Shownotes
68 - Scaling with Stability: Building a Resilient Agency with Karen & JC Hite
In this insightful episode of the HighLevel Experience Podcast, host Vit Muller sits down with Karen and JC Hite, the dynamic duo behind one of the fastest-growing agencies in the U.S., Hite Digital. From starting their business in a garage to making the INC 5000 list, Karen and JC share their journey of scaling their agency while maintaining a strong focus on family and community values. They delve into the challenges and strategies of hiring the right talent, balancing family life with business, and adapting to industry changes, especially with the rise of AI and automation.
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Join Karen and JC at their upcoming events, the Scale and Stability Summit and the Commitment Summit, designed to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses while maintaining personal well-being. For more information and to secure your spot, visit https://highlevelexperience.com/sws
About Karen & JC Hite
Karen and JC Hite are the founders of Hite Digital, a leading digital marketing agency known for its rapid growth and commitment to family values. They are passionate about helping other agencies scale with stability and have a strong focus on community and personal development.
Highlights 🔥
Key points we talked about in this pilot episode!
- 👉 [00:01:00] Starting a Business from Scratch - Karen and JC discuss their transition from a chaotic agency environment to launching their own business out of necessity, driven by the impending arrival of their first child.
- 👉 [00:03:00] Balancing Family and Business - The Hites emphasize the integration of family into their business culture and the importance of work-life integration versus balance.
- 👉 [00:07:00] Hiring the Right Talent - JC shares insights on the importance of hiring proven talent and the long-term benefits of investing in top-tier employees.
- 👉 [00:17:00] Leadership and Management - Discussion on the distinction between leadership and management, and how to effectively lead a team by understanding their appreciation languages.
- 👉 [00:27:00] Preparing for Employee Turnover - Strategies for preparing for employee turnover, including continuous recruitment and stress testing processes.
- 👉 [00:46:00] Adapting to Industry Changes - The impact of AI and automation on agency services and the shift towards educational and strategic offerings.
- 👉 [00:54:00] High Level and CRM Insights - Karen shares her experience with HighLevel CRM, comparing it to Salesforce and highlighting its advantages for agencies.
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More info about this episode:
- Type: Audio (Explicit )
- Link: https://podcast.highlevelexperience.com/episode/scaling-with-stability-building-a-resilient-agency-with-karen-jc-hite
- Authors: Vit Muller
- Copyright 2024 vitmuller.com | highlevelexperience.com
Transcripts
Alright.
Vit Muller:Hello everybody.
Vit Muller:Vit from High Level Experience Podcast and today I've got two
Vit Muller:awesome legends to interview.
Vit Muller:Current and JC Hyde.
Vit Muller:They started in the garage, grew in one of the biggest agencies in us.
Vit Muller:Inc. 5,000 and now they're helping a lot of other agencies scale.
Vit Muller:and that's what we're gonna be getting into today.
Vit Muller:Great.
Vit Muller:And heavy you in the show.
Karen Hite:Thank you for inviting us.
Karen Hite:I'm glad that we finally made it work.
Karen Hite:The, the schedule there with Australia and the US I'm like, I don't know
Karen Hite:if we're gonna be able to make it.
Karen Hite:Yeah.
Karen Hite:It's always
Vit Muller:tricky.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:I do like a Zoom thing and, that's generally like the, the
Vit Muller:concept, but it's when there's an opportunity to to end in person.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:It's in person.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:So, How, tell me, when, when you guys decided to leave that sort of, a stable
Vit Muller:job, how did you navigate that process together, to whatever the next thing was?
JC Hite:Well, I think that for us it was something almost we were forced into.
JC Hite:So some context there, right?
JC Hite:We were in another agency, we had a very minor ownership in that agency.
JC Hite:We grew that to 350 people.
JC Hite:It was incredible.
JC Hite:It was, it was so much fun.
JC Hite:And, we had, we had done.
JC Hite:A lot of good work there, but it was crazy.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:And, we were, I mean, it, it was like Wolf of Wall Street if, if, if anything, right.
JC Hite:It was just total chaos, total fun.
JC Hite:A young man's game, you know, so to speak.
JC Hite:And we, we were what, three months away from having our first child.
JC Hite:Okay.
JC Hite:And was like in that workplace spouses were not allowed.
JC Hite:Kids were not allowed.
JC Hite:Like it was crazy.
JC Hite:I mean, drugs, alcohol, you name it.
JC Hite:Oh, like, it was fun.
JC Hite:It was was a party house.
JC Hite:And, and so we decided to quit our job three months ahead in
JC Hite:exchange for our non-compete.
JC Hite:We gave up all of our equity.
JC Hite:Okay.
JC Hite:Everything.
JC Hite:And, and we were kinda forced like, all right, well let's
JC Hite:just go do this from the house.
JC Hite:Let's, let's make it happen.
JC Hite:And we, we launched Hite from the bedroom of one of our, of our
JC Hite:house, and the rest is history.
Karen Hite:And we, like, we really didn't do it thinking, oh, we're gonna
Karen Hite:build this like in 5,000 agency, you know, we're gonna do all these things.
Karen Hite:Like, we really just wanted to be able to provide for our families at that point.
Karen Hite:And so it was, it was definitely out of a need.
Karen Hite:And I think that's, I mean, that's how a lot of the.
Karen Hite:Entrepreneur stories happen, right?
Karen Hite:Like, Hey, we like we're pushed to do something and there's no better
Karen Hite:motivation than my baby's coming and I need to be able to pay for that delivery.
Vit Muller:Yeah, you gotta make it, make it work.
Vit Muller:And then of does what work for somebody and you have ideas how you could
Vit Muller:make it better, and then they don't appreciate your ideas, so they are.
Vit Muller:They let you have a go at it, but then they take all the credits and
Vit Muller:then it's like, what am I doing here?
Vit Muller:Like, I, I might as well just start my own thing.
Vit Muller:Right?
Vit Muller:That's like the thing about us entrepreneurs, we always see new
Vit Muller:ideas and then there's always see, you know, some of us are like bit of
Vit Muller:OCD and we're like, you know, float around a few ideas at the same time.
Vit Muller:and I know like, we, we had a quick chat before, before you walked
Vit Muller:in and that, Karen was saying that you, you're kinda like that.
Vit Muller:I'm kinda like that.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:And then.
Vit Muller:And how Karen's keeping you grounded.
JC Hite:Yeah, that's,
Vit Muller:she's like the balloon, or I'm the balloon and
JC Hite:she's like the string, right.
JC Hite:So I'm just floating around in the air and she's holding me down to the ground.
JC Hite:Yeah.
Karen Hite:Yep.
Karen Hite:Yeah.
Karen Hite:I mean, to be, to be fair though, I would say that working in that agency,
Karen Hite:you know, like I know sometimes like you're like, we, we have this
Karen Hite:sort of like thinking of like they took advantage of me or whatever.
Karen Hite:You know, like sometimes coming from jobs.
Karen Hite:I think for us it was our biggest school.
Karen Hite:You know, for us it was a great opportunity to see how do I
Karen Hite:wanna be treated as an employee?
Karen Hite:How do I not wanna be treated as an employee?
Karen Hite:You know, what are things that I need, to have in my business?
Karen Hite:And so when we were starting to build ours, we.
Karen Hite:Had a big focus on family because that's something that we enjoyed and that was
Karen Hite:not part of their culture, but it was something that we really wanted to have.
Karen Hite:And that's, you know, one thing that when we were hiring people,
Karen Hite:people really enjoy that.
Karen Hite:We had a nursery in our office when we were, when we had an office.
Karen Hite:Right.
Karen Hite:That's cool.
Karen Hite:That's pretty thoughtful.
Karen Hite:And, and that was an opportunity 'cause I went into maternity leave and then
Karen Hite:I was like, wait, I have to go back.
Karen Hite:Like, what happens with my kid?
Karen Hite:Do I like see, you know, Olivia.
Karen Hite:What, like after eight hours, you know, then I'm gonna see her three hours maybe.
Karen Hite:And so we wanted to like incorporate or find a way to incorporate
Karen Hite:family into the business.
Vit Muller:That's, I love it.
Vit Muller:Mm-hmm.
Vit Muller:You guys are big on that.
Vit Muller:On, on like the fundamental, you know, beliefs and, the stuff that you guys
Vit Muller:do with the charity in Nicaragua.
Karen Hite:Yeah.
Vit Muller:I saw you like, speaking at, um, Matt Deseno's thing two
Vit Muller:years ago as well, and yeah.
Vit Muller:You guys were, you, you seem to be very consistent with that.
JC Hite:I think, at least us growing up, we were, we always heard about balance.
JC Hite:You know, you got work over here, you got family over here, and
JC Hite:we just believe in integration.
JC Hite:Like, I don't, we don't separate it at all.
JC Hite:And in fact, some of our friends even.
JC Hite:You gotta find out what's right for you.
JC Hite:But, oh, when we get home, we, we, we don't talk about business.
JC Hite:That's home time.
JC Hite:Well, like our life is our business.
JC Hite:Like that's our work.
JC Hite:Like, that's what believe, believe, you know, God put us on earth to do.
JC Hite:And so everything for us is just how do we integrate it as much, much as possible.
JC Hite:The reason I have a basketball goal at my office is yes, because I enjoy
JC Hite:it, but also because my son enjoys it.
JC Hite:So it gives him something to do when he's at the office.
JC Hite:Right?
JC Hite:And, and so how do we create a work, work culture that we want?
JC Hite:Our family to be a part of in some way.
JC Hite:Right?
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:It doesn't mean my spouse has to work with me, but like in some way they're involved
JC Hite:in some way, they're integrated in, and as you do that, you don't, I find that
JC Hite:maybe balance doesn't have to be balanced.
JC Hite:It's, it's kind of like, I'm working 20 hours, you know, I'm working 60
JC Hite:hours a week on the business, but 15, 20 of that has overlapped with.
JC Hite:My lifetime.
JC Hite:Right?
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:And 10 of that has overlapped with my kid time and you know, so on and so forth.
JC Hite:And I, and I think it's been an advantage for us when it comes
JC Hite:to competing in the marketplace.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:I'd be curious to, to hear from you guys listening, if you're watching
Vit Muller:this, you know, where you guys are at, with your partner, do you have your
Vit Muller:partner in the business or do you not?
Vit Muller:And is that.
Vit Muller:Bad, I don't think it is.
Vit Muller:but yeah, be curious to see, what you guys think.
Vit Muller:because there's a balance in everything and however you make it work, as long
Vit Muller:as you make it work and it helps you, in all aspects of light, it's, it's great.
Vit Muller:So check it down, the comments and, yeah, let us know and, and
JC Hite:I'll give a, like a little like project that you could do.
JC Hite:Let's say you man, a spouse is not involved at all in the business.
JC Hite:Okay.
JC Hite:I, I, I get this with people all the time.
JC Hite:They're like, oh, JC, I'm terrible at sales or my pitch or my offer.
JC Hite:And is it connecting?
JC Hite:Is it relaying your, your spouse, especially if they're not involved in the
JC Hite:business, is the perfect person to test your offer on, okay, honey, sit down.
JC Hite:I'm gonna explain to you what I do.
JC Hite:And if she's completely lost, like, wait, what just happened?
JC Hite:What are you gonna do?
JC Hite:Like how, okay.
JC Hite:We need to simplify their offer more.
JC Hite:We need to do it better.
JC Hite:Right.
JC Hite:That's interesting because there's so many ways to integrate them into it.
