How to Scale Your Small Business Without Breaking Payroll | Eric Tabone

Growing your business sounds exciting—until it's time to hire.

For many small business owners, payroll becomes the biggest obstacle to growth. Do you hire now and risk cash flow, or wait too long and become the bottleneck in your own business?

In this episode of Small Business Pivots, host Michael D. Morrison sits down with entrepreneur Eric Tabone to discuss how growing businesses can build stronger teams, make smarter hiring decisions, and scale without letting payroll become the reason growth stalls.

Drawing from his experience building multiple companies across the United States and Latin America, Eric shares practical lessons about hiring, leadership, AI, role design, compensation, company culture, and why successful business owners hire to solve problems—not simply to fill positions.

You'll discover why defining the purpose of every role matters, how to avoid costly hiring mistakes, when it's time to add employees, how AI should support—not replace—your team, and why leaders should build around their weaknesses instead of trying to do everything themselves.

Whether you're preparing to hire your first employee or trying to build a team that can help your business scale, this episode offers practical advice every business owner can apply immediately.

In This Episode

✔ Why payroll is often the biggest obstacle to business growth

✔ How to know when it's time to hire

✔ The biggest hiring mistakes business owners make

✔ Why every position should be built around solving a specific problem

✔ How AI improves teams without replacing people

✔ Why leadership is earned—not assigned

✔ Lessons learned from building three companies

✔ How remote and nearshore employees can reduce payroll costs while expanding your team

Transcript

Welcome And Eric’s Colombia Story

SPEAKER_01 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 we have special guests from around the world and we have a special guest from around the world literally today. But if you've listened to the show, you know that no one can introduce themselves and their business like the business owner. So, Eric, my friend, I let you do the honors of introducing yourself. Share with us for those that don't know Eric, maybe some back-end stories and some upbringing so that we can get kind of caught up where you are today.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Awesome. Hey, Michael, thanks so much for the invite. I'm really happy to be here. Yeah, so I'm originally from the Dallas Fort Worth area in Texas. And long story short, about 17 years ago, I went traveling through Central and South America, and I ended up arriving to Bogota, Columbia, which is at the top of South America. And I ended up staying. I never meant to stay here as long as I am, but 17 years later, I'm still here. I built a couple of companies along the road. So I have a lot of war stories about building SMBs, building companies, building teams that we'll probably dive into. And then today, as I mentioned, I'm still in Bogota, Colombia, one of the most gorgeous cities in the world. But I specifically help business owners hire people across Latin America. And it's a pretty cool model in what we do. We we allow them to hire remote workers, oftentimes saving 50, 60% salary compared to what it would cost in the United States. And so we work through a variety of roles. And yeah, very happy to be here having the time of my life. So let's go.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Fantastic. Just from that smile, it looks like you are.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Yeah, yeah. It's great. And you know, just kind of on a personal side, yeah, I'm out of Colombia, and I always tell people two things. Everything about Colombia, you probably know, is wrong because Hollywood hasn't done us any favors. And so I'll give a quick parenthesis. Colombia is safe. Colombia is an absolutely gorgeous country. Um, and the number two, kind of piggybacking off that second aspect, I always say no country should be as gorgeous as Colombia is. I love it. It's not, it's not fair. It is not fair at all. But I'm going to take advantage of this beauty. And and yeah, it's just it's just a great place to live.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

That's awesome. Well, appreciate you sharing that. Uh, because you're you're right. Hollywood does not paint a pretty picture of Columbia. So that's interesting to know. I

Why Payroll Makes Growth Hard

SPEAKER_01 2:47

love that. Well, let's let's deep dive into this because I know our listeners are mostly business owners, and one of the biggest expenses in a business is payroll, right? So you can get it right or we can get it wrong. It can cost us a lot of a lot of money or it can save us a lot of money. We can be more efficient. And so there are kind of, I would say, steps to take. So, where would you like to start with as for employees? Would you like to go through the process of when to hire them, how to hire them, or where would you like to dive in? You're the expert.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Yeah, sounds

