Build Px

SUMMARY:

This podcast episode, Biz Bites, is hosted by Anthony from CommTogether, and features Seton. Walsh Rose from Build Px. Build Px is a people solution company focused on providing fractional HR services to smaller companies and placing emphasis on training and development. The entire business model revolves around helping organizations find alignment with their purpose. This alignment, in turn, helps the business retain the right people, which contributes significantly to its success. Seton discusses the importance of understanding both the business goals and the very human needs behind these goals. The conversation rests heavily on the notion of investing in people and the significant impact this has on the business from both a cultural and financial perspective.

00:00 Introduction to Biz Bites and Today’s Guest

00:27 Understanding Purpose-Driven Businesses

01:23 Exploring the Concept of Fractionalised HR

02:01 The Importance of Aligning People and Objectives

02:41 The Role of HR in Professional Services Businesses

03:34 Building Teams Like a Puzzle

04:22 The Challenges and Rewards of Recruitment

05:10 The Power of Perspective and Continuous Learning

07:15 The Importance of Alignment in Business Teams

08:16 Understanding the Business Needs and Goals

10:08 The Value of External Consultants in Businesses

11:56 The Role of HR in Succession Planning

13:30 The Impact of HR on Business Performance

15:47 The Importance of Continuous Improvement in HR

30:14 The Role of HR in Business Succession Planning

35:00 Conclusion: The Power of a Purpose-Driven Business

TRANSCRIPT:

Anthony Perl;: Welcome to Biz Bites brought to you by CommTogether, helping businesses like yours build their brand through telling amazing stories to engage and grow audiences on multiple platforms.

Well, hello everyone and welcome to another episode of BizBites. And today’s guest, we were just chatting about it. It’s a purpose driven business. And I love the idea of that because I think that it’s, it really speaks to the way businesses need to go now because it’s about finding the right people and the right people only come if you have a sense of your own purpose.

So, uh, really fantastic to welcome Seton. Walsh Rose to, uh, to Biz Bites today and, uh, Signe and I got to know each other a little bit over the last, uh, few months or so. And, uh, it’s fantastic to have you as part of the podcast.

Seton Walsh-Rose: Thank you very much for having me today and thanks for doing this.

Anthony Perl;: So I’ve given you a bit of an introduction, but you cover quite a few things under that umbrella.

So Before we get into your story, tell me a little bit about the business itself and what it does cover at the moment.

Seton Walsh-Rose: Yeah, so Build Px is essentially a people’s solution company. What does that actually mean in simple terms? So a core part of our business is providing what we might phrase as fractionalised HR.

So essentially we bring good HR and a full HR team to smaller businesses. Um, we also then do recruitment both on a traditional basis, because that’s what the mark seems to tell us. And also we do it as either outsourced or fixed fee. The other part is then the training and development, um, and that’s all about actually growing.

So if I take it back a little bit, our business is really about sitting people. And organisations up for success. It’s something that the entire reason I got into HR, I actually started off with a law degree and a commerce degree and general business management, and then mainly on the accounting finance side and quickly realised that no matter what we do with the numbers, if we didn’t have the people aligned, we wouldn’t reach the objectives we were looking to do.

So I’ve always been quite passionate about professional services. And there’s a few reasons that probably, you know, I’m quite a driven person and quite focused. As I said, I’ve got lots of pieces of paper, um, as well. And so for me, I kind of really understand professionals. Um, but we’re actually here to help all businesses.

It’s just one of our main areas. And that’s also because professional services businesses from an HR perspective, your people are the entire business, right? So even if we look from a profit and loss point of view, Your people are your cog, your direct cost. They’re the biggest part of the business. I worked in big international organizations with thousand plus people and I didn’t like that because I didn’t know who people were on a personal basis and that wasn’t the type of HR I wanted to do.

But it also was that their people were only a small part of the cost of their business and the people didn’t make what they did their point of difference. As much as they say that and it is, The point that I love about professional services is, is that those people, uh, and so how I approach HR and what we do is a little bit like building a sports team.

