Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
From the Front Lines to the Back Office with Christopher Mallery
8 Plays11 days ago
Christopher Mallery spent years managing bustling restaurant teams before shifting gears to help business owners reclaim their time and sanity. As the founder of Top2Bottom Business Solutions, he now supports small businesses and franchises with clean financials, smoother operations, and smarter decision-making. In this conversation, Christopher and Curtis talk candidly about turnover, leadership in high-pressure environments, and the grind of wearing a dozen hats as an owner-operator. Christopher shares what it was like to lead teams of 60–100 people in a seven-day-a-week industry, the hard lessons he learned on retention, and how those experiences now shape his approach to supporting clients. He offers a grounded, insider’s perspective on why bookkeeping and operational clarity aren’t just back-office functions — they’re the foundation of sustainable growth.
About Christopher:
Christopher Mallery is a seasoned restaurant industry professional who transitioned from managing high-pressure environments to helping overworked business owners streamline their operations. With hands-on experience in operations, process management, accounting, and team leadership, he understands the demands of running a business. Christopher now leverages his passion for people and expert bookkeeping skills to support small businesses, franchises, and startups across the US, helping them reclaim balance and focus on what matters most.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Mustard Hub Voices Behind the Build
00:00:06
Speaker
Hi everyone. Welcome back for another installment of Mustard Hub Voices Behind the Build. In these episodes, I sit down for conversations with the people building, backing, and running better workplaces.
00:00:19
Speaker
I'm your host, Curtis Forbes. Welcome to today's
Guest Introduction: Christopher Mallory
00:00:22
Speaker
Fireside Chat. My guest today is Christopher Mallory. Christopher is a seasoned restaurant ah industry professional who transitioned from managing high-pressure environments to helping overworked business owners streamline their operations.
00:00:37
Speaker
With hands-on experience in operations, process management, accounting, and team leadership, he understands the demands of running a business. Christopher now leverages his passion for people and expert bookkeeping skills to support small businesses, franchises, and startups across the US, helping them reclaim balance and focus on what matters most.
Challenges in the Restaurant Industry
00:01:01
Speaker
Welcome to Behind the Build, Christopher. Thank you, sir. Thanks for having me, Curtis, on the show. glad Glad that you're here. We've gotten to to know each other you know over over the past year or so. ah One of the reasons I'm super excited about this conversation is that while you're now behind the scenes supporting small businesses and franchises and startups, that's not where you started.
00:01:28
Speaker
You have experience really on the front lines, if you will, you know being hands-on with staff and customer facing capacity. So I'm guessing you garnered some big lessons from your time on the front lines.
00:01:41
Speaker
um Let me tell you that before we talk about what you're doing and and seeing now, let's go back to that time. What were some of the biggest people problems that you experienced head on in that role?
00:01:54
Speaker
Yeah, ah it's ah that's a fantastic question. I think, um you know, being in the restaurant industry, that's a seven day a week. open to close business, whether you're there in person or you're available, you know you have to be available at times. I think, I think the biggest staffing issue, maybe not so much when I first got into it, but as the years passed, um, was team member retention.
00:02:21
Speaker
i mean, it was, it's just such a, ah high turnover, um low consistency with personnel industry. um You know, some smaller restaurants typically fare better, but I worked in restaurants with 60 to 100 employees and it we were hiring every single week. We were losing people and hiring people every single week.
00:02:45
Speaker
That's insane. Why do you think some of the smaller ones did better?
00:02:51
Speaker
More um likely small just smaller groups of people. you know If you're a CSR, you know small or a CSM, and you've got you know three employees on a shift working behind the, you know at most you know Southwest Grill, you're working behind the line.
00:03:13
Speaker
it's a lot different than 30 people for a shift. So, um, I think just more finite relationships, individual relationships with people, you know, a staff of 12 to manage a whole week as opposed to a staff a hundred.
00:03:30
Speaker
That's insane. i think I'm just trying to picture that
Impact of Turnover and Staffing Issues
00:03:33
Speaker
myself. I mean, I, um, And I have a little bit of the same experience you know before you know working with a lot of teams on those front lines, not necessarily and in the restaurant space, but you know that it's definitely a very real, very in-your-face problem every week, week in and week out. And like you said, you were hiring every every single week and you were losing people every single week, which is um which can feel like insanity, I think, at certain times, especially because it handicaps, I think, what you're trying to do and what you're trying to produce week in and week out, right? 100%. mean, you're 85% part-time employees.