US Vs Offshore Vs Nearshore

SPEAKER_00 3:22

great. Why don't I just give a general overview on how we kind of look at hiring and start walking people through and how different models and how they could apply this to their business? So, yeah, you're exactly right. I'm a business owner, I'm on my third company, and payroll has always been the biggest expense that, at least within my companies, I've had, and I'm sure quite a few people listening is a very similar situation. So when you're hiring, especially if you're a US company, you pretty much have three options on how you could hire and bid out your team. Number one, you hire in the United States. For a lot of roles, this is needed and this is expected for whatever the reason may be. But then at the same time, you're going to be paying US salaries. We all know that inflation is through the roof. Oftentimes that you know costs just keep going up and up and up. And to hire that extra person may not create the ROI or may not be able to produce the returns that business owners are looking for. So then when they need to start figuring out how they can fill this role without paying, you know, these US salaries that sometimes are a bit more inflated than they should be, you have two different options. You could go offshore, and that means where you actually go to Asia, so Philippines, India, to hire people, or you could go near shore. Near shore is what I do, and that means you're hiring in Latin America. Both pros and cons, but near shore, when you think of hiring Latin America, it's great because you're hiring people that are on the same time zones, not that far away, you know, from Bogota back to Dallas Fort Worth, it's a five-hour flight. So you get there in just a few hours. Uh, and then on a cultural side, Latin America, and so when you think of Latin America, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina, culturally speaking, they're all aligned. Why? They grew up looking and watching US shows, watching what the US was doing. They grew up on friends and people often comment about that. And so those roots on how people were brought up, culturally, they're well aligned. So it's easy to start building your team near shore or across Latin America. And then the nice thing about Latin America is you're gonna hire most roles and save quite a bit of money. And so the one stat I'll just kind of throw out there that I find absolutely fascinating is whatever you want to hire in the US for, cut that salary in half, and you could probably find that in Latin America for that amount. So just have to think about that for a

Best Roles To Hire In LatAm

SPEAKER_00 5:35

sec.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

Can you give us some examples of some skill sets that one would hire for confidently in a near shore situation?

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Yeah, 100%. So we work in three main pillars. The first pillar, and this tends to be a bit more common, more for technology or tech companies, we do quite a few tech roles, whether those are engineers, developers, automation specialists, operations coordinators, anything that has to do with building and creating some type of technical product. If you're on the tech side, the second pillar that comes up quite a bit, and this is where I see one of the biggest cost savings, is anything with client facing. When I say client facing, what I mean, you have people cold calling to book meetings, you have account executives, customer service, customer success. Anything that you need people dealing with people to build that relationship, that's one of the most successful things we have seen over the past year or so. And the cold caller or appointment center, that is probably one of the most requested roles we place. And we probably do anywhere from 20 to 30 BDRs or cold callers a month. And their only job is to take leads and call people and try to get the owner or an account executive or a sales lead on a call with them so they can actually sell and move things forward. And then the third thing that I think is very important to say it is a bit more broad, but I call it the services category. So, what do I mean by that? When I talk about services, executive assistant, you know, analyst, financial accounting, back office, any type of things that you need that are done within the services, it would kind of fall into that pillar to an extent.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

So are these similar to a VA or are these actual employees?

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Yeah, great question. So when you think of a VA or virtual assistant, this is somebody who pretty much takes tasks and execute task. We can do that, but more often than not, where people are going to see the savings is when they actually find people or roles that give them the capabilities to hire and do their job. So they do become full-time employees, and our motto is pretty straightforward. We go out and help find the best people to work with our specific client or company, and then the company hires them. And you can hire them as a 1099 contractor, you can hire them as an employee or anywhere in between. And so they become an extension of your team and they're actually doing what you need. And the only difference is they're styling in from a different country. And more often than not, you're not even going to notice.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

So when we're talking about business growth, you mentioned roles. So

Build Roles Backward From Goals

SPEAKER_01 8:10

if you're growing a business, which you have, multiple businesses, can you talk about the structure your business really needs? Because I know a lot of business owners, they get themselves in trouble by overstaffing. They go, Oh, I need someone to answer the phone. And they hire a full-time person to sit there. And they're like, Well, Lulu never does anything. All she does is sit there and wait for the, you know. So can you talk about how to structure that before you start just hiring for these specific tasks?