Vit Muller:No, like, it is, it makes a little sense, but like sometimes,
Vit Muller:I, I spoke to my wife about something and like she just doesn't get it.
Vit Muller:I'm like, ah, you just doesn't, you just don't get it.
Vit Muller:and your ego gets in the way and I need to speak to somebody who
Vit Muller:is in the business or something.
Vit Muller:But actually, that's just the ego talking really.
Vit Muller:Yes.
Vit Muller:That's
JC Hite:right.
JC Hite:That's right.
JC Hite:And so, like, if you're dealing with roofers, chances aren't, they don't
JC Hite:know what you're talking about either.
JC Hite:They don't know anything about SEO or PC or Facebook ads.
JC Hite:They don't understand
Karen Hite:High level.
Karen Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:Sometimes they do, but a lot of times they don't.
JC Hite:And, and we, even, even when you're writing, you know, CNN and
JC Hite:Fox, they have, we need to write at a fifth grade reading level.
JC Hite:That's, so that's our goal.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:Same thing in business.
JC Hite:We overcomplicate it too often.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:So let's talk about that.
Vit Muller:Let's talk about the agency stuff that you guys do.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:so you decided, okay, this wasn't for us.
Vit Muller:We really have different values.
Vit Muller:This is a bit of a chaos.
Vit Muller:and I was like, you know, I used to work for an agency and they
Vit Muller:said to me, embrace the chaos.
Vit Muller:I'm like, that's not me.
Vit Muller:Like, I can't embrace the chaos, dude.
Vit Muller:Like it's, it's shit's gotta be systemized.
Vit Muller:That's where, you know, that's where the profit's at.
Vit Muller:You gotta, otherwise you got a leakage.
Vit Muller:Anyway.
Vit Muller:so I, I'm not a fan of.
Vit Muller:so I, I can relate is what I'm trying to say.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:Yeah.
Vit Muller:so, so they decided to start your own thing, just to sort
Vit Muller:of, you know, support yourself.
Vit Muller:You were about mom, about to be a mom.
Vit Muller:Yep.
Vit Muller:And so that all, all, it kind of like, just makes sense.
Vit Muller:But you obviously didn't just stay there.
Vit Muller:You could have, you could have stayed small, it could have been like, you
Vit Muller:know, profitable small little agency.
JC Hite:Yeah.
Vit Muller:So what drives you to make it to such a massive agency that, is it 2020?
Vit Muller:And for those of you guys listening, I, I probably didn't do enough justice as an
Vit Muller:intro, but, 22, 23, 24 in 5,000 thousand.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:So it's three three outta the
JC Hite:last five years.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:It's brilliant.
Vit Muller:When did you guys realize that, this, this probably could be something
Vit Muller:bigger than, than like, yeah.
Vit Muller:You want me to answer?
JC Hite:Okay.
JC Hite:So, you know, it's funny, like Karen said at the beginning, we,
JC Hite:we never, were like, we're gonna create the fastest growing company.
JC Hite:Now we came from that world.
JC Hite:The company we were at before we, we were the like heads of that company.
JC Hite:Okay?
JC Hite:And we were Inc 5000.
JC Hite:Five out of seven years.
JC Hite:So like we knew growth, right?
JC Hite:So don't get me wrong, and this is where Karen was saying, right?
JC Hite:You know, reading the book, Jon Acuff wrote a book called Quitter.
JC Hite:I love that book.
JC Hite:You doing the comments, but it's all about like your day job and learning from it.
JC Hite:The reason we propelled so much, and I think so many agencies get this wrong
JC Hite:when we're wanting to hire in our world.
JC Hite:And I have a lot of friends that are in the VA world, so this isn't a knock.
JC Hite:Right.
JC Hite:I, I love them all, but like when we go and hire VAs, a lot of
JC Hite:times what we're doing is we're just trying to hire cheap labor.
JC Hite:Mm-hmm.
JC Hite:Some somewhere in the world and Okay, they've got.
JC Hite:They got PPC experience, so Sure.
JC Hite:Let me just hire, we're very quick to hire.
JC Hite:We are very slow to hire and we try to find the best people we possibly
JC Hite:can, and especially in the beginning.
JC Hite:So like our first hire was a pay-per-click guy that I knew that worked in an agency
JC Hite:that I knew, and he had been there seven years working at that agency.
JC Hite:Okay.
JC Hite:When you're hiring, when you're recruiting someone has to be the expert.
JC Hite:Okay.
JC Hite:Yeah, so, so either I've got, you've
Vit Muller:gotta validate that, that they're being a bullshitter.
Vit Muller:Exactly.
JC Hite:So I either gotta know that you're the expert or I've gotta be
JC Hite:an expert so much that I can make sure you're doing your job right.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:This is where people.
JC Hite:Fail miserably.
JC Hite:I don't know anything about Facebook ads, so let me go hire someone.
JC Hite:Oh, you've been in it six months, or, oh, you have a somewhat of a resume, or,
JC Hite:oh, you kind of know what you're doing.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:Let me hire you.
JC Hite:And no one ends up knowing what they're doing.
JC Hite:Mm. If you don't know what you're doing, you have to find
JC Hite:ridiculous proof to show that they.
JC Hite:Absolutely know what they're doing.
Vit Muller:And it doesn't, doesn't, it doesn't mean that you have to be
Vit Muller:like really expert a bit about it, but you have to have some understanding of
Vit Muller:it so that you can relate and you can,
JC Hite:yeah, you hire a coach for $15,000 and man,
JC Hite:we, I want all your reviews.
JC Hite:I want testimonials.
JC Hite:I want three or four references.
JC Hite:I want this, this, and this.
JC Hite:I have three calls.
JC Hite:I wait on the buy, like I pause, I don't sign up, and then I, we take that long
JC Hite:of a time to hire a coach, but yet paying someone a thousand, $2,000 a month.
JC Hite:We hire them out for one call.
JC Hite:And, and so this is, this has been like our key from day one.
JC Hite:How do I, and that's probably the biggest part of my job, is recruiting
JC Hite:and finding the best talent I possibly can and bringing them
JC Hite:in to this mission that we have.
Karen Hite:And to, to add to that, I think a lot of the times when you're.
Karen Hite:First getting started.
Karen Hite:There is this, I think, scarcity mindset where we're thinking like, oh,
Karen Hite:let me pay somebody a little bit so I can build my profits and then be able
Karen Hite:to find the right talent if you focus more on investing in those people.
Karen Hite:And I struggled with that.
Karen Hite:I remember hiring one of our VPs, and JC was like, we have to hire this person
Karen Hite:and we have to invest it, and this is how much we're gonna pay in salary.
Karen Hite:And we were not even making that money ourselves.
Karen Hite:You know, like for our own salary, you have
Vit Muller:to go into that.
Vit Muller:You know, so like
Karen Hite:we were paying more for this person that had years of experience.
Karen Hite:And I remember my growing up, like I think like through this journey you
Karen Hite:mentally like gain so much knowledge.
Karen Hite:You know, you come wiser as you like go through it.
Karen Hite:But I remember I was the one saying like, let's not do that.
Karen Hite:We need to save money.
Karen Hite:We need to like build our profits.
Karen Hite:We need to like do X, Y, Z.
Karen Hite:And JC was the one like, no, you're looking at this wrong.
Karen Hite:We need to invest.
Karen Hite:So that way we can get further than just like making whatever amount
Karen Hite:of dollars that we're thinking.
Karen Hite:And to
JC Hite:clarify.
JC Hite:To this day, I've never been the highest paid person in the company.
Karen Hite:Mm-hmm.
JC Hite:Never, not once to this day.
JC Hite:We have another person that's matched my salary.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:And a couple more right behind me.
JC Hite:Obviously you're not doing it for the money.
Vit Muller:Just for the money.
JC Hite:Okay.
JC Hite:So both sides of that same coin.
JC Hite:Okay.
JC Hite:You're right.
JC Hite:I'm, I'm not like I, I'm, these are the same jeans I had two years ago.
JC Hite:My underwear has holes in it.
JC Hite:Right.
JC Hite:Like I'm really not a big money guy.
JC Hite:With that being said, the only way to build money and build wealth, I
JC Hite:believe is, is surrounding yourself, paying whatever you can to surround
JC Hite:yourself with the best people.
JC Hite:That's your mentors, that's also the team working beside you, under you,
JC Hite:and above you in the organization.
JC Hite:I love it.
JC Hite:There's nothing, I mean, we, we always are spending money on surrounding
JC Hite:ourself with the best people.
Karen Hite:I will say in the beginning though.
Karen Hite:we had needs that we needed to meet, so we were doing it for the money, right?
Karen Hite:Like, we need to like, be able to pay for this delivery of the baby.
Karen Hite:Like, it's not for the mission, like we need to do that.
Karen Hite:But I remember having this conversation, we were driving and there was,
Karen Hite:there's a point where your basic needs are met as a business owner.
Karen Hite:Like, yes, you can always have a better car, you can always have, you
Karen Hite:know, a better house or whatever.
Karen Hite:But like there's a point where like that is, that is a. A good
Karen Hite:to have, not a must have, right?
Karen Hite:Yeah.
Karen Hite:Like we, we needed to have our delivery of our baby.
Karen Hite:And I remember like once we had all the basic needs met, I was asking, I,
Karen Hite:I think we were just in a car having this conversation of like, what is next?
Karen Hite:You know, for us, like, what are we shooting for?
Karen Hite:Like we already are in a good place.
Karen Hite:And that's where for entrepreneurs, like that's where you really find your mission.
Karen Hite:Mm-hmm.
Karen Hite:You know, after your basic needs are met in, in your life.
Karen Hite:And, and I think you have to be very discerning with like,
Karen Hite:what are your basic needs?
Karen Hite:I think some people.
Karen Hite:Think of basic needs, something that is not, you know, and you're lying to
Karen Hite:yourself and so that's why you create this financial problems for your life.
Karen Hite:Yeah.
Karen Hite:But once your financial, like once your basic needs are met, you know,
Karen Hite:like that's when I think like the real mission starts to kick in because now
Karen Hite:you're not doing it for the money.
Karen Hite:Now you're now, you could live like this forever.
Karen Hite:And I think for us, especially living Nicaragua, we saw the
Karen Hite:difference in lifestyles.
Karen Hite:You know, we were not in the US trying to like keep up with the Joneses, you know,
Karen Hite:like we were, we were in Nicaragua where.
Karen Hite:Like in the stoplight, there's kids asking for money.
Karen Hite:Yeah.
Karen Hite:You know,
Vit Muller:to eat.
Vit Muller:Do you wanna wash the windows or, yeah.
Karen Hite:I have a lady coming in that I know about all of her
Karen Hite:family struggles, you know, so like, how can you, I don't know.
Karen Hite:I, I think that that was really helpful for us in business, and
Karen Hite:it kept us grounded to live in a place where it wasn't all amazing.
Karen Hite:Just to be
JC Hite:clear.
JC Hite:We lived at.
JC Hite:The billionaire row on a beach.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:Beside the owner of GoPro.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:With a six bedroom house and a swimming pool.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:Infinity pool.
JC Hite:On a pro golf course.
Karen Hite:But we were able to see the difference.
Karen Hite:Just, just so
JC Hite:we're clear.
JC Hite:It was just cheap.
JC Hite:I mean, let's you know, don't, don't go, you know.
JC Hite:just for the, for the record, if someone sees pictures, they're gonna
JC Hite:be like, oh, they never, but it was in the gu so it was a lot cheaper.