00:04:16
Speaker
you know You've got five or six managers managing different departments inside of the the building. Every department's got you know between 10 and 35 employees and thirty five employees that it takes to run a week, you normal week.
00:04:32
Speaker
So, you know, it's, do you know, you likely are trying to run at 110% at any given time to to give yourself, you know, loss, loss prevention ability, you know, two people. I mean, we were consistently, and this is not just locations I was involved in, just across multiple brands that I've been a part of,
00:04:54
Speaker
yeah you've got 50 or 60 employees on staff, you've got 12 servers running a Friday night shift, you're you're not gonna get everybody that comes to work on Friday. Like one or two people are gonna be missing and it's just something that you have to plan for.
00:05:10
Speaker
Wow. the the um The turnover that you had to experience regularly, ah was it um was it thematic? I mean, did you find any common thread behind why people were leaving? Or was it more life stage, young people, transient type of workforce?
00:05:29
Speaker
life Life, I mean, everything you just mentioned on top of, you know, somebody down the street offering a little bit more money or them not, you know, this specific person not liking the world.
00:05:42
Speaker
Um, wow. So would would I be correct to say that maybe these kinds of problems continue to, to persist? I mean, this didn't happen only right when, when, when you were doing it, you know, what why do you think that they're persistent in every restaurant all the time with, you know, virtually no matter where you are?
00:06:04
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think it's it's likely... it has definitely went through a much tougher spell than what I experienced during COVID. Like, that is obviously very documented, the issues that were happening.
00:06:17
Speaker
And full-size, full-service restaurants that, you know, for years after COVID, or were still doing takeout
From Restaurant Management to Bookkeeping
00:06:24
Speaker
only. Or very... Let me go to a restaurant today, some larger restaurants, and they don't they they don't sit the whole restaurant.
00:06:30
Speaker
Like, you could just walk in on a busy night you can see... they don't have enough servers to cover it. So they've, they've kind of shrunk their operating space. Yeah, I do see that.
00:06:41
Speaker
um So, ah you know, in, in most businesses, I think that the root cause of a lot of ah issues. and and And maybe it's not necessarily like this in the restaurant space. i mean, the restaurant space, there's so many externalities beyond the control of of leaders, right? But so many of the issues, and including what we like to call people problems, are our leadership.
00:07:02
Speaker
Leadership does contribute. I mean, we we can't ignore it, right? It does contribute to a lot of some of the issues that I think some of these small businesses face, right? Whether it's restaurant or wellness or home health or you name it.
00:07:16
Speaker
um And i think a big issue for many of the small business leaders that they have their hands in everything. I mean, you see this, right? You're you're now providing support to these to these business leaders, you know things that they including things that they don't really know or aren't very good at, right? So when it comes to financials, right, that's obviously where top-to-bottom business solutions come in.
00:07:38
Speaker
What kind of problems do you solve today? for your clients and what kind of clients do you work with? Tell me a little bit more about your business and all of that fun stuff. Yeah.
00:07:50
Speaker
So, so top bottom of business solution started as a ah bookkeeping company. We, we had been working for another company for awhile and we got used to working with, you know, what I'd call very small companies um and doing pretty much end to end bookkeeping, a lot of that being after the fact, right? Business owners running out selling, running out doing doing the work.
00:08:18
Speaker
You know, we're managing their their bank account, their credit cards and their loans and and reconciling all of that, keeping it clean. it It started there. I fell in love with it there.
00:08:30
Speaker
and And from there, we've added some additional items. We've added payroll. We do much more, know, what I would call day-to-day bookkeeping.
00:08:41
Speaker
So we do bill pay, we do accounts receivable work and invoicing. um We do more dynamic reporting than what we did back in the beginning.
00:08:53
Speaker
um But I think, I think um the most important thing we do is give our clients clean financials that they can take to the bank, ah literally, to get a loan um or to their tax prepare um to get their taxes done on time, you know, with with good information.
00:09:15
Speaker
And all the while eliminating some of that headache that that usually at this size company, the business owner is either fully, fully executing on their own or they're very heavy, and heavily involved in said, said bookkeeping.
00:09:34
Speaker
So how much of the business is dedicated to the franchise space? How much is really working with a lot of startups? Tell me about some of the kinds of clients that you work with.
00:09:45
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. we we um So if I had to put a ah ah number on, I'd say we're likely very close to 50-50 franchisee ah versus SMB not affiliated with a a franchise brand that we work for or with.