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Yeah, exactly. So yeah, as mentioned, this is my third company. And I I kind of joke, I have a lot of horror stories to prove it. And that's that's I lost all my hair because of that. So for those watching, you can see I'm a very, very bald guy. But when you are trying to grow companies, grow or maintain or sustain. I mean, the first thing I would say, especially if you're gonna start staffing, the owner or or whoever's hiring has to sit down and really think through what does this role accomplish? What is the main goal? So if the only goal is to answer the phones, my question would be well, then what type of call volume do you have to warrant somebody only answering the phones? And so I'll give you a very good example. I'm gonna go back to the cold caller because once again, this is one of the most common roles. So a problem we see quite a bit or challenge that companies have, they say, an owner will come and say, I need more appointments. Okay. So then I'll ask like, well, why do you need more appointments? So I can sell. Okay, cool. So what are you currently doing to get more appointments? Oh, we do some Google ads. Okay. Well, do you have some leads or contacts you could call? Yeah, but I don't have time. Great. Ching ching. We just identified it. And so suddenly they have identified that they have, let's say, 1,000 companies that they could call and they know that this role they could hire, and one person would own their only job is to call 1,000 companies every month to book appointments for the owner or for the sales executive or VP of sales, however, it's set to get them on the phone. So when you are gonna staff and grow up, I always say, think realistically, what is the goal of this role? And then we start to work backwards and reverse engineer it and develop and build up that role.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

I'm sure you've piqued the interest of business owners because sales is also just as important as employees. But for example, I I bet some listeners are going, well, I wonder how much they would cost. So are you paying them like an employee salary or hourly wage, or are you paying commission for those sales setters?

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Yeah,

BDR Pay, Base Plus Commission

SPEAKER_00 10:34

great question. So I'll specifically is just stay on the BDR or the sales appointment cold caller, because like I said, I think this is a role that companies are in constant need of. So you usually have two ways to hire, but the most common is that you would bring them on as a 1099. 1099 for those who aren't familiar is pretty much as a contractor. So you're not paying the full statutory benefits, but you are paying them a full-time salary to work and execute their job. BDR cold calls on general, I'm seeing them go in the market. You're paying around $24,000 a year, which is at least half of what you would pay somebody in the US. And then I always say, and this is the most important aspect. So for those listening, listen to this part and take notes. But anybody who goes into sales never takes the job for a base salary. They go in for the commissions. And so I always say you have to structure a compensation plan that motivates them to go out and sell more. And I always say if you're paying them $24K a year for a base salary, ideally they're going to be doubling that salary with their commissions and bonuses. But on the other side of that, they're hopefully bringing the the you or the company owner or the VP of sales an extra couple hundred thousand dollars a year or however it's structured. And then I always say, who cares how much you're paying them if they're tripling, quadrupling, 10 times, 10 Ecky, 10, 10 timing your revenue and helping the company grow. And that's how you structure that and make that that work.

Two Costly Founder Lessons

SPEAKER_01 12:00

So you moved from the US to where you're at. With did you have business experience moving there, or you just happened to start getting into entrepreneurship?

SPEAKER_00 12:12

So I studied finance in the US, and I was thankful. Now I can say thankful in the moment it wasn't, but I graduated in 2008, and I'm sure a lot of people remember 2008 was not a good time to be a college grad, much less a finance grad.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

And the economy was collapsing.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

It was it was collapsing. Like finance was like the last rule that they were hiring for. And so I went traveling and I arrived to Columbia, you know, when I was 24 years old. I had very little work experience. I mean, I had the typical college experience. I waited tables, I did restaurants, things like that. But actually, building a company, I had no idea what I'm doing. And I still don't know what I'm doing half the time, but I I I think everybody can kind of relate to that. But that's a part of building a company where you you figure things out, you look at a problem and you keep trialing and airing and just testing over and over until you get it to work.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

So we do have a lot of I would say early stage business owners. With you having now being on your third business, in that first business, you said you had a lot of things to figure out. What were some of those things that you just found like, oh, and that you could share with others that they may be facing the same thing, but they're stuck and they don't know what to do?

