The 4 Systems You Need to Build a Remote Team That Actually Works with Eric Dingler

[00:00:00] Dustin: How do you build an effective team that gives you true freedom in your business? That's the question we're going to answer today with my special guest. My good friend, a client of mine, Eric Dingler. Uh, Eric and I go back, I guess at this point, a couple of years. He's been in our podcast profits accelerator.
[00:00:15] Dustin: I've seen and admired what he's done in business, what he is done with his family and, and being a digital nomad. I'm sure we're gonna get into all those things today. Uh, but we're really gonna focus on how he builds. Teams and how he helps entrepreneurs like me and like you build teams that actually give you freedom.
[00:00:31] Dustin: 'cause I can tell you that I have a lot of limiting beliefs about this and I've had some false starts with team building and it's been something that I've needed a lot of help with. And that's, uh, that's why I said, Eric, you should come on and teach us. 'cause he's doing an amazing job at this. So, Eric.
[00:00:45] Dustin: First of all, welcome man. I'm really grateful to have you as part of the show. And, uh, yeah, I'm gonna kinda give the mic to you and let you, uh, give us some of your backgrounds so we can kind of understand where you're coming from before we get into this whole team building thing we're gonna talk about today.
[00:00:58] Eric: All right, sounds good. Well, thanks, uh, [00:01:00] excited to be here. Excited to share. And I just right now off the top, just wanna say my favorite leader or topic to talk about pretty much, um, is. Yeah. And anything in any arena is leadership. Right? Um, I believe when, you know, we, we lead better, we live better. And so it, this all started, oh my goodness, 30 years ago.
[00:01:28] Eric: Um, I got hired very young, uh, younger than I should have been hired to run a summer camp. Hmm. And, uh, honestly, I was hired to close the camp down. That's what I was brought in to do. Um, and they thought, you know. I was gonna be the sacrificial, you know, goat, if you will, for this, this camp to be closed. Um, 15 years later, we left the camp.
[00:01:50] Eric: Uh, it was running strong and healthy. My first summer we had 150 campers and five staff. And uh, when I [00:02:00] left we had about a thousand campers. We were hiring, you know, 40, so staff and with the camp was running at 80% occupancy as a retreat center year round. Wow. That's
amazing. Yeah. And so it had a lot of fun with that left that went into local church, um, ministry.
[00:02:21] Eric: I was, so, it was a church camp and went into, uh, from there to a big mega church, um, as a campus pastor, and found out really quickly I was in the wrong seat. I, I, I, I am not wired to work for somebody. Mm-hmm. And so, uh, after a little over a year, my wife and I left there and went to Virginia to plant a church.
[00:02:44] Eric: And, uh, so we planted a church. It still runs. I was actually just meeting with the, the new, uh, I shouldn't say new anymore. He is been the pastor for five years, but. He's, uh, we, we installed a new pastor, uh, five years ago. Um, and [00:03:00] I still serve that church as an overseer, and so that's a lot of fun. And now we have a digital marketing agency that we stumbled into by accident.
[00:03:09] Eric: Um, and so through all of this, I've had to build teams in person teams. Now we're a fully remote team, a hundred percent remote team. At, at camp. The unique thing about camp was every summer I got to start all over. Hmm. You know, and so I got to experiment with wow, man, that, that didn't work. And, but I got through the eight weeks and then the next summer, you know, I'd gear up and interview and hire and onboard and, and lead and train and all of that.
[00:03:37] Eric: Um, so it was like having these 15 laboratory experiences for, for building a team, for leadership. And because of that, I. I, I, I'm always kind of a little surprised when I talk to somebody I, I forget that most people that have never hired before, um, or new to hiring it, it's, it's scary. There's a lot of stress with it.
[00:03:59] Eric: They're [00:04:00] overwhelmed by it, and I've hired hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people, and I'm just. No longer uncomfortable with it. So now I, I help people build and lead their teams.
[00:04:12] Dustin: I love it. Yeah. We're gonna get into the nitty gritty of how that works. 'cause I know one of your big beliefs, and one of the things that's been freeing for me is, you know, I, I'll butcher your own quote right in front of you, but effectively hiring is not a people problem.
[00:04:25] Dustin: It's a systems problem. Right. And if you have the right. Hiring system. It actually makes this a lot more fun, a lot more approachable, and it empowers you to actually get the right people so that you can lead them
and get, um, much better results for your business. And I want to get into that, but I think to give people better context about like why this matters so much to you.
[00:04:44] Dustin: Uh, you're actually sitting right now despite all of your, your, um. Early career being in the US and planting churches and summer camps. You're actually sitting in the UK and this is one of many places you sit to do podcast interviews. So tell us a little bit about your family and this, like this adventure that you're on right [00:05:00] now in this phase of your life.
[00:05:01] Eric: Uh, yeah. So for the last four years, my wife and I and our four, uh, official teenagers, our youngest turned 13, uh, two weeks ago. Uh, so we have four kids between 13 and 18. Uh, we've lived in 20 countries in the last four years as digital nomads. Wow. We have lived out of carry on luggage. Um. So extreme minimalist, and we've been having a great time.
[00:05:30] Eric: So we've slept in the depths of the Amazon jungle where we caught piranha and, and cooked them on a fire next to the Amazon River. And we've been to the top of the Eiffel Tower where we ate baguettes, and my wife
and I enjoyed a glass of wine. So, um, we've just been beyond. Blessed to be able to do this and do it with our kids.
[00:05:55] Eric: Yeah. Um, and so, uh, yeah, so that's, that's what we've been doing the [00:06:00] last few years. We are in a transition period to, to set down some roots now after four years. Um, but uh, yeah, we've had a great adventure.
[00:06:11] Dustin: What would you say in the theme of leadership? Uh, this is, this is a loaded question. You can go a lot of ways with this, but when you think about the last four years, and not only leading a family, but leading a family of.