JC Hite:Right.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:And so, and I think that's the, that's the point.
JC Hite:So like, that was a big focus of us, was finding the best people we could and doing
JC Hite:whatever it took to get them on the bus.
JC Hite:And I mean, I recruited, I mean, I, I looked for people at successful
JC Hite:companies and tried to take them.
JC Hite:Okay.
JC Hite:Rarely did we ever hire someone that didn't, that weren't, that wasn't working.
JC Hite:In fact, didn't, in fact, I haven't gotten this number in the last like year or so.
JC Hite:But then for a while I was collecting it.
JC Hite:You had to apply 2.7 times at Hite to get a job there, like, like on
JC Hite:average, 2.7 times to different jobs.
Vit Muller:You've engineered that process on purpose that way?
JC Hite:No.
JC Hite:It just, it was hard to get in and, and like we were so good
JC Hite:on referrals and bringing people in and me going to, I would.
JC Hite:I mean, like our head of data was, was the head of data for one of the
JC Hite:largest banks in the, the country.
JC Hite:You know, our, our, you know, we, we just were always bringing in recruiting talent.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:Okay.
JC Hite:And, and by the way, it was like, I'm also a big fan of like, great people.
JC Hite:We'll give you an ROI.
JC Hite:So we would hire a lot of people that like, we didn't
JC Hite:have a job necessarily for.
JC Hite:It was just like, man, this person is hell good at sales.
JC Hite:we're just gonna have 'em sell something, you know?
JC Hite:Or they're really good at communications, they're really good at partnerships,
JC Hite:or really good at whatever, and we've, we've found them a spot.
JC Hite:Mm-hmm.
Vit Muller:I'm not good with managing people, so I'm curious, like, how do
Vit Muller:you, you know, like I get this point, like where investing in people that gives
Vit Muller:you leverage and you are working with smarter people than, than even you are,
Vit Muller:and it's like, as meant to be, right?
Vit Muller:because then that's how you like, grow and everything.
Vit Muller:But, where you have, you have, you always found it easy.
Vit Muller:What do you mean by
JC Hite:that?
JC Hite:What do you mean
Vit Muller:you're not gonna managing people?
Vit Muller:like the leadership aspect, just because for a long time I've been
Vit Muller:working by myself and I'm just so like, you know, perfectionist
Vit Muller:and, I can do really good stuff.
Vit Muller:And so I am, and I can be really hard on myself.
Vit Muller:So I've got like those, you set those standards for yourself and
Vit Muller:then you hire somebody and it's ah, and then I dunno how to like.
Vit Muller:like sometimes just, just bit harsh, like, Hey, can't you just like, do it better?
Vit Muller:Or, yeah.
Vit Muller:It's, I, it's something I just navigating still, a, it's a process, right?
Vit Muller:I'm trying to be better, like, how you do it just a bit
Vit Muller:more compassionate, but yeah.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:It's, I think it's like, I don't think it's, The thing that you
Vit Muller:necessarily have to get better at it.
Vit Muller:it's also could be that, you just get somebody else who's
Vit Muller:good at managing the people.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:Well, I don't know.
Vit Muller:Okay, so this is a good subject.
JC Hite:This is actually a fun subject for me.
JC Hite:Okay.
JC Hite:In fact, so we do primarily like consulting and investing now, and
JC Hite:we're buying a very large company right now, solely focused on this topic.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:So.
JC Hite:To be, we can talk about it off, off camera.
Karen Hite:the key here.
Karen Hite:You know, one is like as, as there's leader, there's
Karen Hite:leadership and there's management.
Karen Hite:Those are two different things, right?
Karen Hite:now ideally in terms of just the tactical of leader, leadership
Karen Hite:and management, I'm trying to hire people I don't need to manage, right?
Karen Hite:And there's a big difference between hiring top top of the class.
Karen Hite:So again, going back to this like US, LATAM, for example, outsourcing, where a
Karen Hite:lot of people do is they go, oh, I could find a beginner salesperson in the us.
Karen Hite:For $50,000.
Karen Hite:But man, I could go to Nicaragua and find a beginner salesperson for 12,000 a year.
Karen Hite:Like, that's, well, that's, that's what they do.
Karen Hite:What I do
Vit Muller:is that money, is that enough money for those people?
Vit Muller:You could find someone, you can find,
JC Hite:you can find someone, to give you an idea in like the
JC Hite:Philippines, people that work for call centers, like for Walmart and
JC Hite:things like that, they're making $600 a month, so you could find someone.
JC Hite:Now what I do is I go, well, I could find a basic person in the US for 50 grand.
JC Hite:What could I get into Nicaragua for 50 grand?
JC Hite:Well, I can get a, I get an advanced, okay.
JC Hite:That is my, like, that's how we've always done it.
JC Hite:So like in Nicaragua, our average salary right now today is like just
JC Hite:above 36,000 a year, which in the us, especially middle America, like I'm at
JC Hite:in Arkansas, like that's a, that's what teachers make, that's what firefighters,
JC Hite:you know, like it's, it's not terrible.
JC Hite:So going back, so you have man managers and leaders, but then
JC Hite:we get into this like tactical.
JC Hite:What I have found is that I've gotta hire the people that match me.
JC Hite:Okay.
JC Hite:So, for example, there's a lot of different things with this.
JC Hite:Number one is like how you show appreciation, okay?
JC Hite:So we all have, have you ever heard of the book, the Five Love Languages by Dr.
JC Hite:Chapman?
JC Hite:Yeah, I've, I've heard about it.
JC Hite:I never, okay, you gotta read it.
JC Hite:You gotta read it.
JC Hite:Your wife will appreciate it if you read this book.
JC Hite:She didn't wanna tell me about it.
JC Hite:Okay, so, so, but as people, we have also.
JC Hite:Languages of appreciation.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:One of the biggest reasons why people leave is actually today's generation.
JC Hite:It's not because of their leadership.
JC Hite:It's actually peers and leaders in the appreciation that they're given.
JC Hite:Okay.
JC Hite:Now, bear with me.
JC Hite:We, as we receive appreciation a different way, so for example.
JC Hite:It may be gifts for you, right?
JC Hite:If I bring you a, a Hite mug or a Hite hat, you're like, dude,
JC Hite:this is the best thing in the world.
JC Hite:Oh, okay.
JC Hite:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
JC Hite:Or it may be that, man, that, dude, I appreciate you like
JC Hite:bringing us in for that podcast.
JC Hite:That was so thoughtful.
JC Hite:That was amazing.
JC Hite:And those words that you hear, words of affirmation mean more to you.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:Right.
JC Hite:Or, or it could be one of the other three.
JC Hite:As leaders, we have a natural way of showing appreciation,
JC Hite:so for me it's not words.
JC Hite:I'm not a words guy like I am with my daughter and somewhat with
JC Hite:Karen, but I'm not with anyone else.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:Well, I had an assistant not too long ago that her res, her appreciation
JC Hite:language was words of affirmation.
JC Hite:Okay.
JC Hite:Like, she wanted to hear it.
JC Hite:You could, I I could pay her nothing.
JC Hite:But if I told her every day how much I appreciated her,
JC Hite:she was happy as a Junebug.
JC Hite:The problem was, is that I didn't, you didn't know until later.
JC Hite:Well, I didn't.
JC Hite:I didn't.
JC Hite:I'm not a words guy.
JC Hite:Like I didn't do it.
JC Hite:And so she was always felt like I didn't appreciate her as much, and I would give
JC Hite:her raises, I would promote her, I would push her, I would bring her to events,
JC Hite:I would bring her to other country.
JC Hite:Every one of my languages I would show.
JC Hite:And, and so when it comes to like leading people and actually not talking about
JC Hite:managerial leading, but connecting and empowering your leaders, right?
JC Hite:This is one of the first things we look at is like, what is my personality of
JC Hite:traits and how do I show appreciation and how if I show appreciation in
JC Hite:the same way that you receive it.
JC Hite:It, it's gonna be a lot better.
JC Hite:I mean, a whole, and you've probably seen this within your team.
JC Hite:There's certain people you're just clicking with.
JC Hite:And, Karen says that in, in that regard, she says, that some of us are
JC Hite:Bonsais and some of us are cactuses.
JC Hite:Cactuses, okay?
JC Hite:Right.
JC Hite:So cactuses, you don't need a lot of love and attention.
JC Hite:They just kind of do their own thing and they grow and survive.
JC Hite:Bonsais, you gotta water 'em every day.
JC Hite:You gotta be meticulous.
JC Hite:Those relationships will die if you don't, you know, water 'em.
JC Hite:So, So in your case, can you find a COO or another manager that's gonna
JC Hite:help you execute a hundred percent.
JC Hite:But those guys are expensive.
JC Hite:Mm. I There was a time.
JC Hite:We were a lot more successful focusing the most of our money on middle level
JC Hite:management, my pod leaders, my best engineers, my best whatever, and
JC Hite:helping, and then me leading them, then spending our money on that second tier
JC Hite:leadership, the COO or the chief director.
Vit Muller:That's when you, that's really, it creates that disconnect, right?
Vit Muller:Well,
JC Hite:it's disconnect and it's expensive, like it's really expensive.
JC Hite:To hire a top tier director or vp, and I'm talking about the real sense, not
JC Hite:giving someone a title that doesn't deserve it, but like really expensive.
Vit Muller:That was the story of Steve Jobs.
Vit Muller:So he brought that CEO guy and then he That's right.
Vit Muller:He goes, yeah,
JC Hite:that's right.
JC Hite:That's right.
JC Hite:Squeezed out.
JC Hite:So we're, we're, I'm investing when I'm starting and you can get to
JC Hite:about a million dollars in revenue with seven or eight good people.
JC Hite:I want that bottom layer to be as best as freaking possible.
Vit Muller:Okay.
Vit Muller:Now we have a lot of small high level Yeah.
Vit Muller:Listening as well.
Vit Muller:you know, people who are just starting out and we all wanna make it work.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:So that's running solo for a while until you get to that point.
Vit Muller:So,
JC Hite:so, and it's the same thing with this, right?
JC Hite:So.
JC Hite:Who are the best high level, like the big guys, the guys that understand
JC Hite:capitalism, like if I were you and I was starting off on high level, I
JC Hite:would be attack, I would be attacking my buddies over at HL Pro Tools.
JC Hite:These guys have a great team.
JC Hite:Yeah, fantastic team.
JC Hite:A large team.
JC Hite:Shout out.
Vit Muller:Shout out to HL Pro Tools, one of our new sponsors.
JC Hite:We love HL Pro Tools.
JC Hite:Okay, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna mess with Graham here, but like.
JC Hite:I'd be looking at their team, I'd go be going, who's in the bottom
JC Hite:layer there that doesn't have an opportunity for growth that I
JC Hite:could pull over from HL Pro Tools?
JC Hite:Tools to hire.
JC Hite:Okay.
JC Hite:Right.
JC Hite:No, this sounds good.
JC Hite:Friends with that, you're, we're partners on a bit.
JC Hite:Love them.
JC Hite:Kidding.
JC Hite:I'm giving them as an example because I respect them so much because they
JC Hite:understand the beauty of capitalism.
JC Hite:Right.
Vit Muller:And it sounds like poaching, but like if, if,
Vit Muller:I'm not saying HL Pro Tools.
Vit Muller:Like in any company, in any company, if there is somebody who's not, who's not
Vit Muller:getting that, forget these guys beyond,
JC Hite:we're gonna go after Beyonce team.
