Episode 138 - How to Build a Business That Runs Without You

In this episode of The Real Bottom Line, I sit down with Talmar Anderson, founder of Boss HQ, to discuss one of the most crucial aspects of scaling any business—building the right team. Talmar shares her journey from being the "number two" in law firms to becoming a successful entrepreneur, and she breaks down the key difference between your Dream Team and your Freedom Team.

We dive into the mindset shifts business owners need to make, how to stop hiring for potential, and why building a team that works without you is essential for growing—and selling—your business. If you're an entrepreneur looking to step into the CEO role and create a business that runs smoothly without being dependent on you, this episode is for you.

Key Topics:

• Talmar’s personal journey from employee to entrepreneur
• The difference between the Dream Team and the Freedom Team
• Why hiring for potential can hold your business back
• How to build trust and delegate effectively as a boss
• The importance of creating a business that doesn’t rely on you

Join us for the Bottleneck to Breakthrough 5-Day Challenge, designed specifically for ambitious and growth-oriented business owners who are feeling overwhelmed and hitting revenue plateaus. In just 60 minutes a day, over the course of 5 days, we will provide you with the blueprint to go from bottleneck to breakthrough by reframing your relationship with time. This challenge will help you break through revenue plateaus, spend more time in your zone of genius, and build a more valuable business – even if you feel like you've tried everything and are time-starved. 

Join the Bottleneck to Breakthrough 5-Day Challenge. Here's what you'll learn each day:
 
Day 1: Design Your Ideal Day

• Explore what your ideal day looks like as an entrepreneur and how to allocate your time based on entrepreneurial time rules

Day 2: Unlock Your Genius

• Shed tasks outside your zone of genius and focus on activities that energize and fulfill you

Day 3: Master Letting Go

• Analyze tasks and activities, determine their fit in your zone of genius, and understand the cost of holding onto them

Day 4: Leverage Your Time Blueprint

• Build a step-by-step process to shed undesired or time-consuming activities, explore delegation in a new way, and escape business jail

Day 5: Build Momentum

• Learn how to execute your ideal day by chunking down activities, overcoming forces of perfection, procrastination, fear, and ego, and amplifying growth drivers for your business.

Register at https://bottlenecktobreakthrough.com/

Creators & Guests

Host

Wendy Brookhouse

The Financial Planner for ambitious growth oriented Entrepreneurs

Editor

Shaun Whynacht

I’m the founder of Blue Cow Marketing and father of an amazing little boy. helping other business owners overcome challenges is my passion.

What is The Real Bottom Line?

Dive into the heart of success with Wendy Brookhouse, the Ultimate Wealth Amplifier, as she delves deep into the 8 pivotal drivers of business triumph. From financial acumen to customer satisfaction, every episode unravels a new secret to achieving unparalleled success. Welcome to Season 4, where we break down the core elements that shape prosperous businesses.

• Financial Performance


• Growth Potential


• The Switzerland Structure


• The Valuation Teeter-Totter


• Recurring Revenue


• Monopoly of Control


• Customer Satisfaction


• Hub & Spoke

Wendy: Hello and welcome to The Real Bottom Line, the podcast where we talk to entrepreneurs about entrepreneurial stuff. Today, my guest is Talmar Anderson. She hails from Georgia and her company is, uh, the boss, she is a boss, best practice expert. That's a mouthful Talmar. Welcome.

Talmar: it takes a little minute, right?

Wendy: I'm so excited to have you here today.

Um, you, you know, we normally talk a little bit about how did you become a business owner? Like what was your journey?

Talmar: Well, you know, uh, it's really interesting. I, I was the number two, I was never meant to be a business owner. I was, I would go into companies and quickly get promoted and end up at that number two position, whatever it was, administrative manager, firm administrators, right? That second in command operational.

general, whatever you want to call it. And, um, and I, uh, had worked in law firms specifically for most of my career. And, uh, and the word, you know, you're very entrepreneurial in the way you think. And, and I didn't understand that that's what I thought. I just couldn't imagine going into a job and not running it like I would want to run it.

which is fortunately oftentimes aligned with the boss. I, I had a couple of conflicts along the way, but not a lot. And, uh, and it wasn't something I thought about. My husband was actually a business owner almost his entire life. He's only had a couple of jobs in his world, uh, where he had a boss or something like that.

