Build to Enough | Preparing to Grow Your Team with Kira La Forgia

HR expert Kira La Forgia breaks down what small business owners need to know before making their first (or next) hire. From understanding the true costs beyond salary to showcasing company culture authentically, she shares practical insights on building teams that align with your business values and goals. While many entrepreneurs focus solely on finding help, Kira emphasizes the importance of stepping into leadership and creating sustainable systems that support both business growth and employee success.

• (00:00) - Introduction and Guest Welcome
• (01:25) - Kira's Background and Business Journey
• (02:11) - Understanding Small Business HR Needs
• (03:19) - Signs It's Time to Hire
• (06:00) - Strategic Hiring and Budgeting
• (10:09) - The Hidden Costs of Hiring
• (15:24) - Showcasing Company Culture
• (22:35) - Effective Interview Strategies
• (26:02) - The Challenges of Small Business Hiring
• (27:07) - Paradigm's Recruiting Service
• (32:56) - Final Thoughts and Advice

Connect with Kira!
Paradigm - https://the-paradigm.com/aboutkiralaforgia/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kiralaforgia

Connect with Keila!
LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com/in/keilahilltrawick
Website - www.krht.co

Twitter - x.com/littlefishcpa

More About Little Fish Accounting

Learn more about Little Fish’s suite of services at www.littlefishaccounting.com.

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Creators & Guests

Host

Keila Hill-Trawick, CPA, MBA

Helping entrepreneurs create and maintain the business they want | Building to Enough | LinkedIn Top Voice | Intuit Partner Council | Accounting Firm Owner

Guest

Kira La Forgia, MA-OM

Founder of Paradigm Consulting

What is Build to Enough ?

Little Fish Accounting presents Build To Enough. The pursuit of endless growth and scaling can leave entrepreneurs feeling burned out and unfulfilled. This podcast explores how to build sustainable, purpose-driven businesses that align with your lifestyle and values, rather than defined by rapid expansion alone. On this show, we’ll reframe definitions of success, provide strategies for structuring companies around desired lifestyles, and share stories of entrepreneurs finding deeper fulfillment by focusing on “enough.” Join us as we discuss moving off the hamster wheel and building businesses with balance and meaning.

There may be errors in spelling, grammar, and accuracy in this machine-generated transcript.

Keila Hill-Trawick: Hello. You're listening to Build to Enough, a podcast for entrepreneurs who want to scale at their own pace. I'm your host, Kaela Traywick, and I'll be your chief storyteller and cheerleader in a world that glorifies endless expansion, we're tuning out the noise and discussing the beauty of enough. Each episode will dive into inspiring stories, practical insights, and strategies to cultivate sustainable success on your [00:00:30] own terms. So whether you're a solopreneur, small business owner, or aspiring entrepreneur, get ready for a refreshing take on the entrepreneurial journey. This is build to enough. Hey, and welcome back to Build to Enough. The last episode, we talked about how hiring well increases your capacity, which you know, we are always here for because when you are trying to stay lean, you want to make sure that you're hiring the right people at the right time. But I'm not the expert on that. And so I have brought a [00:01:00] very special guest today to talk to us about hiring, about building your team and resources that you can use to make that easier for you. So welcome, Kiara.

Kira La Forgia: Thank you so much for having me. I've been so looking forward to this.

Keila Hill-Trawick: Of course, we are glad to have you back. So before we jump into all of the stuff, why don't you introduce yourself? Tell the audience a little bit about what you do and where your expertise lies.

Kira La Forgia: Yeah. So my name is Kiara Laforgia and I founded a consulting company called Paradigm [00:01:30] People Operations Consulting almost five years ago now. And in that process, I thought I was starting out doing traditional outsourced HR and operations leadership development consulting. But then sort of the market told me that I fell into a very focused area where we were taking really complicated HR practices and putting them into bite sized services for small businesses. And that's where really my passion lies. Um, and then throughout the process and over [00:02:00] the last few years, we've just been able to kind of become the go to outsourced HR company for small business owners, primarily female founders, but will accept demand here and there. Um, and really, just with the interest of kind of changing the way that companies have utilized HR as sort of a a little bit more of a C-suite mouthpiece. And in small business, we don't really need that. So in the process of the way that we've built the business, we've sort of become the person [00:02:30] that sits next to your employees, but also can help support and filter the information to the CEOs that are making the big decisions when it comes to your most important, important asset, your people.