Okay, you sort of come in, you have a look, understand what the business wants, what it’s trying to achieve. And then just like that, we believe in building teams like a puzzle. In the back end, because I’ve obviously got a commerce degree and a master’s in business, and then obviously we also approach it from looking at the structure of people’s businesses, how we can frame that to actually be.

Look at their bugs and the direct costs and do that. And that might be also assisting them to understand. Well, actually, how do we set that structure up particularly for professional services? And one of the main industries we work in is the building and property industry. So architects, engineers, project managers, QSs and people like that.

The thing is, though, often some people go, Oh, we need more senior people. But if you do that, then you can create ceiling. So we also working with the succession plan of where the business wants to go, the growth plans, and we do

Anthony Perl;: all of that. You cover a lot, which doesn’t surprise me when you start off with the background of saying you’ve got all of these degrees, which and credit to you for being able to do that, because most people struggle to do one, let alone, let alone multiples.

But I think what’s fascinates me about that And it is that you’re actually utilising all of those skills to do what you’re doing now, because more often than not, I see people that have got these multiple degrees or have these, uh, it’s very trendy these days in university, isn’t it? To go in and they combine two almost polar opposite degrees in this joint degree.

And I kind of work out how, what are you going to do with that? Um, but it seems like, you know, basing everything around people has. Gives you that very holistic, uh, understanding, which I think is a point of difference in the market, uh, in what you’re offering.

Seton Walsh-Rose: I think yes, and that’s great for sort of, you may say UBP, I’d actually say it’s more, I probably on my viewpoint of how I approach things and, you know, essentially I always say education, we’re constantly learning and education just teaches us a different way of thinking.

So obviously with a business degree and, you know, economics and accounting. Looking at the macro and the trends that the accounting side actually looking at the performance of the business. From the law degree constantly looking at the risk, but I was always a big picture person so I would always look at it from a different point.

I actually wouldn’t have continued my degree and I’ve given people actually advice that don’t go and do degrees if you don’t intend on practicing because you will learn it along the way. Yes, it’s of great value, but I probably added on quite a few years of hex and things like that. I actually think it’s more that there’s innately something in you if you’re a passionate person that you need to follow that purpose and that passion and sometimes and it’s taken me years to really fine tune that because I thought I don’t want to be an HR person or I don’t want to get into marketing because it just makes sense but actually like a bit like everything it might seem easy but actually getting it right and doing it so you actually perform well is actually down to the little one percentage.

And that’s sort of the same approach that we take as well when we’re working with businesses. And sometimes those 1 percent you can’t always articulate. Some things are easy and easy fixes. Other things are constantly working in. And that’s where that analogy of working with sports teams and understanding each individual and helping each individual and the business as a collective, as a team come together.

is actually the perspective. So yes, the degree of help with having a law degree and understanding all of that. Yes, it obviously gives me a very big picture, um, and a lot of understanding, but I think it’s everybody can come with different learnings on their journey. And it’s actually how we look at how do we use our gifts and the way that our mind works to actually reach our full potential.

Anthony Perl;: Yeah, I love that. Um, and particularly when you nail it down to those that the analogy with the sports team, I think, is a really important one because we kind of all understand the idea of a sports team. But I think how, how that translates across into a business team is often. I guess to use the, to use a similar analogy left on the sideline.

I think people kind of go, Oh, yeah, it’s similar, but don’t really get it. And I think that by driving down as well to that whole, uh, to that purpose is such an important element to all of this as well, isn’t it? I mean, I know, certainly from a marketing perspective, I work regularly with clients and on it.

Getting getting down to their purpose and being able to share that. And the idea that if you haven’t got people that are on the same wavelength as you working with you, it doesn’t matter how great they are at what they do. If you’re not on the same wavelength, ultimately, it’s not going to end. Well,

Seton Walsh-Rose: no, absolutely.