00:10:08
Speaker
um And like probably 90% of our clients are under $5 million dollars a year in revenue. Okay. um And ah most of our startups actually come from the franchise space, right? They're pre-opening.
00:10:27
Speaker
They've paid their franchise fee. They've picked a brand and they're they're awaiting their opening or training time. Okay. Awesome. That's actually, that's that's a really good distribution. i mean, you guys work with, you see, I'd imagine, um a lot of different things, right? That sub 5 million, um you know, 50% franchise. I mean, you're looking at probably a lot of different kinds of businesses that are made up of, um I mean, just a...
00:10:57
Speaker
a motley group of full-time staff, part-time staff, probably some that work with a lot of contractors as well. um So you are the founder and CEO of top bottom business solutions.
00:11:12
Speaker
What drove you to entrepreneurship? I'm curious about the journey that, you know, got you here. Yeah, no, I, I, um, since my high school days, I've always had the itch to do something on my own.
00:11:25
Speaker
I, you know I've always been a hard worker and I have a a strong attention to detail. And I think I got into restaurants really early on because it was easy. you know if you're If you're a hard worker um and you you show up early and you work late, the restaurant industry will just...
00:11:44
Speaker
love you and accept you and yeah promote you and help you move through. And, um, as i as I got into like year 10 and to year 15, like getting close to year 15 in the restaurant business, i I, had realized that wasn't going to work anymore personally.
00:12:02
Speaker
Like I just, I couldn't maintain that seven day a week on call, you know, around the clock kind of schedule. And so um I started, you know, to go back to to the roots of thinking about things that I'd like to do that I could potentially go, you know, do for another company um that could also grow into something for myself. So I spent almost two years working through, know,
00:12:29
Speaker
working through people that I've met, my contact sphere in the greater Charlotte area. And I landed on a gentleman that i had worked for me Uh, his company did accounting for my, the restaurant restaurant I was running for a few years and i ah you know, i reached out and, um, took that step.
00:12:52
Speaker
I think the reason that i fell in love with bookkeeping though, Curtis, to get to your, to get to the answer here, cause I'm being very long winded. No, no, no. I, this is, I, I love hearing this actually keep, keep going.
00:13:04
Speaker
Yeah, I um i think what i wrote what really drove me to it in the restaurant business, I constantly found myself working too many hours, wearing too many hats, right? on h Inside the building, even with 75 or 80 employees, I'm the person that they when they're upset and they're having a rough day or they're having a bad week, I'm i'm sitting down and in hearing them out.
00:13:26
Speaker
If we break up a bar bottle breaks and somebody gets cut, I'm also driving somebody to the hospital, you know, theoretically. And you just, you know, then I'm counting inventory at four o'clock on Monday mornings, right? And then the next day I'm, you know, ordering $30,000 worth of food product or or have my hand in it as as GM. um i bookkeeping allowed me to help other people remove hats from their life.
00:13:56
Speaker
So bookkeeping is something that most business owners don't fully understand. They either don't understand how to do it or they don't understand the reports they get once it's actually done correctly.
00:14:08
Speaker
So they're either they're either you know potentially making errors on a monthly basis, doing it on their own, or they're getting reports from ah client or from a bookkeeper. And then it just dies in their email.
00:14:21
Speaker
So I feel like what we do, a hundred percent supports work-life balance, which is something that I struggle with in the restaurant business.
00:14:31
Speaker
So I feel like they're not necessarily that far away from each other. We're just, you know, I get still bounce around and do lots of different things. But when when I'm ready to be done for the day and my team's ready to be done for the day, we shut it down.
00:14:45
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You described so well, I think, the the struggle of so many owner-operators, right? So whether even you're in you know the restaurant space, you you know obviously described all of these different things that a a GM or that an owner, that an operator has to deal with
Multifaceted Roles of Small Business Operators
00:15:09
Speaker
regularly. I mean, you're you are the CFO one minute, the next minute you're transpo driving somebody to the hospital and the next minute you're worrying about, you know, you're you're the janitor, right? Cleaning up the floors or you're stocking the shelves. I mean, you're doing all of those things.
