Breaking the Rules of Hiring to Find World-Class Talent, with Kasim Aslam

Speaker A: Hey everybody, this is Andrea Jensen from um, the Cash Flow cfo. And you're listening to the Cash Flow CFO podcast, the show that explores the financial side of running a business for people who want to maximize profitability and scale with confidence. If you want to make smart financial decisions based on data and put more of your hard earned profits into your pocket, this is the podcast for you. This episode of the Cash Flow CFO Podcast is brought to you by the Cash Flow cfo. Did you know that on average business owners have up to 84% of their personal net worth tied up in their business? Our virtual CPAs and CFOs as well as accounting and bookkeeping experts empower business owners just like you to make big leaps that help them maximize profitability and scale with confidence. Visit thecashflowcfo.com for more information and thank you for listening.

Speaker B: Hey everyone, it's Andrea and our guest for today is Qasim. He is a serial entrepreneur who has built six, seven and eight figure businesses including two successful exits. He is the co founder of Driven Mastermind and last year he exited Solutions 8, one of the world's top Google Ad agencies and co founded Pareto Talented, a company that is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs reclaim their time by matching them with world class executive assistance. Welcome to the show, Andrea.

Speaker C: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate you.

Speaker B: Yeah, I'm excited to talk with you. I know you've got some good stuff that you are, uh, cooking up. You've got a book that you want to talk about and it sounds like you have a wealth of information and experience in uh, building and exiting businesses which I know our audience always, always loves to hear about. Uh, so tell me, how did you get started in the, it sounds like your first venture was, was in the digital marketing space, is that correct?

Speaker C: No, I, I've, I've had over a hundred at bats. Entrepreneurially, uh, I'm the world's greatest failure. I've tried that. I, I had a, a company selling purified mercury. I've had a furniture store. I've had a medical and legal transcription business. I've tried web design, obviously consulting, every type of consulting you can imagine. Uh, I have taken so many swings. I once sat down and tried to write it all out and I just couldn't. It got depressing. But the digital thing, you know, every, what is it? Uh, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Uh, I think I just lucked out in so many ways. And what you'll notice, I think and feel free to Test this assumption is that, uh, every marketer in my experience is actually a failed entrepreneur. So when you meet a digital marketer, what you're really doing is you're meeting somebody who failed in another business. But for some reason, the digital marketing thing was what they kind of got good at, and so they just became a marketer.

Speaker B: Interesting. Yeah, that's, uh, Let me, let me unpack that a little bit. In my experience, um, there might be something to that, because most people doing digital marketing, there's an art and a science to it, and not everybody can crack that code. I know as a business owner myself, that's something that I'm like, I just, I don't. I can't quite figure out how to do all of those things. So we pay people to do them for us, and they're really good at it. So. Yeah, I love that. But I think what you said, that's the most important thing for everybody listening or watching, is that you've had a few at bats and they didn't all turn into home runs, but you've had the home runs as well. So it's that, it's that tenacity and it's that grit to just keep going and, you know, know, and the timing of people go, oh, your first business was a success. Well, yeah, that might be true, but there's, uh, the market demand. There's so much in, like, the timing of what you have and what the market needs. You could have the best thing in the world, but if that's not what the market needs right now, you're going to fall flat on your face.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think you're exactly right. Uh, fun fact, I learned this very recently. I didn't know it until somebody shared it with me, but Blockbuster came out with streaming way before Netflix.

Speaker B: Really?

Speaker C: Can you believe that? They came out with streaming and it didn't fly. And so they like, you know, put it by the wayside and considered it a field experiment and didn't adhere to the timing lesson that you just spoke about. And then, now look, you know, uh, it's interesting the way that that works. It's not about innovation. It's about so many other things. So I think staying out on the field is maybe one of the most important entrepreneurial skills, like just willing to just stand out there and get rained on. You know, keep your hand on the stove. Choose your analogy. But yeah, tenacity, stick with itness, uh, grit, whatever. Whatever we're going to call it.

Speaker B: Yeah. And you know what? And I see, um, from, from the seat that I sit in. We see, we work with so many businesses and we see finances and we see, um. What's the word I want to say? Risk tolerance of a business owner. We see, you know, um, just, we create so many of the what ifs. If this, then do this. If this, do this. That's one way that you can look at it to kind of give yourself the prevent failure, you know, by having that site. But also there's, there's just so much that goes into. You have to also, you know, just be. What's the word I want to say? Calculated risks, I guess is a good way to put it right. Because you could lose, you know, you could lose a pretty penny if you're all in on something but don't have the data to back up the. All of those components you were just talking about.