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Yeah, I there's there's two things that I I talk about quite a bit, and they're two very costly lessons I learned by make the wrong mistakes. So I hope everybody learns from this and doesn't make the same mistakes I did.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

I think the first one, and and I don't know if you see this quite a bit, but I see it quite often when people are trying to start companies or getting going, they get blocked or they don't move forward instead of actually just executing and actioning. And so, for example, what I mean by that, I remember especially my first couple of years, I would overthink things and I would want everything to be perfect before I actually started to go out and do it. And there's a phenomenal book out there called The Lean Startup, and all that's talking about the lean startup, it applies not only to startups, but just to any companies. But the whole idea is you go out there and you you do the minimum viable product and you get out there and you just move, you just execute. It doesn't have to be perfect, and then you gauge and see what the interest is, and then you make the changes. And so this could be applied to anything. I mean, if you're trying to figure out what your company is, create your MVP and go out and see who responds. If you're trying to figure out how to sell but you don't know how, just try something. And you're good, as long as you're trying and actioning, you're gonna get that real-time feedback and be able to adjust as things come in. That's lesson one. The second one, and what I would say for those who possibly already have a company going, they have some revenue coming in, figure out what you're good at, and then hire for the people to complement your weakness. And this one took me a very, very long time to figure out um, I'm there's a lot of things I'm not good at. And so third time around, I knew what that was, and I brought in the team very quickly, and I celebrate my weakness and hire for other people's strengths to complement my weakness. And when you do that, it's just a lot more fun. And you just you just do, yeah, I'm sure you've seen that too.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Absolutely, because then you don't have to do everything, and so for a lot of business owners, they're kind of stuck in that cycle of I don't know that I can really afford an employee, but I need an employee. You know, and so at what point did you kind of was there like a a point where you're like, okay, it's time, or are you just like, I can't do this anymore? So you just hired somebody.

When Eric Finally Started Hiring

SPEAKER_00 15:56

So on my third company third company, this current company, this is a recruitment company. So for full transparency, I remember when I kicked this company off. This was we're about a little over two years old. And I'm sure a lot of people are gonna be able to relate to this, but the first six months were brutal. But I just kept showing up, and it was just me, those first six months. And I often say, in all my companies, I've always been the best sales executive, I've always been the best bathroom cleaner, and anything in between. On the this third company, I knew after the first six months, I started to have some traction. And then about three or four months later is when I started to bring on people to help me with certain tasks that I wasn't good at. And I got to a point where I saw, okay, my revenue allows me to still pay myself a salary, bring food, put food on the table, but I had enough left over, and I use that leftover to start building out and growing the team. And so my first hire for this company was April 2025. And now we are at 15 people total within the company. And we're at a rate, we're growing. I just keep seeing gaps where I can't fill. And I know that if I hire somebody today, I'm not gonna lose money on them, but I'm using extra revenue and they're gonna start producing in two or three months. And so I'm doing that as a growth strategy. So for those who might be at a point like, when do when do I hire? I mean, the simple thing I would say is well, number one, does your company have traction? Number two, do you have the finances to at least start entertaining the idea? And hiring in Latin America could be in part of a big benefits because you're saving quite a bit of money with that.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Yeah, so

How To Avoid A Bad Hire

SPEAKER_01 17:36

yeah. Well, when people hire, they can also hire problems. So, what are some good insights that you can share of how to find that right employee for you?

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Yeah, so when you're hiring, there's a couple of different ways you've got to think through. I will say, no matter how good somebody is at hiring, people are still gonna make mistakes. And so I say that because it's important to recognize when you do bring somebody on, you have clear what do those first few weeks look like. Week one check-in, week two, week three. And you're usually gonna know within a month that that person is gonna work out or not. After a month, I mean, every now and then something crazy might happen. But I think as a as a small business owner or or anybody who's working in a leadership role, making sure you have very clear what are those deliverables for those first few weeks, and it's black or white. There's no gray. It's like either yes or no. And if they don't hit the first week, hey, quick warning don't hit it second time, they're out, and you find the new person, you keep moving in. So you don't get to a point where you're six months in and you're like, hey, Betty hasn't done anything over the past six months, and I just lost this amount of money. So, and when you set that up, it's just black and white, and all you got to do is execute.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

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.

