How to Build a Business That Doesn't Depend on You | Dean Mathews

Most entrepreneurs start their business doing everything themselves.

Sales.

Customer service.

Accounting.

Marketing.

Operations.

But eventually that becomes the very thing holding the business back.

In this episode of Small Business Pivots, Michael D. Morrison sits down with entrepreneur, software founder, and CEO Dean Mathews, creator of OnTheClock, to discuss the leadership shifts required to grow beyond yourself and build a business that can thrive without depending on the owner every day.

Dean shares lessons learned from building a software company serving over 16,000 businesses while growing a team of nearly 30 employees. He explains why hiring too late is one of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make, how to build a positive company culture, why leaders must stop micromanaging, and how empowering employees creates stronger businesses.

They also discuss leadership development, delegation, company culture, payroll, employee management, hiring strategies, autonomy, business systems, and why humility may be one of the greatest leadership traits an entrepreneur can develop.

In this episode you'll discover:

• Why doing everything yourself limits business growth

• When it's time to hire your first employee

• How to stop becoming the bottleneck

• The importance of clear roles and job descriptions

• Why autonomy creates stronger employees

• The "Hire Slow, Fire Fast" philosophy

• Building company culture intentionally

• Leadership lessons from growing a software company

• How payroll, scheduling, and HR systems improve operations

• Why humility makes stronger leaders

If you're a business owner trying to scale your company, develop better leaders, build stronger systems, or simply get your life back, this episode is packed with practical advice you can implement immediately.

About Dean Mathews

Dean Mathews is the founder and CEO of OnTheClock, a workforce management platform helping thousands of businesses simplify employee time tracking, scheduling, payroll, and HR management. A lifelong entrepreneur and software developer, Dean is passionate about leadership, business systems, and helping small businesses build companies that scale.

About Small Business Pivots

Hosted by Michael D. Morrison, Small Business Pivots features entrepreneurs, business leaders, authors, and experts sharing the pivots, systems, and strategies that help business owners get unstuck and grow.

🏆 Ranked among the Top 10% of podcasts globally by Listen Notes.

Transcript

Intro And Bottom Line Focus

SPEAKER_00 0:02

If you're a business owner feeling stuck, overwhelmed, and ready to grow, you're in the right place. Welcome to Small Business Pivots, where founders share insights, stories, and pivots that lead to sustainable growth. I'm your host, Michael D. Morrison, a business coach helping business owners get unstuck and grow. All right, welcome to another Small Business Pivots, where, as you've heard me say before, we have special guests from around the world. And today we've got a doozy. Uh, one thing that we've not talked too much about is tracking time of your employees, which affects the bottom line. And before I give away all the golden nuggets today, I let our guests introduce themselves because no one can introduce themselves in their business like the business owner. So go ahead and share a little bit about you for those that don't know you.

From Teen Hustles To SaaS

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Thank you, Michael. Much appreciated. Well, first, just thank you for having me on. I just want to, it's a it's a pleasure and an honor. So, yeah, a little bit about me. You could call it different terms, people call it serial entrepreneur. When I was younger, probably started right around 14. I had a like a lawnmower repair shop, if you will. Hung a little sign out front, painted, you know, in the tree, and just kind of really always had that entrepreneurial spirit. Always dreamed about having a company or companies, and you know, got into the workforce, you know, late teens, you know, got kind of serious, early 20s, and pretty quickly realized, you know, I needed to do something on my own. Just it was just in me, you know. So really just started my my first company, my mid mid-ish 20s, late uh mid to late 20s. And that was a software consulting company. I actually I was uh was am a software developer, really have always been into technology and software. So I'm thinking, you know, I could use these skills to to help other companies. So I really ended up doing really well with that one. Had a couple dozen customers here in the Metro Detroit area, built anything they needed MRP systems, inventory, accounting, mostly business tools. But along the way, the entrepreneurial spirit was just always there. So being into technology and software, that was kind of when the internet was starting to kind of become cool. I was like, you know, I'm gonna go build some web stuff. So really started several, uh I would call them passion projects at the time. And of them on the clock, the my my current baby had really surfaced. And you know, it was actually 22 years ago now that I started that. It was really more of a passion project, like I said, side project at in the beginning. And I built it, and I was just, it wasn't my retirement plan, and I wasn't even honestly focused on making money. I just wanted to build something that people would actually find value in and use. So started with that and built that a few months later, it went live. That was early 2003, no, 2004. I'm sorry. And you know, fast forward to today, we have now 28 people on staff. We service about 16,000 customers, and we have a goal of uh of serving one million users. So that's our that's our kind of our North Star goal. So it's not time bound, you know, that might take three years, it might take 10 years. We don't know yet, but that's that's the that's the North Star goal that we're all aiming towards.