And that’s a big thing on the alignment side. There’s a great book, , you may have heard of it traction, the entrepreneur operating system. Most people are running businesses have, um, there’s great analogy in there about the rights people. So it’s also about understanding what your business needs to achieve to get there and then working out what that looks like.

And that’s when you asked about, well, it seems like you do lots of things. Well, actually, it’s. It’s not as much as everybody wants to naturally through our brains categorise. It’s actually about, in essence, helping people and helping businesses. And the reason we do the HR is because then enables us like a mechanic to be able to fine tune and enable the engine to run at optimal when it comes to the recruitment.

That’s it. It’s really about understanding what the business actually needs and then being able to find it. And when it comes to the training and development, then it’s actually about actually helping those people, every part of the system, every person reach their performance and what they can do and make sure it’s aligned.

And, you know, people are going to work for your business. their entire career. But if you actually can create great environments and you invest in your people and there is that alignment, there’s this big thing, you know, called synergy. And look, a lot of this comes from the fact that I used to be a rower.

And for me, there is just this amazing feeling. When you’re in a rowing boat and you’re rowing in full alignment, you can feel it. And I often use this analogy. You can have an either have eight people in a rowing boat and they can be all out of sync, or you can have four people in a rowing boat and they can be beat those eight people very easily.

And so that’s ultimately it. And that’s where it becomes quite easy is when you actually find that alignment. But a lot of the time that isn’t the case. And like everything, there’s always complexities, you know, environments and businesses and markets and things like this are constantly moving and changing.

And so you have to constantly adapt to that as well. And that’s why we partner with people to do that. Because in the same way, if you, if you’re inside and you’re trying to. Help a business. That’s the best way and different people have different needs. So we’re trying to do as much as we can outside of that.

I run, you know, groups where that’s where we met part of a networking for good group because I was trying to build awareness around neurodiversity and looking at how I’m going to help other people with diversity inclusion. How can we actually change that and create a bit of work environment? So for me, it’s not just the drive.

The business is one vehicle. to that purpose. Um, it’s actually for me is I only get one chance at life. How do I optimise that? I was miserable for a year. I looked at my entire life and I decided that for the rest of my life, I was going to go and pursue. And if I didn’t give it a go, then I might look back when I was 90 and regret that I haven’t, you know, taken

Anthony Perl;: that leap.

Yeah, good on you for doing it because it’s not the easiest leap to make and anyone that’s been in business knows that that is the case and I know that you’ve been kicking some goals early on in the piece for this and which is which is fantastic to hear and I love how when you start talking about.

Purpose, I can see how much that impacts you as well. And in terms of having found that in your in yourself and helping other people find it. And to that point, I’m interested in when when you’re dealing with clients, do they come? with a purpose in mind for why they think they want to deal with you. And does that change once you engage with them, you know, they come saying, Oh, we need, we need help finding a team member, for example, and then you dig a little bit deeper.

And it’s, it’s about something different.

Seton Walsh-Rose: Yeah, well, I think that’s one of the interesting things. As you know, I only started my business last year. And so I’ve really been on that kind of, you know, startup mode and look, I probably take that lean startup approach of go test a market. I know what I want to do and the difference I want to make.

Then it’s been about working out what does the market actually want? You know, I thought, well, people shouldn’t pay that much for. recruitment costs, we can do it at, you know, as a service market told me they didn’t. So we had to go back. I’m very lucky. My mother ran a very successful recruitment business in professional services for 40 years.

Um, and so I know how to run a very successful professional services recruitment business, but that’s not what I want to do, you know? And I think one of the things is, It’s actually like anybody, when you’re actually going to talk to people, it’s not about selling them something. It’s actually first about understanding them, understanding where they’re at, understanding their problems.

And the same thing is when you’re dealing with staff and people, you know, just coming in the first time you meet somebody, they’re just going to give it to you on the flyer. You have to earn their trust. You have to be able to show to them that. You’re not here to just here to make money out of them.