AI Helps Teams, Humans Verify

SPEAKER_01 19:11

Well, there's this big term that a lot of people are using. It's all in the news, and that's called AI. So what are your thoughts on those that are trying to go at it alone using AI to fulfill those tasks versus have having a person on staff? Because you you mentioned you have about 15 employees now, which actually a good sized company. So what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Yeah, so we use quite a bit of AI in organization. And the first thing I always say, AI isn't here to replace humans. AI is to help you humans do their job better and become more efficient and effective. So good use of AI removes any barriers, removes any administrative or repetitive tasks that you can't automate. So if somebody's out there trying to do this with AI and they're having success, great, keep going. But there should always be a human element or human verification before an output is either sent to a client or makes a decision or however it's being used. I'll give a very good example of how I use AI with my team. As recruiters, my recruiters, that one of the biggest time constraints they have to do is they spend time speaking with people over and over again to find the right people to place them within companies. Once they finish that conversation, we then have to build the profile. The profile is when we go to a client and say, Hey, Michael, we just met with Pedro. We think he's perfect, and this is why. And we create a profile, two, three-page document explaining strengths, weaknesses, links to their videos so you could get to know them. That profile creation takes time. Up until about a year ago, that was just a true recruiter probably would spend 30, 45 minutes per profile that we would submit. So if my recruiters are sending 20 profiles a week, that's about 15 hours, just an administrative part. This is where AI comes in. Now, our AI, what it does as soon as somebody gets off of the interview, it automatically creates a profile and is delivered to the recruiter's inbox in five minutes. But that profile isn't ready to send until the the recruiter or human actually verifies and ensures everything is fine and everything's correct. AI makes mistakes, and so that's where humans come in versus AI. Humans should always, always, always verify any output from AI before sending off or executing based on that output.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

I agree. And for those that use AI a lot, I can't tell you how many times I want to fire my AI from time to time. And so, and the reason I'm piggybacking what you said because I know a lot of business owners they just let it do its thing and then they're just like send. Well, I'm one of those that believe like you do. It's like you need to read every single Word, make sure it includes everything, you know, just some look at it because I've seen where you're like on a roll with it and you think it's doing everything it's supposed to, and then all of a sudden it like starts talking in some different language or something for no reason, and trying to get it back on track takes a minute. So 100%.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

And and this happened just yesterday. For those who are listening who enjoy doing this, I was in quad code, which is an option of quad to help bid out something, and it was going and building out the platform I needed, but on day two is still building, which means it was hallucinating, and that's where the human comes in. You can't just type it and expect it to execute. I just had to hey, stop, pull it out, let's take a breather, and then we restart. And yeah, you just gotta learn how to balance that. And but yeah, yeah, 100%. Humans always have to verify.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

Well, that I'm gonna date this because this is Q3 2026. I know there's a lot of business owners that still aren't quite on board. In fact, there's still business owners that haven't even searched on AI, right? They're not even using a simple prompt and chat GPT or anything. How important do you think that is that business owners need to start learning this? I know I have my opinion, but what is yours?

SPEAKER_00 23:10

I think I saw a statistic recently, and don't quote me on these exact numbers, but AI is in the news and everybody's talking about it. But in actuality, in reality, less than 1% of companies are actually using it. So, what I would say for those companies who are not using it, now's the time to start looking at it and experimenting with it. Because the companies that start to use it now will be on track to continue to use it and improve and get better. And it doesn't have to be complicated. And so these automations I'm talking about, this is something because I'm a dork and I just like looking at this stuff. And I also have somebody on my team who helps me do this. Nobody needs to go to that level, but I would say start off with get in ChatGPT, get in Claude, and start playing around and seeing what you could do with it. And then where it starts to get really interesting, and this kind of goes back to one of your questions about how do you structure it for growth and hiring, think about your process and think about the operations and what goes behind. And so when you have your process clear, you know that to service this client or to execute this job is step one, two, three, four, five, put that in writing, and then you can start to brainstorm and see how and if it's even possible that AI might be able to help you with that just to execute and be better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

Yeah, we're we're on the same page. In fact, I saw a report that less than one percent similar to you were using the paid versions. And I think I think the report I saw was there's still like 80 something percent of people that's never even typed a search in AI. And the reason I share that is, and you kind of piggyback on that because if you want to be an early adapter business owners, get on board, like get ahead of everybody, like this is your chance. Like, don't get don't fall behind like back in the dot-com days where everybody just get, oh, that's not a thing. That's not because it is a thing for those that use it, like yourself and me, it's like it's not going away.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

