How to Hire the Right Team Members to Grow and Scale Your Business with Omar Zenhom

Sarah St John: 00:01:23

welcome to the Fargo preneur podcast. I'm your host, Sarah St. John and my guest today is the co-founder and CEO of webinar ninja, and the host of the a hundred dollar MBA show. But today he is going to talk to us about how to make sure we are hiring the right team members. Welcome to the show, Omar.

Omar Zenhom: 00:01:40

Hey, Sarah. Great to be here again. And awesome to talk to you.

Sarah St John: 00:01:44

we were just talking a little bit before we got started here that you were one of the first, I think seven episodes of the frugal preneur, back in 2019. So warms

Omar Zenhom: 00:01:54

my heart or was I hard cause to be one of the first

Sarah St John: 00:01:58

well, awesome. Well, I know you want to talk a little bit about. the cost of a bad hire and how to hire the best talent and how to scale and all of that. First I'm kind of curious, I know, you know, you got your software program, webinar, ninja, and you have the podcast and all that. So what specifically, have you always kind of been in this area Of scaling and growing a team and stuff, or is this a new interest of yours?

Omar Zenhom: 00:02:23

Well I just been asked about this a lot recently in the last couple of years because of the pandemic, because people are hiring remotely because people are trying to find new ways to manage people remotely. I learned a lot along the way over the years because our business is self-funded. And money needs to go a long way. Mistakes cost a lot. So you gotta make sure that you do the right thing. So I've made my share of mistakes and I just feel like it's just my duty to kind of share through my experiences, what works, what doesn't. A lot of people get nervous when it comes to making their first few hires and then. As your team grows it gets a little bit more high stakes, cause it's a lot easier for two or three people to get along. 10 people, 20 people, you need to make sure there's a cultural established and the person you're hiring is actually a good cultural fit because in my experience most people don't work out, not because of their skills. It's just because of their attitude or they're just not a good fit for the team or fit for what your customers need, all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, it's just been something I've been learning along the way and been called upon just because of the climate.

Sarah St John: 00:03:28

Yeah, that makes sense with COVID and the shutdown and just everyone, going online and working remotely. And so how does one know when it's time to hire someone? if there are solo preneurs, how do they decide when the right time is

Omar Zenhom: 00:03:44

I think one of the hardest things as an entrepreneur is making that first hire that transition because in the beginning, you're just hustling. You're doing everything yourself, which is actually good. I actually encourage people to do everything themselves because they need to understand how every aspect of their business works because they're going to have to hire for it in the future. But that shift of making a hire your first hire is. That mental shift of, I shouldn't be doing everything right. An entrepreneur really has an idea and wants to see the idea, reach its potential. And if it's a big idea or it's an idea that gets bigger and bigger, you just can't do it alone. You're going to, in order for you to compete in order for you to do it at a higher scale or a higher level, you're going to need to get some help. And that's a mental shift that first has to come into play. And I feel like that the best way I was able to. Mentally is how much is my time worth is really asking yourself that question, how much is an hour worth for you? we all should have an hourly rate for our time, because you can use that rate in making decisions of, if you want to do this endeavor, do you want to do this partnership? Do you want to work on this project? Because there's going to be opportunities everywhere. And if we just say yes, CSS to everything, our calendar gets. I always say that it's easy to see. Yes. Because that's future Omar's problem. oh yeah, I'll do that. Right. But future Omar comes around and be like, Hey, why'd you burden me with this. All right. So the point I'm making here is that we all have to value our time and realize that. Most precious commodity. you can always make more money. You can make more connections. You just can't make with more time. you have a certain amount of time surmount hours in the day, certain amount of days in the year, amount of years in your life, that's it that's the bank. So in order for you to get more done and get more accomplished, you're going to need to hire somebody. You need to grow your team and your. Basically create a multiple of your time by making a hire. So that's really the first step I would say is making that mental shift and realizing, my time is the most valuable thing here. Yes. I can do everything myself, but should you do everything yourself? Is the question. That's the first step. I would say the second step I would say is getting over the hump of the understanding that yeah. If I hire somebody, this is very common, by the way. Yeah. If I hire somebody, they're just not going to do it the way I do it. Right. They're just not gonna, it's not going to be as good as the way I write my blog posts. So I was going to be as good as the way I find images on the internet and cultivate this great thumbnail. My answer to that is you're right. But there's a cost to everything you can't just continue to do everything yourself. So what if that person you hired does it at 80% of what you would do or 90. That's still good enough for you to pull off what you're trying to pull off. And that time you're buying is gold. remember time is priceless, right? It can't buy more time. So if I hire somebody and they do it at 90% of what I would do, and I just swallow my pride and realize, okay, no, one's like me. And by the way, overtime. I'm not that great. I think it's better, but really there's lots of people out there that could do better than me. And you learn that over time through a few hires, but those are the first two steps I would say.