You’re here to actually help them. Um, and you actually want the best for them. And a lot of that is obviously listening to them. But honestly, you know, as this is a business related, it’s. It’s, it’s also one of those things that I’ve had to learn how to, how do we get our clients? And a lot of that is obviously you need to go and introduce yourself, introduce yourself to people, um, and introduce the concept.

And most people I find are like, Oh, hang on, which bucket are you in? And it’s like, well, the bucket we’re in is literally to help people and to help your business. That’s the simplest terms. Um, and so often it won’t be even until we get in, let’s say a retained age child clients and then we actually start to understand what is it they’re trying to achieve, what are their goals and objectives, and then actually what do they think they need versus actually what do we need to help them to see.

And that’s why it’s always, I think one of the things I found and one of the reasons I wanted to go external as well. Is that I felt when you’re internal, you’re all looking at the problem from the same angle or the same things being said over and over. When you’ve got an external person coming in who’s integrated into your business but not living in it every day, they have the ability to see it from a different viewpoint.

They’re not the staff member, you know, they’re not another employee. You know, they’re there actually to be the best in their field in what they do and to help your business and provide you value. But they’re also there to observe from a different angle. And I think the power of a different perspective adds an enormous amount of value to businesses.

And I know majority of the time whenever we’re brought in external consultants in businesses I’ve worked, the leaders have listened to the external consultants, even though the same thing may have been actually said internally. And a big part of what we do is When we come into businesses and we do that, it’s further what we’ll be doing is to actually provide data.

So we’ll meet with all employers one on one, but we’ll also survey, we’ll then survey them again. We’re looking to set up benchmarking because our entire purpose outside of what we get paid to do is to actually create as many amazing workplaces as we can. And so if we can help that where they’ve already got HR in, that’s fine.

But if we can help them to understand where are they actually sitting, where do their people actually think they are, and then they can start to actually work on things. I often find that external part, people are often more, Oh, it’s not going to get analyzed. They’re not going to know it all. Um, so they’re more trusting to be quite open and honest.

And that’s where I think, you know, one of our, our mantra really is towards better. And so it’s all about what can we do to help everybody to improve that 1%.

Anthony Perl;: I think that idea of what you’re talking about. Involves a lot of listening, both from your part, obviously, which you are doing, but I think the critical part is, is that the businesses, the CEOs in particular are listening, having personally been part of, uh, um, something similar to that kind of research years ago and watching what was driven, uh, very clearly through the research and then what was enacted were two different things because the problems were seen at a level.

That impacted the CEO that meant that they didn’t particularly want to respond to that. They were only focused on the other levels of things. And I think it’s an important lesson, though, that it is really about listening. And it’s interesting that you say as well that often what you tell them is what the team has already been telling them.

Because the source is the same, right? It’s just that it’s the ability to listen to it is where it

Seton Walsh-Rose: changes. Look, our entire theory is that your people have the answers. If you want to know how to improve, people are actually there. It’s actually how you enable that. And that’s why we have processes and frameworks in which we do that.

And that’s one of the things that I’ve always been very good at doing. And it’s because I come from a perspective of continuous improvement and wanting to actually listen. And all you need to do is open your ears. But I think when you talked about, oh, different intent, um, different outcomes, it’s also about intent.

Right. So we talked about perspective before. That’s another thing. And it’s what people hear. You and I and different listeners here will hear different things about this conversation and take different things away. Maybe if we listen to it six months later, we’ll hear something else and take something away.

But it’s also about whether there’s a true intent. To want to actually be better, and I’ll be honest with you. My ideal clients are actually people who want to be better because then that’s where we can actually help them to be the best that they can be. Because like a coach or a PT, let’s say you’re a trainer.

Somebody can pay you to do a session every day, but unless they actually want to improve, unless they actually want to turn up with intent and take on what you say, their performance is not actually going to. They’re not going to see the changes that they want to see. And that’s one of the things, though, That what we do is we come in with all of this expertise, we come in as this external party that’s integrated, and then we actually enable that, and we continue.

