How to hire a team of employees on a shoestring budget. EP #226 - David Jenyns

G', day, guys. Dan here with episode 226 of the how to Scale a Video Business Podcast. And today we're back talking systems with Systemology founder and author David Jennings. Now, in the last episode we had with Dave last month, we talked about how he set up Melbourne Video Production and systemized it from scratch to enable him to do other things, one of which was including working with the amazing Michael Garber, helping him launch a book. In today's episode, we talk more deeply about who's the first hire and who should that be and what systems do you need to have in place to enable that first hire to operate without necessarily having the skills required to run a video production company. Now, that might seem counterintuitive, but when your systems are created correctly and they can be done easier than you think, then you can have someone who is not from the video industry run that part of the business because your systems do all the heavy lifting. So I think you'll find an enormous amount of value in this episode. And I also asked Dave the kind of really how it all got started for him and why systems. And you hear a really fascinating story from his childhood that got him into this systemization mindset very early on.

Dave, it's great to have you back on the show. The last time we had you on the show, we were just getting warmed up into a topic around hiring, building a team, and the role that systems can play in taking away some of that anxiety. Now you're someone who has run a video production business. Can you talk a little bit about that process and why it is we fear expansion of team and how systems play a role in taking some of that pain away for the business owner.

I think the oftentimes the reason that the business owner might fear it is because of the previous experience or baggage that they might have had. So whether it's in another video production business that they've run or another time they've hired someone and it didn't quite work out and now they're carrying this baggage. To think that if I hire that extra person on, I'm just going to have to be keeping them busy and double checking their work and I may or may not trust them and they may or may not work out or I chatted with a friend who hired virtual assistants once and they just said that they couldn't do anything and it was a waste of time and money. Like oftentimes where that fear comes from. Yeah. Is maybe some of that pre programming or jumping to conclusions. I think one of the first Things that you can think about is.

You want to retest some of those assumptions. It may just have been the approach that you had and the way that you were working with the team member or the way that you were recruiting that team member. Because similarly, there are also just as many examples of other video production businesses that have been able to scale, that have hired production managers, that have got different assistants and team members and got them on the books and, and they have been able to do it. So someone has gone before you and proven it can be done. So then it just becomes this idea of, well, how do we find someone who's done it successfully before? How can we get their cliff Notes, their shortcuts and then install that and follow that process? And I know, following on from our last episode, you gave some really good insights about how you started with some of your first virtual assistants. That idea of you got into the habit of recording everything and you started storing all of those videos and getting it ready for when someone did come in behind you. And then when the time was right, you recruited a team member, you got them to go through systemology. So you were introducing this idea of systems and building a systems culture. And then you said, I want you to start documenting some of these systems and processes from the videos that I've already created. I actually think that is one of the easiest and best places to start for a videographer or someone who's just solo is to get a virtual assistant that can help out with some of the admin, get some of the documentation in place, and round out some of the things that the videographer and that solo video production person is not great at. Usually they're great creatives. So let's get someone who can help out with the administrative stuff that you may not like. That's a great place to start. And a virtual assistant is also oftentimes a low risk way to start because you can get them quite cost effectively depending on where you're recruiting that team member from. And that can, yeah, make, make it easier for you to get started.

I know that when you're working with virtual assistants in the Philippines, for example, they are exceptionally good at following instructions.

Typically they are less single mind thinkers, they're less intuitive thinkers. They tend to be educated, to be very process driven. And so I know that sometimes the thought of hiring a virtual assistant is great in principle, but then the business owner's going, oh, but the VA companies told me that I need to get my systems in place to give the, you know, the VA something to do and it's like, oh my God, that's more work and more stress. What do you recommend is a good process for someone to follow in that instance? Because sometimes I know I was originally.

Terrified of like I've got to, I've got to do more work before I hire someone that I'm terrified to hire because I'm scared I won't have enough work for them to do. What are some of the practical solutions you would recommend as a systemologist yourself and running the stomach and having written the book on systems and and what with Michael Garb and very much lived and breathed systems since you were a child, what are some of the steps you would recommend to someone who is anxious about that process?