Um, and so I knew what business ownership, the good and the bad, and I knew the stress of it and the excitement of it, but I just never thought I was going to be there. And so yeah. Um, like a lot of people, my catalyst was family. Right. I was, uh, we were living outside of Washington DC at the time. I was managing the largest privately held law firm in Virginia and it was a 45 minute or more commute every day.

And we had known that we'd made the decision. And our son was about one and a half or two and I have a photo of it, but he, he kind of went waddling into that bedroom. and got into bed to snuggle with daddy because mom was already at work and he was sleeping with a photograph of me.

Wendy: Oh,

Talmar: Yeah. And then my husband, God love him, probably wishes he never did it, took a picture to show me.

He's like, Oh look, he misses you honey. And I was like, Oh no, that's not that right kind of miss. No. So, um, I, a plan started to form. It was time for me to go out on my own. So I had autonomy of time and freedom of being where I wanted to be when I wanted to be. And, uh, And thus it began.

Wendy: that's it began. Have you always done the same work that you do now?

Talmar: No, absolutely not.

Wendy: has it, has it morphed and shifted? Um, like what did you start out with and what do you do now?

Talmar: Well, I started off at a roller skating rink. I don't think that's how far back we want to go. But, um, uh, you know, I think that I've always been administratively operationally minded, but you know, one of my first forays really to shift into that kind of business side of business role, it was, uh, I worked for Court Furniture Rental, a large company still in existence.

And, uh, they had a, uh, They had a new line of furniture they had and so I was, I was brought in to facilitate that and we grew that and it was starting to be a regional success. And so I was getting some attention and then locally they needed an administrative manager and I had decided at the time to go back for my degree.

I didn't have my degree straight out of college. I ran out of money. I went straight to work after a couple of years. So I was going back to finish, and the District General Manager, Brad, best boss I ever had, was like, hey, let's have a conversation. And he, he had to fight for me because I was not coming from that world.

But he had seen what I had done with this position and this product, and he was like, we got to do this. So, um, so that was, that was furniture, rental design, spatial stuff, right? And then I, but then I started getting into, you know. Administrative is accounting and you're starting to learn how to be a boss and oh, the mistakes you all trust me.

We'll talk about that. But, um, and then learning just the operational process and stuff. But there was an innateness to for me, right? My brain has always been, I can see the problem macro and break it down into steps so that people can understand how to do what in what order. So that's kind of,

Wendy: is a unique skill set. Um, in the Myers Briggs world, that's, uh, ENTJs, general, because I'm a general, and you see the end, but you can also see every little step that happens along the way. It, we sometimes take it for granted, eh, Talmar, because it's so, like you said, innate.

Talmar: Yeah. And, and I, and I wasn't the one that learned that about myself. Again, this, this fabulous boss was the one that was like, I don't think you see that what you think, like, I don't think, you know, what you're doing is so unique. And I was like, unique, just, you know, running a business, organizing things, making things happen.

And he's like, no, no, no. But the way you can, and he was very the one that really articulated it in a way that made me understand that that idea of seeing the big picture and breaking it down into process is not just something everybody can do. And I think that's true of all innate, you know, super skills, strengths, whatever we want to call that.

Somebody has to point out to you that it's exceptional because it does flow more easily for you than for others. We take advantage of it to your point. Agreed. Agreed. Agreed.

Wendy: So you, you alluded to mistakes along the way. So, and I actually think there are opportunities to learn stuff.

Talmar: Yes.

Wendy: So tell me what you've learned on your entrepreneurial journey, like, Hey, talk to,

Talmar: Well, uh, marketing, what I've learned about marketing is that, uh, more importantly, being an industry, you know, now they call them disruptors. But when I started the business in 2017, 2018, they didn't have a word for that. And being a disruptor in any industry, creating a new product or way of thinking or, or moving through something.

It's such an extra struggle to selling, hiring, operational success, you know, understanding how to build products and deliver services and all that stuff. So, uh, for me, I wish that I could have had somebody help me like shake me and go, girl, if you're going to do this, let's really get clear on the messaging.