Why Doing It All Breaks

SPEAKER_00 3:42

I love it, I love it. And so to follow up with that, that's a great segue because I know a lot of our listeners, you and I have talked earlier about they can't even look past payroll this Friday. So when you started this company and the others, what were some of those early learning, either mistakes, wins, losses that you'd like to share for others to know? Heed my warning.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Yeah, I would say, you know, in the beginning, it was really only me. It was just me. I was I did everything. I did, I built the product, I did the marketing, I tried to do the customer support. I said I did the marketing, I tried to do the marketing, I I did the development, I tried to do the sales. You know, you noticed the repeating word tried. My biggest failure, I won't even say it's a failure, we'll just say it's a learning experience, is that I wanted to do it all alone. I had this mentality back then that I did not want a team, I did not want employees. I didn't, yeah, I had a couple bad experiences with some of my consulting companies where I saw some really bad cultures, we'll say. And I I just I really thought that that was the prototype for all businesses. I was wrong, but I didn't want the people, and it took a little while, but I started realizing you know, this can only go so far with just me. I'm not doing a really good job at these five different functions that need to be you really need a person, a person that knows what they're doing that is dedicated to it. So probably one of my biggest setbacks was not bringing a team on, you know, early enough. You know, it was it was a learning curve, but it took a little while, but I got over that. And one of my big tenants of when we did build a team was to have a really positive culture, you know, have people that actually want to come to work. And at the end of the day, you know, it's it's work, I get it, but just to know home go home knowing you made a difference. That was really one of the primary tenants that I had when building the team, which really did happen more like 10 years later from then, but but that still rings true today. So that was probably the biggest I don't know, hurdle slash mistake that I made. I don't really count it as a mistake, but you know, if I could go back, I might change that.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Yeah, yeah. Well, I know as a business coach working with lots of business owners, we all start most of us by ourselves, right? We're and we're trying to do everything, things that we're not qualified to do. For one, most of us try to do our own accounting, right? Or books makes it our own payroll, right? Don't do that role or time tracking, not contracting, not a really good idea, compliance. You know, the list goes on

The Hire Trigger: Work Buckets

SPEAKER_00 6:39

and on. And one of the questions I'm often asked, if you've never owned a business, you really don't know the direction of this question. And that is, when do I know I'm ready to hire my first employee? Do you have any insights of like what pushed you over the edge to finally learn that lesson and say, I need someone?

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Yeah, I would say for me, and I've heard the a very similar story with other entrepreneurs that I've talked to, and I do talk to a lot, that the the real the aha moment, I guess you might call call it, is when you realize that you know you have these. I kind of bucketed them out into five, maybe six major functions that needed to be done. And as I realized that I was trying to allocate my time throughout the day or throughout the week. And I just I just started realizing that these jobs were not being fulfilled properly by me. For me, I just realized okay, customer support was the biggest one. In the early days, I was so bad at it. I I would let emails pile up, voicemails would pile up. Even at the end of one day, I had, you know, back then it was smaller. I had like three or four voicemails and like 10 emails, and they just weren't getting answered. And and I was making the connection that, well, if they got answered, they would be happy customers, they would stay, they would probably tell their friends. And for me, when I started seeing the backups, after I segmented out all of those functions that were required for on the clock, that's that's where I that's where I kind of had that moment. But really, the first step to that was segmenting out all the different things I do into buckets and having a mental model of that. I I probably created some type of drawing too, but once you really realize what your business what you're is supposed to be doing, and you realize that you're split really thin amongst those four, five, six things, and I wouldn't go much more than four, maybe six at most, that's when that's when it's really time to to really start looking. You know, even if you get somebody part-time, you know, 20 hours a week, just uh help in the afternoon with X, whatever it might be. You know, that that that was my kind of aha moment on when to bring out a team.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

Yeah.