Speaker C: Yeah, I like. Jeff Bezos has this really extraordinary quote that I'm about to butcher, but he basically talks about entrepreneurship is the greatest gamble anybody's ever been offered. Because unlike every other gamble, you can manage your downside risk if you're smart. And your upside risk is potentially limitless, which means you can swing, you know, a hundred times, a thousand times, a hundred thousand times. And if you miss 99% of the time, but you hit once, it can still work for you. And that tends to be the truth. It's the classic Thomas Edison quote about 10,000 ways it didn't work. Like you just need to just stay at it. Um, and that's been true in my life. When I made my exit, you know, I had a low eight figure exit rich. Uh, which is, which is fun. It's, you know, money's fun and that's why we play the game. And the thing that was funny about it is I don't really claim that that was prowess. It was luck. I built the number one ranked Google Ads agency in the world, which I'm pretty proud of, but it wasn't worth what they paid. I lucked out. Post Covid, the economy froze private equity, froze IPOs, froze all of the real businesses that private equity usually buys took themselves off the market. So, you know, Pegs love, uh, sas and SAS wasn't about to sell during the post Covid world because they didn't know what was happening. So then they moved down to E Comm. But E commerce businesses realized like, wait a minute, I don't know what's going on. So they took themselves out of the market. But these, these private equity companies still, they had to deploy because they raised this Money. And they have to, like, they don't. People don't realize they don't make money by making money. They make money by spending money. So they had to deploy. And so they went downstream to business or asset types that look like e Commerce or SaaS. Predictable recurring revenue, easy to evaluate, fits within their model. So all of a sudden, overnight, I got 65 unsolicited offers.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker C: Just sitting around being. You know what I mean? Like Craig.

Speaker B: Just.

Speaker C: Just overwhelming. And picked, uh, one softbank back that they just gotten $100 million check with a mandate to purchase agencies. And I'm just the luckiest guy in the whole wide world. And what's funny about it is, you know, I was playing hot potato, because I gave them my hot potato. And nine months later, Google rolls out a campaign type that effectively nullifies the value of agencies. And they grew the agency from 200 clients to 130. You know, but I'd gotten my money, so I was.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And had they not come out of the woodwork the way that the buyers did, I would have been the one holding the bag there. I would have had to lay people off. And, you know, instead we had this. This trust, this kitty. I was able to keep people employed two years longer than, uh, would have been likely or possible. Yeah, it was super cool. But I think the lesson is, if you're listening, stick it out. You know, like, it's. It's sad because there's. I think there's far less science than there is just pure dumb luck, you know, Just get out there and be Forrest Gump and be too stupid to fail.

Speaker B: Uh, yeah, don't have the ego and don't have the embarrassment if it doesn't work. You know, pick up what. Pick up what you've learned from that failure because you. Every single time, at every swing at bat, you're going to learn something. Carry it to the next. Carry it to the next. You're compounding that, you know, education that you. You can't get anywhere else other than just trying.

Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah, you're absolutely right.

Speaker B: Yeah. Very cool. Well, I love that. And I think, um, I will do a whole episode on what you just said about private, uh, equity, because people don't realize that, you know, they have to deploy those funds within a certain amount of time, um, or they're gonna, you know, be in trouble. And so when you get. Because I've had those moments, too, where all of a sudden my inbox is just flooded with, oh, we want to buy an accounting firm. Oh, we want to Buy an accounting firm, you know, and then it'll be quiet for a while and then the flood of, you know, the emails again, and then it's quiet. And so you, you can pick up on these, right? If you're paying attention or if you're, you know, know how it works. So I think that's really a something that's not talked about enough in the entrepreneurial world as well, unless you're used to doing, you know, M and A transactions and things like that. So we see a lot of that activity, um, from what we do and how we support our clients. So very cool. So tell me, you had your big win. What'd you do? Off to a deserted island to just enjoy all your riches?