Sarah St John: 00:06:50

And how does one determine, don't you call it the effective, hourly rate? So EHR, I guess I mean obviously if you're charging per hour, say you're consulting or coaching any charge, let's say a hundred, 200 an hour, then you can kind of, that's easier to figure out, say it's not as cut and dry or obvious. Is that, how does one figure

Omar Zenhom: 00:07:10

that out? Yeah. An easy way to do it. And I learned this from Nepal is that you look at your total revenue, how much money you made this month. say for example, you made $10,000 in the month, right? And you work 40 hours a week. That's four weeks in a month. That's 160 hours. So just divide that and then. The reason why you want to double it. So you want to, that's not how much you're worth, that's how much you're making. Right. And you have potential. The third reason is that you want it to hurt a little bit. You want it to feel a little bit crazy, for example, when I first started doing this, my allery rate was a thousand dollars and I was like, that sounds ridiculous. What, a thousand bucks, who charges a thousand dollars an hour, so when you get an opportunity and you say this is going to take me five hours, that's $5,000. That's worth $5,000. over time you should reevaluate your hourly rate. I know that somebody like Neval, his hourly rate is like a hundred thousand dollars. Like he puts it at that high because he knows that's the value of his time. it's not just working time. Remember time is fluid. It'd be time for you to relax time for you to read time for you to improve time for you to be with your family. That's all time, So how much is that worth to you? So it should be a stretch. That's why I say, take your, revenue divided by the number of hours a month and then, double it just so you can feel like, oh, I don't feel comfortable with that number. but that's the way you kind of really start to value your.

Sarah St John: 00:08:34

That's interesting. Yeah. So everyone listening that you have a homework assignment now to figure out your hourly rate? I think I had heard that one time, but I couldn't remember exactly like, it was almost like a formula or something. I couldn't remember how that worked. Exactly. But, when you're. Starting out. And you hire someone, just say one person, like a virtual assistant, maybe. I know there's a bunch of freelance websites out there and whatnot. And I know if you hire someone in the Philippines, apparently you only have to pay them so much because their cost of living is a lot lower and all that. what are your thoughts on