Hiring As A Time Investment

SPEAKER_00 9:02

You mentioned something that you were thin on time, and most entrepreneurs are thin on money as well. So they're like, well, I've got to make sales and I gotta produce, but I need to hire somebody. And that's kind of another concern that business owners have about how am I gonna afford this person? I can't do all these things and still make payroll. Now we got to have payroll.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Yeah, no, you are 100% correct. And I was up against the exact same thing. Early days, you know, yeah, the money wasn't, you know, it's I mean, it still isn't, but you know, it's not just blowing out of the bucket.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

Wait, you heard everybody heard it first. No matter how long you've been in business, we're always concerned about money, right? We never have enough.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

You have to be a good steward financially, yeah. But yes, but to your point, that is up to the individual to figure out. But the biggest thing that I always tell young entrepreneurs or even established business people that are maybe struggling with that type of question is that you need to look at it as an investment into your company. Think about, you know, if even if I had say somebody for 20 hours a week to just do the paperwork, whatever it might be, that allows you as the business owner to go out and do the things that you're really good at. Maybe it's quoting or installing or whatever it might be, but you get to take your time that is a requirement to answer or do the paperwork and now reallocate that to doing things that actually make money. Yes, for that first maybe month, two, three, four months until that person gets up to speed. But if you really think it through and that's a proper seat for that person, that is an investment that will have a return. So, and the return is your time that you can go out now and do things that actually make money instead of spending half your time doing the things that aren't direct revenue producing type activities. So, yes, you will have to have a period of time where you have to pay that person, whether you save up for it, you you know, have a little extra in your bank account to accommodate for that, but that it really is a critical step. And you know, you can only go so far with one person or even two. One of my favorite quotes are I just actually became my favorite about two years ago. You can oh, so if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. Yeah, that that is so true, and it's not just me, I've seen it with dozens of other businesses too, you know. So, yeah, figure out how to leverage people to free up your time to do what you do best, which typically, as an entrepreneur, is the things that actually bring dollars into this into your business. Yeah,

Build A Business Without You

SPEAKER_01 11:50

yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Uh no, I agreed. And this is Q2 of 2026 when we're recording this, and please don't fill my inbox with hate mail. But we hear of these AI creators, influencers saying, I can build a multi-billion dollar business with just me and AI. And if they desire to do that, absolutely. Obviously, you have to know a lot of coding and things to do that. You still have to understand how business works, but for most businesses, that's just not even true. Like, I need a human person in this seat talking to my clients, but I guess it really depends on what kind of business you need. So going back memory lane when you hired that person, did you have insight or kind of forethought of like what I want my business to be, or you're just like, I need somebody now?

SPEAKER_01 12:44

It was pretty uh, it was uh, I would say a split. It was a combination. It got to the point to where, yeah, it got to the point to where it was very obvious that our first hire was in support, customer support. It became very obvious that that particular function that I identified was suffering really bad, and that it needed attention, it needed a person there to handle it that could own it, run it, understand the customer, understand our product, get them the answers they needed. But it also did feed into kind of that we didn't have the million user goal at that point, but the the goal was is just to build something bigger than me. That it was I didn't have those words back then, but that's really what I wanted. I just wanted to build something that was bigger, me bigger than me, that could outlast me, that didn't even need me to run, you know, as as as it scaled. And that's actually another key thing, too, uh, for any small business owner is that your one of your goals is should be almost to build a team to where you're not needed anymore. I know it sounds kind of crazy to a lot of people, but yeah, that actually is the ultimate goal. Because at some point you're going to retire. I mean, or you know, you're going you could get sick. I mean, there's all these things that could happen. And if you are the business, that's a really bad strategy for your business. Yeah. Um, so yeah, yeah. I mean, for me, I I had about a year and a half ago a period of time where I had to leave work for several months. And I knew the team had it. And I was gone for the most part without contact for several months. You know, I had definitely was communicating with key people, but I was not running the company at all. And you know, this team was phenomenal. They they handled everything, they did it, they did a great job, but that's the goal that I think really one of the goals that a lot of business owners miss is yeah, you should almost you know build the team to out, you know, to out yourself in a lot of ways. Yeah, you know, it doesn't mean you have to leave. You know, that does that, you know, you don't have to leave. That's not your goal, but the team should be able to run the company eventually without you, even if you got four people, it doesn't matter if you got 27, 2700, or 2.7, you know, yeah, that team, you know, you want them to be good enough to just do do that job. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