Keila Hill-Trawick: Yeah. I mean, spoiler alert, little fish is a paradigm client. We love working with your firm. Um, I have shouted you all out every time I can to be able to say how well you treat small businesses differently. And I think it's a really important thing that we even do at our firm, is like, we recognize that the [00:03:00] way that you look at a CFO or HR, if you were in a corporation, is way different than what those titles mean when your team is really small and when you are growing a team, it can be really difficult for small business owners, firm owners, service providers to figure out how to do that strategically. So first question on the docket. What are the signs that tell a firm owner or service provider that it is time for them to even start thinking about hiring?

Kira La Forgia: Well, [00:03:30] I think that a lot of times there's a lot of generalized blanket advice out there that we see, like hire, because you don't want to do this thing anymore, which is true. And hire, yes. You don't have the time. Also true, there's a lot of things that will contribute to this decision, but I think that the challenge I'll throw back to our sales calls or discovery calls or, you know, clients that DM me in the DMs or, you know, whatever it is, is that I don't know, what are your needs? Like where where do you want to go? Do you want this to be a growth mechanism, [00:04:00] or do you want to buy yourself a little bit more time? And I think that a lot of times people don't realize that there is so much creativity and flexibility and freedom when it comes to building the type of small business that you want. And a lot of that freedom lies within how you're choosing to utilize people to help you get from A to B for what you really desire. If you don't want to lead, if you don't want to manage people, if you don't want to build a culture, then there is a way to grow your business to a certain extent without [00:04:30] having a team. But it really has to come from you. Because forcing somebody to go into a leadership position just so that they can say they're growing their business, is probably not going to be a good result for either side. So I think when it comes down to it, if you're excited about the opportunity to lead and develop other people and create a ripple effect of your impact not only through your clients but also through the people that you employ, then that's a pretty good sign that you might be moving in the direction of building a small team. And then you can kind of have little checkpoints here and there [00:05:00] that can tell you in which way that's going to actually be able to serve your business and you the best.

Keila Hill-Trawick: I think that's a really good point, because when we talk about hiring, when we talk about building our teams, growing our teams, a lot of the focus is on getting a person to help us. Like, I think all of us make that same not mistake, but have that same thought going into it. It's like, I will bring you on and then you will help me, and then my job will get easier, and then we'll figure out how your job grows along the way. But to your [00:05:30] point, you're really taking on a leadership or a manager role that either you weren't doing before or you at least weren't doing for this many people before you added folks. So let's say you're at a point where you say, okay, I know that I need to bring someone on, and keeping in mind that you are now kind of entering this leadership phase or expanding this, um, managerial capacity. What would you say is the first step after making that decision to figure out.

Keila Hill-Trawick: What you.

Keila Hill-Trawick: Need to do in terms of getting somebody on your team. [00:06:00]

Kira La Forgia: Honestly, the very first step is go and talk to your money person. Figure out what you can afford, and then we can strategically help you build out the support, the role, the really strategic piece to what does that person do for your business? How are you able to leverage them, leverage their skills, leverage their talent in order to make the biggest impact for the bottom line? We often talk about how we will be able to help you with your profit margins and your labor margins, and making sure that people are priced. You know, I don't [00:06:30] want to say priced as if they're like a product, but are frankly, your salaries are priced in a way that is still going to create ROI for you, either in time or money. And different businesses are going to have different priorities there. But really and what I think we've been able to have so much success with little fish and working alongside you and supporting you, is that you really have a like a thought process that is founded in what is sustainable on the monetary side of the business, so it allows us to be more impactful in regards [00:07:00] to how we're helping you choose to utilize people within the confines of what you can actually afford.

Keila Hill-Trawick: So it's funny that you say that because one, I think that it's important to remember that the money makes a difference. I think a lot of people just kind of make a dream team of, well, I would like a person that does this and it's like, well, that dream person cost this much. And if you were actually looking at your budget and what you could afford, you can only afford this much. And that doesn't mean that you can't get a person that's going to be helpful for you, or that couldn't really, like, change [00:07:30] the direction of your business. But it may not be the exact job that you're looking for when somebody comes to you with that. Like I'm sure most of us do, because almost none of us have no idea how much a salary should be. We are comparing ourselves to, you know, major corporations who have money that we don't have. We want to make sure that we're paying people fairly, but we don't exactly know what that number looks like. When someone comes to you with this like dream idea of what they are looking for. They already have [00:08:00] a budget in place. How does your firm help them define what they can actually afford in a role, and what those roles and responsibilities in that job should look like?