And do you understand you first have to teach people. That they can learn a process to hiring and management right now. They don't believe that's even a thing they can learn. They think they have to struggle. And so getting our marketing to get past that education piece to now go, okay, now that you know, you could, are you interested in working with us to learn that?

And so, uh, it, that was probably the, the, the bumpiest part for us. There's been lots of bumps, but that's definitely one. I wish that I could have, a disruptor has a different, Type of messaging. We've got to find that goes in addition to, oh yeah, buy our stuff or let us help you. However you want to serve, you know, position that

Wendy: and I'm not sure even in your disruptor that that message can be clear right at the beginning anyway,

Talmar: it's not, there's no chance.

Wendy: You have to work through it a few times, help a few people and then you go, Oh, this is what I

Talmar: Yeah. Yeah. And I didn't know, again, I didn't know I was a disruptor. I just thought, oh my gosh, I can't believe people aren't learning this. And I, and yes, it was through identifying that there was no solution that was easy for business owners that I wanted to go there, but I definitely did not know what I was biting off by that concept.

I was like, I'll go build that thing. And then, but then we learned to your point. You know how we serve and how we show up is so it's vastly more enhanced, right? We couldn't be so singular as the hiring process. We had to include management process and then we had to include mindset, right? And it took us years of delivering the services and talking with our clients and the experience of developing it.

So you, to your point, the message we have today could have never been there. So it's an excellent awareness.

Wendy: Yeah. And I think too that, um, I think along the way, a lot of the times we have to try stuff like, you know, I think that having this, uh, mentality that things have to be perfect the first time, you know, I think of Seth Godin and he goes, if you're not embarrassed by what you shipped or delivered the first time that you did it, then you ship too late.

Yeah.

Talmar: Perfection's not been my thing. And I think, and you know, thank you clients and team for forgiving me for my non perfections. Uh, but, uh, but I do, my biggest challenge as an entrepreneur is I am a quick start to the nth degree and that creates unnecessary problems. Pressure for myself.

And as I started building and developing my team, finding a way to make myself okay with the fact that quick start means delivering in 30 days as opposed to delivering yesterday. Apparently that's not real. Um, but I think I was able to recognize it without losing team. And I don't know that everybody else has that opportunity.

I recognize that my stress was created by my deadlines and they were, I. Unrealistic and ridiculous. Literally no one needed it as fast as I wanted it done. So for us, and for me particularly in growing, Quick Start was my biggest angst to learn to get past.

Wendy: Yeah. Yeah. My, and it's so interesting. I was in a, a coaching program that started using Colby, which measures quick

Talmar: Yes, yes, yeah.

Wendy: Well, my quick start I think is a seven or eight, so it's pretty low high, right? But what was interesting is that when they started working with Colby and they started putting all these entrepreneurs through the course, through the assessment, they started skewing the Colby results

Talmar: Of course.

Wendy: as all these entrepreneurs were high quick starts.

Like, okay. So, but that brings me to my point, which I think will translate into some of your technical expertise is building team doesn't building, getting people exactly like you.

Talmar: Oh, no. Well, yes and no. So,

Wendy: Okay, let's hear this.

Talmar: I'm like since you asked, uh, you know, I actually, so, uh, the company boss HQ that we have where we deliver hiring strategy and boss best practices. And, um, I think that actually we don't put enough emphasis on building a team that. works the way you like to work. And so I don't want another Talmar Lord knows the universe does not need more of this.

God to help you all with the one that you've got. Right. But what I do need, um, every single one of my hires, I have to vet for people that can absorb information quickly because let me tell you on this podcast, This is about as slow as I can speak. I am slowed down. So when I'm really excited and working with my team and giving them instruction and direction and helping them, my, I, I just, I want to go fast because I like to go fast because that Enthusiasm and high energy is my joy factor.

So if I know that that's how I like to work, it's unfair to hire people that need to write it down, have four days to consider it, want to come back and then have a discussion about it and then make a plan for another week later. That's, it's going to make me frustrated. It's going to make them frustrated.

So I, uh, we do believe that you have to align. With you as a boss, but we also have to consider the alignment for other ways. You as the boss, the position, of course, culture, which corporations talk about, but it's not the only thing. And then the fourth thing we really believe at Boss HQ is that you have to align with the client with every hire.

And so we have a whole process for that.