Omar Zenhom: 00:09:06

all of that? I think that's a sound idea. And I think there's a lot of great talent, not only in the Philippines, but other parts of the world even south America, if you're in, the U S and you want to a time zone, that's close by central America. Eastern Europe, there's a lot of great English speaking, highly qualified. Different areas, not just VAs, engineers, designers, writers. there's lots of options out there. A lot of people are actually quite surprised at how far their money can go. So my first suggestion, when it comes to that in order for me to express them, I'll tell the whole story. So when I started webinar ninja seven years ago one of the best pieces of advice I got was try to surround yourself with people that are a little bit ahead of you, where you want to be in five years. Because you'll learn what you need to do. So I started doing that. I started hanging out with other SAS companies. I looked up to, I got to know the founders of beer companies and I would go to the same conferences and just learn about what are they talking about? What are the challenges are having so that I can prepare my business for that. And one of the things I learned is that at the end of the day, the value of a business is all about the systems. Right. So when, say for example, I wanted to buy a company. The first thing I would do is like, I want to know, like, what are all your systems, how do you answer support tickets? How do you develop a piece of a feature or a product idea? what is a system you have when you have leave policy and somebody's going on vacation? How do you make sure not too many people are off. I want to know how this is run because if I'm going to buy it, I want to be able to take over. So what does, how does this relate to your first hire? Well, what I learned is that the first thing you want your first hire to do like a VA. To document all your systems, If you don't have a system, it's time to create a system, The reason why we do this, like, so for example, like when I, we hired our first virtual assistant or executive assistant we needed help with the podcast. So for example, we had a procedure. We have a spreadsheet where we have all the topics of the podcast and we have the sponsors in the spreadsheet. And then from there we need to record the episode. And from the episode we edit it and when it gets edited, it gets reviewed. Somebody listened back to it and then they'll show notes that get written and then it gets so WordPress blog posts and like there's all these steps. Right. We all know it. I know it because I did it all myself. Right. It doesn't really have any value in my head. But if I had it in a document, that's valuable, somebody would buy that. that procedure. So the first thing we do. This is, I would do a screen, a screencast of all the steps involved in publishing a blog post. I need you to create an SOP with a standard operating procedure and you to write a document. And basically we've created a bank of SOP for every little thing we do in our business. So anytime I give them a task, the first step is the create the SOP, not to do the task, create the SOP first and then follow the SOP to do the task. And that's a good way to test that. foolproof what happens here is that now you got all these great SLPs that they're creating, and then now you can hire people to do different tasks and be like, Hey, just follow this SOP. We have the instructions right here. And this is just fantastic because. There's no ambiguity on how you're supposed to do something, how you're supposed to do anything in a business. And then when you hire somebody, they can always go back to that reference. So really what that first hire does is that they're, documenting your IP. You're documenting what's in your head, all the procedures, all the things that you're doing. So that's an out of your head and it's in a word doc literally, or a Google doc, and it's easy for you to follow. And then. you don't have to do anything yourself anymore. You can literally just point to anybody who could read, can just follow instructions and do it. And I think that's a big hurdle are big burden off your shoulders. Once you figure that out. Oh man, the reason why I feel I have to do everything is because it's in my head. Well, what if it wasn't in your head? What if somebody could just do it and just follow instructions? Well, that should be the first task anybody you hire to do so that way it can be passed on to.

Sarah St John: 00:12:51

I've been thinking about how I need it's one of many things on my list of things I need to do. but I imagine like having them create the SOP before they actually do the work is almost like a training process for them on, how to do the work

Omar Zenhom: 00:13:05

to right. And in that process when they're creating these SLPs there's, I don't know if you've heard of the like pebble rock and stone kind of metaphor. So, sorry. Sand pebble rock. One of the things that a lot of people ask when they, were looking to hire their first hire, the first hires is what do I hire for first? what do I get off my plate first. there's a theory that a lot of people, what they do is they do do a lot of $10 tasks throughout their day. And $10 tasks are like the death of any business or business owner, because you can't do this forever. You're going to burn out these are. time-consuming tasks like replying to emails, like admin tasks, like filling out spreadsheets. Somebody asks you, Hey, can I have be on the podcast? And then you have to figure out, okay, I got to fill this form images. important, but it takes so little time. And at the end of the day, does that really bring in the dollars? Not really. It's a $10 task. But it takes so much time. So this is like what's considered sand, And then you have, A hundred dollar tasks They're a little bit more time consuming. They're a little bit more valuable, but then you have $10,000 tasks and these are the big rocks, This is like a sales call. We were closing a deal. So you can make $10,000 with a new client. This is like doing a webinar and being able to make revenue on your new, course you launched, That task has a lot of value. the goal for any entrepreneur is that they should only be doing $10,000 tasks. that's the only thing you should be doing. And what happens is that when you're doing everything, it all gets mixed up. So what happens is that we usually start our day doing a bunch of $10 tasks and we fill in a cup, just imagine a cup filling up with sand, And then we try to fill in some pebbles and then you're gonna put these big rocks in there and there's. So we basically shortchange ourselves from doing the things that are most valuable that can bring in all the money that we need for our business. The idea is that the first thing you should be doing is putting in the big rocks first, For the big rocks first. Okay. You get other people to help you with the pebbles and then the sand and the sand will go into the crevices. The point is, is that, we often put the big rocks aside because these little testing so urgent and we need to do them. And if I don't reply, then I will look rude and all this stuff you need somebody to do the little tasks for you to do the two, the $10 tasks for you, which are important in itself, but it doesn't require you what's your secret sauce? Like, for example, You need to do these interviews, Sarah, because you're the talent of the show, right? You're the one who can get the guests on and extract what you need to extract. So your listeners can learn. That's your secret sauce. You should be spending as much time as possible doing that. Everything else to make this happen really can be done by somebody else. that's what I've learned over the years. that's how you can differentiate. What's important. What's on.