And the reason I haven’t started an HR consulting, just come in is, you know, I don’t want to just come in, oh yeah, we put it all in place, and then you go. You’re not actually seeing it in you, and that’s one of the reasons, you know, I love recruitment, I’m very good at it, we do headhunting, we do everything, right?

I’ve been exceptionally well trained. But the thing is though, is that if you place somebody in that and you say to them, this is the deal, this is this place, this is what you’re going to do. I’ve understood what you want to achieve in your career and this is the place you’re going to be. The hardest part that I find is, I have no ability to influence what the rest of their experience is going to be.

Whereas for us, if we do the recruitment for them, then we understand that, then we’re already aligning, we already know what they’re looking for, we already understand their objectives, we already understand their values. And then what we already understand is that professionalism. I honestly have always seen it as a deal that I will actually make a deal with somebody when I actually hire them, that I’m putting in in the right place and doing the right thing for their career.

And the hardest thing is if you don’t find that alignment, you don’t want them to leave later on and they have that horrible experience. So that’s why our preference is to actually do that. Now, That’s all the purpose stuff. Now, I’m obviously from a financial background. So what I did, and I’m an HR person, I’ve managed budgets and labor and all of our costs, I went, well, what’s the value, right?

And I knew the biggest spend that people are spending on is actually their people spend is generally recruitment. People are spending a much percentage of their revenue of their people costs, whether you include that as labor and everything. They’re spending such a large percentage But if they actually spent that on looking after their people, understanding, aligning all of that, and they spent more on their training and development, investing in their people, the recruitment costs naturally come down, right?

So, I mean, you know, obviously the services we provide, we actually market at a point that we should be able to, for the recruitment costs that you’re paying, we should actually be able to provide you with the HR. And let us do the recruitment because we’re very good at it. And that’s another part of our business.

But let us come in and help your business and your people and we can follow that all the way through. And that’s where having ideal clients is about obviously listening, but also having intent. That, you know, at the end of the day, if you want to run a successful business, you need to have that people alignment.

Everything is easy. When your people part is easy, and this is the hardest part, and I’ve been stuck in this situation, is that when everything runs really well, everybody’s like, Oh, do we really need that? And it’s like, it’s only when stuff doesn’t start going that you start to go, Oh, I actually need that.

And I think that’s, you know, one of my things is that we obviously come into businesses, we put all these things in place, but we want to be part of businesses long term. And that’s one of the things that, you know, we have to look at, well, what do we do and how do we continue to add value? And that’s why the model includes that recruitment, because that’s where you make the biggest savings financially is in that, but enables me to be able to, and our business to be able to actually leave that purpose and actually make that difference, and that’s why we’ve structured the business the way we have.

Anthony Perl;: I love the way this is set up and, and it just, it, uh, there are a couple of things that you said there, I mean, I’m nodding my head, which people can’t see, obviously, but it’s the, uh, you know, marketing is like that as well, that, um, in that what happens is people, things are going well, so they stop it. And, uh, or they get too busy and they stop the marketing.

And then, um, you know, and it’s the last thing to get switched back on when times are tough and you, it, it doesn’t make any sense. And I think it’s the same with getting your people right. And HR is exactly the same. It is. And, and, uh, listeners of Biz Bites will know that we had a recent guest, Andrew Uglow, and we spent a, a fair bit of time talking about, uh, the idea as well, that it’s not always about the money.

Um, you know, that there’s this, um. Mystery that, uh, a lot of CEOs think, oh, that we just throw more money at the people, but it’s not actually always about that. It’s often about creating the atmosphere. And as you say, the learning opportunities, the career growth, the many other things that go around it that help benefit everyone and benefit the business ultimately, rather than just saying, oh, well, we’ll give you a rise.

Seton Walsh-Rose: And that’s one of the things that I really see, and it’s one of the things why we do surveys and we look at things. Because often people will actually spend money or put in policies that they think they must have. But if you actually don’t know what matters to your people, you’re actually throwing money at things you don’t need, right?