So that takes us back to the point of how important it is it to define their roles or what they're

Clear Roles Without Micromanaging

SPEAKER_00 15:23

there for. So you're not running a daycare. Yes, yes. In other words, leadership and scopes of work, you know, kind of share a little bit about how that works and what worked for you.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Yeah, for me, uh it definitely came in stages. You know, I would say that first moment that I we were talking about just a few minutes ago, where I started to bucket out all the different functions that I was doing. I came up, I think it was five or six. And you know, that would be the the the first step. You know, you need to know what what that job function is. I would even really recommend writing a job description for it, even if it's you doing the job. Write the job description out. You know, what does this person do every day? What processes do they follow? You know, even if it's simple, they just answer the phone and you know, write down messages, whatever it might be is fine. But think about that and then think about okay, if I were to hire somebody, is this an eight-hour day job? Is it you know, could they be done with four or two or you know, those types of things? And then just really the the other big tenet that I have too is hire slow, fire best. So take your time hiring somebody. And when I say that, I don't I mean just you know, definitely time, you know, don't hire somebody within a couple days, it's it's not a good idea. Take generally here, we take up to a month, generally, and that's with almost any role. There's generally two to three interviews, we're we're asking them questions, we're making sure that they are a good fit for us, but also that we are a good fit for them. And that that's equally important because how'd you like to get a really good person only to find out six months later that they don't really like your like you or your work environment, you know? Yeah, and now you've invested in this person and and they leave, you know, or they're you know, they're not they don't really like their job for some reason. So make sure you have the right people. That that's really important. And then, you know, the biggest thing after that is when they come on board, make sure they know what they're supposed to do, have a job description, have a set of daily activities, you know, but then don't micromanage them, empower them to do their job, give them the tools they need, give them the resources, give them the instructions, and let them go. And you got to monitor and watch, of course, but we're not babysitting all day, you know. Look at have a number that that one or two numbers that really helps them to know if they're doing good or bad, monitor those numbers and meet with them once a week, twice a week, half hour, check in, how's things going, and really let them own that position. And that's another thing that I see, especially young entrepreneurs starting out, they want to be in their first or second employee's business all day long. They're always checking in. You know, if they're out on a job, they're texting, how are things going? What's going on at the office? And you might think that you're taken care of or just checking in with your your employee, but a lot of times they take it as, oh, my boss doesn't trust me. They're worried that I'm that I'm not doing a good job. They're always checking in. So you got to really think about that. That you know, your perception and their perception are two very different things.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

You're listening to Small Business Pivots with Michael D. Morrison. If you're ready to get your business unstuck and grow, let's chat. Schedule your free session at michaeldmorrison.com. Now back to the show. I

Autonomy Mastery Purpose Framework

SPEAKER_00 19:03

have a recent business that just came across this, and they made a statement that I feel like we have a real business finally. Now we don't understand where the authority stops and starts. In other words, the owner has delegated or empowered me to do this, but I don't know that I really have control to make that decision or sign that paperwork. How does how did you find out that that works best once you transitioned into having a real company?