Kira La Forgia: Yeah. So I think that I love this question because obviously it's going to be a little bit different for everyone. So in the interest of making this long story short, when I first started my consulting company, I still work as a COO and as a full time job. Does that mean I'm working 40 hours a week? No, but I go into the office every Wednesday. I'm completely unavailable for paradigm, and that has [00:08:30] developed over the course of the last five years. So through that process, my needs for my employees have changed and I've been really lucky. Or, you know, maybe there's some skill involved. Who knows? Um, regarding putting the right people that are going to grow with me, but I didn't waste any time at all to bring someone in to support me because I had a full time job. So once we started to get some traction, it was absolutely not going to be within the possibility that I was going to be able to provide the service of the goals that I had for paradigm, [00:09:00] while also working a full time job by myself. So it pushed me to do that a little bit sooner. Granted, I think that goes right in line with what my expertise is. So it wasn't that scary or that big of a deal. It was just like, well, this is what you gotta do if you want to get to the next level and provide this level of service.

Kira La Forgia: And I think that that's a really kind of relatable feeling for a lot of businesses in that you there is no right way to do it, but it is totally great for you to go out there and dream for what you eventually want this company to look and feel like, and [00:09:30] then we can help you have them step by step path that step by step pathway to get there. And we can help you to make sure that you're putting the right people in the right seats at the right time, even if you're just building a foundation for that dream role in the future, because you know that you have to maybe have somebody that's helping you fulfill on services in order to expand your profit margins for a little while so that they're making that ROI. And then maybe you do get to invest in somebody that's going to help you buy back your time a little bit, or pursue other avenues in your business that's going to eventually [00:10:00] show an ROI. You know, stuff like that. So it really does matter what you want in regards to the long term in order to make the decision in the short term.

Keila Hill-Trawick: Yeah.

Keila Hill-Trawick: Speaking of ROI, when we think about hiring people, we are almost always thinking about salary. Sometimes if you have a money person on your side, you are also thinking about payroll taxes. But what are some of the other hidden costs that people aren't thinking about when they're saying that they're going to expand their team and they've got this budget number in [00:10:30] place, and you know that that budget number is going to have to encompass more than just paying the person. What other financial impacts are they not thinking about?

Kira La Forgia: I mean, I'm all about the time versus money situation. It depends on what your priorities are, what you have going on. If you have the freedom to dump a lot of time into something, then our strategy is going to look a lot different than if you have a lot of money to dump into something, but you don't have a lot of time. So I think that if you're able to really tune in to how those things are connected to your long term goals, then it can help you to sort of see what those costs [00:11:00] are going to be. Because if you're hiring someone to help you take time off of your plate, then you're probably not going to be spending a ton of time developing them or training them like you're actually bringing them in to take the things off of your plate so that hidden cost of time or development training, you know, conferences, retreats, stuff like that. 401 (K) matches a really simple one across the board. It's going to look kind of different for the person. That's not necessarily going to be a revenue generating employee versus [00:11:30] someone like my right hand, Kylie, that is going to be delivering to the client the service that we're creating that I'm actually getting paid for. Not me personally, but the company is getting paid for all the activities that she is doing where you can measure that ROI really seamlessly. But for those employees that are bringing you money, don't forget about the time that it's going to take for you to train them and develop them.

Kira La Forgia: Infuse the culture into them. Make sure that you're creating space for them to have white space to not just be completing tasks every every day, but to be thinking about that little [00:12:00] extra thing we can do for our clients, or that little extra thing that we can do to make somebody experience great, or that little extra thing that we can do to be like, hey y'all, we need a referral. You got anybody like those little things? Kylie generates those because of the white space in her schedule, so not every single second that she's working is she generating, you know, a dollar for dollar amount hours versus service. But she is making exponential impact on the rest of our team. The leadership that she's that she's spending time doing and she's she's leading our new department. That [00:12:30] means that she is going to be worth spending a little bit more money on Kylie's time there, because we want to make sure that she can lead other people. So I think the long term goal is really going to need to be in focus for you to for you to decide what those hidden costs are and how much you're willing to spend. But I think across the board, you can pretty much predict how much somebody is going to cost you. It's just up to you as the leader to make sure that you are getting a return on that. And depending on what your priorities are, you get to decide whether or not that's time or money.