You could spend thousands of dollars. Oh, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do these fancy things, we’re going to have a well being program into us. We feel people actually care that they just want to be listened to more, they want to know what their career direction is, that that matters. So one of the things that we do when we come into businesses, and benchmarking as well, is actually working out what matters to people.

It’s the first thing we do. So we ask them, and in HR talk it’s called your EVP, your Employee Value Proposition. So we actually ask them what matters to you, and we get them to rate that. As they go through. So then we get an idea. First up, what actually matters to your people? And how does that look across the industry as well?

Then what we do is we then actually then go down through our survey and actually say, what are you actually doing? And what do you actually value and what matters to you? So from that data, we can actually go, Hey, by the way, we’re actually looking into offer all these things. But that doesn’t actually matter.

You don’t need to spend that 20, 30k, whatever you were thinking about doing. What you actually need to do is we need to make these small changes. And the thing is, though, we believe in continuous improvement and continually checking in. Because even once you do that, It’s human nature. Once we’re at a really good spot then, you know, we’ve always wanted to have more and to do that.

But that’s where your ENSP, so your, like your Net Promoter Score, your ENSP, we use different measures to be able to actually measure where and how happy are your people. So we can actually measure, okay, these things mattered, we changed these things, we put these things in place. Now, where are they actually at, what are they actually feeling, and what was our benchmark, and what is actually making a difference?

And if we see changes within that data, then we obviously go back, and that’s where the one on ones and building natural relationships and one on one relationships with people, understanding the people as people and individuals, hence the people experience, not just a people of numbers, that’s where that quantitative and understanding the context comes into it.

And that’s why I find just like going in as an HR manager, you don’t really know a business until you’re in it for a while. And that’s why we’ve built this model that we work, but our staff still go into people’s offices. They’re not there every day because as well, if you’ve got an HR person sitting around, you know, you might go, Oh, hi, part time HR person.

Well, they’re not going to have the full gamut of everything that we do. They’re not going to have the full experience of everything, the same as if you go to an accountant. You get the CFO, you get the partner, you get that full experience, but you’re saying around a similar rate that it might actually cost you to do that.

What we find is though, and this is where the whole idea came, I actually was wanting to move and I was interviewing with different people and I was talking to different people and trying to figure out what my next step was. And I kept being really attracted to these companies that are around 40 to 60 with the directors owned.

They were very passionate what they’re doing. You’re like, oh, you were going to hire an HR person. What’s this person going to do all day? Like it, that’ll potentially cause problems because they’re going to find something to do. Also. then you’re not having full coverage. So that’s why our model is we’re actually in their system, we’re on their teams, we’re on their tech, we’re fully contactable at all times, we have regular times that we go in and it’s a bit like, you know, good MSP.

Think about it like that. And I’ve modelled it on that, that you actually still keep that connection, but You actually pay for it fractionalized based on your headcount, right? And particularly in the industry that I work in, which is our main focus to begin with, is that it’s constantly moving, right? And I know as a business, when I look at it, I look at it as a people cost as a percentage of your revenue, okay?

Because it’s a direct cost to your business and everything that you want to do as a business owner to create a sustainable business, you need to create one that actually does make money. Because the worst thing that can happen is it’s idealistic and then suddenly you can’t actually pay everybody’s wages.

And that’s the worst thing that can happen to somebody. But that’s why we’ve modelled it in this particular way. And that’s why it’s so important for companies to keep in mind what you’re actually going to be getting, how you continue that on. And that’s why for us, Our value is actually in, we want businesses to succeed.

I’m exceptionally passionate about business. Maybe it’s because I was brought up by an entrepreneur and I’m surrounded by entrepreneurs, but that’s what we’re passionate about. And I believe, you know, and I’ve spent time in non for profits and I do lots of the different things. I actually believe that businesses can make a really big difference because one of the best leaders that I worked actually said to me, I’m responsible for every single person’s family.

