, and then HelpScout we leave notes back and forth between one another and so that’s the way to do it. And zoom. Of course, we use a lot of zoom meetings and stuff like that.

Jeremy Weisz 29:52

And then Basecamp is more of the project management side of things. Yep, yes. Cool. I love it. Rob. First of all, I just want to be the first one to thank you everyone can check out Gordion Financial they can check out GordionStaffing.com to learn more and thanks everyone for listening. Thanks, Rob.

Rob Buffington 30:11

Thanks for having me.