Sarah St John: 00:15:41

that's interesting about the $10 tasks versus $10,000 tasks. I hadn't heard it quite like that and like the whole pebbles and sand, but it makes sense. So is there ever a point where you should hire someone else though, to do a $10,000 task? or should you always be doing those types of things? At least

Omar Zenhom: 00:15:59

that's a good question. And it, and the short answer is the $10,000 task hires are expensive. If you can afford. that's great, but somebody who is going to bring you in, let's say do a $10,000 task, you know, three or four times a month, they're gonna need to be compensated for that because that's their value. So if you can afford that in your business, that's great. But most businesses when, especially self-funded businesses They're looking to scale up slowly and try to make as much money as possible as it growing. And at the end of the day, you're going to do as many tasks as you can, but you want to free up your time as much as possible with the tasks that don't require high-end valuable talent, everybody's talented in their own way, but in terms of how much money they can bring into the company. So say for example and we've done this and we've, we've seen a lot of companies do this. Stanford, somebody hire somebody to run your webinars for you. cause that's going to bring in new sales, somebody's going to host your webinars and sell your products and services. And you could do it like a commission thing or a percentage. But the point here is, is that, you know, that this person's going to bring in X amount. That's a great hire, if they're going to be compensated for it and that compensation makes sense, you're going to get an ROI. So I definitely look at that as a big hire, but the more valuable the higher, the risky it is. let's say you hire To develop a mobile app for you. Okay. Maybe you're not a developer and you, you can do yourself to hire somebody. I'm not saying don't hire this person to do the mobile app because you need, the work. But I'm saying that the risk of that hire is far greater than hiring somebody to manage your inbox. Because what's the worst they can do send the email by mistake or not reply to somebody, whatever, like it can be solved. you can reply to the puzzle. Sorry. That was a mistake. My EA made a mistake that dah, dah, dah, and it's not a disaster. if somebody's spending. 10, 20, $30,000 building a mobile app for you. And then it doesn't work, fill the bugs and your customer's upset and you can't make money. It's a huge risk, that hires totally different. And that's why I say you should ramp up to it because you're going to learn the skills to know how to make a good hire in those areas that you're not familiar with. Like engineering, for example, how do you hire a great engineer? If you're an engineer yourself through the process of making smaller hires, does that make sense? There?

Sarah St John: 00:18:16

Yeah. So it kind of talked about scaling, I guess there, and, good hires, bad hires. Can you go a little bit more into that things to look out for? And, and of course the process of scaling as well though. That's probably two different

Omar Zenhom: 00:18:28

questions, but I kind of see hiring in two buckets. there are hires that I can do myself without any help, because I am familiar with the skill. I know what it takes to be good at it. let's say for example, I was looking to hire a great web designer because I used to do that. So I know what I'm looking for. I know. what is good and what's not good, So that's one bucket. The other bucket is areas I don't know about. I'm not good at this, for example, I've never composed music, but I've needed somebody to create a great music piece for me, original. I really don't know until they actually do the work. It's hard for me to really know. Maybe, You're not a good software engineer and you're looking to hire somebody who's technical so they could do that. That's a separate bucket. And actually what I recommend. For that type of bucket is actually to get a consultant by hire somebody who's really expensive. Okay. But they're going to work for you very shortly. This is what we did that really worked. So basically they're like an advisor, right. And you'd get there's ton of them on Upwork and freelancer and things like that. Technical advisor or somebody like that. And they'll charge 120, 130, $150 an hour, they're going to spend three or four hours. You're going to spend 500 bucks, but they're going to save you so much money and time because they know how to find experts. Number one, they have a great network. these are people that have worked for all the big tech companies. And they're just looking for a little side gig, something interesting. They like helping the small entrepreneur or the. They're just looking for something to do on the side, on the weekend cause report. they're only really priced for that much because they need to express their value. So. For you, you're getting somebody who is going to be able to vet somebody great. And they have a great network, so they can, they might know somebody that can just, Hey, I know this new junior engineer in my company is looking for part-time work, blah, blah, blah. You'd be perfect for this project. They're going to save you a whole bunch of time. They're going to be able to jump in and go through CVS for you. They're gonna be able to do the interviews for you so they can evaluate the qualifications and their job is basically to be the technical. Evaluator of this higher. these types of people in every field writers and designers and finance people, you know, their CFOs and companies, and they they'd love to be an advisor just for on the side. And there's tons of them on these freelance sites. And what's great about this. They will take care of the technical stuff, but your job as a leader of the company, still to take care of the cultural fit, make sure that this person is a good fit for your company, a good fit for you. At the end of the day, your company culture is an extension of your personality. Really? The founders personnel. Do you want to hang out with this person day in and day? How would you want to have a drink with them, a coffee with them later on? if you're not working, you know, you're going to, you spend a lot of time with your team when you're working a lot of time in your life and your day, you know, you might as well enjoy it. So that's a good indicator. If this is somebody that will fit with the rest of you working with you and.

