Mark and Kyle catch up on Mark's flaws and frustrations of trying to do everything himself. Kyle talks about his career journey and life as an entrepreneur and how they assist business owners. 

IN THIS EPISODE:

(02:38) Kyle Walburn’s entrepreneurial journey and the creation of Efficient Aide

(10:44) Efficient Aide offers services in various skills of fractional support for remote work

(19:10) Kyle describes the situations that will benefit from his services

(21:39) Kyle predicts how he sees small businesses thriving in the future

(25:01) Advise for entrepreneurs who want to start a business

KEY TAKEAWAYS: 

• Kyle Walbrun founded Efficient Aide, inspired by his uncle’s entrepreneurship and his father’s work ethic. Combining marketing, finance, and communication skills, he grew a solo virtual assistant service into a 50-person team, helping businesses operate efficiently without full-time overhead.
• Businesses are increasingly comfortable with remote work and fractional roles, which allow them to tap into a wider talent pool without needing full-time, in-office staff. Leaders realize that many tasks don’t require immediate, on-site attention and can be effectively handled by experienced remote professionals at a lower cost.
• Advances in remote work, fractional hiring, and AI are making it easier than ever for entrepreneurs to start and scale businesses without heavy overhead costs. Outsourcing non-core tasks allows business owners to focus on growth, strategy, and innovation rather than day-to-day operations.

RESOURCE LINKS

Mark Ritter - Website

Mark Ritter - LinkedIn

Efficient Aide - Website

BIOGRAPHY: 

Kyle Walbrun is the founder and CEO of Efficient Aide. He focuses on finding, training, and managing executive assistants for entrepreneurs nationwide.  You can learn more about their services by connecting with them at info@efficientaide.com.

Ep. 76 - Looking At Efficiency & Effectiveness-Transcript

Mark Ritter: Hello, this is Mark Ritter, your host of Credit Union Conversations, CEO of MBFS. If you're in the credit union space, we would love to talk with you on how we can help your credit union. Uh, we have a loan originations team. We do underwriting, we do servicing, we do loan participations. All those types of things to really make your program a success.

Where we interview a whole bunch of people from across the business and credit union space and even some small business entrepreneurs to hopefully make your life a little bit easier when you're driving to or from work or at the gym or need some background music. I really enjoy this. I was actually at a credit union lunch last week and two people came up to me with different stories of just.

Absolutely. So I always like to start out with, with getting the origin story, as I like to say, of people, uh, cause sometimes, uh, that's more, more interesting than, than anything else on kind of how the journey is sometimes more interesting than what you're up to today. So give me your origin story on, on kind of, uh, what you've done in the past, your, how your beginnings and, and, uh.

What's your up to today on the entrepreneurship side?

I was really fortunate where I had an uncle who was an entrepreneur and I was able to see what that life really looked like managing your own schedule and running your own business. And then I also was able to pair this with this really, uh, dedication, hard work mentality that I learned from my father.

My father was a blue collar guy working at a mill. And so it was really cool going into college. I was able to pair this kind of entrepreneurial mindset. Received from my uncle paired with this kind of hard work mentality that I, and loyalty that I learned from my father and went into college and ultimately had a heck of a time.

And what that really taught me was I didn't necessarily love one particular area, but I love the mix. Of all of them together. So I get out of college. I immediately pack up my stuff, moved to Colorado simply for quality of life. I wanted the backdrop of my life to be the mountains growing up in Wisconsin.

And so I sat in my apartment really thinking, you know, what are my strengths? And my strengths at that particular time was I wasn't necessarily an expert at any particular area. That I learned from college, but I was kind of this jack of all trades where I could do some marketing, some admin. I had some financial acumen and I could communicate really well with professionals.

Mark Ritter: And this sounds like my story from Penn State where I was more of, it's not like I went to school to be like an accounting major where I was going to be an accountant or an engineer, or I was going to be an engineer, you know, Like I was more of a generalist and I ended up as a marketing major. And the only reason I ended up as a marketing major is because I just listed all the business majors and crossed off reasons not to do each one until I was left with marketing.

There you go. So, yep. All right. So you're sitting in your apartment trying to figure out what to do in this world.

I'm like, I'm going to just market myself. It's just this jack of all trades, the efficiency kind of expert at the time. I was really good at multitasking. And so, you know, literally sat down, the efficient aid name came to me almost immediately, which is pretty bizarre. We've been in business out for 13 years.

And what I ended up doing, Mark, it was, I went on to Craigslist Craigslist at the time was a really popular site for posting jobs. And I would go on and anybody that was looking at other

Mark Ritter: things, but we'll just let

Kyle Walbrun: those go for now. Well, for this conversation, we'll focus on jobs. Uh, it was the wild west, man.

And uh, there. Look, anybody who's posting office admin office assistant, marketing assistant. And ultimately I would just cold email them and say, Hey, I can do all those tasks, but Hey, you're only, only paid for what you get, right? You're not paying for my downtime. I don't need any equipment. You're not paying payroll or benefits.