00:15:25
Speaker
And it's a real challenge that I don't think everybody quite understands, right? You could run a daycare, right? you're going to It's still a million different hats that you're wearing wearing, right? It's still finance, it's still cleaning things up or talking with parents or having to fix your website, right? I mean, it's it's um it's a pretty real real thing. And i I can appreciate that jump to being on the supportive side of it now and helping those business owners and those operators
00:16:03
Speaker
find a little piece somewhere, solve solve some of those problems for them. um And you, you just know it. So well it's such a unique thing, right? I mean, you see people who start, you know, businesses or organizations that might be similar to yours, right? Maybe some of your competitors who didn't come from the same place that you came from.
00:16:23
Speaker
So their understanding of that particular problem might be a little bit more cursory, right? Not so... you know, they, they don't have the same visceral reaction when they see ah a client or a potential client having to go through that, right. And being able to identify it the same way that you do. So i can definitely appreciate that.
00:16:43
Speaker
Um, so I, I think that, um, you know, the work life balance thing, I means a lot to me and I had to go through a lot of those same things, you know, um you kind of have to come to those realizations, right? In, in, in, in route to it, right. Just to just to have that life statistics show, I think that most people want to spend more time with their family or friends or anything else, but work.
00:17:12
Speaker
Um, do you think that overall people get what they actually want from their employment? yeah Are you talking about as an entrepreneur or, you or, or,
00:17:27
Speaker
Well, I think that that's one lens you could look at it through. But I i think more broadly speaking, like you know whether you're employed at a small business, whether you are a leader at a small business, but maybe not necessarily the owner or entrepreneur, um or those in more you know even those in in more White collar jobs, larger mid-market enterprise, or even entrepreneurs of of startups? I mean, do you think that people are getting really what they want out of it?
00:18:00
Speaker
I mean, I think I'd like to think that that what most people, the two things they people have to decide on, on if they're happy and with what they're doing, or are they getting everything out of it, is their their vision and the risk they're willing to take.
00:18:19
Speaker
And so you see a lot of people that work for a company that they're not happy in, but they have zero appetite for risk. So they just, they sit and they they hang on or they might jump to a ah light position somewhere else.
00:18:33
Speaker
You know, if your sound is, in your own belief in yourself and you can cast a vision on where you want to go, um you always have to take risk.
00:18:45
Speaker
So i think that i think that I think that there's probably a large segment of the population because you see people hopping around all the time, the unemployment rates bouncing around. franchise, you know, franchise sales are flying and then they slow down and then they fly there. It's just following usually the corporate market in some way, shape or form.
00:19:05
Speaker
But I think most people likely would love to be doing something else that better fit their lifestyle and things they care about. I think some people just, they don't, maybe they don't have the vision or, or a risk, you know willingness to take on risk to do something different.
00:19:24
Speaker
That's actually a really good point. You know, I i um i think a lot about how... So risk, I i think that... but you You nailed it. I think that a lot of people even stay in jobs that they've outgrown because of what they're holding on to, whether it's their compensation or their benefits, right? Or things like that, because they don't have the appetite to...
00:19:52
Speaker
I can't put it any better than that you just put it, right? They don't have the appetite to go do other things, right? Or take that risk to go do other things, whether it's even for themselves or frankly, even just looking for another job, right?
Compensation Changes and Technology in Restaurants
00:20:04
Speaker
If you get comfortable where you are, I'm curious in the restaurant space, are you seeing any changes in in compensation, benefits, perks, and and rewards and things like that, that employers are offering to their workforce? And and if so,
00:20:21
Speaker
What does that look like? How is it impacting turnover? Yeah. I mean, I think that, I think that what I have seen is that, you know, restaurants are running leaner on the amount of staff they have.
00:20:37
Speaker
ah So, which has, has opened up the door for ah pay increases. Um, And you've seen a lot, i mean, I've seen a lot of significant price changes to menus, just food menus at restaurants and other, other you know, food or hospitality type businesses like grocery stores, stuff like that. um Those two things. So more, I'd say more efficient operations, whether they were, whether they're trying to do that or not by cutting down on staff, like the work still has to get done um along with price increases has helped raise,
00:21:17
Speaker
you know, what they can pay, you know pay rates for team members. um But it also, you know, they're also chasing other other jobs, other job markets. and And so, you know, i think's I think the restaurant world is always going to be evolving. And now you've got tech coming into restaurants and helping to make things more efficient. And you've got restaurants that you can go through drive-thrus now and never meet a person.
00:21:42
Speaker
Yeah. know, that's true. So, so, you know, there's, it's always going to be some, some, some back and forth, but you know, it's, it's never going to be perfect. It's just who's the, who's the quickest to keep evolving and trying new things.