JC Hite:You know, like, but, but, but that was my strategy.
JC Hite:Is, you know, I, I'm not taking people from, yeah, he's gonna be looking
Karen Hite:at this like, what,
JC Hite:I'm not taking people from agencies that I love, but I,
JC Hite:I'm going after those companies that I have a respect for,
JC Hite:but not a great connection to.
JC Hite:Okay.
JC Hite:And I'm going, what are the team members that they have?
JC Hite:And how can I, how can I pull them with some type of opportunity?
JC Hite:And so, as young guys, you gotta make sure you're getting the best of the best.
JC Hite:And somebody that's worked at those company for two or three
JC Hite:years is gonna be way more valuable than getting someone off of.
JC Hite:Some virtual assisted deal or some, you know, random workplace deal of
JC Hite:someone that's looking for a job,
Karen Hite:something there that, I think it's key when we're talking
Karen Hite:about poaching, because Yeah.
Karen Hite:You know, a lot of people like that concept.
Karen Hite:You know, we get, we get employees taken from our company.
Karen Hite:Okay.
Karen Hite:All the time.
Karen Hite:You know, it happens.
Karen Hite:The, the thing that we need to focus there is like.
Karen Hite:Why am I not building enough?
Karen Hite:Like the question should be for us, why would they even wanna leave?
Karen Hite:What do they even wanna leave?
Karen Hite:Because it's not, I'm not, I'm not afraid, I'm not upset at somebody, an
Karen Hite:agency that's taking our employee, you know, because that is more of a question
Karen Hite:for us of like, what should I have done better for that teammate, you know?
Karen Hite:Or what could have done better for my company to be able to retain that person?
Karen Hite:Well, leaving, do you disagree?
JC Hite:Leaving is a natural part of employment.
JC Hite:Rarely do people stay forever, and so I'm.
JC Hite:I don't have any, any frustration with someone acquiring one
JC Hite:of my team members, right?
JC Hite:Like I don't see it as a, I mean, it sucks sometimes, don't get me wrong, but I'm
JC Hite:also taking team members as well, right?
JC Hite:We're all moving the chess boards around and sometimes it's, it's really
JC Hite:what's best for the team members.
JC Hite:Like I've had team members that I love that are great human beings, and
JC Hite:somehow they just got stuck at Hite.
JC Hite:I have team members right now that are so good.
JC Hite:It's not even funny, but they have a boss that's never going anywhere and we're
JC Hite:not gonna grow the department much more.
JC Hite:So the only way they could scale is either switch what they do at Hite
JC Hite:or, or go somewhere else like it.
JC Hite:It, it's, if we create a. A culture of growing people, sometimes
JC Hite:growing people is them moving away.
JC Hite:Now, the reason I mentioned Graham and Matt is 'cause I know these guys
JC Hite:and I know that they're such, they care so much about their people.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:And if someone else gave one of their amazing team members a great opportunity,
JC Hite:they're not gonna be mad at that one.
JC Hite:They're just not that type of people.
JC Hite:Everybody's on their journey.
JC Hite:Everyone's on their journey.
JC Hite:The point is, is when you're small, please hear that.
JC Hite:When you're small.
JC Hite:Spending a little bit of extra cash for a guarantee that they're
JC Hite:coming from a great place is gonna pay leaps and bounds dividends.
JC Hite:And when it comes to growth in your first year or two,
Vit Muller:getting to that first million, and is that because obviously like,
Vit Muller:because they already have the experience, you don't have to train 'em and stuff or
JC Hite:Exactly.
JC Hite:They know what it's like to go build what you're building.
JC Hite:They know what the processes look like, they know what the expectations are.
JC Hite:They know what it took to scale and grow.
JC Hite:They have so many of the things already drilled in them.
JC Hite:That I don't have as a young guy, right?
JC Hite:Like, like I am, we're gonna keep hitting this, you know, like a dead horse.
JC Hite:But like, I want people that have done what I'm trying to
JC Hite:do at whatever level that is.
JC Hite:You know, I, we had a girl that worked directly under me, love her to death.
JC Hite:She's like a sister to me.
JC Hite:Been with us for five years and absolutely crushed it.
JC Hite:She helped me sell what we sell and another company offered her.
JC Hite:Stupid money.
JC Hite:I mean like four X what I was paying.
JC Hite:Right?
JC Hite:I mean like literally four x. Yeah.
JC Hite:And they probably couldn't have gotten her for cheaper than
JC Hite:that, to be honest with you.
JC Hite:And I was so excited for her to go take that job because what they saw is exactly
JC Hite:what I'm teaching because they knew that if she could come over and execute even
JC Hite:50% of what she did with me, it would 10
Vit Muller:x pay for itself.
Vit Muller:So if we know that's okay, right.
Vit Muller:Letting people go and just being happy for them.
Vit Muller:Right.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:That's kinda like take, you know?
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:It's just not being selfish and like, it, it what comes around,
Vit Muller:goes around kind of thing.
Vit Muller:but then at the same time.
Vit Muller:That leaves a bit of a hole in your business or could, so
Vit Muller:how do you prepare for that?
Vit Muller:How do you structure your business so that it doesn't create a huge amount of impact?
Vit Muller:That will always be some like, okay, so
JC Hite:now we're talking about the other end if someone leaves me.
JC Hite:okay, let's do this a couple ways.
JC Hite:One's a strategy that we learned, right?
JC Hite:Man, I love these.
JC Hite:We all, we all have these.
JC Hite:Hopefully everyone listening has had these moments where they're just like, aha.
JC Hite:Like.
JC Hite:That's so stupid simple.
JC Hite:Like, why have I not been doing this this whole time?
JC Hite:It's just this like realization moment.
JC Hite:So I'll, I'll share two things.
JC Hite:Number one, it goes back to kinda where we started the conversation.
JC Hite:I love my team.
JC Hite:Like every dream I have, every goal I have will be fulfilled not because
JC Hite:of my work, but because of theirs.
JC Hite:Let's just get that really real.
JC Hite:The moment you truly believe that, that it's not, oh, JC is gonna crush
JC Hite:into business and build something big, and so therefore we're like, no.
JC Hite:My CEO, my CMO, like all my leadership team, like they are the ones that's
JC Hite:gonna pay for my kids' college.
JC Hite:Let's be really honest, the moment you start to realize this,
JC Hite:so the, the, the two things.
JC Hite:Number one, I love all my teams so much.
JC Hite:I wanna get to know them.
JC Hite:I wanna get to know who they are.
JC Hite:I wanna get to know their kids' names.
JC Hite:I want, I wanna learn their language of appreciation.
JC Hite:How, how do I show appreciation to them and just do as much as I can.
JC Hite:How big is your team?
JC Hite:We're right at a hundred team members right now.
JC Hite:Little, little under a hundred team members right now.
JC Hite:It's a lot of people to love.
JC Hite:It's a lot of people to love and it gets more, more and more complicated, right?
Karen Hite:It's like another good topic.
Karen Hite:It's
JC Hite:a whole nother conversation we could talk about.
JC Hite:but, but you can do it in every conversation.
JC Hite:Being present in conversation, asking questions, be, be, be, be inquisitive.
JC Hite:There's a ton of things there.
JC Hite:So, so that's the first thing.
JC Hite:As leaders, I, I can know pretty quick your turnover rate by
JC Hite:asking you about your team.
JC Hite:And if you don't know anything about your team, you don't know
JC Hite:their marriage or their kids or.
JC Hite:Any of the intimate details, I can, I can probably guess that you're
JC Hite:gonna have a very high turnover.
JC Hite:Okay.
JC Hite:So then the second thing is, is that we, we will have turnover.
JC Hite:That's just part of it.
JC Hite:It it's a natural part of people's growth.
JC Hite:It's not something to be frustrated about.
JC Hite:So we're talking about human beings, right?
JC Hite:Leaving our organization, it's a very natural part.
JC Hite:We shouldn't get frustrated.
JC Hite:We shouldn't get mad.
JC Hite:We shouldn't get disappointed like.
JC Hite:If, if when we, you and I were working for companies and we had a
JC Hite:better opportunity, we left, like it wasn't necessarily anything
JC Hite:that, it's just people get dramatic.
JC Hite:You shouldn't get dramatic.
JC Hite:Mm. The question is how do we prepare for it?
JC Hite:So I had this realization talking with h, our HR people, where we had
JC Hite:two people in one role leave at once.
JC Hite:Really, what the, what do we do?
JC Hite:What does this look like in professional sports?
JC Hite:They do it the right way.
JC Hite:So you, you think of like the Patriots when they had Tom Brady.
JC Hite:Do you think like, oh we got Tom Brady.
JC Hite:We're not looking at any quarterback ever.
JC Hite:We're not at, no, they were always looking at other quarterbacks.
JC Hite:They were always looking at talent.
JC Hite:They were, they were always interviewing, they were always looking at data.
JC Hite:They were always Why?
JC Hite:Because you never know when someone's gonna leave, get hurt, threat tire,
JC Hite:anything in between contingent.
JC Hite:Now does that mean they were hiring all those other guys?
JC Hite:No, no, no, no.
JC Hite:It doesn't mean they were hiring them.
JC Hite:It means they were looking.
JC Hite:So what if your agency.
JC Hite:You're, you have a small SaaS company.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:And you got one or two people.
JC Hite:You don't need anybody else.
JC Hite:But we're recruiting, so we're always talking to talent.
JC Hite:I'm always dropping those conversations on like, man Vit, I saw you.
JC Hite:You're doing some great work over there.
JC Hite:High HL Pro tools, that's incredible.
JC Hite:You're doing great work over wherever like.
JC Hite:Just so you know, you know, we're hiring sometimes.
JC Hite:I don't have anything right now, but if you, if you know of anyone, let me know.
JC Hite:I'm just, I'm always in recruiting mode and I'm building this waiting line.
JC Hite:So, at Height, what our goal is for hr, there are salespeople,
JC Hite:but for humans, they're selling human beings into our company.
JC Hite:Like that's what their goal is.
JC Hite:And so every, every month, what's your pipeline?
JC Hite:Oh, I've got these two pay-per-click people.
JC Hite:I got these two SEO people.
JC Hite:I got these two account managers.
JC Hite:They're approved resumes, video, vastness, everything is done.
JC Hite:And then all they do is my HR every month.
JC Hite:Hey, Vit you're, you're still interested in coming to work with us, right?
JC Hite:That's awesome, man.
JC Hite:Well, we don't have the job just quite ready yet.
JC Hite:But you're at the top of my list.
JC Hite:I'm gonna let you know.
JC Hite:As soon as we have something now that's possible because we're
JC Hite:recruiting people that have jobs.
JC Hite:Okay.
JC Hite:We're not hiring people that don't have jobs.
JC Hite:So we're
Vit Muller:approaching it like a sales process.
Vit Muller:You lead manager, there you go.
Vit Muller:I mean, there's
JC Hite:literally a pipeline in in high level that's like, these are my guys.
JC Hite:They're approved and waiting and
Vit Muller:you guys are full service agency, high digitalist.
JC Hite:Service.
JC Hite:Service.
JC Hite:That's that's right.
JC Hite:But even if you're not right, you have these key roles in every role.
JC Hite:I mean, I mean, every role in the company if you're doing really good stuff, but
JC Hite:most of us can't, you know, afford that.
JC Hite:But these critical roles, like if Bob left.
JC Hite:I don't know who would do do his work.
JC Hite:Alright, well you better have someone in the waiting line.