And what was really wild, Mark, is from there for pretty much from then until pretty much now, but specifically the first six years of business, it was 100 percent referral. She then referred me to another business owner. Which led to the next to the next and, uh, yeah, you know, it started off just kind of me working out of literally the closet of my apartment.

That was my quote unquote office at the time, you know, now has led to us, you know, working with hundreds of companies and managing a team of a little, little under 50. Uh, efficient days, we call them, uh, throughout the country.

And there's a bit, there's a, there's really a bit, cause you were probably, it was a hope and a cross and some fingers. And then there had to be that tipping point of, I might have, I, I, this is something I have it.

Kyle Walbrun: It's a really, really great question, Mark, you know, and I would say. I had a gut feeling I was on to something after about a year, but I would say, honestly, until I hit probably year two, I still had that suspicion of like, when is this going to phase out, you know, when, you know, and, and I also had a little bit of that imposter syndrome of my really running a business because at the time it was a fish and Dave, I conducted everything as a fish and Dave, but truly it was just, um, Me behind that brand being a day to day assistant.

Then after two years of the consistency around that, that's when the aha came and said, not only can I continue to do this. I can turn this into an actual business, bring on staff, start to do some marketing and some promotion to, to grow the business. Uh, so I'd say about that timeframe.

Mark Ritter: So I'm going to say I'm a, I'm a happy, efficient aid client, uh, but kind of give people just a little snapshot of the business in terms of what you deliver day to day.

Kyle Walbrun: Yeah, I appreciate that,

Mark Ritter: Mark.

I don't even really necessarily like to use the word assistant. I like to say a fish name because as you know, Mark, we do so much more than what people consider as. Assistant work. We can absolutely do that typical admin work. We'll check your emails, schedule your appointments, book your travel, but we also can help with this strategic component of, you know, helping in larger areas and helping you scale your business.

So what happens is we have really busy professionals such as yourself, Mark. Who know they're doing tasks that are not the highest and best use of their time, right? We all know if you're a business leader out there, checking your email and sifting through junk mail and spam is never the best use of your time.

Mark Ritter: functions.

For years, I prided myself on not having administrative support. You called Mark Ritter. I answered the phone. You left me a voicemail. I answered the phone. You wanted a meeting. I answered the phone. I managed everything and I did it myself. And, and now there, there's two area, there's actually one big area that I, uh, will refuse to give up, uh, outsourcing.

Admin assistants are few and far between because you have a salary, benefits, the cost of it, you have the space issue, but real, you know, that, okay, how much do we spend on a full time assistant benefits, managing, training, hiring, firing, doing all of those types of things. Where sometimes if you're that mid level manager, or you're just a, a, a, a high level salesperson, you [00:14:00] can do this.

And the numbers make sense where, you know, not every it's, it's not going to be mad men where everybody has their own assistant. And, you know, making drinks and coffee and copies, you know, you don't have, it's, those days are long gone. There's other solutions out there. And why do you think people like myself just dig in and say, I can, I, I don't need this or.

I can do it all myself, or it's either zero or a full time person. What, what, what, give a look into my psyche of why I, uh, try to bear, do all this for, drive myself crazy for so long.

Kyle Walbrun: Yeah, it's a great question, Mark. And it's a common situation for a lot of folks that initially come to speak to us. And I'll tell you, there's a variety of reasons.

Mark Ritter: Everybody wanted to be the last guy in the office. There's always that guy.

Kyle Walbrun: Absolutely. And so that's just an old mindset. You know, that, that's not how it is. Now, when I hear leaders say, Hey, I'm working 60, 70, 80 hours a week. It's not a badge of honor. It means you're not working efficiently. You're not delegating.

It's proven, ROI for our clients in terms of not only their time, their energy, and if we do our job really, really well, these leaders are not doing these tasks anymore and they're now spending more time with their leadership team and growing and scaling their business. They see the ROI in terms of the revenue as well.

So I think it's part that, I think the other part of this mark is. This whole virtual and remote it's in the grand scheme of business. It is fairly new, you know, so some people also are like, well, what's going to happen when I want to just walk down the hallway or if I need something urgent, but again, in today's world with technology.

Mark Ritter: There was always that, you know, I, I, the, the old school, uh, secretaries and assistants, you know, they're within the shouting voice of the corner office.

And it have you seen it as just kind of every year it kind of creeps a little bit more with people are fine with remote support or were there there jumps so to say that people like yeah I'm fine it like my my admin support help doesn't have to be sitting next to me when when I. One need to scream at something.

Kyle Walbrun: Yeah, you know, I think, you know, with technology in today's world, I think we're seeing more and more people not only be comfortable with remote work, because here's the other benefit of remote work. You open up the talent pool dramatically, right? Instead of finding someone in your area, you now have access to an entire world, an entire nation.

A lot of people truly believe, no, I need someone full time. And I'll ask leaders and say, how often in a day do you have just yeah. Fire alarms, red alerts where you need something done that minute. And when you truly think about it, they're not that often. Most tasks that they get done within an hour or within a few hours or that same day, everything is going to be completely fine.