Just start recording everything that you're currently doing with a view that you may or may not use it. So I would be recording loom videos, I would be using Zoom videos, I would be doing iPhone. I would get a student from the local uni who wants to learn about video production and is happy to volunteer or come on at minimum rate and have them follow you around for a couple of weeks and just record short little videos. Record the brief to that person. Hey, I want you to create ten 15 minute video snippets of a bunch of things that I'm doing throughout the day and just create a truckload of those. You're already comfortable with.

Recording and video. That's why I actually think the videographer, little do they know they're actually the most well set up to do that process. Some people struggle to go, how am I going to record this? Maybe there's a little bit of anxiety and fear or they don't understand the tech or there's a lot of things that can get in the way. But the videographer, they are used to documenting and capturing and recording. So just get in the habit of doing that for yourself and the start the tasks that you're already doing and just come up with a way to start organizing these into a Dropbox or a Google Drive folder and just do that for the next three or six months and then maybe think about getting your virtual assistant in six months time. Once you've got this huge Runway of all of these systems and things that you would like them to start working on, then they can start chipping away and then that's the point. If you get that virtual assistant first, the next person I would think about and it follows on from what we talked about on the last episode, I would get some form of return to work mum or dad that is customer service driven has some good worldly experience.

With maybe previous employment. And they don't have to be a production studio manager as long as they've got good systems that have really just come from you and you share those systems with that production manager or that new customer service person and say, right, I want you to oversee these projects that are running. I want you to make sure that the way that I've identified these things in this video are just followed and people are kept accountable. And when we get the videographer on board, you share with him these five videos and say, this is how I want a project set up. This is where I want the files stored. I want you to email the client once the first edit is done and use this email template and send them the link to the first edit. Like that's, that is the staged process I think I would go through. That is very low risk because if you think about it, virtual assistant, let's say if we base it in the Philippines, you know, even if it's just part time, the cost there is not very high. Then you bring your studio manager in. Similarly, that might be a part time role, a return to work mum or dad, you're hiring them locally, you're giving them systems like that's probably a 25, 30 buck an hour role. You don't have to go for the production manager that you know or the studio manager that wants the top dollars. Of course that feels like a jump and a risk, but this is a real nice, easy way to edge in on it.

I, I've always been actually quite surprised at how inexpensive it is to build a team. I think sometimes we perceive that we've got to pay someone 100 grand a year to just show up and do any role. But the fact is using arbitrage and using resources in the Philippines where labor costs are lower. And I also want to just caveat that with. I had a little bit of an issue initially with the fact that I thought, oh, the workers in the Philippines, they seem to earn an awful lot less than what they do in Australia. But when you discover that what you're paying someone in the Philippines is a good working wage with security, you recognize that people are actually struggling for work in the Philippines as much as anywhere else. And so what you're doing is you're not only providing an income and a role, but you're providing job security and family security. And so I think that's really important to say that, you know, we don't use Philippines talent labor because it's cheap. We use it because they're very skilled and they speak great English and they're very highly educated. And that, yes, the labor costs are significantly lower than here in Australia or in the US or in the UK or in Europe. But.

They'Re a great, loyal team member. And vas, when you treat them well and like human beings, like any member of your team, they'll stay with you for years. And so you get this loyalty. And I know that in my own journey, having hired people in Australia and hired people in the Philippines, I would hire 10 people in the Philippines because they're just so committed. But one of the things I want to touch on here is when I first hired my first VA job, I was a bit like, what do I do with them? Because it's a real fear. And one of the things I did very early on, and this is a shameless plug for System Hub, is that as part of System Hub's membership, there is a team training. And what I was able to do was bring John in and Minamilka joined me and we're looking to expand the team further. Is the very first thing I get that team to is follow the team training.