Vit Muller:Yeah,
JC Hite:because guess what?
JC Hite:This is cool if you grow.
JC Hite:You have a replacement or you have a secondary Right.
JC Hite:And if you lose someone, you have a secondary, like you're
JC Hite:gonna need someone eventually.
Vit Muller:I was gonna say like it's probably makes sense, like
Vit Muller:bigger you are, it's easier to manage those, drop offs because you got
Vit Muller:other people in the same same roles.
JC Hite:That's right.
JC Hite:The bigger you are, you get hiding.
JC Hite:Like if your clients and
Vit Muller:retainer for odds and Yeah, you don't have anybody done
Vit Muller:us and that's, that's, I've got 10
JC Hite:paper click people, one leaves.
JC Hite:I can spread those 30 clients and everyone gets two more.
JC Hite:Right.
JC Hite:It's not a big deal for me.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:But the smaller you are, the more, and, and even like when you have critical
JC Hite:roles where, man, I've got one.
JC Hite:Director of sales.
JC Hite:All right.
JC Hite:Who's my next person?
JC Hite:This person dies.
JC Hite:Who's my next person now?
JC Hite:Mike Michalowicz has been to our event several times.
JC Hite:He's got a strategy that, is that the guy who wrote the book
JC Hite:Life Life in Half a second?
JC Hite:No.
JC Hite:He worked Profit First.
JC Hite:He worked Clockwork and a few of those others.
JC Hite:Pumpkin Plan, thinking of somebody else.
JC Hite:So incredibly smart guy.
JC Hite:He's here speaking on day three.
JC Hite:Yep.
JC Hite:Level of something.
JC Hite:He's spoke at our last event.
JC Hite:Great guy.
JC Hite:He's got a strategy and I really like it.
JC Hite:But it's hard, especially for bigger companies.
JC Hite:I think he forces every single manager in the company in key role.
JC Hite:Like every person in this company is forced to take a four week
JC Hite:vacation, not, not separate, one time, like four weeks in a row.
JC Hite:In a row, every year, a four week.
JC Hite:Why does he do that?
JC Hite:Because it stress tests everything.
JC Hite:Ah, and he's like, you learn every, like every, well,
Vit Muller:not all at the same time.
Vit Muller:Different.
Vit Muller:No, no, no.
JC Hite:At different times.
JC Hite:And so, and so what it forces him to do is, is every process documented?
JC Hite:Can I figure this out without this person, if this person died
JC Hite:or left or quit, is everything.
JC Hite:I like that a lot.
JC Hite:That is, and so smaller companies, that's a really interesting thing.
JC Hite:Is it hard?
JC Hite:Yes.
JC Hite:It's hard.
JC Hite:Does it suck?
JC Hite:He's like, absolutely.
JC Hite:It sucks, but it sucks more not being prepared as someone really left.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:And, and so.
JC Hite:So these two strategies here, one is always be recruiting your HR team
JC Hite:or you as a CEO should always be selling and always be recruiting.
JC Hite:And number two, how are you stress testing?
JC Hite:If someone was out for, let's say, let's just do it two weeks, have your, have
JC Hite:all your team, you just, you get so many weeks of vacation, but you have to
JC Hite:take two all together and just test it.
JC Hite:See what works, see what doesn't work.
JC Hite:You'd be surprised how you can, how you can manage.
JC Hite:Let's
Vit Muller:downscale a little bit.
Vit Muller:Alright, let's talk about somebody.
Vit Muller:Solo.
Vit Muller:Solo or maybe they've got three people, you know, really small agency.
Vit Muller:They've just discovered high level and they realized,
Vit Muller:holy moly, what are we doing?
Vit Muller:We should have been with this.
JC Hite:Yeah.
Vit Muller:anyway.
Vit Muller:what would you be the, 'cause you, you guys, also have.
Vit Muller:An agency for agencies called.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:Well, we, Hite.
JC Hite:We, we serve agencies as well.
JC Hite:Yeah, we've done, we've done white label for a while and then we
JC Hite:moved into a franchise model and now we've been acquiring a lot
JC Hite:of those back, doing more direct.
JC Hite:But yes, we've had all the models
Vit Muller:so.
Vit Muller:What would be a, you know, like a, I don't wanna say a blueprint, but
Vit Muller:you know, you, you're not gonna think about what everything that
Vit Muller:we've covered so far with the HR and all that, if you're really small.
Vit Muller:Mm-hmm.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:You know, what should you be focusing?
Vit Muller:And let's just go specific.
Vit Muller:Let's just go.
Vit Muller:performance marketing agency.
JC Hite:I'm a one man show.
JC Hite:Maybe I have a couple of VAs or I'm outsourcing white
JC Hite:label or something like this.
Karen Hite:Maybe even starting of like, who should be our first hire?
Karen Hite:You know, a lot of people struggle with that too.
Karen Hite:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Karen Hite:That's like, okay, if I'm like doing it, you know, I'm doing the SaaS, I'm
Karen Hite:selling it, I'm doing the automations, like who should be my first, do you
JC Hite:wanna talk about sales or do we wanna talk about hiring?
Vit Muller:just business in general in SaaS, somebody starts a SaaS business.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:In high level, maybe doing some agency services on the site.
Vit Muller:Right.
Vit Muller:You know, how do you scale that?
Vit Muller:How do you grow that?
JC Hite:Okay.
JC Hite:Good
Vit Muller:question.
JC Hite:I've got, I, I'll do three ideas here.
JC Hite:You can jump in whenever you want, but this excites me.
JC Hite:Okay.
JC Hite:so number one, that first hire is so key.
JC Hite:Like I said, the first hire, Gus was his name.
JC Hite:He's still with me today.
JC Hite:When I hired him, he was the best pay-per-click person I knew.
JC Hite:He worked at another agency for five years.
JC Hite:He made more money than I did starting off, but I knew that I didn't have
JC Hite:to worry about anything with him.
JC Hite:So that first hire is so key, but you just need to divide it up.
JC Hite:One person's gonna be doing the fulfillment of whatever you're doing, and
JC Hite:one person's gonna be doing the sales, and you, you have to divide and conquer.
JC Hite:I, i think at that point, those are the two really important.
JC Hite:Everything else work up, everything else.
JC Hite:Just later, I'm gonna sell the client and onboard him.
JC Hite:Gus, I need you to take care of a hundred percent of everything else.
JC Hite:Now, the cool thing when you're small is, is that there's just not a lot.
JC Hite:You just have calls with a client every week and execute on what
JC Hite:you're, we can simplify that.
JC Hite:People overcomplicate things so much when it comes to this stuff.
JC Hite:I mean, they, and, and, and oh, by the way, as leaders will always
JC Hite:revert back to what we know best.
JC Hite:What do I mean by that?
JC Hite:If you're an operations person and your struggle is growth,
JC Hite:what are you gonna go fix?
JC Hite:Operations.
JC Hite:You're gonna, oh, lemme make another SOP on this.
JC Hite:Does this resonate?
JC Hite:I'm gonna like, if, if you're, if you're good at client experience,
JC Hite:you're gonna go back and do client.
JC Hite:You need to go to sales.
JC Hite:That's only they need to do.
JC Hite:And
Vit Muller:just justify, justify, like, because when I get the client, they're
Vit Muller:gonna get such a awesome experience.
Vit Muller:That's right.
Vit Muller:They're rave about it.
Vit Muller:And then I'll have, I'll have referrals on the back of that.
JC Hite:That's right.
JC Hite:Okay.
JC Hite:And so, so with the sales process, and, and then I'm gonna tie this together.
JC Hite:So, all right.
JC Hite:Got my fulfillment guy, Gus, or whomever.
JC Hite:All right.
JC Hite:And I'm hiring someone that I know factually can do what I need them to do.
JC Hite:They come from somewhere.
JC Hite:They are proven.
JC Hite:I know for a fact that they can do this.
JC Hite:Now I'm gonna do the sales side where people mess up here.
JC Hite:Man, I, I was, I know it's hard to believe, but I wasn't the
JC Hite:most popular guy in college.
JC Hite:I landed Karen, but that's a long story.
JC Hite:It was really like, it took me a lot of sales practice to get to this.
JC Hite:And so what I would do is I just knew the numbers, man.
JC Hite:I ask out a hundred girls, one's going to say yes.
JC Hite:Like it's not rocket science.
JC Hite:It was me.
JC Hite:She was the hundredth.
JC Hite:And so.
JC Hite:And, and so with sales, what you gotta do is you gotta create conversations.
JC Hite:If you have a good offer and you have a good product, you have
JC Hite:to just create conversations.
JC Hite:I, so when I started the business, my role was five people a day.
JC Hite:I needed to have conversations with five entrepreneurs a day that's 25
JC Hite:a week, and if I didn't have 25 by Friday, I worked on Saturday, Sunday.
JC Hite:Okay.
JC Hite:I knew that if I talked to a hundred entrepreneurs every single month.
JC Hite:There's no way one or two wouldn't buy from me.
JC Hite:There's just not a way.
JC Hite:As long as I communicated right, and I didn't try to sell them and I
JC Hite:didn't, I didn't try to sell them.
JC Hite:It was normally, it was a research strategy.
JC Hite:Hey, I'm trying to.
JC Hite:I'm working with roofers.
JC Hite:I'm just getting started.
JC Hite:I'm a newbie.
JC Hite:I, I swear to, I'm, I'm not gonna student approach, gonna pitch you at all.
JC Hite:Student, student approach, what we call research approach.
JC Hite:can I, can I like pick your brain?
JC Hite:Can I, can I, you know, get some time.
JC Hite:And I would literally ask tons of questions and then maybe I'd be
JC Hite:like, well, if I ever could solve that, could we have a conversation?
JC Hite:And then every single one of those calls, 'cause every single
JC Hite:one of them are high level.
JC Hite:Can I follow up next month?
JC Hite:So now, next month I've got 200 people, a hundred new ones, a
JC Hite:hundred old ones, plus next month, a hundred more, a hundred more.
JC Hite:By the time you have a year, here's the cool thing.
JC Hite:within about two years, three years, if, because you'll,
JC Hite:you'll start speeding up on this.
JC Hite:You'll have about a thousand people in rotation.
JC Hite:That you're just every three months, every two months, every one month.
JC Hite:And what I, I have a rule in our CRM in our sales company, every single human
JC Hite:being in my CRM has to have a future.
JC Hite:What I mean by that, every one of 'em has to have a task at some point.
JC Hite:I don't care if it's a year from, I don't care if it's 10 years from now, we're
JC Hite:following up with that guy at some point.
JC Hite:Now, it doesn't mean we're pitching them, it means we're following up.
JC Hite:And so it's touch points, it's tangible, it's touch points.
JC Hite:It's,
Vit Muller:it's, that's right.
Vit Muller:It's either business you generate with them or business they bring in employee.
Vit Muller:Exactly.
Vit Muller:Employees.
Vit Muller:So,
JC Hite:so as a sales person, my goal is to increase my conversations
JC Hite:I have with business leaders.
JC Hite:That's it.
JC Hite:I know that if I'm having a thousand conversations a year with different
JC Hite:business leaders, there's just no way.
Vit Muller:Yeah,
JC Hite:there's no way.
JC Hite:And I, and I'll serve them.
JC Hite:And so like, I'm, I'm coming up with freebies, I'm giving
JC Hite:magazines, I'm sending books.
JC Hite:I'm sending ice cream.
JC Hite:I'm just, how do I love on those thousand people?