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Yeah. So again, it's it was a learning curve, and I I think you know, we all have those. Lots of trial and and trial error successes. But I'd say the biggest thing, honestly, it's probably, I mean, we get better and better every year, but I would say for me, this last three to five years or so has been probably the strongest I've ever been as a leader. You know, now it and honestly, the funny thing is is those four to five business functions that I identified 22 years ago. Well, guess what? Now I have director level people that actually run each and every one of those, you know, uh with teams underneath them. So, you know, that stuff rings true. But I guess the the biggest thing for me, back to your question, is is really having a super clear set list of what that that that job is. Write down a job description, there you know, sit on it, don't just write it and sit on it for a day, look at it again, sit on it for a week, look at it again, make sure it's complete. And then that person really needs to have that job description available to them and need to really know what what they're supposed to do. But then you know, the biggest thing to making them successful, we were just talking about, is they have to have autonomy. You know, I go back to Daniel Pink's book, Drive, really great book, by the way. Autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Those were his his three tenets. You know, autonomy is that they can do the job without you, for the most part. I mean, yes, we always want to talk to our boss, run things by. That that's great. But for the most part, 95% of the time, they should be able to just work on their own. And they should have the skills, the training, the resources, the freedom to do that, you know, mastery. Maybe we're not all masters, but at a point we become, what would I say, familiar enough with our job to where we feel competent doing it. You know, we want anybody working for us to feel competent in their job. That also goes back to hiring. So, you know, if you're hiring for, you know, maybe an office assistant or something, you probably say you're a lawn care company, you probably don't want to go out and get a young guy that's used to running around for 12 hours a day cutting grass and on the go. He's probably not going to do well sitting in an office for 10 hours or eight hours. So you got to really think about that. And that actually goes back to the higher slow, too, is like make sure you got the right people in the right seats. And then so autonomy, mastery, purpose. That's a big one for me. I always try to connect the job, whatever it is that they're doing, with helping people. Now, whether it's helping the customer or helping somebody internal, being of assistance, being of value to others. So when you can have that connection and you can go home at the end of the day, knowing that you even had a small difference, like that builds so much for that person. It'll make them so much more successful. And yeah, that that framework, I don't officially use it, but it's it's a really good starting point. So

Learning Leadership In Real Time

SPEAKER_01 22:56

yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Yeah, yeah. No, I I agree. And you mentioned something earlier that just up until about three or four years ago, you kind of felt like you had a good grasp on leadership. And so, in other words, for 20 years you've been developing and working on leadership. I'm of the opinion that I don't believe true leaders are born, as the quote says, I believe they're developed. So, can you share some of those things that you did to become that better leader?

SPEAKER_01 23:27

Yeah, yeah. I would um I would say I wouldn't disagree completely, but I would say there are definitely people that come out of the womb with something that other people don't.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

Whether it's social skills or whatever it might be. So I as a young child, teenager, you know, I had I heard comments that that kind of alluded that you know, maybe I I had some leadership capabilities. But but a hundred percent they can always be developed. There's there's if you come predisposed, that's great. But I've seen half the leaders I know, you would not have recognized them as leaders, you know, 10 years ago. Yeah, so it's just it's just the reality. But I even for me, you know, I started studying leadership 25 years ago. You know, I just had this attraction to it. I I I didn't really have these big plans of being a CEO of a 27-person company. It wasn't my aspiration, but I just had something into me, in me that really wanted to learn. So I just started reading and talking to people and finding other leaders, or not I wasn't a leader then, but finding leaders that I could that would be mentors to some degree with me. Even when I was a consultant, I kind of worked really well with kind of the C-suites up front, you know, the owners, the managers. And I spent a lot of time asking them questions about, well, why did you make that decision with this, with your people here? A lot outside of the scope of my work with them, but they were we became real friendly. So they would spend a lot of time just talking to me, explaining to me why they made decisions, how they made it, about you know how they hire and you know what types of roles were there at the company. So I became a student of leadership, effectively, for a good portion of my life. That doesn't mean you're gonna be great when you get in that role. Let's be very honest. Yeah, a lot of it is learned on the street, and on the street I mean in the office, you know. So, you know, there there are mistakes, and we've all had you have to go through the trenches, but you know, I'd say it's really just having a curiosity for it, and then just leaning into it and learning about it, finding people that there. I mean, now there's all sorts of online communities you can join, books you can read, you could find local communities as well. Just start hanging out with them. You know, sort of another quote that I had when I was younger was surround yourself with success and you will become it. So put those type of people around you, and you just tend to fall into that crowd. You you will and definitely the other type of people try to minimize that part, yeah. The ones that are dragging you down the wrong way because we all had them or have have had them in our lives, yeah, unless you see a potential to help them, you know. So, yeah, yeah, that would be my my my thoughts on that. Good question, Michael.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