Wendy: I love that. And, and honestly, like when you say all that, what I, what, what is interesting to me is that for that person that wants to write it down, consider come back. There is, there are rules and organizations where that is the perfect fit.

Talmar: And there's bosses that love it. There are bosses that want to get in a room and collaborate and think

Wendy: Yeah.

Talmar: it and be very methodical and thought out, right? But that's,

Wendy: And the person will be super happy there and frustrated as all get out working with

Talmar: Exactly. Exactly. Right. And I'll be frustrated. And then I'm like, what, you know, this person that they're great, but they just wanted a lot, you know, and so there's, there's just a way to be very thoughtful and intentional in defining what a successful hire is and then how you approach vetting it. And that's just what we're about.

Wendy: One of the things that I work a lot on is helping business owners figure out number one, the value of their business. and what the value could be of their business. And is that going to be part of their overall asset accumulation strategies? And are they planning for retirement or selling it? Just all those

Talmar: All the good stuff, planning those personal goals with your business goals. You got to get them aligned. Yep.

Wendy: One of the biggest things that can, um, I think reduce the value of a company is when the boss is in everything and that company can't work without them. And so I suspect, and I'd love to hear how do you help bosses stop that?

Talmar: Oh my gosh. Wow. Uh, you know, there's two phases to that, right? The first phase when we're going from business owner to boss before working with you and before the big plan of the exit strategy, they're learning to hire the people that will build success with them. Any, anyone they hire is going to be influential to their success, either good or bad.

So let's be really mindful about that. And so in that case, you know, they call that your dream team. These are the people that can come in and do the functions that support what your business needs. And you can. As the boss, you can start to slowly pull out some of those things, learning to delegate and, and then you step into management.

You know, how do I manage these people? But the phase that you're talking about, which is really critical as when we, we call that moving from boss to CEO is when we're building your freedom team. And for us, your freedom team are your second in commands, your management or your leadership team. And the reason we very specifically want them to see that that's a different I'm telling you, everybody, listen up, it's a different hire.

Your leadership, they've got to innately and consistently be about the business's growth, not about the personalities. And so that whole shifting and finding and hiring a second in command, that's going to walk your talk and be able to keep the business running. Wherever you are, and even whether you're ready to sell or whether you're getting ready to open a second location, we need to build it to your point so that it can run without you.

And that's not just writing the procedures down. That can actually be filled in as you grow the team because you can. Let them help you write it down people. But understanding who's going to be able to walk the talk and run this company without you exponentially increases the value because now they believe that this is something that somebody else can do.

I can, if you can hire a manager that can do this and it's not just you, the genius behind the invention, everybody buying, you know, what Wendy wants or what Wendy does or what Talmar does. If I have a manager doing it now, we know it's repeatable. It's sustainable. It's repeatable. And to your point, exponentially valuable.

Wendy: And I love how you characterize that because one of the things too is when people want to buy a business, some people, most of them don't want to buy a job.

Talmar: Nope. They're not interested in being in there.

Wendy: No. So, but I absolutely love the idea of start with your dream team, work to your freedom team, your dream team morph into your freedom team. Or are they two separate changes that happen at different stages of growth?

Talmar: I would love to say that the majority of people that start with you are going to stay with you. But the truth of the matter is the team that's there when you're building, when you're in that dream team phase, these people are, are highly adaptable. They actually like the thrill of the change and unknown and the unexpected.

So as we start to grow and structure and have a redundancy, you have to do the same thing every day. Oftentimes the employees that want to show up and do the same thing every day, they might not be. So it's, it's not usual to bring the whole team along with you. Having said that, there are times when a business is starting to create real revenues, right?

I usually say 5 million is the marker, but honestly it's at about 2 to 3 million in revenues that we can start to afford the resources to create promotion, succession and training programs. Because Uh, one of the biggest mistakes small business owners make is they hire for potential. That's not what your business needs.

We don't even know what's happening in two years. You need to hire the people that can do the job now. And so as we grow, is it possible somebody grew? Maybe, but oftentimes the person you really need is not ready yet. It's just small business until we can grow big enough. To have a training program and somebody that can dedicate time and energy to making sure that somebody learns management skills.

Somebody learns how to hire. Somebody learns how to do the, uh, expert level troubleshooting. It's not just money and titles. We need skill sets and experiences that will allow us to continue, continue on this growth trajectory or to scale.

