9. Developing Your Company to Flow More Ethically & Seamlessly

This is a short clip from our full-length podcast episode with Brent Brewer. 

Brent is a wise, seasoned digital agency strategist and he delicately walks us through the equilibrium between sourcing international talent and nurturing local job growth. 

Our conversation navigates through ethical hiring practices, the empowerment of individuals worldwide, and maintaining a healthy work-life balance.

I'm your host, Micaiah Gosman and The MGR Podcast is where I talk with Real people, about real money and real estate. To connect with me you can visit my Website or follow me on Instagram or Facebook

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey and welcome back to the MGR podcast, where we talk with real people about real money and real estate. So today we got a super exciting episode. We got a special guest, brent Brewer, on with us today. Super excited to have him on today and we're going to be talking a little bit about his business, his success. You know his routine for success, how he defines, you know success, kind of where he came from, where he wants to go, and a little bit about his digital agency and we're going to kind of dive into that. And you know a little bit about his process for, like, hiring overseas and a little bit of everything. So we're going to dive right in and get started. So, brent, good to have you man.

Speaker 2: 0:36

Good to be here, micaiah.

Speaker 1: 0:38

So we're going to be talking a little bit more about your business, brent, how you've kind of made it successful, where you've kind of sourced your employees from, and then dive into kind of what your goals are for the future kind of thing. So let's chat a little bit about hiring overseas, you know, because so it's a bit of a sore spot. I was chatting with a guy last night and he was part of this large company. Anyway, they laid off about 105, 110 employees and the reason for it was because they hired like hundreds of new employees from india. When they were laying off employees, they told them. They said, basically, for one american person you can hire like two canadian people, and then for two canadian people you can hire six like indian people.

Speaker 2: 1:28

Well, you know, something we can hold. I think they say now 50 conflicting thoughts at a time. So I have conflicting thoughts on the whole thing and, coming from a university background, we talked a lot about neoliberalism and you know, human labor being easily replaceable in the future and people wouldn't really have long-term careers the way they do now. So I had some issues with that. Um, but essential, studios has gone with a blended approach. We do hire local where it makes sense and then we've also hired abroad.

Speaker 2: 2:10

I started the hiring abroad early in the game, even before we incorporated, and where the labor it seems, at least in our sphere, where people source the labor from, changes every so often like there'll be kind of hot spots. What undeveloped or developing nations? Now I I I only see it from a distance so I can't know. I'm not them, but it seems that, um, they're getting exposure to a lot of training and new skills, more opportunities. Some people might argue folks here are losing those opportunities.

Speaker 2: 3:16

Like I say, we have some local contractors and they're amazing to deal with. They're at the peak of their game, the ones that we deal with locally and, just like I'm sure many small business owners can attest, we've had some poor experiences with local contractors who really I don't know if they I guess we talk in Central Studios. We use the EOS business operating system and it says you know if you've got somebody in the right seat, if they get it, want it and have the capacity for it. So what I've found is, with some local hires I don't know if they really want it I think they have the capacity for it. From what I can see they like to take a lot of vacation time.

Speaker 2: 4:06

And work-life balance matters, but some of the wanting it doesn't seem to be there. So I guess I've always been a believer. In life I have a bit of a philanthropic nature. I like to help people who feel stuck and are trying their best to get unstuck. So if they're in another country, they're, I'm going to help people get unstuck here. I want to help people anywhere get unstuck. So then it raises the question as a Christian who is my neighbor, right? Anyway, I could go into that quite deep and I spend probably too much time thinking about this stuff, but it is a conscious endeavor. I'm not just blindly going. We don't just blindly go to like, oh, there's cheap labor, go there, exploit Nothing like that. We don't just blindly go to like, oh, there's cheap labor, go there, exploit, yeah, yeah Nothing like that.

Speaker 2: 4:57

Yeah, and I'll often ask for a tour of the office so I can ensure like there's some basic things going right there. You guys have probably heard about Apple's Foxconn Like they had to install my understanding I don't know if this is a fact, but essentially suicide nets on the building because their employees were jumping out the windows to their own death. So we're not dealing with anything like that, but we want to make sure that there's some ethics in place. So that's Essential Studios' perspective on hiring locally and abroad. I've got conflicting thoughts on it. Overall, I think it's. I don't know if we're going to reverse that trend. So that's where we're going and what else would you like to know about that?