JC Hite:And I, the, I have a guy right now, a young kid, just graduated high school
JC Hite:and he wants me to sign up with this.
JC Hite:He's, he's offering a YouTube deal, right?
JC Hite:I want, I don't even need it.
JC Hite:I got someone doing YouTube in my, but every week he'll send me,
JC Hite:Hey, I just saw your new video.
JC Hite:You released, I created two new thumbnails for you.
JC Hite:I think you should test these.
JC Hite:And I'm like.
JC Hite:Man, I wanna sign.
JC Hite:I don't even have, I don't even have a need for this guy.
JC Hite:And I'm about to start giving him money because I just, I can't help.
JC Hite:He's just servant.
JC Hite:Hey, if there's ever an opportunity, you let me know.
JC Hite:And, and so, okay, now let's tie these together.
JC Hite:Here's where most people mess up when it comes to scaling.
JC Hite:So what do you do?
JC Hite:Alright, let's just say you hired your first product guy.
JC Hite:That product guy is doing X, Y, and Z. And they can manage 20 clients.
JC Hite:20 clients.
JC Hite:That's their max.
JC Hite:What do most companies, that's not a bad number, is it?
JC Hite:No.
JC Hite:No, it's not a bad number.
JC Hite:So let's just say, but it's 20, maybe it's 30, maybe it's 10.
JC Hite:Doesn't matter.
JC Hite:Mm-hmm.
JC Hite:What do people do when they get full?
Vit Muller:They go into fulfillment.
JC Hite:No, let me ask a different way.
JC Hite:What do I do when I'm at capacity?
JC Hite:So I hired my fulfillment person.
JC Hite:He can manage 20 clients.
JC Hite:Oh yeah.
JC Hite:And he is at 20 clients.
JC Hite:Then
Vit Muller:you go hire more.
Vit Muller:You hire
JC Hite:more.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:Yeah, yeah.
JC Hite:That's rocket sign.
JC Hite:It's the wrong move.
JC Hite:It's so the wrong move.
JC Hite:Okay, so here's, here's, we're building a sustainable, scalable business.
JC Hite:So let's just dream here.
JC Hite:Alright, so little shift belief here.
JC Hite:Yeah, I'm, I'm selling my first client.
JC Hite:Alright, I've got an offer, let's just say it's a SaaS offer.
JC Hite:I'm throwing in Facebook ads, kind of a traditional Facebook ads.
JC Hite:They get high level, we'll do some automation.
JC Hite:I'm selling that, you know, my goal is a thousand bucks.
JC Hite:Let's be honest though, my first clients were a hundred,
JC Hite:then I got 500 and I got 400.
JC Hite:I wanna look at all 20 of these.
JC Hite:So my, my, my capacity is 20 clients.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
JC Hite:So that 20 clients, I probably have $10,000 in revenue.
JC Hite:Right.
JC Hite:that's not bad.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:So, but I'm at capacity, so natural instinct for everyone as I hire.
JC Hite:No, here's what you're gonna do.
JC Hite:You're gonna go sell your next client of a thousand.
JC Hite:You're gonna call those bottom two, and you're go, Hey, my prices went, I, our
JC Hite:minimum charge now is a thousand bucks.
JC Hite:That's, that's the lowest I can charge.
JC Hite:And I'm gonna go through every one of my clients until I've gotten to 20,000,
JC Hite:maybe even 25,000 in that portfolio.
Vit Muller:You see?
Vit Muller:And if, and if you, if yeah.
Vit Muller:If in that process a couple of them drop off, awesome.
Vit Muller:But you can crank it up.
Vit Muller:Exactly.
Vit Muller:You get the same money for less work.
JC Hite:And then, and then I get, oh, you know what, I'm on that
JC Hite:rhythm now everyone's at 25,000.
JC Hite:No, no, no, it's still not stable enough.
JC Hite:You know what?
JC Hite:For the next 10, what I'm gonna do is they all have to sign a year contract.
JC Hite:And, and so what I want to get to is I, I. You know, I think of 20 buckets.
JC Hite:I got 20 spots to fill.
JC Hite:Well, even if $1 is better than $0.
JC Hite:So I'm, I'm selling man.
JC Hite:I'm, I want experience, I want referrals.
JC Hite:I want reviews.
JC Hite:Like I'm filling up all 20 of these spots as soon as possible.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:Create a whole flywheel, maximize.
JC Hite:I want all 20.
JC Hite:That's right.
JC Hite:Now, as soon as I get those 20, now I'm trying to build them up.
JC Hite:So now I'm slowly increasing.
JC Hite:I'm either, hey, it's a thousand dollars.
JC Hite:It's, maybe it's a six month contract.
JC Hite:Maybe it's a year contract.
JC Hite:Maybe it's, you know, whatever the case may be.
JC Hite:Now I eventually you get where I've got a really stable portfolio, all 20 of my
JC Hite:clients are paying me a really good price.
JC Hite:They're all at a thousand or 15 or two or three or whatever that freaking number is.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:They're all on your contracts.
JC Hite:They're all, because we just said 10,000.
JC Hite:In theory, if I heard another one, it just double what I did.
JC Hite:That would only be 20.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:Or I could do 20 with just the one person, 20 with a lot
JC Hite:of people ringing and asking.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:There you go.
JC Hite:Where's
Vit Muller:my ad going?
Vit Muller:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Vit Muller:That's, yeah.
Vit Muller:A
JC Hite:lot of people.
JC Hite:We, we, we wanna scale what we want to scale.
JC Hite:People will often think, well, in scaling, I'll change it and get it healthier.
JC Hite:No, no, no.
JC Hite:But in the meantime, it's like a heavy bull, you know,
JC Hite:tied by a leg ball and chain.
JC Hite:That's right.
JC Hite:That's right.
JC Hite:So, step one, we're gonna go out and find the best counterpart I possibly can find.
JC Hite:Now, if I'm a product guy, I'm looking for a sales guy.
JC Hite:But if I'm a sales guy, I'm looking for a product guy, I wanna sell one or two
JC Hite:services that that person could feel.
JC Hite:I think people, you know, like, oh, I need to, I'm gonna stack
JC Hite:this offer and I'm gonna have a.
JC Hite:A a, a web guy over here and a Facebook guy over here, and a
JC Hite:designer over here, and a funnel guy over here, like, that's too much.
JC Hite:I don't, I just don't think it's needed.
JC Hite:Find a hell of a good guy that can kind of do a one or two or three
JC Hite:things for 20 different clients.
JC Hite:Go find that product guy.
JC Hite:You're gonna bring 'em in, you're gonna focus on sales.
JC Hite:They're gonna focus on product, vice versa.
JC Hite:And then everything's about getting this 20, maybe it's 30,
JC Hite:maybe it's 15, but the most stable foundation you could possibly build.
JC Hite:And if you build a stable foundation, everything else
JC Hite:is really easy to scale upon
Vit Muller:because at the end of the day, what really moves the needle is making
Vit Muller:sure you got good profit there, right?
Vit Muller:Oh yeah.
JC Hite:And it profits don't get better as you scale.
JC Hite:I've never met a company that's more profitable.
JC Hite:There, there may be like, oh, I, I, you know, I maximize my team.
JC Hite:You know, but like, no, I mean, apple is way, but this is
Vit Muller:where people say no.
Vit Muller:You either stay small and profitable, or you try and dominate the mess in middle.
Vit Muller:It's tricky.
Vit Muller:It, it's, you know, they
JC Hite:call it Death Valley in the investor world, you know, and
JC Hite:every, every industry has it, but.
JC Hite:You know, for our industry, it's like one to 3 million.
JC Hite:Normally one to 3 million makes way less money than million.
JC Hite:Less, geez, way less money.
JC Hite:Mm-hmm.
JC Hite:Because you're starting to hire bigger people.
JC Hite:You got better, bigger processes.
JC Hite:You got, now your owner isn't selling and involved with clients.
JC Hite:I mean, I can name like four of our clients at Hite, right?
JC Hite:I'm not involved and there's a difference between working with employee number
JC Hite:five or 20 or 50 than the owner.
JC Hite:There's less confidence, there's less vision, there's lot, you know,
JC Hite:like it is just more complex and so.
JC Hite:So again, I wanna encourage people as you, as you're just getting started, find that
JC Hite:one counterpart that's Hell a good, proven person, work like crazy between the two.
JC Hite:Keep it simple.
JC Hite:You can create an offer just with you two, maybe one more other
JC Hite:person if you're just really greedy on it, but like really y'all.
JC Hite:Two, get your maximum capacity, 20 clients, and then uplift all of those
JC Hite:and you start calling your clients.
JC Hite:I'm charging more, man.
JC Hite:I've grown and I can't fit any more clients.
JC Hite:The only way for me to grow is to charge more.
JC Hite:Now, the cool thing is, is hopefully you've been delivering and that client is,
JC Hite:I mean, you know, let's be honest, if you, let's say you're in the roofing industry,
JC Hite:one roofing client's worth $7,000.
JC Hite:So like if I charged even an extra $800 a month, that's like one client
JC Hite:a year is what the impact is, right?
JC Hite:Like normally it's not about.
JC Hite:It's, it, it's about a results problem that you're having in your business.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:Okay.
JC Hite:Not, not a price point.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:Oh, this makes a lot of sense.
Vit Muller:I hope you guys been taking notes because this is some, you know.
Vit Muller:Alright, I'm done.
Vit Muller:Talk volumes being dropped here.
Vit Muller:Now.
Vit Muller:you guys have a lot of data.
Vit Muller:You're working with a lot of agencies, you are helping a lot of businesses.
Vit Muller:Are you seeing any shift in agency services and what's
Vit Muller:been, like less in demand?
Vit Muller:AI out there, you know, high level now has.
Vit Muller:And know the ad manager, which makes it really easy to spin up
Vit Muller:easy ads for small businesses.
Vit Muller:That's often time enough.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:there's a lot of movement happening and like I, I'm, I've
Vit Muller:got like this feeling like.
Vit Muller:Potentially even the agency services are at risk because this
Vit Muller:stuff is becoming even easier.
Vit Muller:Ui, ux, and just really easy to implement by, business owners.
Vit Muller:Like one of the shifts that I've done recently is moved more
Vit Muller:towards an educational business.
Vit Muller:So we do weekly workshops and we're trying to give the money back to the business.
Vit Muller:Like, Hey, you've got a small business that you got probably a
Vit Muller:couple of people, admin people.
Vit Muller:They're a little bit savvy and they just need a bit of an education,
Vit Muller:just invite them to our workshop.
Vit Muller:Next week we're gonna be teaching about, you know, how to, how to modify the AI
Vit Muller:bot, you know, so that your website can convert more people and things like that.
Vit Muller:And that's kinda like I've made that decision.
Vit Muller:I don't know if it's the right decision, time will tell, but it was just,
Vit Muller:you know, just a bit of a gut feel.
Vit Muller:And also I'm trying to make it more scalable.
Vit Muller:I'm trying to back to purpose, right?
Vit Muller:I've got 5-year-old, or soon to be 5-year-old.
Vit Muller:I've been working my off for the last five years, and he's grown, he's now five.
Vit Muller:I'm like, wow, this, you blink an eye and.
Vit Muller:You know, so I look, I, I'm, I'm changing a few things.
Vit Muller:I'm like, I want to build a business that's not based on fulfillment.
Vit Muller:I wanna build it based on like, helping everybody.
Vit Muller:but do it in a way that's super scalable.