Keila Hill-Trawick: I think [00:13:00] as.

Keila Hill-Trawick: An aside, that's a really good point about how client experience is directly impacted by your hire. Not just because you have another person on the team, but obviously as a client of yours. Kylie is always super responsive to us. Anytime we have a question, she has the space to be able to respond thoroughly, relatively quickly. And that can only happen when she has enough space to, like, do her work and also be available for the random things that come up, because they will for all of our firms and clients. They will, and [00:13:30] we never feel left behind. And we're having a similar experience with your new team. Um, service. And we'll talk about that in a little bit, but just want to really reiterate how important it is that those funds that you're investing into your team members are not just their technical skills. It may be things like software that makes their job faster or, you know, processes, which is the time that makes it so that things can automatically go through a very specific channel in order to make sure that the right person [00:14:00] sees it at the right time. And I think that that gets missed again, when we're thinking about hire a person and get them to help us. Forgetting or maybe underestimating what that actually does from a client front of making sure that they feel heard and appreciated and taken care of. Mostly because you gave them what you say. That white space to make sure that they have room to be able to address those? Yeah.

Kira La Forgia: I mean, you know, just to kind of tie it back to like the very core of your question in regards [00:14:30] to the cost of these things, I think that the hidden costs are truly hidden, not behind a dollar amount, but they do come down to the effort that you're putting in and the time that you're building out within your culture based on what your priorities for your business are. There are plenty of agencies out there that are going to have maybe only a 5% white space based on the work that the people are doing. And that's a very cultural mechanism. It's not just, you know, we have really collaborative clients that work together a lot, and there's a lot of, you know, moving parts and, you know, [00:15:00] pieces that are coming together. We're going to want to make sure that we're budgeting out for a larger white space within what their return is going to be, so that we can have freedom to communicate and collaborate in order to deliver the service that we're promising to our clients. So it really is. I mean, I hate to be like super intangible about it, but it always comes back to the culture and it always comes back to the leadership. If you want to make sure you're getting the results that are aligned with your goals.

Keila Hill-Trawick: So that's a really good segue to my next question, because everybody wants the unicorn, [00:15:30] right? Everybody is like, give me my right person at the right time, at the right budget so that they can come in and like, change my business in two weeks. And as service providers and firm owners that run small businesses, how can we attract the right talent when we don't have maybe the budgets or the brand In recognition of what feels like our our competitors at larger corporations.

Kira La Forgia: Oh my gosh, this is such a good question. And I think it's right on the tip of my tongue, because we [00:16:00] were talking a little bit about the evolution of our new recruiting service today with our really experienced recruiter that I brought on board. And I actually think this is a really good example, is that you can't be afraid to look silly, get made fun of, be vulnerable in an experience that you're putting out there about what you need support with. You have to be able to be kind of goofy and let your personality shine and let your culture really shine, even though some people are going to be like, what [00:16:30] an unprofessional thing to put in a job post, or what are ridiculous thing to have out there in the world, or this criticism or that criticism, because it is such a public demonstration of what's going on internally. It can feel really personal for CEOs to put that information out there about the reality of what it's like to work in your company, but it's so worth it, Because even if you only get 2530 applicants versus another job that's boasting about 300 or 350, I guarantee you that you are going to have [00:17:00] a more aligned group of people. If you're putting yourself out there and putting your company culture out there in a more vulnerable way. And I think part of that is that sometimes we're we have these stories that are going on in the back of our head of what it should look like to be recruiting new talent or putting out information or a job post and what that should look like and what that should feel like because of the way that business has been done and modeled for us in the past.

Kira La Forgia: But in small business, we want to be relentlessly in pursuit of the truth of what it's like to work for us in order to make sure that we're attracting that talent. If we're leaving those [00:17:30] things aside, or we're not letting what it's really like to be at our company shine through because we're embarrassed about it or something like that, if it's not really going to be a situation where somebody should be hired into your company, you should be proud of the weird culture that you're building. Yeah. And you're going to call in the right people. Similar to the advice we get about clients that I think, you know, we might back down on or serve different versions of that sometimes because we have to make money. When it comes to your team, there is no gray area. You have to have people that are excited to [00:18:00] be in your weird, because small business is hard and you're not going to get paid the same amount as somebody in corporate, but there's going to be so much reward and so much ripple effect that you can have, and that your team can then have, um, based on, you know, the work that they're doing. And at the end of the day, I think people are really looking to be fulfilled and in aligned culture will help them do that.