Talk to me a bit about some of your personal onboarding processes with new VAS and new team members. Because it takes any new team member, regardless of whether from time, to come up to speed. What are some of the tools that you offer and that you recommend to help bring that team member up to speed so they can become fully functioning in as short a period of time as possible?

There's two things I want to cover, and the one just prior to that would be building on what you were saying around the recruitment of the VAS in the Philippines. What that actually does is it gives you a little bit of a margin for error, where if you just hired the person who wants the hundred grand a year, they've got to nail it, they've got to get it right straight away and you've got to keep feeding them to make sure that we can continue to pay the bills and keep the lights on. So by getting that virtual assistant, it gives you just that little bit of extra wiggle room and then it means you end up employing more people, oftentimes locally, because I love the customer service and hopping on the phone and going on a shoot and all those sorts of things to be done from someone who's local. It's like I said, it's that return to work, mum or dad. Now, if they are getting paid a higher price, but we can let them know you have a virtual Assistant that you can tap into this VA is available for the whole team. And I want to make sure that you're working on only the tasks that you can work on because you're based here in Australia, like the assistant in the Philippines can't go out on a shoot, but you can. So let's make sure that you're doing as many of those tasks that only you can do and get you out of tasks that might not be, you know, those high dollar value tasks. So when you pair the two together, it actually gives you that competitive advantage. And it's the secret weapon that a lot of very large businesses have been using for many years. And it hasn't been really available to smaller businesses, like a lot of businesses offshore, a lot of their back end over into some of these emerging economies. And then you only see, you know, the front end that you might engage with might be local, but their back end is offshore. So now just with the world and the way that it is, and I mean, Covid just accelerated this, it's made it very possible for everybody now to have this advantage. So that's the first thing. I just want to make sure that yeah, there is a time and a place to hire local and where you will find that you get a real big multiplier from getting a game changer person that is around the corner from you. But then sometimes some tasks it makes sense to go offshore and then as far as like some tips on how to get them started and up and running. I remember working with Michael Gerber and he said this one thing and it's always stuck with me. He said, every business is a school. Think of it in terms of you want to take the new team member, the student, and you want to teach them as quickly as possible to get them to the point at which they're productive and you can get more of a return on them than you are paying for them in a wage. And the aim of the game is how do we do that in the shortest possible time as possible. Once I realized that, then now we put a lot more extra work into onboarding team members. It's not just, hey, first day on the job, you go out on a shoot, just watch what Joe does and you know, you'll pick it up soon enough. Now we're much more strategic than that. Now we think about, well, what does that first week look like? What does that first month look like, what things need to happen and are important for them to be able to produce at a standard that we're happy with. And following our systems and processes. So we have a checklist that someone goes through when they get started. We introduce them to the company, we talk about our company values, we show them our tools, we show them how we use project management and where our systems are stored. We show them how projects are run. And a lot of that training happens within that first month and we've built that out over time. A great place to start would be something as simple as you teach people to identify their critical client flow in their business, make that part of a team member's onboarding to understand how does this business work. What is the critical flow that a client goes through to deliver a core product or service that is a perfect onboarding tool? Because then the team member goes, ah, I understand where in this process I fit. I understand what comes before me, what comes after me. I understand how and why I'll be interacting with other team members and why it's important to set projects up a certain way. Because if I'm a videographer and I know the editor is going to come in behind me, I need to make sure that I shoot correctly and then at the end of the shoot, I ingest the footage the right way and store it in the right folders so that the editor knows where to look and how to organize and set up the project. So getting complete visibility on that really helps. So I mean it's a, it's a big topic, it's really important and I think impregnating this idea, and I don't know if that was the right word, Embedding, embedding the idea of systems thinking into your onboarding is critically important. You want to get them all to read a copy of Systemology. You get them to go through your training that helps them to understand your systems based business. And this is how we do things here. You do all of that programming early and you will significantly reduce any resistance that you think you may have around systems. Business owners go, yeah, my team's not going to follow systems and processes. I've tried this before. They're not systems people.