[00:06:22] Dustin: What would've been a new teenager and all the way up until where the last one's a new teenager. Like that's a very, um, interesting time to raise children. I can speak from experience as, uh, someone with a 20-year-old, 18-year-old and 15-year-old. Uh, what would you say is like your, your top leadership takeaway from that being the dad, the husband who's led a, a family through 20 countries while building an online business and doing all the other things that you have interest in?
[00:06:45] Dustin: Like what, what would be a top leadership, uh, takeaway for you?
[00:06:49] Eric: Uh, leadership happens everywhere. Hmm. That's one of the things I love about leadership. Uh. The difference between leadership and management is a, a leadership [00:07:00] principle is universal. It doesn't matter where you're leading. So I, I can take a leadership lesson that I've learned and I can sit down and I can wrestle with it, and I can ask myself, what does this look like at work?
[00:07:11] Eric: What does this look like personally? What does this look like in my marriage? What does this look like in my parenting? Um, and so just this morning, so consider the third option. It's one of my favorite leadership, um, axioms. Third option in everything, WE except for how somebody gets to heaven. There's a third option in everything.
[00:07:33] Eric: We we're always asking ourselves, what's the third? Oh, so consider the third option as one of our company core values. And this morning, one of our, our 13-year-old, uh, came downstairs and they're supposed to have their iPads charged, um, in the morning because it's a central part of their homeschooling.
[00:07:54] Eric: And he came down, he was like, oh, my iPad's not charged. And [00:08:00] I was like, you know, why not? And he's like, oh, you know, I didn't get it. You know, I, I, I had it plugged in last night, but then I moved it to do something and I accidentally unplugged it. And I just was like, well, that's. This just can't happen. I was like, so what can we do to make sure that doesn't happen again?
[00:08:18] Eric: And he is like, do I have to give all three options? I was like, yes.
[00:08:24] Dustin: Good.
[00:08:24] Eric: He's like, so, and he sat there and he had to come up with three options. Um. But then it was, okay, which one of those do you think is best and why? And so it was that conversation. I had the exact same conversation with my team. We have the 1 3 1 with, when somebody has a problem with my team, they have to come to me with that one problem.
[00:08:43] Eric: Three possible solutions. And the one thing that, the one that they think we should. Use because I wanna teach them how to make decisions so I can eventually say, please stop bringing this to me. Yes, okay. You, you don't have to bring this to me anymore. Um, and so that's [00:09:00] the power
of leadership. A lead, a solid leadership axiom works everywhere, which is why I, you know, my, my rally cry is, is lead better, live better?
[00:09:14] Dustin: Oh, I like that. We've already got one good mini framework here with the 1 3 1. I think that's, uh, I've, I've certainly used that and are familiar with it in a business context, but never used it with my kids. But I totally, uh, see the application of like, what's the problem, what are three things that you could do, and then what do you think would be the best solution?
[00:09:33] Dustin: I'm still here to help you advise. You, let you know if, I think, if I agree with that. But that obviously creates accountability, critical thinking skills. It makes them actually, um. Stop and reflect on what, what the real issue is and, and all those things. I love that. So yeah, lead better. Live better. That's really good.
[00:09:51] Dustin: Um, so tell us, let's, let's transition a little bit into your business. 'cause I think it's, it's instructive before we get into teaching others how to [00:10:00] build teams to talk about. What you do in your business and tell us about your team. And I know your family is part of your team at this point, which is really cool.
[00:10:07] Dustin: But um, yeah, just share sort of the snapshot today of Eric Danglers business life. What do you do, who you do it for, and then we can talk more about your team structure and how that's come to be.
[00:10:16] Eric: Sure. So I'm an, I'm an accidental CEO. Um, this was not our intention. It was not to plan. Uh, but when we were, we were, uh, pastoring the church at the time, and, um, my wife.
[00:10:30] Eric: Uh, came to me one day and she's like, I really, I really feel like. We should adopt. And so I said, oh, okay. When um, oh, next day I came from my walk and I said, well, I think we should shoot a bullet before a cannon ball, which everything on my team and my wife, everybody knows what that means. Well, I'm gonna test it.
[00:10:54] Eric: And I was like, why don't we start with an exchange student? Because at the end of the school year, they go back, adopt. [00:11:00] So, uh, so we ended up posting an exchange student for the next three years. But, um, we, we did decide to adopt, uh, but we needed, we wanted to do it debt free and we needed to raise about $50,000 for an international adoption of a sibling group.
[00:11:21] Eric: Wow. We, we found a report. We came across a report, um, from the US Department, uh, US State Department. That shared, uh, how many that teenagers from Bulgaria specifically, um, were per capita the, the highest percentage of, um, young people being trafficked. Wow. At the time. Because when they come out of, um, when they, when they hit the age of 16, they age out of the system.
[00:11:55] Eric: Um, and the system is already pretty loose and people that adopt [00:12:00] generally aren't looking to adopt older kids and definitely not. A sibling group. So our two children, um, were labeled Unadoptable. And, um, but you know, we, we said, no, not on our watch. And so, but because it was international, it was, it was gonna be.
[00:12:21] Eric: $50,000 and I'm like, how in the world am I gonna raise $50,000 as a pastor? Yeah. Um, I know to build websites because way back in the day, the camp needed a website and, you know, between summers I learned how to build websites and, and then did it. And so I started building websites for people, uh, as a way to make money for our, uh, adoption.
[00:12:43] Eric: Through that process, learned about, oh, I could have a care plan and I could be making monthly recurring revenue. Um, I had never heard that before, you know? Yeah. And so I took a course and learned how to, to do that, and at just about that time, we were [00:13:00] getting ready to finalize our adoption, and we had raised all the money and we were saying.
[00:13:06] Eric: My wife and I, we decided to start a, a nonprofit. So we have a nonprofit achieve adoption where we come alongside families and, and help them financially fund their adoptions.
[00:13:16] Dustin: Wow,
[00:13:17] Eric: that's awesome. And we were like, well, how can we keep this going with the business? And at that time, the guy that owned and transit studios who I was taking some courses from, called me and offered me his business.