00:21:58
Speaker
I'm curious from your perspective, you made a comment a little while ago about, you know, sort of an outsized percentage of part-time staff and, you know maybe this is a little bit of a tangent, but I'm super curious.
00:22:12
Speaker
Do you see the businesses treating the the full-time staff very different in a lot of ways from their part-time staff? And talking specifically about compensation benefits, perks, and things like that, you know obviously a full-time staff member is going to have a different compensation rate than than a part-time staff member.
00:22:35
Speaker
But notwithstanding, I think, the obvious differences, do you see a lot of um major discrepancies in in how they're sort of engaged with the team as a whole?
00:22:49
Speaker
Yeah. i mean, great question. I'll answer this from the perspective of of of being with T2B and being able to see lots of different kinds of businesses. yeah I do think that part-time staff, when defined as less than 30 hours a week.
00:23:07
Speaker
I'm going to define as less than 30. I i you know i don't see them being in as involved in ah team activities.
00:23:19
Speaker
So when you have a limited amount of time, you know the company usually still wants some level of production during that time and you don't want to take 30% of their working week for extra meetings and other things.
00:23:35
Speaker
You want them to be a little bit more high impact because you're likely paying them a little bit more on an hourly perspective because they're not full-time. um They're also usually not getting PTO and health and met, you know, I mean, sorry, PTO medical and the other, most the other benefits you see a little bit of prorated PTO. So maybe they'll, they'll give them up, you know, they're a 30 hour week employee. They'll give them 75% of the PTO plan.
00:24:03
Speaker
um But most benefits usually drop off at that point.
00:24:08
Speaker
Just, you know, Anecdotally speaking, I'm kind of curious if you feel that the lack of some of those things contribute to some of the high turnover rate, or I'd maybe ask the question in a reverse way. Do you think if those things were available to part-time staff that there might be stronger retention rates?
00:24:33
Speaker
ah For part-time team members in general? yeah i think um I think it really depends on the business. I mean, oh there's a lot of businesses where it's harder to manage part-time people because your model is built on full-time. So sometimes you get caught in the gray area where I'm a full, and I've personally seen this inside of my company.
00:24:57
Speaker
up I've got somebody that's fantastic and they're full-time and they had a life change. You know, they've they've added up a child or, you know this you know some they've had you know, somebody in the family's had a health thing and they needed to back up to part-time.
00:25:13
Speaker
And, you know, if they're a if they're a a good performer, we will absolutely work with anybody in our company if they if they need to make that change, whether it's, you know, for permanently or for a period of time.
00:25:28
Speaker
But it requires... redeploying their client list. It requires, you know, re-signing new ah an agreement with them and then having to track them hourly on their pay. And it just, there's a lot. And then, and then again, extra meetings or we get together in person. it It's just a little bit more challenging to include them.
00:25:53
Speaker
Now, there are probably some other businesses where it's not quite as challenging, but I think that, I think that a lot, It's so you get you're so process driven. Your process is built around full time team members.
00:26:06
Speaker
It's hard to even incorporate. But I think resoundingly, if you were if you were a company that could manage part time employees well and you were struggling to retain them, then absolutely finding a way to offer them benefits, whether it be medical or dental revision or vision or long term disability or whatever, as well as you know, PTO, I think absolutely would help.
00:26:30
Speaker
Yeah. The retention rate. um that That's good to hear. And you, you were specific to mention a lot of these really traditional benefits, I think. And also I think that that was us probably part of my question too. But, but what about, I mean, for business leaders who aren't really moving in the direction of maybe what their people want. And, and I'm, I'm, I'm,
00:26:55
Speaker
Making an assumption here that people who work part-time probably want access to those things. I think there's an argument they probably do. Some some probably don't.
Enhancing Employee Engagement and Retention
00:27:05
Speaker
um But how do we get the business leaders to commit to their people and drive the engagement?
00:27:13
Speaker
and retention. I mean, is it something that comes out of the work that you do with your business customers? I'm sure showing a business owner the cost of retention versus the you know turnover, um that fast turnover could be pretty eye-opening.
00:27:30
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I, I, i I definitely think leadership teams for companies smaller companies specifically need to be more open to different kinds of scenarios.
00:27:46
Speaker
yeah And it's, I mean, I think that's what scale is. and I think very rarely does a company say, I'm building the widget this way. I'm not going to change anything. I'm not going to allow you know anybody that touches the widget to do it any differently than this.