Yeah, thank you. So you mentioned having clarity back in the beginning of the scope of work, a description, and all those things, but someone can have clarity and not be led properly because I see some people perform really well at companies, they go somewhere else that's not quite run as an organization and they fail. So, in your opinion, it's subjective. Would you feel like if I'm the owner of a business, I need to spend more time discovering clarity first or becoming a leader that can lead that clarity? I I think you go for both.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

You know, there's really there's no time to waste. We we're we're not getting younger, you know, you're gonna have competitors come up, you know, everybody's scratching, trying to trying to get part of the pie, right? I would say that basically just start. Even if you can't commit 100% of your time to the learning leadership, executing leadership, bringing people on board, you know, like like we said earlier, you know, you could definitely read, you could talk to people, you can watch podcasts, you can go to groups, and you can learn there. And you get the principles, right? But you don't really learn until you are in the trenches and you're making mistakes and you're making successes, and you know, you're you actually have people around you that you're leading. So I would say, you know, it's both. Just just get started on both fronts. The biggest thing that I always say is, you know, if you're new and you're just bringing on a team, don't don't let or don't try to pretend that you're know it all, that you know exactly what's happening, or know exactly what to do with your people. I very routinely will tell my directors, you know way more about this than I do. So I'm gonna have you take the lead here. Even some of our support people, right? I I am not in support anymore. They know more in their domain than I do. So I will 100% say, you know more about this than me. This is your expertise. Please, you tell me what to do. So humility is really what I what it's boiled down to. Don't don't worry about standing up there and being the the big boss that you know you have to be strong, you have to know all the answers. No, don't don't do that. It you you're just a human, just like anybody else. You know, just just just be like that. You still need to be the boss and you still need to be the authority, but you can be open and honest about where you're really at.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

That's a fantastic point because many times business owners, we think we don't want our we don't we don't want that imposter syndrome, like we don't want our people to think we don't know what we're doing. But to your point, most people will respect you more if you say, I don't know, right? Instead of a know it all, you know, so that's a great point. Come into it with humility, and great leaders can admit I don't know, or I was wrong. One or the you know, either of those is great. So I I love that

What OnTheClock Actually Does

SPEAKER_00 30:10

point. Well, let's talk about on the clock because that affects the bottom line, right? Once we have employees, we've talked about employees now. How do we manage them? How do we make sure that their time is being tracked correctly and that our company is profitable? Because if they didn't know already, usually for most companies, payroll is your biggest expense. So let's talk about your software and how it helps and why they need it.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

I'd love to, and thank you for the opportunity, Michael. So on the clock really started as time tracking only. So clock in, clock out automatically generates your time cards. No more manually adding times, trying to figure out time and a half over time. We handle all the PTO requests. The employees can just jump on their phone or on their computer, clock in, clock out. If they would like to do PTO requests for you know, sick time or vacation time, they can do it right there. Their boss would get it, approve it. The the boss can then you know view those time cards. They we now have payroll. You can run payroll right inside of our product. We have a scheduling component, and they're really cool. So employee scheduling. So if you have chip scheduling or different job scheduling, you can add all of your team in there, and then they can see their schedule right there on the phone or right there on the computer. And then one of the things that we're working on right now, which we're already started in, is some HR tools. So our goal is for really anybody that's one to 100 employee range. I mean, we could definitely, and even now we have some teams that are thousands of people, but the one to 100, our goal is to handle the people stack for for any small business for just a few dollars a month. You know, going back to even we were talking about bringing your people on and having a good culture and you know, the ability for them to thrive. You know, one of the things that you need for your people is a system for your people, sticky notes, spreadsheets, you know, files in a file cabinet, that's those are not that's not good. Our goal is to build on the clock, and we're about three-quarters of the way there, you know, working. We still have the 16,000 customers, you know, keep, you know, that's for sure. But to get to the point over the next year or so where we start to build on all the additional HR functions. When I say HR functions, these are things like employee of record, you know, when did they start? Are there any disciplinary actions that you need to record? It has a lot to do with compliance. We have, you know, your employee directories, emergency contacts, meeting recordings. So some any any tool that a small business owner would need to manage or lead their people, I should say, would be built into our system. And that that's that's what we provide for small businesses. So we've really evolved a lot from just the time tracking to really that four-pillar system, which is now scheduling, time tracking, payroll. Uh, those three are in place. And then the HR portion, which at this point I'd say is about 25% done. Over the next year, the rest of it'll be done. So yeah, people stack, take care of your people. You know, that's what a product like on the clock is for.