Wendy: I have fallen into that trap for sure, Telmar. And I think sometimes it's because yes, I'm hiring for potential. I'm also guilty of sometimes wanting to save money. And I think what I realized over the longterm is it would be way better to bring someone in that has the toolkit already built because otherwise it's going to take all my time to help build the tail kit.

Talmar: Yes.

Wendy: That's not a good use of my time. I'd rather have someone now come in fully, fully equipped and actually goes, I've done this 5 million times more than you have. Here's how I would do it.

Talmar: Well, yes. And so, so the, the key here is we say stop hiring for potential because the truth of the matter is right. If I'm bringing in, say a salesperson, I need a person who's sold to my types of clients. Not exactly necessarily, but my types of clients and has a sales process. If it's my first time hiring, because honestly I'm still developing it.

So I do want someone who's like, In the past, what I usually do is this is my follow up process and this is how I find code leads or that we can have conversation about it and they can help inform my decisions. We never want to let them run it, but at the end of the day, if we're not careful about, um, exactly, uh, the kind of person that is, It's going to be successful at the job and we think, Oh, I like them so much that Wendy, she's the bee's knees.

We're going to have so much fun working together. I believe she reminds me of me when I was coming up and I believe I can teach her anything and besides, I'm just giving back to the community by helping her build a career. But the issue is it's going to take at least six, nine, 10 years. 18 months for them to actually truly learn everything you need them to learn.

And there's no promise they have the capacity

Wendy: Or that they will stay once they get it.

Talmar: That's the second piece of it, right? The first one is, can they even learn it and will they be successful at it? We need people that we can look back on their history and give us a reasonable expectation of success. But this, to your point, and this is the part, I'm sorry, business owners out there, the truth of the matter of our society right now, a great.

tenure, which is how long somebody stays with you. A great tenure is 18 to 36 months.

Wendy: Oh, stab me in my

Talmar: I know. So the likelihood that we can invest in gold watches for people to retire with us is not high, but that's okay. If we know that, then let's get the best possible person that is up and running 80 to 100 percent within 60 days.

Or let them go and find somebody else. This is, we've got to move a little faster in our assessment of if this is the right hire, because that's where it saves us the money, which was what you were originally talking about, right? When we hire for potential and we. And let's talk about the investment hiring of people you have to teach.

Now I'm going to pay two people to teach one person a career that has nothing to do with what I want them to do. I'm still, so now I'm, somebody, whether it's me, usually it is the business owner, or somebody that's high level enough to understand it, is going to stop doing their job. It's such a expensive, Misstep.

It's well intentioned, but it's not going to get our small business where we are and profitable enough to be able to invest back in our communities in all kinds of ways.

Wendy: Okay. You talked a little bit about mindset and I strongly believe in mindset. And I have a theory that all the business owners who have hired, been hired, done stuff, we're all carrying emotional baggage around that experience, which sometimes actually halts us, pauses us, makes us worried about growing or, you know, I'm going, it's just going to make more work for me. How do you talk to a business owner like that?

Talmar: well, I would say that's all of our clients, right? They really what you fab is business owners need to understand is, um, no, you don't have to be mean to hold people accountable. No, it's not unreasonable to expect that people do the job that you. Pay them to do. And it's totally okay to look someone in the eye and say, here's my issue.

I, you know, I've given you, I've explained what success looks like, given you all the resources, and yet you're missing a deadline and you haven't come to me, ask for anything more. You're literally just choosing to not deliver. So it's walking them through the idea of understanding this employee is, whether subconscious or consciously making decisions to not show up.

For the success that we know we need for our business. So as the boss, it's our job to have the communication with them that says you're not meeting the expectations. You're a fabulous person, but you need to go be fabulous somewhere else because I need these expectations met. And so it's really about separating them and you're right.

Everybody has different, sometimes it's cultural, like family, sometimes it's money issues, but a lot of it is just comfort in telling someone when you're unhappy and they're not doing the job. Of

Wendy: Hmm. Uh, the word you brought up that I think is so key here too is, uh, you talked about what success looks like and delegation. And I think that, um, As entrepreneurs, we believe we are fabulous communicators all the time, but that may not be the truth. Cause I mean, I think sometimes we, what we think we said and what actually came out or what they heard can be different.