And I think that's also a mindset people are starting to get used to. I don't need to pay for full time. If fractionally who is high caliber and well trained, they can produce full time results. at a fraction

Mark Ritter: of the

Mark Ritter: What roles or the person is the typical user of your services? Uh, give me a, uh, like who's a good fit?

Kyle Walbrun: Yeah, great question, uh, Mark. You know, really at the end of the day, we are working With folks, leadership team member folks. These are the CEOs, the founders, specifically a term we like to call the visionaries of the company. These are folks that are usually the founder CEO where they're successful. The same thing.

Big picture. They're innovative. But oftentimes those visionaries are not the most organized. They're not, don't necessarily have the most attention to detail. Everybody who's listening, if you're in a corporate culture, any sort of culture, we always know, gosh, this person is the leader of our company, but gosh, it's hard to nail them down or get their attention.

So that they can support the team while staying in that growth mindset.

Mark Ritter: And many times, we were at the company when it was two or three people. And I find that, oh, I know how to do that. But that's ancient history now. And, uh, you know, I need to move on from that and back up. So,

Kyle Walbrun: yeah. And I also find that a lot of these leaders reach and hit a ceiling.

Mark Ritter: So here at MBFS, we mainly deal with financial institutions, specifically credit unions. So we see what goes on. And can identify those trends pretty easily on what's going on in the space, because we see it from a lot of different people. You had touch many, many different businesses, small businesses, what it, you know, put on your economist hat, put on your, your future hat.

What do you think that the next year or two is going to be like for the small business community?

A. I. You can combine those three together, which is really what we're doing here at a fishing, taking a human element and pairing it with amazing technology. What I think we're going to see is, I think one, I think there's going to be an easier entry for small businesses to become small businesses. And actually take that lead.

You don't need full time staff. You don't need all this local support. There are fractional resources that are cost effective that will allow you to take your idea and help grow it. So what I really think over the next few years, we're going to see a rise. In small businesses and entrepreneurship, because I'm finding with the right people and the tools that are developing right now, it becomes easier to have a support staff in a quote unquote team without having to have spent all this money on office space equipment.

Mark Ritter: Yeah. I just think if you have that business idea, You know, unless you're a mechanic where you got to need space to fix cars, uh, us in the, the white collar world, the white collar economy, you know, we can start, uh, you know, we don't have to hire, get a, a CFO, uh, For to do the books, there's people who do that on a fractional, pretty much any function you can help an outsource now that, you know, and so re and so you can focus on your core line of business and that's where I think people, people need to focus on their core line of business as opposed to just running the business, uh, you know, where, where, where, You know, what, sometimes as an entrepreneur, you're getting more tile, the payroll taxes and [00:24:00] payrolls and marketing and the website compliance and benefits.

And, but there's so many things you can do as opposed to just, you can really need to focus on running that business. And yeah, I agree with you a hundred percent.

Kyle Walbrun: Yeah. You know, it's that classic saying, right. You know, working on the business is a lot different than working in it. And what we love to do is have these leaders on risk.

Work on the business. That's your unique ability. Work on it, don't work within it. You don't need to. There's people you can delegate those tasks to.

Mark Ritter: So, so you've gone from bootstrapping an idea, um, uh, I, I coming up with a name and then figuring out a business to, to fits the cold name. To a full time established small business.

Kyle Walbrun: Yeah. You know, Mark, you know, two things immediately come to mind, you know, first is. Surround yourself with people that are doing it.

Surround yourself with people that are, have achieved what you're looking to achieve. You know, that was huge for me. Mentorship, having mentors, having idols, being part of groups. That elevated not only my experience, but provided me with the non. So first and foremost, surround yourself with those people, learn from them.

And, uh, that is absolutely critical, you know, always upleveling your, your knowledge and your experience and having some folks who are in your corner. The second thing I'll absolutely, I love to inspire people to is that it can be done. It can be done. I'm one of lots and lots of folks that took the leap of faith.

You know, do it. You can do it. There are resources out there to help you do it. And there's lots and lots of other leaders that people that have already done it that are willing to help you out along the way.

Mark Ritter: Well, Kyle, thank you so much for coming on. It was great having a catching up with you once again, uh, give people, uh, give it, give a fishnate a plug and where people can connect with you if they want to talk more.

There's a free tool right on the homepage that'll spoon feed that information directly to you. And I also have a contact form on the website goes directly to me. So if anybody is interested or considering what this can look like, it is a call directly with me. And it's a help first educational call.

This is not a sales conversation. I love to help people out and help them buy back their time so they can grow their business while also having a life.

So, thank you. This is Mark Ritter, your host of Credit Union Conversations. Please, please, uh, however you're listening to us on your favorite audio platform, uh, we're on all the major networks, just go ahead and subscribe to us and, uh, tell your friends about us and tell your coworkers, uh, in the financial services space about us.

So thank you. Uh, have a great day and we will talk to you soon.

Narrator: Thank you for listening to the Credit Union Conversations podcast. Have a question? Visit MarkRitter. com for more information.