Yeah, exactly right. It is a thing. And and what I would say, I'm gonna go back to AI is not here to replace people, but the companies who don't embrace it, I do think there are gonna be challenges in in a few years. And but I would also kind of clarify this isn't something to be scared of. Don't stress out about it. If you're not don't stress out about it, if you're not used to it, it's not too late. And it is a lot of fun. Get in there and just just play with it. And I remember I started playing with it in 2023 when it was first coming out, and I I uh I remember I'd be playing with it for hours upon hours, and my wife would have to come in and remind me. And she's like, Eric, it's 10 p.m. time to turn off. I'm like, oh what? So it is just just get in explore and have fun with it.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

Yeah, absolutely.

Pivots That Kept Businesses Alive

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Well, you mentioned this is your third business. So the show is small business pivots, which we talk about pivots that business owners have made that they could share with others. Were there any in those businesses, pivots that you've made that you're like, yes, that saved my my world?

SPEAKER_00 26:08

Yeah, several. So my first company was this is kind of where I started to really learn about hiring. We were a language, corporate language language training provider across Latin America. So we were based out of Colombia, but what we were doing, we were teaching English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese to companies and corporate executives around that particular America. And I mean the biggest bit of it, and I'm sure everybody remembers this, is when the pandemic hit. We were doing in-class, in-person training. And I remember in a matter of days, we had an everybody had a lockdown, but I remember specifically in in Colombia, we had military lockdowns because they were trying to control the virus. And so we couldn't leave at all our our houses or places for a couple months. And so I mean, just think, imagine our entire business model, we had to quickly pivot and move over to virtual. And now it's not complicated because we've been living in a virtual world. But in 2020, we didn't we rarely use Zoom, nobody used Google Meet. Like it was just a very different time and having to pivot and think on our feet to an extent saved that company from not going bankrupt. And so that was that was a very, very big pivot. My second company I started when I left the language, a corporate language training company. I left that because I had a great team and I pretty much stepped away and they they still continue to run it. Second pivot, I went to a completely different industry. I started a boutique consulting firm doing go-to-market consulting. Go to market is it's just fancy words for saying, How do you sell? And that was a pretty big pivot because I mean I went from running a 50-60 person company to a one-man, and then and then here I'm with the third company. So yeah, it's it's it's constant pivoting. It sometimes feels like juggling and wearing many hats as an entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Well, you've had a lot of employees, and leadership is key to retaining those employees.

Leadership With Empathy Over Control

SPEAKER_01 28:05

Do you have any insights on how to be a better leader?

SPEAKER_00 28:10

You know, a concept I use, and I always tell people on their first day, number one, I'm not their boss. I mean, technically, yes, but I don't like the word boss. And I always tell people, I hope I earn the right for you to call me a leader in the future. But as a leader, I have to earn that right and I have to show my team how to do that. Now that took me a good 10, 12 years to learn. I think even now I'm still learning. But as a leader, I mean, how do you do it? You lead with empathy, lead with uh the genuine like love for what you do. And when you start to learn and lead from that that aspect, you're you're on you're on a boat and everybody's rowing harder because they want to, not because you're yelling. And I think that's the difference between a boss and a leader.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

Agree. Agree. Well, you've started the three businesses, and so most of the time they they start differently. But if you started a fourth company, what would you do first? Like, what are some of the steps that you've learned that you're like, I would do this, then this, then this? Because there's some companies and business owners that reach out to us, they're a decade or more old and they're still operating like they were on day one.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

And you can't get unstuck.