Any more pictures. Yeah, and

Anthony Perl;: it’s and you know what? That’s what I love is the rawness of the rawness of that, because that’s clearly something that had a huge impact on on you and and it’s clearly something that has a huge impact on the way you go about doing business and and gives every reason for people to want to engage with you and and I know the business is going to be a huge success for you.

And I wanted to just wrap things up with a couple of questions. Um, firstly, is really about the businesses that are out there thinking how do they, how do businesses know that they need you? Because I clearly see that there’s a lot of businesses that could do with the kind of support and the approach that you take, but what are the, what are some tips from people for business owners to say, this is what you should be looking for.

That means that you might want to engage with someone like yourself. Yeah, well, generally,

Seton Walsh-Rose: we generally work with businesses. There’s a value proposition there. And that value proposition, without the problems, is that particularly for professional services, if we free up this time that people are having to deal with issues, it enables business owners, generally the income generators, to get out there.

do their projects, actually be able to deliver on things and be able to continue to build business as well. So that’s always the way. I remember I was told by, you know, a director of a company that at the end of the day, as a partner, our time is worth this much. And so you need to think about that for every single time.

And that’s what you’re saving. So a lot of the time, you know, even it’s simply in recruitment, instead of having to look through all of these resumes and do. You actually get what you need and then you only need to meet the right people and you’re done. And it’s all very simple, you know, everything just runs smoothly, which actually clears you up.

And I’m sure any business owner who’s stuck in the people problems, it takes them away from being able to do things. The other thing is we do have a model where we mainly work with people who may have a pa ea, or may have a practice manager or somebody like that. Who this is taking them away from actually running the operational side of the business and being able to provide more of the finance side.

But we need somebody who is also there in the studio or in the office more on a daily basis. And we partner with them, right? And when, you know, they’re the people who are on the ground, we check in with, we have a meet in the weekly. fortnightly meeting with how’s it all going? Is there any problems?

They’re the kind of people who know the heartbeat of what it is. From an actual issues problem of where that could be, either it’s around cost. So either structure somehow you just can’t seem to hit that gross profit that you need to be able to hit the net profit and you really are thinking it could be that you’re getting to a certain age and I often see this that people start to think about succession planning in their mid 50s.

when that’s already too late. You need to be thinking about succession planning at least 10 years out, because you need to be building those people into the business, particularly in professional services. Otherwise, the value of your business can actually be lost, and your shareholdings can actually be lost.

And that’s where the financial part of how to operate comes in. The other thing could be turnover, that you’re paying, that you’ve just seen a large turnover, and you don’t understand why. But And the other part could also then be you’re spending extraordinary amounts on recruitment and you’re thinking, why is this one spending?

How can I save myself money here? And that’s where we come in. It might be that you’ve had HR people in previously, and it just hasn’t been the right mix, but essentially. For us, what we’ve found is even though we go out and we talk to different people and that’s where the benefit of talking about different products is with them, or services I should say, is that it actually comes down to a driving factor.

So, you know, we have thought about a marketing approach of do we go out to businesses that are advertising for part time HR people and approach them because they already are thinking about it, but most of it is actually on that side of things. It’s actually on businesses that are thinking Okay, I’m not quite sure.

And it may actually be that person who is a central person. It may be that their people are telling them, Hey, I’m thinking about this. It may be the leaders who are committed to wanting to do great things for their people. And that’s a lot of what our clients are. They actually have that intent that they want to do better.

So they already see us I think the thing is, is that I look at it from an investment in the business and look at it from a financial point of view, and we always want to place sales service in that position. But I also look at it from a perspective of, well, how do we, they need to be ready and want to have that desire to do it.

And I’m sure you in the same business and a lot of people who may listen to this have the same thing. You can’t convince somebody of something. But what I’ve also found is that because we are very good recruiters, That I’ve actually found that part of it is we’ll go and do recruitment for people, and then they’ll go, Oh, shit, you’re actually quite good at this and you’ve got a massive, you know, telepool and all these connections and this is fantastic.