00:28:02
Speaker
I think you're just really restricting yourself. So i think I think if you have good people and you have access to good people, you have to you have to create more you know you have to create different ways to win and not just it's got to happen like this. Yeah. Yeah.
00:28:20
Speaker
I think tangentially related to this, right? Talk to me about, talk to me about building small business. Talk to me about building culture in, Small businesses, right? I, you know, we, we've talked, we've sort of, we've sort of been on sort of the outskirts of that conversation, right? Talking about in some engagement, talking about some benefits, talking about, you know, working with small teams and keeping them, you know, motivated and reducing turnover there. We talked about big teams and some of the challenges that are resulted you know from that, but yeah,
00:28:54
Speaker
I'm kind of curious, what what what do you see with some of your business customers doing to build that culture? Is the culture, does that help when it comes to retention or is this just simply an affliction everybody's going to suffer from regardless?
00:29:11
Speaker
Yeah, no. So for a new business owner starting out, it doesn't matter what kind of business they're starting to be one of any franchise vertical can be something that they're doing on their own.
00:29:23
Speaker
You know, I think I think doing a whole lot of self-reflecting before you make that leap. about what am I good at and what do you know what am I good at and I should be trying to spend my time on my business and what am i not good at? what do i need to What do I need to surround myself with to support me there?
00:29:43
Speaker
So I think that staff member retention, even though it's one of the last things people think about because they're like, I got to fund this thing. I got to figure out how to get my accounting done.
00:29:54
Speaker
I got to make sure I can actually sell this tree service that I'm starting. Um, the last thing they think about is, okay, wait, now I've got three people working for me and they're running a crew.
00:30:06
Speaker
How do I keep them happy? Right? So I think you have to figure out upfront, is that in your wheelhouse or you need to surround yourself with somebody or a team or fractional person or some other kind of support to help you?
00:30:20
Speaker
And then, then once you're going, you've, you know, you know, for me, the most successful organizations that I've been around, are hyper responsive to their team members.
00:30:31
Speaker
Okay. Especially in a world, in a professional services world where you're remote or hybrid, but rarely around all your people consistently in in person.
00:30:44
Speaker
Right. So i think being extremely responsive is, is important. Yeah. That's a huge challenge. So i want to make a pivot here. I want to come back to top to bottom. Yeah.
00:30:57
Speaker
business solutions in your team, how many folks work for you and are they in person or, or remote or hybrid?
Building a Strong Company Culture
00:31:05
Speaker
Yeah. we So we have, we have 45 employees.
00:31:09
Speaker
um We've got 25 are ah hybrid, like i would say very low hybrid. So no more than one day a week in the office.
00:31:22
Speaker
And then the rest are remote. Okay. I love that. um yeah So how do you, well, how do you build culture in your organization? Is this something you consciously started to do with your first hire? Was this, was this intentional? How did that all come together? I've talked with multiple team members. Everybody's super fired up about what you guys do there. So you have, clearly you have a good team and a great vibe. So how did that start and come together?
00:31:54
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I think early on you know, Early on, I applied a lot of the things that that I'd learned in the restaurant business. You know, I was super excited to get away from kind of the hourly mentality that kind of plagues the restaurant business and move into a more...
00:32:13
Speaker
ah more professional work environment um and with people that wanted to think strategically about business things. So I think it, I think number one, it was our hiring process.
00:32:29
Speaker
It has been maybe one of the most important things to me since the beginning. I'd love to hear more about that actually in a second, we'll come back to it. Yeah, yeah. So the hiring process is probably the most important.
00:32:43
Speaker
I've also had and kept two or three really good mentors around me forever. Remember I talked a look earlier about sort of knowing what you're good at what you're not.
00:32:54
Speaker
And I'm really good with people. I'm not really good with accountability. And so, or holding other people accountable. So having that that support system around me has helped develop a company that the team members knows they the team team knows they can get answers.
00:33:13
Speaker
They know that we're looking out for them and that will we really work very hard to manage their workload so that we're not asking more of them than what they can deliver. and And we try to show up for each person individually.
00:33:26
Speaker
you know I've got team members that have personal things going on their life and we will pull back on their client load and and pick it back up. right We've got people who are under immense kind of pressure that we deal with at the end of the year.