Keila Hill-Trawick: How do you showcase your culture? Like, I feel like there are, you know, there's ways in which we talk about branding. There's [00:18:30] ways that corporations just get to like, show up in the world in a way that we don't. How when you're thinking about culture, which is generally something that we see internally is like, once you get here, you'll see how we work out. How do you how would you recommend that people start thinking about showcasing that culture outside of.

Keila Hill-Trawick: People.

Keila Hill-Trawick: Who aren't, or outside, two people who aren't already on the team. Yeah.

Kira La Forgia: You know, I think the example you just gave was a really not to call you out, but kind of a fallacy because [00:19:00] we your thought was, well, you don't really get to see it until you're in it, but that's not true. You could have it where you could have your culture be something that's out there that people can see. If that's something that you desire and feels aligned with the work that you're doing. So there's no right way or wrong way. So like making I think for you, that was that was kind of showing like little fish is a very defined and very specific type of culture that is very similar to paradigms, [00:19:30] which is why I think I'm like, why don't we just combine and get this over with? Um, but that thought of you, you'll see, like you'll see when you're here. It's actually kind of a culture marker because it's like we're exclusive and we are like really committed to each other. And that's not necessarily something that we're going to put on blast for the whole world to see. But these feelings of protection and inclusivity, once you're in the inner circle and these feelings that and I don't mean to put [00:20:00] your culture on blast by any means, normally take this out if you want to, but those feelings of like, once you're in, you're in and we're just as committed to you as you are to us.

Kira La Forgia: Our culture markers that you're not going to find in other businesses. So I think that's one of the things that paradigm does really well, is that we've been able to use our unique skills and talents to pull out those differences, because a lot of CEOs will do the same thing you did, and kind of make the assumption that everybody wants the same thing for their culture. But it could not be more different. We could have two CEOs that are best [00:20:30] friends that talk to each other every single day, and their cultures are going to be totally different from each other, but they may not even really realize it because a lot of the time in small business, it really does feel a lot more personal to have your culture really reflective of who you are and what your business is. Desires are, but we just want to push you one step further and say, okay, let's make sure that you can have a little bit of a boundary between yourself and your culture. We do that through HR policies. So for example, creating a situation where you might have 20% [00:21:00] white space on top of deliverables for an agency or for a model, because you want to make sure that you're encouraging collaboration. You don't want people to feel overworked, or you might have another type of culture where you're like, we don't have a lot of white space.

Kira La Forgia: It's all asynchronous, and I want people that don't feel like they need to feel super connected to me in order to feel super connected to their client. And we're going to feel really like our clients are going to know that they can come to my employees and they're going to talk to them all the time, and they're going to feel represented by them. But they might talk to the clients more than they ever talk to me. And so [00:21:30] when we talk, it's very focused, it's very direct, and it's very driven towards their, you know, productivity, their results, their development. And there's not a lot of like fluffy stuff on the outside. So and there's nothing wrong with it. It's just about making sure that you're clear on it and understanding that you are in a place to have an unconscious bias about what culture should look like. And that shows that you have a really solid view of what you want your culture to be. It's not a negative. It's the one time that we're going to use your [00:22:00] bias to lean into more of that, because it's going to create an effortless environment for you to show up as a leader.

Keila Hill-Trawick: Okay, this is great. I am very excited about all this. And I feel like, all right, so you have figured out what you need. You have budgeted for it, you have set up a company culture and you've told the world about it. And now we need to get some people in. And we have started the process of hiring a person. And one thing that [00:22:30] I think is really hard for a lot of firm owners and service providers is interviews. We are very good at talking to people. But then when it comes to like doing an interview where you're trying to figure out if this is the person that you should let your guard down for and let into your business, that gets really scary and hard to figure out how we should approach it. So what are some tips that you have about how to structure and manage an interview as you're trying to get the the right applicant into your business? [00:23:00]

Kira La Forgia: Well, I think that if you're able to be confident about what you are and aren't allowed to ask, then some of those walls are going to come down. I think a lot of business owners will approach interviews in a way that's like, well, I'm not 100% sure if I can ask that. And so you're automatically having a little bit of a wall up and you're and that's going to be reflected in the environment that you're creating for your candidates to come into. And again, it's not necessarily a bad thing, but maybe it just will take us a little bit longer to get to a place where we're finding out who they truly are, what their skills really are, and building that mutual trust [00:23:30] before we're ever paying them because we're like, oh, I don't know if I can ask that or, oh, I don't know how to lean into that uncomfortable answer, or oh, am I allowed to ask that? So just that like really solid confidence and education about like what you can lean into and get a little bit more quote unquote personal with versus what you probably should not do. Having that understanding will help you have more genuine conversations. And the mistake that I think that small business owners make, and it sucks so bad.