Oh, hang on a minute, instead of me paying you for several recruitment fees for the year. Why don’t you just do the HR and do the recruitment for the same cost? And that’s really where we’re found is probably one of the biggest values. But look, I’ve really talked obviously a lot about the HR because that’s our core business service.

Um, but we are good recruiters. Right. It’s just, we never want to be placed in that position. I’m here working in the industry and there’s some great recruiters out there, but we’re not a sales organisation. We’re HR people who do recruitment. We’re very good at recruitment, but the reason we’re HR people is we continue that on.

So even before this podcast, I’m trying to set up an HR group in the industry so people can actually stay connected. When people actually think they might have to let go of people, they can actually share them across because I actually want people to stay employed. If we can help more people and to do that, that’s definitely what our driving factor is.

And so, like you said in the beginning, it all comes down to finding your tribe and it comes down to finding your alignment of people. And that means meeting lots of people. And, you know, I’ve sort of got a rule that even if we recruit, we really want to meet the leaders because we actually need to feel, we need to see the space, we need to do that so we can actually go, yep, we get it.

Okay, we can, we can do this. Or yes, you align to our values or you don’t align to our values. And, you know, it’s very hard because I’ve got to start a business and, you know, I’ve got a great team in place and we’re continuing to grow. So you should say, I should do that. But ideally, we really want to do the best for people.

And we want to put people in businesses where they genuinely care about their people, because it’s going to have the best outcome for both people and for businesses.

Anthony Perl;: I love that this look, there’s so much that we could still keep unpacking, but, uh, uh, we, we have to wrap things up, but I just wanted to ask, uh, finally a question that really, uh, I, I, I tend to throw this at, at most of our guests and I know it’s early days for you in terms of a business sense, but what is the aha moment that clients have when they start working with you, that it would be ideal if more people knew about that in advance that they were going to have that aha moment.

I think it

Seton Walsh-Rose: comes down to the value. Honestly, they see it when we’re in, so they’ll understand if there’s the alignment. Okay. Generally, that first aha moment can come where it’s, oh, you’ve just done all that recruitment for us and that would have just cost us that much. And you’re just putting in all our HR systems at the same time and everybody is happy and loving this and our reputation in the market is changing and so we, all of our cost structure is changing and suddenly we’re flying.

I can tell you from the last organisation that I was in that this is what prompted me to really go, you know what, I can do this for more people and more organisations was when they said to me, this is the best team we’ve ever had. And this is the best we’ve been flying and you could see it, you could see it in their profit and you could see it in their culture and you could see it in their engagement.

I’ve taken it from massive turnovers to under 5 percent of turnovers. We’ve achieved over 8, 9, 10 percent of, well not quite 10, but close to our ENSPs, so our measures and engagement as well. And that’s, that’s when they start to realise. Oh, that’s what this world could look like versus the world that I’m experiencing

Anthony Perl;: now.

Fantastic. Sydney, I love talking to you and people like you, because clearly so passionate about it. We started by discussing the idea of a purpose driven business and, uh, is very clear. In talking to you about how purpose driven you are, uh, not just for your business, but how you’re delivering that for your clients and how much that is important for business owners to think about it.

I think there’s lots of gold nuggets that people will get from having listened to that. Thank you so much for being an incredible guest on, on Biz Bites. And, uh, we look forward to the growth of your business and we’ll keep people. We’ll give people lots of opportunities on how to keep in contact with you,

Seton Walsh-Rose: uh, through the show.

Thanks, Anthony, so much for your time. And I certainly thank you for the experience.

Anthony Perl;: And everyone stay tuned of course, for the next episode of Biz Bites. Biz Bites is brought to you by CommTogether for all your marketing needs. So you can build your brand, engage audiences on multiple platforms, go to commtogether.com.au Follow the links to book an appointment for a free consultation.