00:33:41
Speaker
um We will support them with administrative support during that time. So it's every single person, even though we have systems and process across the company,
00:33:52
Speaker
we we We still try to treat it like it we're a small company with five individuals that are all working towards a common goal. Now there's 45. And, you know, we still try to manage the same way.
00:34:04
Speaker
We've brought in HR support, you know, fractional HR support and some other things to help support that vision. I'd love to hear about some of the the the process that you go through that has really been able to –
00:34:20
Speaker
I think helps ah support all those fundamental values, right? you're you're When you bring people on, when you're hiring process, what what what kind of things would you suggest, recommend, you know, what what to to others that are looking to develop something like you have?
00:34:36
Speaker
Yep. So I'd say, i'd say so you know, starting out of the gate, it would be ah having very clear job descriptions for any role in your organization, even roles in your organization.
00:34:51
Speaker
if you're If you're a company that's trying to scale is going to need in the near future. So going ahead and doing the legwork to know because you may be hiring somebody today, that fits a role for tomorrow, right?
00:35:04
Speaker
and And so that's first. Second is we have a pretty significant assessment program that we interject into our applicant process in between the initial you know, get to know you call and the actual like real in-depth interview, we we we have an assessment process. So it's resume, initial call, assessment, and then we go through a significant interview um after that.
00:35:33
Speaker
um The curve ball comes in, I think, and if you looked at our company and I gave you all the details, you probably, the thing that would probably stick out you the most is 70% of our team,
00:35:46
Speaker
is connected to somebody else inside of our team. So we've built the organization around internal referrals. Referrals, yeah. That's amazing.
00:35:57
Speaker
We post all of our jobs for at least a week to our internal team. And we always get resumes before we ever go to the market. Is there like a...
00:36:09
Speaker
That's like even better than an ENPS score. I want to know what metric we can we can come up with to to measure that because i I can guarantee that you would be in that top 1%. That's remarkable.
00:36:25
Speaker
Yeah. i i think it goes I mean, my knock on wood moment is, you know, i think it's because of the people that we have and the work we've done with the culture, the whole team.
00:36:36
Speaker
This is not just a one person kind of kind of deal. Right. That drives other people to, they they know they they're going to have a flexible schedule. They need to leave in the middle of the day to take their kid to the doctor.
00:36:49
Speaker
If I find out you put your kid in Uber, send the doctor, that's when you're likely going to get my wrath. It's like, go take care of your stuff. know, the work's going to be there.
00:37:01
Speaker
I love that. um Are there certain things that you've done to build this culture or, you know, retention among your staff? Any any specific activities or initiatives that you can think of? Or have you even maybe some that haven't worked out so well?
00:37:19
Speaker
Yeah. i mean, we, we, we did for the first few years, we did get together every year in person and that went really well, but I think we've kind of grown to a point where it's gotten really hard to, to navigate that.
00:37:30
Speaker
Um, we do, um, and and especially during COVID we hired people, we are, we've got four or five people out of our zone. So we're North Carolina, South Carolina company.
00:37:41
Speaker
We've got Michigan and Texas and Pennsylvania, Indy, Indiana. Um, So I think the getting together part was ah is a great idea. It's just become very hard altogether. So we do more regional get togethers um in our main areas.
00:37:57
Speaker
um And that probably has been, you know, very important. We do regular all team meetings. our intern We have multiple internal teams that meet on a regular basis and they're talking, even though they everybody usually works individually on their own work.
00:38:14
Speaker
we really try to make it into to a team environment. you you constantly If I look on my team chats, I go and log in with my team chats, I will constantly see,
00:38:25
Speaker
one you know Somebody posting a question about an account, how do have you guys ever run across this? And it's like all hands on deck to like jump in and help them. um So I think that's been exciting. I also think that that having people with consistent client loads and not changing their job changing all the time, I think that's also been yeah important.
00:38:47
Speaker
Um, since mustard hub is a tech company, right. I'd be remiss not to sort of steer the conversation in that direction for, for a hot second. Um, tons of HR tech solutions, right. And platforms out there for, you know, recruiting, hiring, onboarding, everything h r adjacent.
00:39:07
Speaker
Um, do you guys, or, or do the, do you ever guide clients through, you know, technology solutions to help build, um you know their organizational culture or address a lot of these things.
00:39:23
Speaker
Yeah, that's a really good question. i don't i don't think that we are in an advisory position in that capacity with most of our clients. yeah we have um We have referred, you know for instance, PEOs. We have referred out to PEOs before for a company that gets to the size that needs to be able to offer certain you know medical benefits, stuff like that. You're familiar with the PEO world.