Sarah St John: 00:21:12

So it's almost kind of like you're hiring someone temporarily to look for people to hire.

Omar Zenhom: 00:21:18

Yeah. And it's a really inexpensive way to do it because recruiters will charge, 10, 20% of the annual salary of that person. And, you know, it's really expensive. So you could just get an advice. That will jump in and do the things that you're uncomfortable doing, like, evaluating a candidates application coming up with a job description. you can just frankly say this, this person, this advisor, Hey, I'm trying to do X, Y, Z. I don't know how to word this. I don't know what kind of qualifications they need. I don't know what they need to do. They can and come up with a short job description so you can post it on the job board. They can tell you what job boards are good. you're going to spend, you know, 5, 6, 7 hours with this person, but they're going to get you a higher, that's going to save you so much more money and you're going to get great value, great talent.

Sarah St John: 00:21:59

how does one know when it's time and this might not apply to all businesses to, instead of having freelancers work for you. Then switching over to, having full time, not just in the sense that they work 40 hours, but like, you know, they get the benefits and all of that. Like your standard, what, people are used to. Right. Even if it's a remote team though,

Omar Zenhom: 00:22:23

A lot of it has to do with the finances of the business, how healthy you are in terms of what you can afford. never try to stretch yourself. if your business is where it's at, like, Hey, I can only hire freelancers or contractors. Cause I can't afford to give everybody healthcare or give everybody, you know any other perks that I want to give them That's okay. You don't have to be something you're not, I'm always about profit loss. I'm always about making sure you're profitable. Don't spend more, most businesses don't go out of business because they They don't make enough money. It's because they overspend most businesses fail because they spend too much money. that's something you should always keep an eye on so that I would preface that just do it. If you're comfortable. Second of all. Is, this is your business, right? You could do what you want. One of my favorite books is anything you want by Derek Sivers. And it was kind of an eye-opener for me, because it was like, Yeah, I can just create my own utopia. No one is telling you your business has to be in a certain way. If you want to create a hybrid approach where you give a great leave policy and you have other benefits other than, healthcare, or you give them a little bit more money, so they can sort out their own healthcare. That's up to you, your business, you do what you want, and you're not less of a business or, anything else. So that's the other thing I would convey, but one of the things that we do in our business, I can only share what has worked for us. At some point, I need to show the person who's on my team, a level of commitment. I need to say I'm committed to you. I'm investing in you. I need you to invest in me and my vision, Really a founder of a company is, just really a glorified coach of a team. And I learned this, just play basketball. When I was younger as a coach, you got to get these people. Sold on the vision that they can win. You got to get these people to work together somehow to listen to what you're saying, to like follow the instructions, to follow the game plan. as a business owner, that's really what you're doing. You're, getting a bunch of strangers together and you're saying, Hey, we need to get. Right. This is what we're trying to get to. This is how I think we can get there in a nice, efficient way. Are you with me? Are you willing to sacrifice and do the things I'm asking you to do so we can get there, I'm simplifying this, but this is really what's happening here. So in order for me, to ask of that. It's a pretty big ask. I need to say, Hey, I'm committed to you. I'm investing in you. This is what I want to say to you. So, and this could be a form of a contract, like an annual contract and saying, Hey, I want you to hang on for X amount of time. This is, could be an increment scheme where it's like, you get evaluated after a year. And then you get, you know, three to 5% increase in your salary. It gotta be something where you. I am investing in you please invest in us. And what we do is we actually start everybody as a quote unquote freelancer, where they're basically on probation for three months, because you really don't know if somebody is great at what they do until they actually do it. And they could be great at what they do, but they. Do so well in your environment, in your workspace and the way you work in the way in your level of, standards or whatever it is. So I always encourage people to have that probational period where they get evaluated for three months and then if they pass that, that's when you connect, send like a long-term contract and say, Hey, this is where where I want to commit to you. And then it goes both ways. So will you say, Hey, after three months, if you feel like this is not a good fit for you. We can part ways, no harm, no foul, all good, and it's a good way because you allow them to really feel what it's like to work for you and to, and to be managed in, your setting and your team and all that kind of stuff. So that's kind of the procedure I have found to work for us. But. I've learned throughout the years that there you Ghana some way commit to them somehow you gotta make sure they understand that, Hey I'm committing to your success. And a lot of that has to do with their work environment. if I look back in the days when I was in a job before entrepreneurial. The jobs I hated had nothing to do with my salary, had nothing to do. My benefits had nothing to do with how much leave I have. I didn't even know how much leave I had Had to do with, was I happy to go to work every day? Was I being challenged as I was growing? Did I respect my superiors? Like my managers did. I feel like I was a part of the success of that organization? Did I feel validated people actually recognize my. These are all things you could do for free, These are all things you could do for free as a business owner. And that's what people have to understand is that there's so much you can do on a budget. There's so much you can do to, just praise how often have you praised every teammate on your, team just for doing their job or doing it excellently. So these are just some of the things I've learned along the way that.