Speaker 1: 5:47

Yeah, no, I mean. So. I mean you do it. It's been working for you. You know you wouldn't say you regret it.

Speaker 2: 5:53

I wouldn't say I regret it. I would say I think there's a lot of people, increasing numbers of small businesses and probably established companies like the one you just cited, starting to experiment with it. Yeah, it, at first it's a pain because what it's going to do is it exposes your basically training gaps, a lot of the assumptions, the things that you just understand well, this is just the way it is kind of goes out the window. You have to be very conscious and explicit about. This is how things have to be done. Plus, you're navigating cultural differences, yeah, which are real, like real cultural understandings about time.

Speaker 2: 6:44

Right, like, yeah, it sounds a bit philosophical, but there are some different outlooks on time. There's different outlooks on how much would a person work and how much communication, direct communication in some cultures, direct communication is avoided because it's perceived as rude. So there's some very real challenges there and without those cultural understandings, people will tend to, I think, throw their hands up in the air and maybe quit, and then I think eventually they their hands up in the air and maybe quit, and then I think eventually they're going to come back around and try it again because I do think there are some significant market forces at play. So what else do you want to know?

Speaker 1: 7:28

Yeah, I mean, and I'll just say too, like I've worked, you know, directly with you know the folks that you've hired, you know overseas, and like they've just been absolutely amazing. You know the folks that you've hired, you know overseas, and like they've just been absolutely amazing. You know, and I know that you've, you know, taken time to kind of refine them and train them and whatever, and they've been absolutely awesome. So tell me a little bit about you know how you go through the process of finding somebody. Like you know, do you just Google person that wants to be assistant or what do you? How are you finding people? Well, we have at this point.

Speaker 2: 8:03

Some trusted staffing resources and I've spoken to you about some of them I would say is we have not all the time, but we try to go in with a clear position, outlined expectations, what kind of metrics like a scorecard for the employee, so that at performance reviews we can give them a meaningful review. I guess the biggest thing there is the training piece, and I'm assuming that our experience is just talking to other entrepreneurs. I think staff turnover is a big deal now. So this is where a bit of my e-learning background comes in handy. As we try to have.

Speaker 2: 8:55

E-learning background comes in handy is we try to have all team members generating training resources, standard operating procedures and building up a library so that if that day comes in, a team member leaves, the time to recalibrate is diminished pretty significantly. So but that does take time. That you know, know. I say to my wife all the time I'm like I didn't even meet with the customer today and I'm exhausted because trying to make your internal processes clear to somebody else is not so easy. No right, yeah, so um, I don't know if I've gotten that what you're trying to capture.

Speaker 2: 9:37

Oh yeah Is there anything else you want to know from my limited no, no, I mean that's awesome.

Speaker 1: 9:42

That's awesome, that's awesome and that that answers a lot of questions and I think that gives you know some, some info to people that are kind of considering it and you know things to kind of look out for and just say, you know, you know, as long as you're doing it in, you know, like you say like an ethical way, and you know you're doing your research, you're doing your training, you know, and you're you're kind of connecting with the people, cause I mean you do you do connect like with, like your assistants and people that you're hiring. You know you get to know them a little bit and so, uh, yeah, so that's Essential Studios. Where are we going after this, like you know? Obviously, you know we've chatted a bit about how you know you're doing well, you know you're enjoying it. Now are you hoping to scale up? Are you just going to kind of stay where we're at here now, or are you you know what's the next step here?

Speaker 2: 10:31

Well, we are. We want to scale up, but I don't know, I gotta be careful. Some people would say this is maybe a christian outlook on business, maybe it's not. I gotta be careful, but, um, I I guess I just really believe in sustainable growth at this point. Um, I've been in the days of like Grant Cardone's 10x rule and like grind culture and all that, and like you know, something I've discovered and I'm sure a lot of people can attest. When I talk to some people who say they want to, you know, maybe do 5x next year first thing that comes to mind for me is would you even know what to do with the money when it hit you? And I don't think a lot of people would have a plan for it. That's a whole other problem. Yeah, because when you land that money, you need to know how do I keep this money growing and just not do stupid things with it, yeah just spend it, yeah, right.

