I Spent $415K In Payroll In 2023 & Here's What I Learned // Master Filmmaker

Now, because there's a lot of people who lie to you on the Internet, here is proof. This is from my gusto, from my payroll software. We spent $415,410.09 in 2023 alone. And here are really the three main things that I've learned. So then you can hopefully take these and not make the mistakes that I made that cost me a ton of money in payroll and a ton of time and mental energy and stress and all the fun things. So hopefully you can take this and you can implement this into your business. So. So then you don't have to make the same mistakes that I made. So let's dive into it. So, number one, trust your gut in interviews. So if it's not a hell yes, it's a hell no. And so there's been a lot of times when I've gotten on interviews with people and I'm just in so much pain because I need to fill the role. I need to get somebody in there. I need to get them, like, working in the business so I can get that stuff off my plate. That I've just really tried to convince myself sometimes that a hire is going to work out, and it almost never does when I convince myself. And, and so if you're in an interview, I really encourage you to take a couple of days, take a beat, and really think to yourself, like, what was my initial reaction to this person? Because usually within the first, like, five, 10 minutes, you know whether or not this is somebody that's going to work out based on culture, based on their experience, based on how they're speaking to you, based on if they were late or if they were on time. Like, you usually know if that person's gonna work out or not. I would tell you to trust your gut because almost every single time I say this, my team will laugh at me too, because it's like every single time I try to convince myself that a hire is going to work out, it never does. And I usually should just trust my gut. So trust your gut. And the other thing too is it's harder to bring someone on then have to fire them and hire a brand new person than it is to just take 10 more interviews to really suss out if this is somebody that you want to work with or not. So that's the first thing. So really just take your time and really trust your gut in these interviews and make sure that the person you're bringing on is the person that you want to work with. And, like, you shouldn't settle in these because this is somebody you're gonna be working with potentially every single day. So I would really encourage you to think about if this is somebody you wanna work with or not. Now, the second thing is delegating outcomes, not tasks. So when I first started my business and I started hiring people, I started having people come to me and then I would tell them what to do, they would go do it, and then I would check to see if they got it done. And so that's what we call transactional leadership. That's when basically somebody is coming to you and they are asking what to do. You tell them what to do, and then they go and do it. Now, here's why that doesn't work. The reason it doesn't work is because when you start to get more than five to 10 people, you physically will not have enough time in the day to tell them what to do. Check to see if they did it and then see if they got it done. Like, you can't do that because you'll spend all day telling people what to do. Instead, what you need to do is transformational leadership, which is where you tell them the outcome you're looking for. So let's say you hire a salesperson, say, hey, I want you to enroll 10 clients a month. That's the outcome, that's the goal. And then I'm going to check in with you every day and help you train and help you get better. But I'm gonna check in with you every day and measure how, how you're doing on that. So, you know, let's say we're five days into the month. Cool. Do we have, like three to four people we've already enrolled? No. Okay, cool. What do we need to do differently to get to that goal? So that's transformational leadership. When you're basically, you're saying, hey, guys, we're going to hike up this mountain, right? Report back your elevation every single day and let me know where you're at. And so what that does is that teaches them that they need to figure it out on their own. Because I did this transactional piece and I almost burnt myself out because I was just telling people what to do all day instead of letting them figure out what to do do. Like showing them what I need them to do as far as the outcome and then having them figure out how to get there. That's the key thing here, is they're only telling you the outcome. They're not telling you what they did. What should I do next? Can you help me with this thing? And obviously, if somebody's coming to help or they need help, I'll give them help. But for the most part, you want to transform into transact transformational leadership where you say, hey, this is what we're going after. And then you help them figure out how to get there. And this comes down to really not giving people the answers to the questions, but empowering them on how to figure it out. Because we're all adults here. Like, obviously, if they really don't know, I'll help train them on it. But most of the time, people already know the answers to the question. They just would rather come to you to get the answer. And you need to empower them to figure out how to do it on their own. So when somebody comes to me and they say, eric, how do I do this thing? Or what would you say here? I'd say, well, I don't know, what do you think? That's usually my first response. And then they say, oh, well, I think X, Y and Z. You'd say, okay, great, so let's do that. You basically empower them to figure it out on their own as opposed to you telling them what to do. Now the third and final piece is building a culture of high performance. Now this is so, so key. So like, if you build a culture of high performance, you don't need to enforce anything. People will simply fall in line or they will leave the organization. It's kind of like Bud school in the Marines. So, like, they have this just grueling high performance standard that these guys have to go through day in and day out, that people just end up either hitting that threshold or just leaving altogether and giving up. And so I know that sounds kind of intense, but you need to build a high performance culture. Because if the, like, the culture is everything and culture is just a fancy way of saying, like, how does it feel to be on this team? And so you need to build a culture where it's like, we hit our numbers, we hit our stats, we hit our pieces. Like, this is what we need to be doing every single day. And everyone else on the team is doing that. It's kind of like if you tried to join the Atlanta Braves and let's say you're like a, you know, a first baseman, you try to join the Atlanta Braves, like, no one has to fire you there. You'll just self select yourself out because you'll be like, I'm not good enough for this team. And so I know that sounds intense, but you really need to do that because then you don't need to enforce rules because. Because it's kind of like you're building this culture of, like, this is what we do here, if that makes sense. So that's been super, super key. Now, Those were my three takeaways from spending $415,000 on payroll in 2023. If you wanna learn a little bit more about how we help video business owners hire more people, delegate outcomes, delegate tasks, click the link below. I have a free workshop going over exactly how we build a system so you can get more clients and then have the clients and the leads to be able to hire more people in your organization and. And so you can scale your business. So if you want that, just click the link below and I will see you in the next video.