Sarah St John: 00:26:38

That's very interesting to get your input on that and your experiences and whatnot. Now when it comes to hiring someone, what are some things we should look out for, to avoid a bad hire? And then if you do end up hiring a bad hire, what's the best approach to, either combat that and make them a good hire or, Give him the boot, I

Omar Zenhom: 00:26:57

guess that's a, that's a good question. So it all starts in your first conversations with them. Anytime you're hiring for some, position, As the business owner, as a person who's making the hiring decision, you got to see this as almost like you're a detective solving a case. All right. I know this sounds a little bit weird, but. In order for a detective to make a decision, if this person is the killer or not, they need evidence. They need facts. they need alibis, they need information, So I always go into every interview or I tell them before the interview, I say, guys, whoever's going to be interviewed today. I maybe I send an email to all the candidates or whatever. this is a time for you to show me what. This is not the time to be humble. It's time to brag the seller to tell me all the things you did, that is going to prove that you're qualified for this job or that you'll do amazing job at our company. If you do not give me the information to make a decision, I cannot make a decision. I make it clear. This is how you win. Unfortunately, a lot of people show up to interviews and they just can't. I'm not sure what they're looking for. And I just flat out say, Hey, I'm looking for actual stories, actual events, actual tasks, projects that you worked on, that you have learned from that experience is going to be able to contribute to your time here at my company. How you think that you can influence and help the team in different ways. I asked for specifics, So if this is even before we even talked to each other on a call I don't want to be pulling teeth, If I have to keep on praying and praying, this is over you gotta want it. You gotta one of the job, right? So you have to present yourself, you have to present the information, the evidence in order for me to say, yeah, this person is a great candidate, so that it just prepares the candidate to be at their best To bring their best self, so to speak to the interview. in the interview, I'm always asking for examples. A lot of people, unfortunately just because it's just been their nature of the culture of hiring and interviews, they don't actually give examples. They actually say, in this case I would do this. No, I don't care about what I, I want to know what you. So, for example, like tell me how you would deal with a conflict with a, with a superior or colleague and maybe you could tell me a story from the past. Well, in a situation like this, I usually like to, I just stop them. It's it's I don't want to know what you usually do. I don't want to know the theory. I want you to tell me a story. When you had a conflict with somebody and tell me what happened, tell me you don't have to mention names, but you can say, you know what happened? and I find that I have to do this three or four times in interview. Like I said, thanks really appreciate what you're saying right now. But I need a real example. Right. Because a lot of people will hire people based on what they say. And now what actually happened. You need to know what happened again. You're kind of like a detective trying to get the evidence, right? when you have an interview, a candidate, it's just telling you all these great stories, all these great examples of when they failed, when they've learned, when they've improved something in their company, you now have credible evidence that they can carry that on into your business. So that's my advice is just like, that's the first step in the interview. Now, when they're in your company, some red flags are they are basically not. Jumping on the grenade is what we call it. Right? So jumping on that grenade, meaning like when something is wrong or something needs to be fixed or mistakes happen, they don't just, they're ready to jump on it and be like, Hey, let's fix this, let's do this. They take initiative. And, they're willing to roll up their sleeves and any situation, say for example, you hired somebody to be a producer on your show and a show didn't get published on time. they don't point fingers or like up, let me go in and check that out. I'm going to fix it right now, but okay. Then I do a post-mortem. Why did that happen? Oh, I think I didn't set the reminder on my calendar. This is why they take ownership. They take responsibility and they jump on the issue. A lot of people that talk a good game in an interview and don't perform the job are the ones that kind of. Lean back into the bushes, like Homer Simpson, right? Like they don't really, they don't exist anymore when the problem, when the quote-unquote poopoo hits the fan. Right. So the point here is, is that you need people that are willing to take responsibility. And one of the things that we've talk about a lot in our company is that responsibility is not fault. first of all, as a business owner, you are responsible for everything. Okay. It doesn't mean it's your fault, right? It could be somebody whose mistake, somebody did something else, but by saying you're responsible and every team member in your team says, I am responsible for what happens under my watch. It means. You're not going to wait for somebody else to do something. It's my responsibility. I gotta do something to fix it. you're going to take the initiative to do it. You're going to take an initiative to improve it, right. If it's my responsibility to have excellent customer support when I'm answering as customer, and the customer gives me a bad rating. And that's our responsibility. Okay. It's something happened here that they're not upset about how can I follow up with them and make sure that they're a little bit happier. So that's a great thing that you can encourage in your team is just take responsibility. Don't worry about whose fault it is, because when you take responsibility, things just improve and you start to grow.