Speaker 2: 11:36

So I really believe in sustainable growth. Now, what that number will mean for different people obviously will be different, but for me I have a kind of number in mind. I'm very, very content with life right now. The biggest thing for me, what's most important to brent brewer moving forward, is connection beyond, like just human connection. I want to be connected to creation, I want to be connected to my creator and I want to be, um, the best father sorry, the best husband, sorry, the best husband. It's my next priority under God and father possible.

Speaker 2: 12:21

So I have and I just want to be in a position to I you know right now. I know what I will do with the resources that I've been entrusted with. I've got a plan for that and I know what my priorities are, where we go from there. I have to be a steward of this business, for whatever reason. Like I've gone through some some difficult times in life. The business held. I have an assumption that God wants it there for a reason. So I am going to steward the business, but I'm going to try to be a sustainable steward and keep relationship at the forefront. So that's why I enjoy that discovery process, because I really get to know the people that we're working with. So that and retirement I have a semi-retirement goal, but I think as long as we're here we should be staying at things to a reasonable extent.

Speaker 1: 13:26

A lot of people I talk to. They retire and then they go back to work. You're always going to stay busy.

Speaker 2: 13:31

You're always going to do something right you're always gonna do something right, but uh. But yeah, I know what you mean, but probably I would say in essential studios. My plan right now is to um increasingly. You know I have the label ceo on my linkedin profile, but acting like a ceo is a totally different thing. I think a lot of us like to slap that label on, but, like acting like a visionary, there's a whole other side to it and like a person has to be out of some of the details to actually be acting in that capacity effectively. So I'm learning how to be more of a visionary. I've got a good community that is helping me, but it's baby steps. But it's baby steps. But move into an increasing consultative role in the business and eventually transition to board of directors and build the business in such a way that it could be a sellable asset at any time. So that's the current plan. It's not rocket science, but that's the way I'm choosing to steward this resource.

Speaker 1: 14:38

Yeah, so I mean, basically, obviously you want to grow, obviously you want to help more people, obviously you want to increase your business, but it's got to be a sustainable growth that you're not sacrificing, like you said, your family core values and stuff. You have your family core values and stuff, like you have your business core values, but above that, you know I'd say, is that faith, family kind of core values and stuff. So sustainable growth that allows you to hold on to those things. But you know, if you make some extra money along the way, right on, but yeah, I mean it's funny, like a lot of you know people, once, once they start spending or sorry, start making more money and I'm not even excluding myself from this you know you spend it and if and like you said before, that was a good point about oh, you know I'm gonna 5x, you know 10x my business, but yeah, nobody ever thinks about that.

Speaker 1: 15:29

Okay, once I do actually 10x my business or 5x, like, okay, I'm gonna have this much extra money, what am I gonna do? Like, am I just gonna buy a bigger house, buy more cars? Am I gonna where? Am I gonna keep living the way I'm living and then put it back into my business, so then you can scale up even more? Or are you gonna put it back into your business so you can hire more people, so that you can take more time off and be more hands off? Like there's a lot to consider. Everybody's business is going to be a little bit different, but yeah, I mean that's huge. Like I never really thought of it that way. I was just like, oh, I'm just going to make more money so that I can increase my budget here and then, you know, help more people. But you know, yeah, what are you going to do with that money once you've got to have a plan for it?

Speaker 2: 16:10

And like what is the problem we're aiming to solve here? That's the question I always come back to is like what problem am I solving with more money and more money? Yes, again, we've got to be a steward and sitting on our laurels isn't gonna be good for anyone. Yeah, we gotta be productive and we can create more opportunities for people we care about. Yeah, um, but yeah, what problem are we solving?

Speaker 1: 16:34

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah if, uh, if they have any questions about Essential Threes or they want to connect with you, how can they do that? What's the best way?

Speaker 2: 16:41

Hop on over to essentialagencyca. And why don't you schedule a 15-minute strategy call with me. And in that 15 minutes we can get to the core of your business issues pretty quick. So, yeah, just, even if you're not sure what you want, just grab a 15 minute call. You're going to get me. That part's not going to be like delegated to anybody. That's my sweet spot and I look forward to connecting with you. So, essentialagencyca, and just quickly schedule a 15-minute strategy call, and I look forward to checking in.