Payroll Peace Through Simple Design

SPEAKER_00 33:35

So I know a lot of people are frightful of entering uncharted waters, I guess you could say. And payroll is one of them. So we have taxes, we have quarterly, we have state, we have federal. So does it take care of all just take all that off your plate so that you 100% fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

And we actually have people that answer the phone when you call. No, yes, yes, yes, 27 people you have are not AI bots. Oh, two rings, and you get a and if if for some reason we miss your call, it's the the callback is within minutes. Um, so that is one place we will want with AI coming. That's great. I am no problem with AI, but I have zero intention of replacing the our people that help your people, our customers' people, with with AI, robots, you know. We're gonna leverage it, of course, to make our jobs better, easier, to make it better for the customer. But yeah, that's really important to us.

SPEAKER_00 34:39

Fantastic. So on the software, does it kind of come with? Well, let me use the analogy of I know I mentioned earlier about people trying to take on accounting themselves because QuickBooks, great platform, not saying anything negative about it, but it it kind of presents itself as you can do it if you even don't know accounting, which I don't necessarily agree with that. Maybe if you're a solopreneur, maybe doing a thousand dollars a month, maybe you could get by it's a hobby, but when you have a real business with real employees, it's best left to a professional. So, does your software is it on that professional level where it just like guides you and directs you and where they can just sleep at night knowing that things are taken care of? Because I know that's a big concern is employees. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

Yeah, Michael, and you hit it square on the head. QuickBooks, great product, but honestly, uh, most small businesses that have QuickBooks actually have a professional that runs the QuickBooks for them. Yeah. So contrast that to us, simple and easy were really two of the principal words that when we built the software have stayed true. I am CEO, but I'm also product director, which means that anything that ever goes into our website or our phone apps or anything that a customer would ever touch runs through me. So I'm super passionate about product. And my kind of tagline is that I will fight to get one less click or one less, one less thing that somebody has to do. Like that, you know, the easy button, remember the staple thing had it. Ultimately, if I could design our software, there'd just be one button right in the middle that just says get it done. We're working towards that. But the reality is is within, and we've timed this, Michael, within like three or four minutes. If you're prepared, you can actually have your account set up with us, tracking time, doing scheduling. Payroll is a little bit little more, and we have professionals, payroll people here that are our people that guide you through that process. They're they're phenomenal. They get it, they get things done in hours sometimes. But but yeah, easy, simple, those are really our founding, some of our founding principles, and we still very much hold true to that today. We did a word cloud of all of our reviews a few years back, and the word cloud is you know, the bigger, the more popular words stick out and they're bigger. Yeah, the three words were easy, time, clock. Yeah, that was when we were more about time tracking, but yeah, easy that people, our customers said easy. So yeah, in the reviews.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

I love that. Well, I know that we have listeners all around the world. We're we are in Oklahoma City in the United States. Where does it is it just for United States businesses or is it expand further than that?

SPEAKER_01 37:44

We yeah, we can we can service worldwide the I would say really 98% of our customers are here in the states, and and that's what we focused on. So, you know, we are we're we're not uh we might one day just what happens, but we're not focused at all on going global or other countries. We're really focused on the US workforce and the U.S. small businesses, and we built our products specifically for them.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

Fantastic. Well, I know you and I could just keep on going, but due to time, we have to cut it somewhere. But I know other people want to learn more, not just about on the clock, but about you, because you consult people, you love to help people, so you're also a resource, a helpful person. How can someone follow you? Or do you have blogs or are you on other social channels?