Karen Hite:Yeah.
Vit Muller:Back to my initial question is what's that shift?
Vit Muller:What are you seeing in terms of agency services?
Vit Muller:Where's the shift going?
Karen Hite:We just had an event this year focused on this specifically because with
Karen Hite:everything with ai, you know, I think a lot of agencies, especially with news.
Karen Hite:Coming, like Facebook was saying, Hey, we're literally building this in order to
Karen Hite:not have to work with a through agencies.
Karen Hite:Because what's the biggest problem that these platforms have is that oh, they
Karen Hite:have a bad experience with an agency owner, so they stop spending money.
Karen Hite:So Facebook is like.
Karen Hite:Man, like we're, we need to make it easy enough for this business owners
Karen Hite:or Google, you know, easy enough for this business owners to wanna
Karen Hite:spend as much money as possible with us and not have that, that interim,
Karen Hite:you know, that that middle man Yeah.
Vit Muller:This is like, you see those ads, not even Google
Vit Muller:stand, dude, that's that lady.
Vit Muller:She's got like the ball, Yeah.
Vit Muller:The cut around and she's like, what is that?
Vit Muller:It's like really, like a simple business owner showing how cool it
Vit Muller:is and easy it is to spin up ads.
Vit Muller:So there's that.
Vit Muller:Yeah, that's right.
Karen Hite:Exactly.
Karen Hite:So what's, what's the biggest thing that I think as agencies,
Karen Hite:when we were talking about the, in the event we were, we were talking
Karen Hite:about what is the new agency model?
Karen Hite:Yeah.
Karen Hite:And not because we have a specific framework, but because we have
Karen Hite:to be asking this question.
Karen Hite:Like we have to ask ourselves this question.
Vit Muller:Especially if you guys are that big, that's an even bigger risk,
Karen Hite:except, Ooh, a hundred percent.
Karen Hite:It's a lot easier for a little boat to change direction than a cruise line.
Karen Hite:Right.
Karen Hite:And so that's.
Karen Hite:And I, I feel like this is the time where like you have a cruise line
Karen Hite:where like, oh, there's a leak.
Karen Hite:You know, because now we're like not getting as many
Karen Hite:clients, whatever that may be.
Karen Hite:for us, I think something that came out of this event and, and what
Karen Hite:we've been thinking about, it's like.
Karen Hite:How do we add value to people?
Karen Hite:At the end of the day, money's not gonna go away, right?
Karen Hite:Like it's always gonna be present.
Karen Hite:It's like constantly like flowing everywhere.
Karen Hite:But how can we position ourselves and our brand and our authority in a way where
Karen Hite:it doesn't matter what we sell today.
Karen Hite:Today we sell high level, tomorrow we sell something else, right?
Karen Hite:Like brand is so important, and I think what you're talking about in terms of
Karen Hite:like always giving and educating people is the best way to build that brand
Karen Hite:because they trust you, then they're not.
Karen Hite:Expecting to like, oh, I'm gonna get the result until after I spend money.
Karen Hite:No, I'm already getting result.
Karen Hite:What could I get if I even spend a little bit of money?
Karen Hite:Yeah.
Karen Hite:In this person, right?
Karen Hite:And so I think we have been changing our own.
Karen Hite:Maybe we can talk about our own strategy of what we have been
Karen Hite:thinking about, you know, doing.
Karen Hite:And maybe that inspires other people.
Karen Hite:a lot of education, we're doing heavy on events and we can talk
Karen Hite:about the event that we have.
JC Hite:Well, let, let me go back a little bit to answer the question
JC Hite:even further on what we discovered.
JC Hite:So the first thing I would do if I'm an agency is I do research and I, I'm
JC Hite:just, I love learning and, and so what I did was, I, it's not rocket science.
JC Hite:I had a 2.1 GPA from Arkansas, right?
JC Hite:So not the smartest guy in the world.
JC Hite:And, I just did a survey and I asked all my agency friends, I
JC Hite:said, here's the different packages.
JC Hite:That, that that agencies do in the world.
JC Hite:So, you know, Facebook, PBC package for 2,500, you know, website builds for this.
JC Hite:Website builds for that, you know, cheap Facebook ads.
JC Hite:Like I get the whole list and I asked all my agency friends,
JC Hite:like, what do you think we will be able to sell five years from now?
Vit Muller:Hmm.
JC Hite:And what do you think we want?
JC Hite:Everyone's pretty like that.
JC Hite:We don't believe we're gonna be able to sell Pay per click only, or Facebook
JC Hite:only, or any type of this stuff.
JC Hite:We think SEO is a little scary for us.
JC Hite:We all believe in the CMO or chief growth officer, like fractional growth officer,
JC Hite:and we all believe in the, the minor.
JC Hite:So everything pushed to either, and I'm gonna say race to the bottom.
JC Hite:Race to the top.
JC Hite:That's not what I mean.
JC Hite:because that's a negative in like everything's gonna go.
JC Hite:Can you provide a lot for really affordable price?
JC Hite:Or can you provide a lot for a really large price, but get,
JC Hite:be involved in every aspect.
JC Hite:So we're, we're leaning to two ways.
JC Hite:So one is our, a SaaS offer.
JC Hite:We're all wearing the high level stuff, right?
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:And so one's our SaaS offer and where we've got a growth plan for
JC Hite:agencies starting at, you know, 1 97 a month, and it goes up from there.
JC Hite:And we're trying to, we're trying to elevate these guys, founder of
JC Hite:high level walking behind us and, waving, distracted me and, and
JC Hite:we we're increasing them right?
JC Hite:And then there's this like $7,000 to $10,000 package where, where
JC Hite:we're getting really involved, where we're measuring analytics.
JC Hite:You're still working with agencies now?
JC Hite:That's right.
JC Hite:That's right.
JC Hite:So this is working with directly,
Karen Hite:because now we're direct,
JC Hite:this is the what agencies will offer to clients?
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:Oh, okay.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:It's either gonna go really low, 1 97, 2 97, 3 97 a month,
JC Hite:or it's gonna go really high.
JC Hite:I think that middle ground is gonna be what's hard.
JC Hite:It's gonna
Vit Muller:disappear.
Vit Muller:Yeah,
JC Hite:I think so.
JC Hite:I think so.
JC Hite:It makes a lot
Vit Muller:of sense because you got technology now that it's.
Vit Muller:It can do so much and, and, it's not yet been fully capitalized.
JC Hite:Well, the, the thing is, is that the, the playing field has
JC Hite:been levelized every, you know, yeah.
JC Hite:The entry point sold five years ago.
JC Hite:Five years ago, Vit, there was 20 people in the world who had a CRM.
JC Hite:There's Salesforce, there was HubSpot, there was
JC Hite:entrepreneur and everything else.
JC Hite:That's why those guys charge ridiculous amounts of money.
JC Hite:Well, now.
JC Hite:There's 1500 people here at this event that all have a CRM that
JC Hite:they're all willing to sell low.
JC Hite:So anytime you have this, the price is just a race to the bottom.
JC Hite:It's just a natural part of life, right?
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:Like it's just readily available.
JC Hite:So it's cheap to get and, and, and so, but that's okay.
JC Hite:That's, there's still money to be made in that 97 1 9 7
JC Hite:2 9 7 arena, that's for sure.
JC Hite:There's, there's opportunity.
JC Hite:Then the flip side is strategy, right?
JC Hite:And I, we're going heavy in this, but we're only gonna take on, let's
JC Hite:say 20 clients, $10,000 a month.
JC Hite:We're full on strategy, we're coaching them through it.
JC Hite:We're gonna, you know, Facebook will be automated at some point.
JC Hite:Acquisition will be auto.
JC Hite:There you go.
JC Hite:There you go.
JC Hite:That's right.
JC Hite:That's the investing part of it.
JC Hite:That's right.
JC Hite:Makes a lot of sense.
JC Hite:Yeah.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:Brilliant.
Vit Muller:how long you guys been using high level
Karen Hite:five years?
Karen Hite:Five, six years.
Karen Hite:I mean,
JC Hite:long enough that Shaun sold me on it.
Karen Hite:Shaun was actually our first speaker in our mastermind when we
Karen Hite:started our mastermind back in the day.
Karen Hite:That
JC Hite:was, yeah, that was like six years ago.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:Five years ago.
JC Hite:Shaun and
Karen Hite:Paulson were the first Yeah, our first speaker, first ever speakers.
Karen Hite:Like they were, yeah.
JC Hite:And they, yeah, they did have much back then.
Karen Hite:Yeah,
JC Hite:they were maybe like 20 team members or so.
Karen Hite:Yeah, it was crazy.
Vit Muller:I had Shaun on the podcast, my old podcast, which wasn't even high, of a
Vit Muller:podcast called Success Inspired Podcast, and it, that was like five years ago.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:It was talking about, the Invoice Sherpa and how he had that business and Yeah.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:It's actually, I gotta watch the episode.
Vit Muller:okay, so what about how Level initially grabbed your attention?
Karen Hite:Maybe I can answer.
Karen Hite:So my background was implementing Salesforce for businesses
Karen Hite:in US and Latin America.
Karen Hite:We actually, at the previous agency that we were in, I was part
Karen Hite:of the transition from HubSpot to Salesforce back in the day.
Karen Hite:Okay.
Karen Hite:Wow.
Vit Muller:So that
Karen Hite:was 300 something people, you know, transitioning
Karen Hite:all the systems into the CRM.
Karen Hite:So I went through that.
Karen Hite:Sounds painful.
Karen Hite:It was.
Karen Hite:You know, I enjoy it.
Karen Hite:Like I'm, I, I love automations and systems and operations.
Karen Hite:I'm the integrator between us too.
Karen Hite:so like I was fully, you know, I had the, like I drank that Cool-Aid of
Karen Hite:Salesforce and I was like, I love this.
Karen Hite:Like Salesforce is the best.
Karen Hite:And then I remember you ran into, was it David or?
Karen Hite:Yeah, David and Marillo.
Karen Hite:Marillo.
Karen Hite:And you guys started talking and I was.
Karen Hite:I was pregnant with my second child and so I was like, you know what, like
Karen Hite:it's time to slow down a little bit.
Karen Hite:like maybe take something like, a little bit easier and never slow down, like
Karen Hite:thinking that that was gonna be the case.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Karen Hite:And JC was like, Hey, you should learn about the
Karen Hite:CRM, I mean, you know, CRM, so you should look, look into it.
Karen Hite:And I remember talking to David and I remember like looking and
Karen Hite:playing with it and I'm like.
Karen Hite:Wait, like you're not charging per users, like you have unlimited users
Karen Hite:and it allows you to text and it allows you to like send messages.
Karen Hite:We were paying thousands of dollars a quarter of a million dollars a year.
Karen Hite:I
JC Hite:mean, more than that.
JC Hite:I mean, it was a ridiculous amount of money on Salesforce
Karen Hite:for our own agency and I was charging hundreds of thousands
Karen Hite:of dollars just for implementation for Salesforce, for businesses.
Karen Hite:Right.
Karen Hite:And this is not development necessarily, this is like admin work.
Karen Hite:So I started looking through that and I was like, this is insane.
Karen Hite:Probably not gonna fun, you know, function for too long.
Karen Hite:Like there's just no way that you can make money out of this.
Karen Hite:Mm-hmm.
Karen Hite:And you start at like 1 97, like, what is this?
Karen Hite:but surely enough we were, Hey, you know what?