Kira La Forgia: And it's why we decided [00:24:00] to start doing recruiting against my will. No, I'm really happy about it, but it took a while to do it. Um, it's just because it's a it's a catch 22 for small business owners in order to get and and kind of I don't want to say judge, but judge and you know, pull out the best talent from people. Take time and it takes a lot of effort and it takes a lot of focus and it takes a lot of experience. And so while hiring is something you can DIY and you can DIY [00:24:30] really well, once you start getting to the point where you're like, oh no, I need this to be like as well as it can be done, I need the right person. I made a few mistakes along the way. It's impossible because you're a small business owner. You don't have the time to become an expert at this. And so then you end up hiring subpar talent because your unconscious biases are saying, that checks off. That checks off. That feels good. I like them, they'll fit in. This is great. And then we're kind of back at square one when we have to restart. People are complicated. There's a million different [00:25:00] personalities out there. So I think that's one of the big things, is that you can never feel bad if you can't put in all the time and effort, but it is kind of a like a rarity that a small business owner is going to go out, interview and hire, get the right information, and put their biases aside all by themselves without any experience doing this the first time, you know, when they're bringing people in and we don't have the luxury of time and mistakes in small business, we need our people.

Kira La Forgia: You know, if you're hiring your first employee, that's 50% of your workforce. Like, we [00:25:30] need to see those results quickly in order for it to be successful. And it's hard because you don't want to shame someone for trying to do something themselves. And there is the chance that you will get lucky. But if you can go back and just make sure that you're confident that those walls are down from square one, making that process a little bit more efficient and seamless and straightforward, while also cutting down to the nitty gritty, is going to be reliant on your ability to have a little bit of HR and compliance knowledge so that you are not afraid to step into some situations that require more difficult questions.

Keila Hill-Trawick: Okay, so [00:26:00] first of all, yes to all of that. It is very difficult to be responsible for that as a small business owner. And what I will say as we go into our last question and as kind of a testimonial, I guess, of how we ended up starting to use your recruiting service, is it's also really traumatic, like the number of people that we've either lost or had to fire or insert whatever here. When I thought I did the right thing going in this time because I thought I messed it up last time, and I corrected for that, and everything was supposed to be [00:26:30] better now, and it isn't. And now another person is gone. And so you have this distrust of yourself at the same time that, you know, like you said, I need somebody in here immediately. So I would love for you to give some insight as to how you finally came around to like building this service as something that we could take advantage of. And also why you think it's so important for people like me who are walking into this? And yeah, I did it a couple of times really well. And then I did it a couple times, not really well at all. [00:27:00] And I needed help and didn't necessarily know what I needed to be able to support me through that.

Kira La Forgia: Yeah. I mean, your story is really one of the catalysts for that because I do believe that you can be cost effective and leverage your current team to help you to get people in, in the door. And it isn't always a guarantee, whether you're using a recruiter or not, which was one of the reasons that I didn't want to do this. Like I've been in recruiting and hiring for such [00:27:30] a long time. I found so much comfort in this feeling of being able to always deliver an exceptional experience for my clients, and there is housed in deliverables, and we have complete control of it and all of this stuff. So we had a recruiting partner that we had been using for a long time, and about a year and a half ago, she decided to go back and be a teacher again, and I really leaned on her that way. If people needed that support, they could go and benefit from [00:28:00] her experience. And, you know, the millions of times that you are burned versus a small business owner a few times here and there. And we learned from all of these experiences, the last 12 years of hiring hundreds and hundreds of people, promoting them, developing them, getting tricked by them. Sometimes things like that are these things that are hard to explain. So in the process of all of that, I wanted I really wanted paradigm to be a thing that I was 100% sure we could deliver on every [00:28:30] single thing, every single time. So it felt vulnerable for me to put a little bit of that experience on someone else, not just in.