If you flip it on your head, most of the resistance is going to come from your initial team members. But if every new team member is onboarded and taught that this is the way that we do things here, then that resistance just dissipates because you tell them up front, if you, this is how we do things here. If you don't like it, then you're not a good fit for the team. So yeah, there's some tips.

That's right. And of Course, you know, I've heard this multiple times that when businesses who want to sell come to sell, there are two key critical elements to that process that impact directly the multiple you'll get for the sale of your business.

And one of them is how systemized is the business. Because if the business owner is involved day to day, nobody's going to buy that business. If, however, the business owner has stepped away and been away from the business for six months, the business is fully systemized and it runs and operates without them. That is a saleable business. But the second thing I've heard from multiple sources.

Is that if there's a strong culture in the business, that can often have an effect of like two or three times multiple on the sale price of the business. Because if, if a, if a, a corporation is buying a business that has a strong culture and operates without the business owner, then that is a business that can be expanded into another organization. Is that something that you've come across in, in your experience working in business over the last 15, 20 years?

100%. Couldn't agree more. And when it comes to selling a business and think about a video production business, how common is it for a video production business to be sold in the grand scheme of things? And when you compare it to other industries, it's actually pretty rare. Because usually the business is so dependent on the business owner who is the videographer and the editor who knows how to do things inside and out and who wants to buy a business that as soon as that business is sold, the key player walks out the door, takes the clients with them, takes the IP with them, there's really no value there. So video production businesses, almost more than any other business, really will only have value once it is systemized and the business is operating without the business owner. Otherwise, it's really just a job that anybody could start. Like if you were a videography, like a, someone thinking about starting a video business and you know, you were looking at another business that's heavily dependent on the business owner, you'd go, why don't I just start my own? That's why we see a huge number of, you know, video production businesses popping up, like over the last five years. The amount of new video production business businesses that have started is probably just completely off the charts because anybody can do it. It feels like the barrier to entry is very low. Once you've got, you know, the cost of the equipment is coming down, anybody feels like they can get started. That's why it's now more important than ever. That you need to stand out, that you need to build a business that works without you, that you need to create something that's more scalable. Otherwise you just competing with everybody else and that's that competition is only growing exponentially.

I agree. And it's the same with, with the coaching space. I am seeing an explosion of video business coaches. And it's always very interesting because within about two or three clicks of a mouse I end up, I can, I can see where the person's come from and there's a lot of. And look, I absolutely applaud this. I think the more people coaching, the better.

Where there can be a challenge is that some people are literally leaving university and starting their own courses on how to become a successful videographer. And the problem with that is that it's not really a problem because anyone who's serious can do very minimal research and discover if someone's the real deal or not. And I think when you are systemized and established and have an authority in the space, then I think it's very easy for you to win in those situations because there's always going to be a series of a certain element of the client population who's going to just go and take whatever they see at face value. But if you are a systemized video business, someone who has a strong standing in the community, in the niche that you work in, then you will just stand leagues above anyone else in the marketplace.

100%. There's kind of feel like the, the web has just made everything so transparent and obvious like it. If you want to dig in a little bit deeper, it's, it's quickly apparent who is just.

Like that. There's no real substance there. I think you want to look for someone who's run especially if you're going to get coached. The whole idea is you find someone who has already done what it is that you want to do because they know the path, they've got the shortcuts, they can get you there. You don't want to go and get coached by someone who hasn't done it or was in a video production business, couldn't get that business off the ground and running. So they said, okay, I'm going to start a coaching business because I couldn't make my video production business work. You want to find the person, any coach in any endeavor who's already seen the solution, can now see where you are and then say, ah, yeah, do this, do this, do this. Then you get to the solution. That's, that's why you go to A coach.