[00:13:29] Eric: Um. Which was this total God thing because he was transitioning into his personal brand and just teaching web design and, and he has now Web designer pro and so he just a great guy and so we, we bought. Bot is ridiculous for as little as we paid for it. Bot doesn't sound like the right woods. It doesn't feel like, but we, we bought in transit studios and here I am owning this web design business and [00:14:00] because I like to.
[00:14:01] Eric: Tinker with things. We started adding digital marketing and all this stuff and I had a coach, I got a business coach 'cause I didn't know business, I knew ministry. And one of the first things he told me was, real estate agents don't build the houses they sell.
[00:14:17] Dustin: Hmm. That's great.
[00:14:18] Eric: And that was life change.
[00:14:20] Eric: That statement changed our life. And I thought, okay, so. What does that, what does that look like? And so I started a journey of figuring out, well I now how to high, I know how to build an in and lead an in-person team. What does it look like asynchronously to do that with a remote team? 'cause I can't afford anybody in the United States right now.
[00:14:43] Eric: Yeah. Uh. And so, yeah, so we hired our, our first hire, um, he's been with us five years. Uh, he's now our director of web services. The guy didn't know how to do anything hardly at all with a website five years ago. And now he runs that entire, you know, [00:15:00] department of our business. And, um, we just, we've continued to grow the team and, uh, yeah, and my team is.
[00:15:08] Eric: Bulgaria, India, El Salvador, us. We do have somebody in the US now. Um, so yeah, they're just, they're just all over the world and we have a great time. We're. We're very much a team. We have a, a virtual break room, and we share, you know, pictures. Um, we've celebrated, uh, three of our team have all had a baby in the last two weeks.
[00:15:36] Eric: Uh, not together or anything, you know.
[00:15:39] Dustin: That's good, good qualifier there. Well, that's awesome. So you're, and obviously in that same time you've been. Doing the major travel thing and you're probably, have you been to every country that you have an employee in yet?
[00:15:52] Eric: No, no, we haven't been to India at all yet.
[00:15:57] Eric: Okay. Um, but we have brought our team together [00:16:00] for now. We haven't se our team has grown since our last company retreat, but we are, we are, we are working towards the point of being able to do an annual,
uh, retreat where we can bring our entire team together. We've done one, um, we'd like to make it annual.
[00:16:15] Dustin: That's awesome. So that sort of gives people some insight into. Kind of how you got into this whole world. You've learned as you go. And what, what I think I've heard there too is you've hired people, not necessarily because they've already figured out exactly how to do the role, but it must be for other reasons that you're hiring these individuals and we'll, we'll get into that here in just a moment when we start talking about how.
[00:16:38] Dustin: I and others can hire wisely. Um, I don't wanna leave this point without talking about your family and, and the role in the business. I mean, you live together, you travel together, uh, you know, but do they have any sort of official role within the business as contractors or team members?
[00:16:55] Eric: So our, um, our teens, uh, and now our [00:17:00] son, our 13- year-old, um, hasn't, um, our, our 15-year-old daughter has, and she's been paid in the past with things.
[00:17:08] Eric: Um, but my wife just joined the team. My wife has not been involved at all. Um, and the reason is because we used to tell people, uh, when we would bring IKEA furniture home, you know, you'd go to Ikea, buy something, you'd bring the boxes home. I could put it together or she could put it together, but we could not put it together.
[00:17:29] Eric: Together.
[00:17:31] Dustin: I can relate to that.
[00:17:32] Eric: Yeah. There was no way. There was no way. Um, and so we just, we parent well together. We married life, you know, we're married life well together. We couldn't work together this last spring, this last January, um, we decided not because that we were having con we were, we were just tired of.
[00:17:53] Eric: Having this communication treadmill, we felt like we were on, like we just kept coming up to the same thing. But I mean, we were [00:18:00] not even kind of in crisis or anything like that. But I hope you can edit this outta your podcast if you want. I, I don't think you'll, you'll censor it, but you might. Um. I was like, you know what, I'm 50 years old and every year people are wanting to take a look up my butt to see
[00:18:18] Dustin: no, this that's staying in for sure.
[00:18:21] Eric: So I, why don't we have somebody look at our marriage? And so we went to marriage counseling for three months. I love it. Uh. And at the
end of it, we've, we learned, we, we learned some things that we just didn't know. It was the, one of the best experiences of our life and our, our marriage is just at another level.
[00:18:42] Eric: And we suddenly realized, we now had the skills to communicate in a way that we didn't, and for the first time, because of our kids are a little more independent with their schooling and, and things like that. Um. Marissa is great at details. I'm allergic to [00:19:00] details. Um, and so she's been planning all of our traveling.
[00:19:04] Eric: Well, that's kind of stopping. And we had, we had reached this inflection point of the company and I just need to tell 'em, she's like, I'll do it. Which honestly, it's something I've prayed for. It's, it's a dream come. I've always wanted it to be that. Yeah. So she is now officially the COO Chief Organizing Officer, and she does, she's doing a great job with that and she is organi, the team is thrilled.
[00:19:34] Eric: Um, you know, Peter is just excited with some of the things she's done and she's finally talked me into something that Peter's been trying to get me to do for five years. I kept saying no to, um. Mar, you know, Marissa talked me into it. And so he, he is just thrilled. Um, but she's organized things for our kids to be able to help with the company now and stuff.
[00:19:57] Eric: So, um, yeah. So they get to play a [00:20:00] role.
[00:20:00] Dustin: That's great. Well, that's, uh, cool inflection point and, you know, it kind of builds on this whole. Um, through line that I see of sort of, um, figuring out as you go for one thing, being open to God's call, open to God's will. Kind of just answering the next Yes. And, uh, you know, trusting and, and what was really cool there is like you proactively sought out marriage counseling again, not 'cause you're in crisis.
[00:20:25] Dustin: You know, I have a, a marriage ministry background. This was always one of my big pet peeves is like, people don't seek. Help. Sometimes it's almost too late, you know, it's like, it's so, they're in a desperation mode. It's like, why don't you proactively invest in the things you care the most about, like your relationships.