Start With The Problem You Solve

SPEAKER_00 29:21

I think you know, something I did for this third company, and and I feel like I'm actually doing this third company right. First two, I did it. Third time's a charm. But one thing I did, and I tell a lot of people this is like figure out what problem you're actually solving before you do anything. And this is this, like this is where it gets really like it just sit down. And I don't care how you do it, I don't care if you go lock yourself in an office for a day, you go on a you go, I don't know, on a road trip, but just think through what is the challenge or what is the problem you're solving. Because I guarantee you, if you figure out what that problem is, you aren't selling. And when you're solving somebody's problem, you're saying, I'm here to help you. So, hey, Michael, you need to hire 10 people. You don't, you can't afford them. Let me help you with that. I could hire, I could help you build that 10 person team for less than half of what what you're actually budgeting. And so selling, I'm not selling anything, I'm just helping take away the biggest headache you have. And when you think through that, you could solve that. You're somebody's guardian angel and you're never selling anything.

SPEAKER_01 30:28

Absolutely. No, that's that's a great, great tip because there's still businesses today that don't even know who their ideal client is, right? When you ask them, they're just like, well, anybody that needs blah blah blah. And it's like, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

It doesn't work that way. Yeah, and and thinking about like the ideal client or ideal client profile ICP, that's something else uh you hit it right right on the head because I think this is so important. And even people are currently running companies, your ideal client, that's something I'm thinking and refreshing every three months. And so, whatever your company is now, that's something you always got to be going back and thinking, refining and trying to figure out where the challenges and pain points are. And I don't have a lot of changes every three months, but it's something I'm constantly doing and thinking about. And everybody now and then I'm gonna have a small tweak, small change. And because that I have my ICT so clear, I'm able to quickly identify and I can visualize my ideal clients and I understand their feelings, their frustrations, and their pains. And that's what all company owners should do.

Where To Follow Eric Online

SPEAKER_01 31:34

I know a lot of people probably want to learn more. I don't know if you do blogs or podcasts or YouTube or anything. Is there a place where people can follow you, learn more, get some more information?

SPEAKER_00 31:44

Yeah, absolutely. I'm very public on LinkedIn. So if you're out there, look for Eric or Tabone. Just look for the bald guy who looks kind of funny in his profile photo. I publish a lot there. I also do a lot of podcasts, which I also publish on LinkedIn. And then if anybody just wants to learn a bit more about Latin America or maybe talk through some of your challenges, reach out. The website's pretty straightforward, near shore business solutions. You could find me on Google, any Chat GPT, Claude as well. So yeah, I reach out because I'm very passionate about Latham and would love to share what I'm seeing and what's working out there.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

Well, you encourage everybody to come to the to your place in the world. Do you put people up for the night?

SPEAKER_00 32:27

I put people up for the night. It's a five-star hotel. You're also gonna get get breakfast in bed served by me. So you're I'm gonna wake you up at 5 a.m. A ball guy's gonna run in and bring you breakfast and bed. So yeah, and yeah, just Bogota, Columbia, everyone out there, it's one of the most gorgeous countries out there. Put it on, put it on the map and come visit whenever you can.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

It sounds like it. It's definitely on on my map. So I know a lot of times I've been on podcasts, and there's a few things that I'd still like to dive deep into. And usually I end with a question, but I'm just gonna ask you, there's so much involved with employees, right? We have personalities, we have leadership, we have payroll, all that stuff. Is there anything that we didn't cover that you feel like might be beneficial for our listeners to hear?

SPEAKER_00 33:11

Yeah, just I mean, a couple of things to wrap it up. I I would say, you know, for those who are out there thinking about hiring or growing teams, Latin America could be a good option. I'm not gonna say it's the best. It depends on your situation, but think through it, and that's something I'm happy to do. And then, you know, when you think about payroll and culture, what I would say is hiring internationally, it's much easier than it's much easier than anybody expects. And I often say if you're in Oklahoma and you want to hire somebody in Texas, the complications are just the same as if you're in Oklahoma and you want to hire somebody in that America. And those are things that I pretty straightforward that I can always walk people through. And then from a cultural aspect and leadership, just just just be a leader, lead with empathy and have fun. Life is short. None of us are getting out here alive. So enjoy the ride. Enjoy the ride.

SPEAKER_01 33:57

Absolutely. All good stuff. Well, you've been a blessing to many today, Eric. I appreciate your time and insights and wish you continued continued success.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

Well, thank you so much, hey Michael. It's been such a great time on here and look forward to staying in contact and hopefully joining you again.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Absolutely, my pleasure.

Final Coaching Invite And Close

SPEAKER_01 34:17

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.