Sarah St John: 00:31:41

Yeah, that's awesome. That gives me some clarity on, when that day comes, what to look for, what to make sure the good. The positive things and negative things. Also I feel like I've learned a lot so far, as far as making, a first hire and then scaling and growing from there and, the process and what to look for and whatnot. Was there anything else that you wanted to go over that we had.

Omar Zenhom: 00:32:04

I would encourage anybody who's listening who is maybe a solopreneur and they're like, I want to make a first hire. I'm not sure if I can afford it. I don't know what's going on. Right. My advice would be like, It's actually not as expensive as you think it is. And you should just see this as a professional development exercise, you would buy an online course for $2,000 to learn something. See this as a $2,000 investment in you're growing your business, Or. You don't have to hire some full-time. You can hire somebody part-time you can hire a virtual assistant out of the Philippines on online jobs pH for two, $300 a month for 20 hours a week. and they can take off so many, $10 tasks off your, plate. They can create your SOP is they can, at the very least, do all these menial tasks that you don't want to do in your personal life. If you want to like, order gifts for somebody or, book a flight or whatever it is, but the point here is that. It's actually not that expensive. And if you say to yourself, well, I'll do what I can afford it. Well, say that now, how much money are you making now? Let's say, for example, your business is making $5,000 a month and you're like, okay, that's how much I'm making every month. As soon as you make 5,200. You should make that higher right now you can afford it. Right? So stick to your word and see us in the next exercise of learning. How to be a good manager at learning how to be a good leader. you can be good with money. If you don't have money, you can be a good leader. If you don't have. you just won't learn how to do it if you don't have the prerequisite of people delete. So that's what I learned over the years and it's okay if they don't work out, it's okay. If you learn a hard lesson, this is why we have these procedures in these safety nets and the probational periods, all that kind of stuff. And at the end of the day, that's why I say start with SOP is because if they leave, and they didn't work out, at least you have something that's left behind, that's worth of value that you can, build.

Sarah St John: 00:33:51

I love that comparison of, if you're going to spend $2,000 or even 500 on a course, which people do a lot, why not spend that on a virtual assistant at least to start And how you can view it as a learning experience or an experiment, even if it doesn't work out, like you said. that's awesome. Well, I really appreciate your time today and all your insight. I'll have show notes at the Sarah St. john.com forward slash Omar, but then people can find you directly. Omar Zen home.com that Z E N H O M also webinarninja.com. That's your software for webinars. And if anyone's interested, you can go back it's somewhere within the first seven episodes of the podcast. And listen to that one about webinar ninja, and then your podcast is at a hundred. M B a.net. thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate

Omar Zenhom: 00:34:44

it. Thanks. Sarah was blessed.