[00:20:40] Dustin: Um, so it's really cool that not only did you do that, but the fruit of that, uh, is in your business. And it's like why? I actually have a business partner who's my partner, and while we thought this was an accessible to us and
our personalities, uh, we find that we're actually a great compliment because we have the skills and the.
[00:20:55] Dustin: Framework and the, uh, you know, the strategy here to, uh, make that actually [00:21:00] work. And I, I can hear the joy in your voice that, uh, it's a culmination of something, uh, very important to you. And you mentioned that you're kind of coming out of this chapter of four years of traveling and starting to, you know, establish roots and, uh, have a more, have a more permanent place to call home.
[00:21:15] Dustin: So, really awesome to kind of catch you in this, in this, uh. This new chapter of the business. So last thing real quick, uh, then we'll move into the teaching time here and, and help people figure out how to get some of
these things in their own business. Um, where do you see this going? Like if you had your crystal ball three years out, um, still the same kind of core service, or do you have something you're really passionate about moving into or, yeah.
[00:21:38] Dustin: Tell us about the, the future of the business as you can currently see it.
[00:21:42] Eric: Yeah, on the agency side. On the agency side, um, we are doing an, a whole lot more with accessibility. Remediation.
[00:21:51] Dustin: Okay. Yeah. Um,
[00:21:52] Eric: and helping people make their, their digital content, social media, email content and their websites, [00:22:00] um, equally accessible to people.
[00:22:02] Eric: Uh, and, and we've actually seen. The, this is it. The one cool thing is when it comes to digital accessibility is pretty much every country around the world uses the exact same set of standards.
[00:22:17] Dustin: Yeah. And
[00:22:18] Eric: Eastern, uh, the EU just came out with their new law around accessibility. And so, um, my team doesn't have to learn anything new.
[00:22:27] Eric: You know, it's not like GDPR or something. It's just like, it's this weird thing in Europe and it's something different. You know, Virginia is something different in California. Like privacy is kind of all over the place. Yeah. Accessibility. Everybody looks at the same standards.
[00:22:40] Dustin: Okay. That's good.
[00:22:41] Eric: Yeah. So we're maybe a little bit more into that.
[00:22:44] Eric: My wife and I, um, we have, uh, our first two fractional CMO clients and we're loving that. I could, I could see that. I could see my her and i's role growing into the [00:23:00] fractional CMO because. We get to meet, I get to sit on a call, get excited about the client's business. I get to dream. I'm like,
you know, we could do this, we could do this, we can do this.
[00:23:10] Eric: She goes, so which one of these are practical? And I'm like, well, I think these three. And she goes, okay. And then she just goes and makes it happen. Yeah,
[00:23:18] Dustin: that's awesome.
[00:23:19] Eric: They, I just get to go brainstorm in the next thing. Um, so that on the agency side, bringing in a general manager. In a couple years, you know, maybe a year or two.
[00:23:31] Eric: Um, because I, I really want to personally shift more of my time into teaching. I miss, I miss pastoring, um, I miss the teaching part.
[00:23:43] Dustin: Yeah.
[00:23:44] Eric: The summer camp. People ask me all the time, you know, do you miss camp? Because I, it was, I was just really. I loved, I was just really, it was, it was the only thing that ever came really easy to me, um, was entertaining kids, you know, being a goofball, entertaining [00:24:00] kids and having, you know, making s'mores like that was it, there's a lot more to it, but I just, I loved camp ministry.
[00:24:08] Eric: It was, it was absolutely phenomenal. And when we, we left and people talk to us like, do you miss it? And I'm like, eh. Yeah, there, there are parts I miss, but what I really long for the two weeks of staff training.
[00:24:21] Dustin: Hmm.
[00:24:22] Eric: They, I love taking this group of 18, 19, 20-year-old college students and in two weeks getting them to the point where they were able to take care of 150 other people's children.
[00:24:36] Dustin: Yeah.
[00:24:37] Eric: Um, and, and then guiding them through the summer and, and. Recognizing talent and lifting. So, so I just, I wanna get back more into the teaching leadership and, and helping people develop their own leadership, um, because the, you in business. Your leadership capacity is the capacity of your business.
[00:24:59] Eric: You're, you'll never [00:25:00] grow past your leadership capacity. If you are no good at delegating, that's the cap of your business. 'cause you're the bottleneck. If you're, if you're no good at, at allowing other people to hire and you're no good at hiring, that becomes the capacity. You, you will, it's not the market.
[00:25:15] Eric: If your business has been stuck for six months, it's a leadership issue every single time. You know, because Yes. Let's say something happened in the market, you don't have the leadership skills to navigate the change that is
required for that. Yeah, it's a leader, it's always a leadership issue, and in leadership it's always a systems issue.
[00:25:35] Eric: So I That's what, so I, that's why I wanna help people with their leadership. They'll have better families, marriages. Uh, personal lives, work lives, it's just, it just changes everything.
[00:25:46] Dustin: Love it. Well, that's a perfect segue 'cause we're gonna give you the opportunity to teach, uh, teach and train on leadership and on team building here.
[00:25:53] Dustin: Um, I guess to give you context and so you can train me with it, um, I, uh, as we record this, [00:26:00] like two weeks ago, I had a group of people from our community, the Seven Figure Leap Mastermind. We're in Nashville, Tennessee, and we did a retreat for that group and. This theme of leadership actually came through loud and clear.
[00:26:14] Dustin: Like the, the theme of the retreat was simplicity scales. And so as you might imagine, you know, anyone listening to this, you think of things like simple lead generation and simple offer stacks and fulfillment and all that's true. Um, but I had this like epiphany moment sitting there and I'm like. This is all leadership and so it's, it's really cool that we're recording this now.
[00:26:33] Dustin: And then, uh, Eric, the little framework that came to mind for me and the types of businesses that, the type of business I run and, you
know, the types of businesses we serve, like yours, founder led, you know, smaller, but very intentional, high impact organizations. I kinda came up with this idea of a leadership triangle.