00:39:48
Speaker
Sure. But on the payroll side of our organization, we're very much just processors. So we don't, we you know, the relationship's not there on the personnel side as much.
00:40:01
Speaker
Right. Outside of just the individual relationships we have with the client. so So at this point, ah I would say the answer is no. no
Future of Bookkeeping and Leadership Skills
00:40:10
Speaker
No. Speaking of tech, do do you see...
00:40:14
Speaker
You know, the tech and how it's changing and evolving. do you see it playing a role in your own work changing over the next several years? I mean, will your clients need different things? Will the workforce, any trends? do you have any predictions? I mean, there's, right, well the AI is the four-letter word now. So how do you see that changing what you do?
00:40:36
Speaker
Yeah, no, I mean, another fantastic question. I think, first off, I think... Prior to COVID, we were pretty standardly, you know, we were mostly in office, you know, and, you know, we had desktop computers and we had file cabinets.
00:40:55
Speaker
COVID has sent us into almost an eternal
00:41:00
Speaker
Adaption to technology. And I feel like yeah every single year we are either incorporating some new platform into our workflow of part of our company or into our payroll processing side of our company, into our sales cross you know side of our company.
00:41:20
Speaker
um And I think I think that's just going to continue, you know. It's either we're adding a piece on or we're changing something completely. And I also think I'm super excited about what I believe the next iteration of T2B is going to be.
00:41:37
Speaker
And that is one where we're doing less and less of the data entry work because that stuff is going to be... become automated. it's you know It's already started. it started years ago and we're in the we're in the middle of that.
00:41:53
Speaker
That for me, so some people would be scared of that. I'm excited because now I get to grow my people higher and have teach them other things, higher level things that maybe we don't even do today to replace that work that is is likely going to get replaced.
00:42:10
Speaker
I like this sort of while we look to the future, I mean, do you see a people related insight or, or people centric skill or competency that maybe tomorrow's leaders will have to develop in order to to thrive possibly more than one? What do you see them needing to learn?
00:42:32
Speaker
man. Um,
00:42:38
Speaker
i you know I think i think the the older generation of leaders has had a ah rough time dealing with the newer. But you know what? If you went back through the history of the world, you likely would find that every 20 or 30 years, right? You find out that it's so much different.
00:42:56
Speaker
uh you know i know my grandparents saying your your generation they're just there's not going to be hard workers and then it's like we're still building train tracks like it's still happening um but i do think i do think that um there is an uneasiness in how easy it's become for people to jump jobs and leave and not stay not stay founded.
00:43:24
Speaker
And some of that's on the companies, some of that's on the generation. There's a hodgepodge in there. But managing when you've when you've done everything right and you've got a really good team member in front of you and then they just don't show up for work or they quit without a notice in a professional organization.
00:43:41
Speaker
Like that is something that you're seeing more and more. It's always been in the restaurant business since I can um was part of it. But I do feel like it's creeping into other other companies. And you just don't see people sitting staying in a company for 20 years. I'm not even saying that's a good thing.
00:43:58
Speaker
But I am saying there's got to be a mix. And it seems like that mix is trending very hard in a direction that's going to just make things more expensive for everybody by constantly changing.
Final Leadership Advice and Closing Remarks
00:44:11
Speaker
Yeah. So if an entrepreneur entrepreneur asks you for the single most important piece of advice about what they can do better as a leader, right? When it comes to people, what are you going to tell them? You're on an elevator before you get to the top floor and they're about to walk right out of there.
00:44:30
Speaker
What's the advice that you give them if you only had a second? Listen to them and always be open to change.
00:44:42
Speaker
That right there, I think needs to be captioned and and and and plastered all over LinkedIn right there. um Listen and be open to change. I like that a lot. That was great. Christopher, thank you so much for joining me today.
00:44:56
Speaker
Yeah. Thank you, Curtis. I really appreciate getting to catch up with you and hopefully we'll ah run into each other before the end of the year. Yeah, I'm sure we'll have an opportunity to. Big thanks to all of you for tuning into Mustard Hub Voices Behind the Build.
00:45:10
Speaker
Please like and share this episode. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next installment. Also, visit mustardhub.com to learn more about how we help companies become destinations for workplace happiness and turn culture into a competitive edge.
00:45:24
Speaker
While you're there, sign up to get started with Mustard Hub for free. Until next time.