Kira La Forgia: My team.

Kira La Forgia: And hiring somebody that can take this and run with it the way that I believe our clients need it, which truly doesn't exist out there. A lot of the recruiters that you can find are for corporate environments. They don't understand HR compliance. They're their salespeople first and foremost, which I absolutely respect and love about the recruiting field. But small business owners [00:29:00] need somebody that's going to understand their culture so that they have a higher success rate. There is much more of a cultural impact on a new hire in a team of 5 to 10. Or like we said earlier, 2 or 3 even. But in a big corporation where a lot of it can kind of be washed out as you're going through this experience. So it was like, okay, well, now you have to take on this uncomfy feeling of doing something new after establishing, you know, the services that we offer. And we've helped almost 100 businesses do that, and we still [00:29:30] have to do that. And then I also have to find somebody that I can trust that's going to really understand this. And I have to make sure that it feels fun and aligned. One thing that I will say, Kylie, who is my right hand and and we've mentioned a little bit on this podcast, it was so excited about doing this for our clients because of the relationships we have with them. She has been pushing me for a long time. So it was it was good to have her say, we need to do this because no matter what, we're going to be able to produce something [00:30:00] that's better than anything that anyone else is doing, and it's going to be so much better for our clients, too.

Kira La Forgia: So it was scary. I mean, it felt like the same feeling I got when starting my business in the first place, because it's a different type of vulnerability to be like, I can deliver something, but I'm going to tell you right now, these are people and they're not meant to be controlled so we can deliver something great, but I can't deliver something guaranteed, which is scary as shit. I mean, sorry, yeah, you're the one that [00:30:30] built this business that I knew I could guarantee these great results. And then to have to kind of question that a little bit. But yeah, so far, I mean, we, we did a few beta clients along the way and one of them has already returned and it's their second hire. Um, we've been able to kind of find a middle ground to make sure that if we did have to go and seek out talent again, for whatever reason, then it's affordable for the business to do and still leverage us as their partner, um, while also still putting the experience [00:31:00] and the personality at the foremost. But one of my main priorities in this, and it's kind of funny to talk to you about it since you're one of the clients, but is I really wanted our CEOs and founders, my counterparts, essentially my peers, to feel protected and for there to be a filter because it can feel so personal when you're building a culture and then bringing people into it. So just that filter and that protection alone, which maybe you I recognize our clients are not going to know it's there.

Kira La Forgia: They're not going to [00:31:30] know that they're benefiting from that filter. But I think that overall it expands the experience of bringing someone on. It doesn't feel as painful. It doesn't feel as scary. If you can be like, well, we really missed that or we didn't know that this person, you know, I was going to say something really dark, going to have a death in their family halfway through their their probationary period. Like we can all say, well, that wasn't Paradigm's fault. But at the end of the day, we wanted to make sure that we had some type of safeguard built in. And the way that we've been able to do that is a creating this filter so that the experience [00:32:00] feels really good for the leaders that are involved in the process, and b, making sure that we're really, really focused on the candidate experience so that if when your candidate doesn't work out, they're still like, I want to work for a company that paradigm does work for. So it's going to be a lot easier for us to re like, go back and source those candidates. I guarantee you, as a CEO, as a founder, as a leader, as a CEO, whatever it is that's doing internal hiring that doesn't have a ton of experience, they are not going to have the time [00:32:30] to make sure that they're cultivating a fan base within their candidate pool, the way that we are going to do for you. So I think that if we're able to really nail that down, then it's going to create a lot.

Kira La Forgia: More.

Kira La Forgia: Comfort for me, knowing that we can deliver on something and create some kind of guarantee without, you know, we're a small business too. I can't always front like a whole other project because somebody quit after two weeks, you know? So we have to find a good balance there.

Keila Hill-Trawick: This has been.

Keila Hill-Trawick: So many gems, um, [00:33:00] especially for small business owners who have been thinking about HR as a very stuffy, not really accessible to me thing. Um, because I think that's how it feels a lot of the times is like, yeah, if I were bigger, maybe I could have HR or have recruiting or whatever the service is. That really helps us to build our teams, but then we just assume that we have to do it on our own and we do not. So before we leave today and get all your information so we can share it with everybody, what is one tip or piece of advice [00:33:30] that you would give people, firm owners and service providers who are looking to grow their teams?