[00:26:50] Dustin: I'm sure someone else has already thought of this, but it came to me and I'm like, uh, self-leadership is sort of the, the base, the base of the triangle and in team leadership and in thought leadership. Uh, [00:27:00] and so, and in that team bucket, you know, there's a lot of things in there. It's not just full-time employees.
[00:27:06] Dustin: It's like all the people I. Interact with my clients, my contractors, my family, um, my mastermind, you know, these are all extensions of my team. And so this idea of team leadership and then hiring was also the, the big thing for me because I was like, you know, I've resisted hiring a couple different positions for a while, uh, in part due to fear and part due to just the lack of.
[00:27:30] Dustin: Wanting to take on that new leadership responsibility. Um, and the process is definitely a big part of this, the system for getting this done. Um, so just to call it out like one key role I wanna hire for right now, uh, that I need a system for, and, and I'll, I'll be listening attentively as you kind of walk through the framework for everyone listening is like, we need, uh, what I'm
calling a sales steward, like a salesperson, but not.
[00:27:54] Dustin: A closer, and I'm not someone who's there just to take people's money and get everyone in the door. Someone who's a curator, someone who's looking [00:28:00] to coach and serve someone. And if they're the right fit, invite them into what we do with the accelerator. Um, and so this is very top of mind for me. I want to kind of give that context to you, Eric, uh, that this leadership thing, this hiring thing is, is very real time for me.
[00:28:14] Dustin: And so I want to just basically hand the mic over to you, um, let you, uh, put your teaching hat on and share with the audience if. If they're a solopreneur or maybe they've got a couple team members, some contractors, and they're, they're feeling a little allergic to having a team, uh, to use one of your phrases from earlier, like, what do we need to know?
[00:28:31] Dustin: Like what, how do we make this effective and even fun? And like, how do we get out of our own way when it comes to hiring and building a team?
[00:28:40] Eric: All right. Uh, great, great, great. Uh, segue. I, I was taking notes there. I like your, I like your triangle. Um, that's good. And the sales. So, uh, it, it, it comes back to systems, and this is one of those areas.
[00:28:54] Eric: You, you gotta grow into it. You're not gonna go into it. Um. I tell people when I'm [00:29:00] interviewing people, I'll be like, Hey, listen, you know, I'm gonna talk to you today about jumping on the train with us. Now, just so you know, this train we're flying the, the, the train is my company. And, um, we're, we're about a mile away from, uh.
[00:29:16] Eric: Crashing. Just That's good. Further, we've laid track. Okay. But we're, we're flying. So some of us are leaning out ahead, laying down track. Um, but, you know, and there's other people on the train still fastening down seats. Like, you know, it's just that, and the reason I start with that is because most people I talk to feel like they can't go hire somebody until everything is ready.
[00:29:40] Dustin: Yes.
[00:29:41] Eric: Um, where I'm always, I, I, I interviewed. Uh, two people today we're, we're hiring for, uh, now these are freelancers. We, we have a client that needs us to do something new we've never done before. Um, and it's, it's very complicated technical, [00:30:00] and I don't, I'm, I don't, I don't wanna learn it. Um, I. And, uh, we've never done it.
[00:30:04] Eric: So what I do is I always hire two people. I hire a consultant, and then I hire the person to do the fulfillment. I hire the consultant for like two hours and I'll pay them. Uh, I use Upwork. That's my favorite, um, platform to hire from. You know, I'll be happy to pay them a hundred, $150 an hour.
[00:30:22] Dustin: Yeah,
[00:30:23] Eric: then I hired the person to implement it for us, and they're going to be at about $12 an hour for this, and I'll probably hire them for 40 hours.
[00:30:35] Eric: I can't afford 40 hours at a hundred dollars an hour, but I can't at 12. Yeah. But since I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know how to provide management feedback and, and specific direction. That's why I'll hire this consultant. So I always hired the consultant first. I hired them last week. And then one of the things I have them do is gimme questions to ask, to filter through the [00:31:00] fulfillment person.
[00:31:01] Eric: Smart. So it's all about sitting back and going, this thing is holding me back. Let me build a system. Okay, so we're we, we, I haven't met a problem that doesn't have a solution, that's not solved with a system. Just haven't ever one so. When it, when it comes to hiring, you kind of wanna break it down into some chunks.
[00:31:22] Eric: So the first one is your recruiting. You have to have a system for recruiting and. What you said, you, you had said a little bit ago, like, what we're looking for. We always look for the exact same three things and do it in the exact same order. Um, for a team member. This is a little bit different for a
freelancer because I'm only bringing them in for a short, I'm just gonna bringing in the do.
[00:31:44] Eric: Okay.
[00:31:44] Dustin: Yeah, we can focus, let's focus on the team member part, because I think we can kind of peel back from there into a freelancer. But I think the team members where I and others probably have more resistance, it's like, this feels heavy and permanent and I've got all this responsibility for this team member.
[00:31:57] Dustin: So, yeah. Yeah. Please go ahead. [00:32:00]
[00:32:00] Eric: So in that, we wanna hire for character first. Okay. Then chemistry slash culture, are they a chemistry fit, culture fit with the company, um, and the person that's gonna be leading them. Uh, and then we finally look at competency. Okay. Now, uh, I, I'm fine. Somebody learning, I'm fine investing in somebody if they have high character, and the chemistry is, is there.
[00:32:29] Eric: And so when we interview. When I was running the, the camp, it was about year five, and it was the first year I had an assistant director. And after doing a couple interviews, she came in and she's like, Eric, um, you have to stop doing the interviews. And I went, what do you mean? And she's like, um, you have to stop.
[00:32:49] Eric: You want everybody to love camp? And I went, yeah, I don't understand the problem. She goes, we need him to love doing housekeeping. Like, [00:33:00] ah, yeah. You want 'em to love the place and she's like, I need 'em to enjoy the work. And she's like, and, and so we had this great conversation about, well, we need 'em to do both really.
[00:33:12] Eric: But I was passionate on selling camp as the great, I wanted people to walk out going, gosh, I hope I get the job. This would be a great place to work.