SPEAKER_01 38:37

Yeah, I mean, there's lots of places, probably the easiest place, LinkedIn. I mean, most people in my realm are there. So you go to LinkedIn, just search for me, Dean Matthews 1T, in the last name, and uh connect with me. Yeah, I'd love to connect with anybody. I I'm you know, if you're a small business owner, a CEO, an owner, a manager, you know, yeah, hit me up. I get people all the time, I chat back and forth, questions. Heck, I ask a lot of questions too. So yeah, and definitely podcasts. I love being on podcasts like like yours, Michael. It's great. Helping to spread the knowledge. That's that's my biggest thing. And so LinkedIn's probably the best place, yeah. And then our product is just on the clock.com, or you could search your app store for on the clock and you'll find us there. And you can open a free trial today.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

Fantastic.

Imposter Syndrome And Asking Help

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Well, I always end with a question. You mentioned questions. So I know for a lot of business owners, we're afraid to ask for help, and it could be for a multiple number of reasons from maybe humility, maybe I'm embarrassed, maybe I don't want to open the curtain and you know that kind of stuff. Do you have any words of encouragement for business owners just from your experiences? Because I know when I started my business, I didn't want to ask for help, I didn't want to expose my weaknesses. I wanted everybody to think I had everything going, but there came a point where I'm like, I got I gotta ask for help. Can you kind of encourage our listeners? Like, if you're feeling this, do this or whatever, it could be your thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

I'll super quick story imposter syndrome. You mentioned that earlier. I've heard about that for decades, right? I I had it, I still sometimes had it, I'll be honest. Friend of mine, very, very, very successful CEO in the insurance industry. I'd known him, he was a client of mine 25, 30 years ago. Known him, became really good friends. He ended up selling, cashed out huge. Still talked to him, you know, a couple times a month. I was asking him, I said, Did you ever have imposter syndrome? And I thought for sure he was gonna say no. I've seen this guy stand up in front of thousands of people and give keynote addresses, and you know, and he says, Are you kidding me? He says, I have it every day. He says, That's my worst enemy, is my imposter syndrome. I just have this feeling that keeps telling me that I'm not qualified, I'm not good enough. And you know, and he's had for 30 years, and you know, he ran through this looking like that. Not that not that he was faking it by any means, but along the way, what he said, he says, I felt that way. But what I did is I would go out and ask people about what I should do in this situation. He said, I had to practice humility, I had to exercise it. It's like a muscle almost. I had to exercise my humility to start asking those questions to overcome that imposter syndrome. That you know, he says he still has it even now. So, but point is we're all the same, guys. You know, Michael, Dean, listeners, we're just people, we're not perfect, you know, we have self-doubt. Every single one of us has the same thing. So just ask your questions, don't just be honest, and you would be surprised at how many people were like, I can't, you know, I'm so happy you said that because I had the same question. You know, I just was afraid to ask it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 42:05

That would be my story.

SPEAKER_01 42:07

Yeah, it's the same thing with all you mean. I'm not the only one. Thanks for asking because now I feel better. Yes, yeah, so yeah, we're all in the same boat. Practice that humility muscle and just start admitting it and asking questions.

SPEAKER_00 42:24

Start small, yeah. Absolutely. You gotta start small. Don't think you can cram all this. The leadership, it's not about reading just one book and all of a sudden you're a great leader. Just take it in small increments and apply it as as you go. And over time you'll look back and go, Wow, look at me.

unknown 42:41

You know.

Final CTAs And Farewell

SPEAKER_00 42:43

So, well, you've been a blessing to many, and I appreciate you taking the time. You've shared a lot of great nuggets, and I wish you continued success. Amen to that, Michael, and you've been a blessing too. So thank you for that. My pleasure. Thanks for listening to Small Business Pivots. If you're ready to get unstuck and grow, schedule your free coaching session at michaeldmorrison.com. On social media, you can find and connect with me using the handle Michael D.Morrison OKC. And if today's episode helped you, subscribe and share it with other business owners. Until next week, keep pivoting.