Kira La Forgia: Um, you know, I think that there's a lot of uncertainty.

Kira La Forgia: When it comes to people. So we feel like sometimes you have to throw the spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks. And I think one thing I was kind of surprised about in getting out of my bubble, of my own expertise, and that I wish everyone would know, is that there are actual solutions and strategies to prevent some of these problems from happening. We cannot and should not want to control every single minute of someone's life, [00:34:00] or their job, or their feelings or their experience or whatever. There is going to be times when it doesn't always work out for the best, but those big problems that are constantly recurring, they do have a strategic solution, and that is literally what HR is for. And I think that a lot of times we think HR is this one thing when really it's a considerate of people toolbox. We have a lot of insight and a lot of information that you can utilize and basically benefit from other people's mistakes along the way to make sure that you're kind of putting yourself [00:34:30] in a position to be successful, no matter who you bring on board. But I do think it takes radical accountability in regards to how you're showing up and the decisions that you're making. And it is a big mindset shift to go from CEO with a few contractors and a founder and expansion to I'm about to lead a team. Even if that's just one person, you will be exponentially more successful if you see yourself as a leader. The second they sign that offer letter, then if you're like, I'll deal with HR later or I'll deal with the people strategy side later when I have more money and time. [00:35:00] Do it first and you will see exponential results very quickly from the assets that your people are going to bring to you.

Keila Hill-Trawick: I love.

Keila Hill-Trawick: This. All right. So on our way out, can you tell the people where to find you and what services you offer?

Kira La Forgia: Yeah.

Kira La Forgia: So we have three core services. So we have our membership which is either entry level. So you're just starting to figure out who you want to hire. We have tons of resources in there as well as a lot of one on one support. But it is a DIY option. Our signature service is a 90 day done for you service. So while we are [00:35:30] a consulting company, this is absolutely a service with deliverables. So it's going to build out your HR strategy and it's going to help us get to know you a little bit. Because even though we're only contracted for 90 days. We're probably going to be your HR partner for the duration of your business. So by opting into our 90 day service, you're setting those foundations that we can optimize and tweak and maintain over years and years and years without you actually having to have an HR person in house or having to have an expensive salary, or like a outsourced fractional [00:36:00] consultant that you may not need all of their hours each month. So. Hr people sometimes don't like that about us. Um, but after working in small business for 15 years, I knew exactly what we needed to make sure that we had the foundation set. That's what the Paradigm Corporation does. And then we also do recruiting. So we started out just doing it for our clients, but now we're starting to tiptoe into allowing other people into the mix.

Kira La Forgia: So if you haven't used us for HR before, you probably will eventually. But recruiting is something that we can do to help you find those initial hires, and we have that [00:36:30] extra layer of protection, and that we're going to make sure that everything is HR compliant on the hiring side, so that you can have a little bit of a head start, even if you don't have all of your compliance in order just yet. Um, those are our services. Our main product is our People and Purpose Leadership and Management course, which we were able to make asynchronous. There's a CEO track and so we call it the Founders playbook. And we also have an ambitious manager playbook, so that you're kind of creating a common language of management throughout your team and making sure that your [00:37:00] managers needs are being met, while also not necessarily having to teach them what all of this stuff is about, how to get the best out of people and management and all of that. So we really recommend that CEOs go through it with their team leaders so that you can and then kind of separate off into your separate track, because you're going to have more of a shorthand that's going to get you better results in regards to managing your team as you grow. And that's available all the time. It's just an evergreen product.

Keila Hill-Trawick: Nice. Well, thank you so much for joining us. We'll make sure that [00:37:30] all of those links, um, are available in the show notes. And I mean, from me to everyone who's listening. Highly recommend. We have had such a great experience. And I'll say, as a small business owner that has been really trying to intentionally grow the right team of excellence for our firm. Our partnership has been invaluable and the team would stand behind me and saying all that too. So I'm excited for you to be able to share all this information with more listeners who probably have similar issues as mine, [00:38:00] and now they can find a partner that they can help. So thank you. Or that can help them. Thank you so much for joining us.

Kira La Forgia: Yes, thanks for having me. It's always the best.

Keila Hill-Trawick: Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Build to Enough. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, rate and share the love with your fellow entrepreneur friends, and make sure to sign up for the Build to Enough newsletter. The link is in the show notes. Stay tuned for more episodes as we continue to redefine success one intentional step at a time.