[00:33:21] Dustin: Yes,
[00:33:22] Eric: she's going, I want them to walk out going, I can do this job. And so we, we, it, that was a huge learning, uh, uh, time for me in, in figuring all of this out.
[00:33:34] Eric: So now when we hire, even when I was solo, I, I had friends of mine that were business owners. I have, we do, we do three rounds of interviews. Um, the first interview we interview for culture or, or sorry, we interview for character. Um, we're just looking, we're looking for character. Um, and then. So like we just hired a junior web developer and their leader was gonna be our [00:34:00] director of web services, Peter.
[00:34:01] Eric: And so I had somebody else on the team that knows Peter real well. I had, I had this person interview our candidates for junior web developer to see if Peter and this person would get along. They were doing chemistry interview and afterwards she was able to say a couple candidates like that, that guy and Peter are not gonna get along.
[00:34:20] Eric: Yeah. They're gonna butt heads, you know, and then, you know, the person we hired, she goes, they're gonna get along. And they do, they get along wonderfully. Um, and then the leader gets to do the competency interview and figure out like, do I think this person's gonna, you know, am I gonna be able to lead them well to, to do this?
[00:34:38] Eric: So having that system, hiring slow, taking time is all part of that. And there's a lot of things we do in there. To test can, we had 38 people apply for the consultant job last week when we PO posted it, two of the 38 followed [00:35:00] our application instructions properly. Wow. They're the only two that got interviews, um, within, you know.
[00:35:08] Eric: Less than 30 minutes, I was able to take 38 some people, and I mean, it wasn't even that. I mean, most people I was able to decide within a few seconds. Yeah. Um, because I just, you know, so having that, then we move to onboarding now, this is the one I want to take a second. I've got a resource for you and your, uh, um, listeners on,
[00:35:28] Dustin: we, we've kind of hit just kinda like recap.
[00:35:30] Dustin: So we've hit recruiting so. Recruiting character chemistry competency. You got three interviews. There's the recommendation there focused on each of those three things. Um, and obviously there's a process to filter even before they get to the interview. But the, that, that recruiting is basically the hiring part.
[00:35:46] Dustin: And now we're moving into onboarding, which I think is actually where many people screw up, including me in the past. So I got my antennas up for you, Eric. Go ahead.
[00:35:54] Eric: Okay. So we've developed a self onboarding dashboard. [00:36:00] Okay. When we hire a team member, um, let's say, so you hire a team member in the first week, they're gonna work 40 hours, you're gonna need to give them about an hour of your time.
[00:36:11] Eric: Um, and then the second week they're gonna show up to work, ready to go. Hmm. Um, we, nobody's gotta stop what they're doing to train the new person, uh, which is challenging in a remote setting. More challenging when you've got time zone constraints. Uh, but we've, we've developed a self guided. Onboarding that takes people through being new, bringing them through training on vision, mission, core values.
[00:36:45] Eric: Um, it, they, through the checklist, through the process, there's a way for them to create their, their last pass accounts and, and they have go through training. We handle passwords. Um, they have to submit their. You know, there's, uh, [00:37:00] instructions to submit their headshot and their bio to the right person on the team.
[00:37:04] Eric: So it gets on the website. Uh, and then we have a series of prerecorded videos they watch and, and activities they do. Uh, but they're not just our videos, you know. More than half of them. We haven't created, we have a whole series of YouTube videos from other people that we have used and thought, well, that's really good.
[00:37:27] Eric: And we just have everybody watch it. Um, our project management system, hive, hive, like most suites, you know, most software is a solution. Most most software services, um, and apps you use, they're gonna have their, their onboarding training videos. Um, we require everybody to watch those. Mm. Um, and, and you have to watch 'em.
[00:37:52] Eric: So what happens is, uh, about a year ago, we, we brought board a new project manager and she onboarded [00:38:00] herself. The first
week and week two, she came into a team meeting. And, you know, because of the fact that we have some other systems in place, like everybody on the team got to know her. Everybody on the team sends a welcome video to a new person.
[00:38:14] Eric: And, and so there's already that interaction happening. They, we have a virtual break room where things happen. We have all this stuff. So we're building camaraderie, we're building culture. So she shows up at the first meeting, very comfortable, um, ready to go, and we're, we're talking through a challenge and she goes, well, why don't we just use this, whatever it is, you know, use this, that, that's setting in hive.
[00:38:36] Eric: A couple of us kind of looked at each other around the Zoom. I went, what are you talking about? And she goes, well, that's a setting in, in Hi. That's our project management system here. They had come out with a new feature that none of us had bothered to read about. Yeah. But since she had just gone through this first generation, we call it first generation training.
[00:38:56] Eric: I want everybody on my team to get first generation training because if I train [00:39:00] you how to do something. You are gonna pick up some of my wobbles. Yeah. Then you turn around and train somebody. They're gonna pick up my wobbles and yours. Yeah. And by the third or fourth person. It's a train wreck.
[00:39:12] Dustin: Yep.
[00:39:13] Eric: Um, and so we take everybody back to first generation training and this self-guided, so what, what I put together is a real quick, you know, video walking people through ours and then a template as well as a checklist of ideas.
[00:39:29] Eric: So I'm gonna make that available to you and everybody they can go through it. 'cause honestly, I think out of everything we do, the self onboarding is the game changer to it all. I
[00:39:42] Dustin: love it. Yeah, I'm, I'm excited to, to get access to that and. I, uh, I would agree just based on your, you know, brief description here, like that is special, like that, that's unique.
[00:39:52] Dustin: Um, I think a lot of people have different ideas on sourcing and the interview process and all that, but I, I honestly think the huge [00:40:00] disconnect where we either lose people, uh, who are like, I don't know why I
signed up to work here, or we, you know, lose our, um, ability to really let them thrive as in the onboarding process.
[00:40:11] Dustin: And I know I've been guilty of that because. It feels like, oh, great, and this goes all the way back to my engineering days. Oh, great. I hired this amazing person and now I'm gonna lose two weeks of my own productivity to make them. And then like every person I hire, I'm starting over from scratch and I like teach 'em all the same things and stand over their shoulder while they set up some login or whatever.