Karen Hite:We have an agency and we started implementing high level for other
Karen Hite:agencies as well, creating their processes and helping them navigate.
Karen Hite:'cause a lot of this stuff like it.
Karen Hite:It's not the automation.
Karen Hite:I was talking earlier with somebody.
Karen Hite:It's like, it's not the automations, it's the business
Karen Hite:strategy that you can implement.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:How do you set your plans?
Vit Muller:How do you, yeah, exactly.
Karen Hite:How do you leverage this like features and actually
Karen Hite:make something that helps.
Karen Hite:You know, a business owner just like save time and money and like
Karen Hite:make, make them enjoy it, right?
Karen Hite:Yeah.
Karen Hite:And, and
Vit Muller:especially if they're gonna be using it, the adoption is
Vit Muller:one of the most critical things.
Vit Muller:User
Karen Hite:adoption is a hundred percent.
Karen Hite:Like you can build, and I experienced that in Salesforce.
Karen Hite:We could spend hours and thousands of hours with people if we didn't
Karen Hite:have people really taking on like the buy-in of, of the process.
Karen Hite:New processes.
Karen Hite:Yeah.
Karen Hite:No logging
Vit Muller:in.
Vit Muller:Yeah,
Karen Hite:exactly.
Karen Hite:Then nothing happens.
Karen Hite:Right?
Karen Hite:And so that's how we learn about high level.
Karen Hite:And since then we're like.
Karen Hite:Like, that's amazing.
Karen Hite:And we've used it for our events.
Karen Hite:We've used it for our mastermind, we've implemented for people.
Karen Hite:And honestly, I I don't see it going away ever.
Karen Hite:No.
Karen Hite:I mean, it's, it's crazy.
Karen Hite:If I Salesforce,
Vit Muller:HubSpot, I'd be very, very worried.
Karen Hite:I would be very worried.
Karen Hite:it's just, yeah.
Karen Hite:It's crazy.
Karen Hite:I, I, you know, and I applaud this guys, not only because
Karen Hite:of the business side, but.
Karen Hite:you see them, it's three partners and they're like, they're solid people.
Karen Hite:Like super
Vit Muller:humble.
Vit Muller:All through 'em.
Vit Muller:Super humble.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Karen Hite:Yeah.
Karen Hite:I think that's the biggest draw that we all have to, to the brand,
Karen Hite:that they have built and, and we're
JC Hite:like, we've, we've known Brian Halligan, founder of HubSpot, Landon
JC Hite:Ray, founder of Ontraport, like we've been in the commu, like they're, they're
JC Hite:all great guys, but, but these guys have something really, really special going on.
JC Hite:And by the way.
JC Hite:Everything I just mentioned, they're in that same boat.
JC Hite:What do they focus on?
JC Hite:They focus on hiring the best frigging people they can
JC Hite:possibly find in every category.
JC Hite:They've done that from the beginning.
JC Hite:They weigh so far in on their community, right, which is their salespeople.
JC Hite:And, they're, they're implementing all this stuff, you know, at a very, very
JC Hite:high, and they're loving on their team.
JC Hite:Doing as much as they can for their team.
Vit Muller:Yeah, yeah.
Vit Muller:The guy who Salesforce is interesting.
Vit Muller:I watch a little interview.
Vit Muller:I didn't never seen him before, but yeah, he had a bit of an interesting journey,
Vit Muller:how he, he got it off the ground as well.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:That's, so it's an interest one.
Vit Muller:awesome.
Vit Muller:I wanna plug a couple of things that you guys do because, what you do
Vit Muller:for the community, what you offer.
Vit Muller:it's unique, it's special.
Vit Muller:you've got a couple of events.
Vit Muller:You're doing the Commitment Summit, and you also doing the Scale and stability,
Vit Muller:stability scale and stability summit.
Vit Muller:So can you.
Vit Muller:Give us a bit of a rundown.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:What's the distinction?
Vit Muller:Who is it for?
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:How do they find it?
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:Okay, cool.
JC Hite:Yeah, so everything we do, everything we do is about helping people, what
JC Hite:we call scale with stability, right?
JC Hite:Like we've scaled ridiculously fast, a couple of companies now
JC Hite:in 5,000 list, all together with both, you know, 10, 11 times, right?
JC Hite:But it's not always fun.
JC Hite:In fact, sometimes it sucks.
JC Hite:And I'll never forget Karen coming home to me, or actually, I don't remember, but.
JC Hite:With, with the shower fully naked passed out, I had had a panic attack.
JC Hite:Okay.
JC Hite:And I was in there for hours and I ended up in the hospital for days
JC Hite:because I was struggling with anxiety.
JC Hite:And and that set us on a crazy path.
JC Hite:And since then we've been dedicated, like, how do we help?
JC Hite:The CEOs manage this stuff and we focus, that's a real thing.
JC Hite:It's real.
JC Hite:And, and so it's, it's, it's both like technical support, like what
JC Hite:we're doing here, what you're doing.
JC Hite:It's marriage support and it's, and it's faith support.
JC Hite:And how do we bring all this together?
JC Hite:So everything we do is around helping entrepreneurs, what
JC Hite:we call scale with stability.
JC Hite:How do we grow the right way without forsaking the things
JC Hite:we actually care about?
Vit Muller:Yeah.
JC Hite:And, and so we do that.
JC Hite:I mean, everything we have is free online.
JC Hite:We teach, we don't gate literally anything, but we invite
JC Hite:people to come to our events.
JC Hite:That's when we connect with other people's wanting to do with that.
JC Hite:We have That's
Vit Muller:sort of like a middle of the funnel offer if you wish.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:Well, and even then, like, I mean, but yeah, it's, it's
JC Hite:middle bottom ish of the funnel.
JC Hite:Yeah, because we're, we don't have a lot of offers nowadays.
JC Hite:We're, we're.
JC Hite:When we have our Inner Circle committed Mastermind, but
JC Hite:we max it out at 40 people.
JC Hite:Yeah.
JC Hite:It's not, you know, it's not always available, so to speak for other folks.
JC Hite:So we have scale of stability summit that is in the US.
JC Hite:About a thousand people come to that.
JC Hite:we open up tickets on black.
JC Hite:Friday.
JC Hite:We'll, we will, we'll have the link here in the comments.
JC Hite:And this is John Maxwell is coming.
JC Hite:We've got the founder of the TV show, the Chosen, we got the founder
JC Hite:of Annie Ann's coming, which is an incredible, incredible story.
JC Hite:Christie Wright from the Dave Ramsey team.
JC Hite:we got Adley coming, which is incredible.
JC Hite:So I mean, it's a, you know, a little over a million dollar event.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
JC Hite:And then we have the commitment Summit, which is the same type of
JC Hite:thing, but it's luxury in Latin America.
JC Hite:Max of a hundred people,
Karen Hite:Costa Rica, we actually are doing it in Dominican Republic this year.
Karen Hite:Oh, nice.
Karen Hite:The, yeah.
Karen Hite:And so it up change, yeah.
JC Hite:First two years was in Costa Rica, last two years was in Cancun, and
JC Hite:then the next, I dunno, maybe two years in Dominican, we'll see where, where it's at.
JC Hite:So.
JC Hite:Everything that we've got, you know, we will put a link in yours and
JC Hite:some type of promotion depending on the season and we'll, yeah, yeah.
JC Hite:Head over
Vit Muller:guys.
Vit Muller:Head over to highlevelexperience.com/what did we say?
Vit Muller:S-W-S-S-W-S to find out more about everything that we're talking about.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
JC Hite:Yeah.
Vit Muller:I love it.
Vit Muller:I love it.
Vit Muller:Brilliant.
Vit Muller:Well, I think, I mean, we're at Level Up.
Vit Muller:There's a lot of cool stuff happening lot, and I really
Vit Muller:appreciate you sitting down with me.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:sharing your journey.
Vit Muller:There's, you know, there's always more to talk about.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:so I'd love to get you back on in your time with something like that.
Vit Muller:Yeah.
Vit Muller:But yeah, really appreciate you, being here with us, sharing your
Vit Muller:passion, sharing your journey, sharing your knowledge with the
Vit Muller:audience, with the guys, with the high level, community, and yeah.
Vit Muller:Thank you.
Vit Muller:if, if there is, one final.
Vit Muller:A piece you'd like to pass on a message by yourself.
Vit Muller:JC, you, Karen, now's the time.
Vit Muller:It's like that thing, you know the, the hot the, that show the hot seat?
Vit Muller:Yeah,
JC Hite:man, I, I mean, we said it a couple times, but like everything
JC Hite:I want to accomplish and that you wanna accomplish in life, we're
JC Hite:gonna do it with other people, our mentors, our team, peers.
JC Hite:It's the community.
JC Hite:So the better you are at building those relationships, if you're not
JC Hite:good at it, that's not an excuse you.
JC Hite:You gotta figure out how to get good at it.
JC Hite:You gotta figure out how to get outta your comfort, comfort zone.
JC Hite:Learn how to appreciate the people above you, beside you and under you.
JC Hite:And, and if you could do those, it will be a lot easier, a whole lot easier.
JC Hite:Okay.
Karen Hite:And I think for me it's just getting to know yourself,
Karen Hite:you know, and, and use the sermon.
Karen Hite:I think that that has been an incredible thing in our journey of understanding,
Karen Hite:you know, what are our strengths and our weaknesses and how can we grow from there?
Karen Hite:How can we, work on those strengths and, and, and increase our, our strengths,
Karen Hite:our work and our weaknesses, you know?
Karen Hite:And, and, and that, that is the journey that we're all in because
Karen Hite:nobody comes in from day one.
Karen Hite:Thinking I'm gonna build a million dollar, or maybe not.
Karen Hite:Not a lot of people, right?
Karen Hite:Like a million dollar business and this is the exact route and how I'm gonna do it.
Karen Hite:It's a lot of trial and error.
Karen Hite:And through that.
Karen Hite:You know, there's, there's, you're building your resiliency
Karen Hite:to be able to navigate.
Karen Hite:You know what, once was hard.
Karen Hite:Today is a lot easier than it was before.
Karen Hite:Right?
Karen Hite:And that is only because we're able to put ourselves in
Karen Hite:situations that allows us to grow.
Karen Hite:And the more we can do that, the, the more we're gonna learn and
Karen Hite:be able to share with others.
Karen Hite:And that's, that's what we're doing.
Karen Hite:That's what you're doing this podcast.
Vit Muller:Stay humble.
Vit Muller:Look after that ego, put it in, check it in sometimes, and, keep improving.
Vit Muller:I love it.
Vit Muller:That's right.
Karen Hite:That's right.
Karen Hite:Yeah.
Vit Muller:Awesome.
Vit Muller:Thank you so much.
Karen Hite:Thank you.
Vit Muller:That's a wrap.
Vit Muller:Alright guys.
Vit Muller:So thank you so much for watching, for, for being part of the community.
Vit Muller:we've got some cool special announcements to make as well, which I'll do in a
Vit Muller:separate, separate episode or it might have already happened, who knows?
Vit Muller:We'll see when this goes.
Vit Muller:but yeah, thank you guys for watching.
Vit Muller:If you enjoy the show, for show notes, for extra tips to help you
Vit Muller:grow your agency or your SaaS, head over to highlevelexperience.com.
Vit Muller:If there is any made in that, you know, that is getting into the space,
Vit Muller:please share, this podcast because I think it can help them as well.
Vit Muller:And yeah, thank you guys for watching and I'll see you on the next episode.
Vit Muller:See you guys.