What are your top delegation tips?

Talmar: Oh, well, I think that the first thing is, and don't laugh, because I know you all are going to roll your eyes, but you're also going to self identify, is we have to give deadlines that are specific, my friends. I don't. I don't. So, I, I would challenge everyone listening, all of your listeners, to think about the last four assignments they gave to somebody, and how many of them have a very specific date and time that you expect them to return product or solution or have another meeting, and is there a date?

Is there a time or is it a general, Hey, can you get to this or this is really important or even just add this to your list, right? It's in the waiting. As soon as you hand off and delegate that to somebody, you're already like, I need it, I need it, I need it. But the person that received the instruction to do it, just add it to the list is like, okay, I'm going to put it in the list right about here, but I'm going to finish these two things first.

And this one took longer than I thought. And you're like, where is it? Where is it? Where is it? And then the person who is delegated to is actually like, um, I think I'll start it tomorrow. It's the end of the day right now. And so we just haven't communicated very successfully what it is we need. And to by setting clear deadlines and timeframes that you can ask to for follow up, right?

That's how we'll know they're successful or they'll fail. But more importantly, that's how they'll know That they're successful or they failed.

Wendy: How can you, along the journey, like when someone first comes in, you, the level of trust that you need isn't going to be there, but how can you build, are there's distinct actions you can take along the employment journey to. Give yourself more trust within that individual. Like what can we do?

Talmar: Oh, this is the absolute best question, Wendy. You're so right on the money. Because the truth is, that's what we're trying to do. How can I trust this person? And to your question, it's about how do we build trust for them to have in us enough for us to have good conversations. And you're the boss, so you're the grown up.

You're the person that has to lead by example. And there's two great ways to start to get that trust builded. built in them so that they will later come to you. And the first one is your onboarding process is you invited them, you expected them, you should have things ready for them when they're starting.

They should be excited that first day. They're going to decide if they're looking for a job in six months or if this is going to be so much fun, they hope it lasts forever. Again, it's not going to last for everybody. Don't get excited. But if that's the case, then we've got somebody that understands and create that onboarding process over six weeks.

Includes different things like more regular check ins, but on a consistent basis, the best thing every boss can do, please everybody, have one to ones with https: otter. ai That your team meetings must come before new clients, new opportunities, because if they can't do the job, if they don't have the opportunity to get access to you, your business will suffer and it doesn't matter.

You're just going to end up making yourself busier. So having these one on ones, which are not about assignment of new work or case study, one on ones are actually checking in and communicating with the employee about how they think they Things are going for them in this business, and it really facilitates a consistent way to be there and give them access to a place where they get to admit what's hard or challenging for them.

Wendy: Yeah, I like calling those strategy meetings. I, I, I, I kind of stopped calling it employee reviews. I started strategy sessions because reviews always feel very judgy.

Talmar: Yeah, well, they are and they're required. I mean, you need reviews. Let's be clear, as your performance is not great or, or, or even exceptional. I think that review should happen on the good and the bad as frequently as those things occur. But, um, And strategy session is great as long as it's about the questions the boss asks.

It's about, am I asking them what do they, what are they most proud of? Am I asking them what's been the most challenging? Am I putting in front of them the right questions to look for patterns of issues they might have or successes that they're having? By being consistent and being in front of them and talking through the things that they feel are challenging for them, you one, identify how to support them better and two, start to build that relationship and trust so later on they'll use your open door policy.

Wendy: Telmar, this has been a fascinating discussion about all of that. How can people reach out and get ahold of you?

Talmar: Oh my gosh, thank you so much for asking. We're at Boss HQ, uh, I'm sorry, that's not true at all. We're at yourbosshq. com and uh, I'm on LinkedIn and of course if you want to learn more, go to zoom with. Talmar, T A L M A R. com and you'll have opportunities to make meetings and find resources and all kinds of good stuff.

Wendy: That's amazing, Telmar. And I think the real bottom line here today is the dream team that you start out with may not be the freedom team you end up with. Thank you so much, Telmar, for your time today.

Talmar: Oh my gosh, thank you Wendy for the opportunity to be here with you all. I really appreciate it.

Wendy: Awesome.

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