[00:40:29] Dustin: I love the self onboarding idea and it, and it sounds like it is a. Investment basically, where you do this once, and obviously maybe there's a little nuances depending on the role, but basically everyone goes through a similar self onboarding process. So as you continue to hire, you continue to gain back a lot of time by doing this once.
[00:40:46] Dustin: Is that fair?
[00:40:48] Eric: Yeah. But you, you grow into it. You don't go into it. When Peter, when I first hired Peter, I think we had, like, I, I had like four videos. Okay. Once and then several. I just. He was the [00:41:00] first person. So I did do some of the things with him first time, but I recorded it and now, so some of the videos are five years old.
[00:41:07] Eric: Yeah. But it's still, it's still timeless. Yeah. You know, but then I, so I send a video every week to my team, um, and it's, it's a training video of development, and once or twice a year I'll go Wow. I'm gonna put this, I'm gonna, I'm gonna add this to the self onboarding dashboard. Okay. Um, because I'm like, this is, this is this, this is that.
[00:41:32] Eric: I want everybody in the future to see this. Not that the other ones aren't great, I just act to be selective Sure. Of people who overwhelmed. Um, and so I, I use those training videos over time to, to build that. But yeah, you, it's something you're gonna build into, but. If you know, you're, if you're thinking about hiring, you can start creating some of these videos now.
[00:41:55] Eric: Yeah. Like, you know, take 20 minutes tomorrow and create a video explaining the [00:42:00] vision. Yep. And do it. That's it. You're done. Okay. Work, work, work. Next week create another video that talks about your core values. If you don't have vision, mission, core values, don't hire anybody. Build those. Get right first.
[00:42:17] Eric: Yep. So, yeah. 'cause the, yeah, we won't, we, I won't go into what, what those are, but they're, they're really, really important. And, and you gotta have, so you've got recruiting, you gotta have a system for recruiting.
[00:42:28] Dustin: Yep.
[00:42:29] Eric: A system for onboarding. Then we have a system for delegating. And then the last system that is, is just leadership.
[00:42:39] Eric: Now, this, you could call all of that, but in leadership, I mean, meeting with people and getting feedback. Yeah. Um, you know, we've got a weekly report that everybody submits that asks them, not about their job, but about their workload, their stress level, their morale, and, and I track all of that. So I can see as a company, [00:43:00] what's the morale like, you know, what's everybody's stress flow.
[00:43:04] Eric: Am I the only one feeling stressed or, wow. Did everybody, did other people feel? Is everybody feeling it right now?
[00:43:09] Dustin: Yeah.
[00:43:10] Eric: And what's really great is, and those questions we'll ask, one of the questions is like, what was your biggest c cha? What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome this week? And people will share things like, you know, uh, you know, it was really hard.
[00:43:22] Eric: My cat died.
[00:43:23] Dustin: Yeah.
[00:43:24] Eric: You know, and so now it's, it's, we're in this personal relationship with people and we're invested in their lives. And to me, that's a team.
[00:43:33] Dustin: I love that. Yeah. That's awesome. We have, we have to do a part two in the future on some of these other, uh, other part, other systems. 'cause I think there's an entire episode on recruiting, onboarding, delegation, and leadership.
[00:43:45] Dustin: Um, but I think it's good for now to talk about, that's the framework here for leadership and, and the types of businesses that we run. And I really liked that we keyed in heavily on the onboarding, self onboarding, how
that's a, a Well, the phrase you [00:44:00] used as far as, uh, like not. Starting before you're finished.
[00:44:03] Dustin: Like, what was the phrase
[00:44:05] Eric: You mean grow into it? Yes. Into it.
[00:44:08] Dustin: Grow into it. Yes. I like that. Not not go into it because I, I, I definitely fall guilty to that. There's some perfectionism where it's like, well, yeah, I should have a self onboarding system. Well that's gonna, you know, I got a lot of stuff I gotta develop for that, so I won't hire until that's ready.
[00:44:23] Dustin: Right. And then it's like, but that's never gonna be done because, uh, I, you have to have a first version of everything. And what I liked and unlock for me that you shared, there is two things. Uh, one is there's a lot of things you could be doing before you're even higher. Like, you know, I'm, I could, I could finish up a sales call as an example, a serve call with someone and be like.
[00:44:44] Dustin: That was perfect. Like I, if I could do that every time, this would be so much easier. But now I have a recording of the call and I could be like, that's going in the onboarding. Do it like this, this is, you know, uh, or I see someone else talking, you know, about, um, a sales strategy or, or some nuance thing that I'm like, that's something we should [00:45:00] totally be doing.
[00:45:00] Dustin: I capture that and I included in here. Um, but then as you said, when you hire that next person, you can still kind of go through the manual process in a large way. But now you're recording it and you have it for the. Second person and the the third person and the fourth person, it's all much more refined as you go.
[00:45:17] Dustin: So I think that's an amazing leadership mindset here, is grow into it and, you know, go ahead and start and get, get things moving. But when you have a system that you're building toward and you have a strategy overlying why this is important, then you actually get it done. Uh, and, and it removes a lot of the.
[00:45:35] Dustin: Limiting beliefs, the fears, the things that like imper, perfectionism, the things that tend to hold us back where we just don't hire anyone because not everything's fully developed. Imp perfect. Um, and I've gained a lot of freedom from this conversation in the sense that hiring someone does not a.
[00:45:52] Dustin: Dedication of all of my time to onboarding them, which I think is a, is something I had before we hit record, which now I'm feeling a lot more free from. I'm like, no, there's just some [00:46:00] very creative ways to do this that's better and it's better for me and it's actually better for them. Right.
[00:46:06] Eric: Yeah. We, we have, I have recordings of webinars.
[00:46:10] Eric: That we've done. Yeah. That use, well, it was a really good webinar, so we repurposed it as a replay or a, a, a lead magnet. Well, I just watch people. I, I have every new team member watch it and we say, Hey, we, you're gonna watch this now to see how we speak to clients about what we do. Okay. You're gonna watch.