And the same with systemizing your business. I mean, I would recommend anyone who hasn't yet read the book Systemology to go and grab a copy. We'll make sure it's linked below because that is going to give you an insight into how Dave got to be here. And actually, someone asked me the other day, they went, so, so why does Dave Jennings do systems? Is it just a business idea? Is it just something he's kind of decided that's his next business venture? And I said, well, actually, no, it actually started in childhood. And I wonder if you might share your story of how your father basically taught you systems from a very, very young age. Because I absolutely love this story and I know a lot of people maybe haven't heard it.

Yeah, systems have been around for me.

Since Day DOT and all of my businesses. I always think when I look back now, there's just an element of systems built into it. Whether it was Planet 13 where we franchise that business, whether it was the stock market education space where I'd create trading systems, whether it was in the digital agency where we systemized it. Like systems is always there. And when I went back to the first story, it was my dad and he introduced the idea of systems to my brother and I when he was 8, I was 6 years old and he came up with this idea he called the sheet. And it was this a system to almost like gamify life. He. He wanted my brother and I to do certain things, you know, behaviors, be good to each other and clean our rooms and clean the birdcage and take the dog for a walk and put our laundry downstairs and make sure that we were in bed before 10pm and like he had all of these things that in his head, really the sheet was a reflection of his values and what he thought was the way to live a good life. And I still got the sheet to this day. But it was basically all of these activities that my brother and I could earn points on over the course of the week. And we would go on Monday, I did my teeth before bed. I'm going to put a little X here. And he would have at the end of the week. He'd spend about 30 minutes at the end of the week going through each of our sheets because it was like three pages long with all of this almost like a to do list. He'd add up all of the points and then he had this scoring legend on the final page that would determine how much pocket money we would get. And he got really fancy. He had these like Multipliers like if I got above 500 points over three weeks in a row, it would unlock an additional bonus. And then he started to add in new rules around oh if you. Because someone knocked his speaker box and put a tear in the speaker box. And before I knew it on the sheet the next week it was if you knock into the speaker box it was minus 1500 points. And he would evolve this system and I, I got really good at the sheet. And I was getting, you know, back in the day I was getting six, seven bucks pocket money each week as a six year old. You know, we're talking going back 30 years now. And it got to the point where dad said I'm gonna have to change this scoring legend at the back because you're earning too much pocket money. And I, I figured out the sheet. I love the sheet. I played it to the fullest level. And it's funny though, I compare that to my brother. My brother was the complete opposite. He hated the sheet. He didn't want to partake in the sheet. He never got involved with the sheet. And I often joke that he didn't give a sheet about the sheet. And he, it made me realize, I look back now, one, it was like early programming for me around this idea of systemizing and gamifying and realizing some people will resonate with this and some people won't. Now in business, this whole systemized approach is an infinitely better way to run a business. And the fortunately in business you get to decide who you're going to hire. Like my dad couldn't choose his sons, I couldn't choose my brother. It just is what it is. It's family. You're born with it, you're stuck. But business is different. You get to choose in business. So hire and build in systems thinking into your recruitment and find people who resonate with the systems approach because it is infinitely easier to build a business that is systemized. You'll get a better return, you'll feel better about it, it'll reduce stress, it'll help you hit your goals quicker. It'll be more valuable. Like you compare a systemized business to one that's not and it's night and day difference. That's, that's why I'm so passionate. I've, I've fallen in love with the result that systems gives. I haven't fallen in love with documentation. I don't like documentation. But, but I love the result of a systemized business. And that's why I will stand on the top of this hill and keep banging the system's drum until the day that I die because it is so impactful.

I agree. I couldn't agree more. Well, Dave, if anyone is Interested, go to systemology.com and check out Dave's work and his book. And David, we'll definitely get you back on again next month because I think this is a topic that will really benefit all of the listeners of the show.

It would be my pleasure. Thanks for having us.

Dan hey guys, thanks for watching. I hope you got a huge amount of value from that episode. If you you're looking for additional support or resources to support your business journey, then head over to Denlenny.com where you can get a whole heap of other resources, free downloads, and access all the other episodes in this series. Be sure to subscribe and I'll see you next time.