[00:46:29] Eric: See the promises we make for, for our or to our clients and, and that kinda stuff. And then the other thing I would say is, um, there's these really great people out there that are certified in, in, um, OBM, online business management. You can hire one of them for three months to do all of this.
[00:46:45] Dustin: Yeah, true.
[00:46:47] Eric: So there's that and.
[00:46:49] Eric: People like, we have this thing, we have, we call it the SOP vault. It's, you know, all of our, um, SOPs and checklists, and we have, we call 'em quacks, which is a quack, is a [00:47:00] quality control checklist. Um, and so we have all of this stuff I built, I wrote one. And I wrote the SOP, um, how to, uh, make Eric a cup of coffee.
[00:47:14] Eric: And I did it to show this is how, and then I recorded a video. This is how we make SOPs. And then I just started having my team, Hey Peter, can you make the, can you watch this now? SOP on that. And then the next Okay, make an SOP on that. And now everybody on my team, depending on their role, they have to contribute an an SOP at least once a month.
[00:47:38] Eric: Um, you know, because it's just that's what we're, or they have to repair one or fix one or, or something like that. So we, we have, I, I think we have about 120 core processes documented. Wow. I did one. I did, I did one. I
[00:47:55] Dustin: love that. Yeah. So that's continuous improvement. That also builds redundancy [00:48:00] because, you know, someone has a life circumstance change, they get hit by a bus, whatever, uh, you know, not only is the same people are gonna be in the same seats, they very likely won't be.
[00:48:08] Dustin: And, and it makes them better. This is something that we do. Do Well, you know, we have the team members we have, we're constantly like, let's make an SOP on that. And by we, I mean you, like, you make an SOP on it. But, and the thing is, by requiring them to make an SOP, it actually makes them better. 'cause you know, the best way to learn is to teach.
[00:48:27] Dustin: And so if they have to sit down and formalize this and do a video on it and create a checklist, and of course we have, you know, AI and things to make that easier. They get a lot better, uh, at the process. And now we've got this internal wisdom in the company that the next person that sits in that seat can pick it up and, and have a major shortcut.
[00:48:45] Dustin: Um, yeah, I love that. So, well, I wanna be, uh, you know, respectful of the time here, Eric. Um, I know you've got an amazing resource. It ties into this team building leadership, uh, topic. So why don't you, um. Yeah. Kind of take us out here talking [00:49:00] about if someone's listening and they're in the same position as me and you on a, on a weekly basis, and they're like, I do need to hire, I do need to build a team.
[00:49:07] Dustin: I've been resistant to it. I love what Eric's, um, shared here. And I, and I want to actually put this into action. Like what would be the next best, next best step for people who are in that position?
[00:49:18] Eric: Uh, eric dingler.com. Because I am egotistical and prideful name of my website, Eric dingler.com/dustin. Um, and in there they can, they can download the self onboarding, uh, checklist.
[00:49:36] Eric: And it's a whole thing, uh, uh, just for your audience so they can, they can get that there. But then also there is. The link to my LinkedIn. Um, I have a podcast, the Everything Learned Leadership podcast, uh, that, that's on there. Um, but once they download that self-guided onboarding and, and connect with me, um, a couple times a year, I.
[00:49:58] Eric: From you, learn from you. [00:50:00] Uh, I did a 90 day accelerator, uh, called Team Engine. Love it. And what we do is we go right through a 90 day process of, you know, putting together your systems to, you know, recruit and hire, onboard, delegate, and lead, um, a team. And every week it's a different micro system of those.
[00:50:21] Eric: And so. In the 12 weeks, you build, you know, you organize 12 systems and at the end you've, you've got a system that I love. It is hires. Yeah.
[00:50:31] Dustin: I love seeing the, uh. You know, the replication of the model, I guess in the wild, right. So, uh, I mentioned at the opening Eric is, uh, part of our community. He's a podcast profits accelerator alumni.
[00:50:41] Dustin: He's used podcast casting to grow his business while on the road and doing all this cool stuff with his family. Um, and. Something that commonly happens, which he, he's doing now, which I love, is people will sort of replicate that model for their area of expertise. Right. So I have the podcast profits accelerator because that's the thing I like to jam on.
[00:50:58] Dustin: Uh, Eric loves obviously team building [00:51:00] leadership and so he is got the team engine accelerator that grows, um, through that same model, which is a model I deeply, deeply believe in, which is a, a small group coaching model. So. That's amazing. So the starting point for all of these things, uh, maybe they ultimately want to be in your accelerator, connect on LinkedIn.
[00:51:15] Dustin: Um, but the main thing I think here is go get that self onboarding checklist so that you can get outta your own way. Have this key part of this four step framework in place. So eric dingler.com/dustin, and if you're listening, uh, on the go here, Eric with a C. And then Dingler is just like, it sounds, D-I-N-G-L-E-R Eric dingler.com/dustin and they can go get access.
[00:51:38] Dustin: To that, I'm gonna do that as soon as, uh, we wrap up here, Eric. Um, and make sure that I have this in place as I embark on this next hire. I'm committed to having a self onboarding process in place, uh, to make this not only great for the next person, but you know, the, the people that aren't to follow. So, uh, any final words or anything that we didn't cover that we should have popped in here?
[00:51:59] Eric: Uh, [00:52:00] always be working on your leadership there. There are five business systems every business has to have, and I put leadership at the top. So yeah, you need to. Developing yourself as a leader. Your leadership capacity is the capacity of your business. So lead better to live better.
[00:52:15] Dustin: Love it. Well, Eric, you're uh, a gift to me.
[00:52:17] Dustin: A gift to the audience, Eric dingler.com/dustin. Take that next step and to go work on your leadership, uh, through this team building, uh, and self onboarding, uh, checklist that Eric has provided. So Eric, thanks man for being here. I appreciate you.
[00:52:31] Eric: Thank you. Thanks for [00:52:31] Dustin: having me.