Speaker C: I got really good advice. Um, I'm friends with, uh, a guy named Brandon Turner. Brandon, uh, he's, he's famous in the real estate world. He was the, the host of the Bigger Pockets podcast. If you go to Amazon and look at the top 10 best selling books on real estate investment, he wrote seven of them.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker C: So he's a really, really brilliant human, but he's relevant to the discussion because he ends up seeing more post exits than anybody because he helps people place money.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker C: And so if you made an exit, you find Brandon, you give him your money, he invests it for you. He's brilliant, kind, humble, generous. I love him. And, uh, he told me he actually kind of manhandled me a little bit. He's like, look, uh, I'll tell you what to do post exit, because the post exit world, and you've probably seen this as much as anybody, Andrea, is, um, it's the most dangerous epoch for an entrepreneur. You're far more likely post exit to get a divorce, commit suicide, be develop an addiction, lose friendships. Like, it's actually really catastrophically damaging in a lot of ways. And so what Brandon told me was you're not allowed to do anything for a year. Don't make any major decisions, don't even deploy your capital. Just like, just take a year. And, you know, and I did that. I took a year. And I have a mastermind with some friends. So that's easy. That's very accessible. It's, you know, three days a quarter. But other than that, I traveled around, I got two little boys and kind, um, of tried to figure out who I was and still have failed at nailing that. Uh, but it was the best advice that I've ever gotten, uh, because it really protected me from just jumping right back into the fray, which I think would have been catastrophically damaging. And even post exit you shouldn't give poor people money because we think we're investors. And so I've started all this stuff and I'm overwhelmed by it all but if I hadn't taken that year I think it would have been much, much, much worse. So you know, to our listeners, uh, just remember, keep, don't, don't invest, you don't need to deploy, go put it in you know, T bills or something like just an S and P index fund. Just like, just capital preservation. Take a year off and then when you come back around you'll be clear headed and maybe a little bit more capable to make those decisions. The thing that's funny about money is I thought, you know, I was a welfare baby and welfare babies think money is going to make them happy and money did not make me happy at all. It actually, interestingly it uh, removed the distraction that I had from my unhappiness. You know, I was working 80 hours a week for 20 years and so I had something to focus on and as soon as that went away I was like, oh no, I'm miserable. Not because of that, but maybe even in spite of it. Um, and that was now to give credit where credit's due. The thing that I do love about money is I feel safe, you know, like I, I feel and I think everybody deserves that. So I feel like I always know where my next meal is going to come from. I live in a house that's two standard deviations beneath my tax bracket. I drive a 40 year old Honda. Like I didn't go and, and do the thing that some people do which is there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not trying to wealth shame but I like having, I like the safety and the security and that helps me as an entrepreneur because man can, I can make decisions other people can't make. You know, I can wait out storms, I can hire folks that need a little bit more training and uh, fire clients I don't like. I really like that. Uh, and so I think one of the things I did well is I didn't like immediately up level my, you know, life expenditures.

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Speaker B: I love everything that you just said. And I think one of the biggest pieces there was capital preservation. You put it into a something, an investment that was going to give you interest, that you could live off the interest. And you didn't touch your principal amount. And I think that's what people go, oh, I'm going to just go spend all of it. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. The smart way to do it is you invest what you, your proceeds from the sale into something that you can live off the interest from. And, um, we talked to a lot of business owners and they're like, I think I'm ready to sell. We're like, cool. Let's go through this exercise to see, you know, what is the price, what is the monthly amount that you need to live off of over how many years and does that match with what you would be able. The value of your business now? And so many times there's that, ah, mismatch because they think I'm going to live off the principal. And we're like, no, no, no. You want to invest. That goes over here and you live off the interest. Is that interest amount that it's churning off enough for you to check the box?

Speaker C: What interest rate do you use? Just out of curiosity? I like the fire. Folks like to say 4%, which is post inflation. Is that a safe number?

Speaker B: It's very conservative. I go between 4 and 8, depending on the, um, sophistication of the seller. Like what? Um, they're comfortable, you know, if they've got other investments that are bringing in a certain interest rate, and we'll go with that. If they're completely new, 4% is what I. Safe.

Speaker C: Yeah, I like that too. I make my money in a very risky way. And so when I invest my money, I just want to, like, I. I don't want any risk. Just like, you know, m. Yeah, you're

Speaker B: pulling money, you're pulling the cash off the table. Right? You're taking it out of. And so you don't want to have to worry about it. You want something that's just gonna continue to compound and grow. So, yeah, super good advice. I love it. Very cool. So let's talk about your book. Tell me, um, so you've written a book and.

Speaker C: Well, at the risk of sounding arrogant, I think I've written the greatest book on hiring ever written. And to put my money where my mouth is, your audience can have it for free.

Speaker B: Um, so Generous of you. Thank you.

Speaker C: I spent 20 years of my life learning how to find, uh, hire, train and retain the greatest talent in the world. Uh, so the book is called Hire. Your audience can go to thehirebook.com and the book is free. All the templates are free. We have a worksheet, a cheat sheet. My team created a global job board that has every single job board on the planet segmented by geography and uh, category. And there's no ascension. They're not going to download this and like get offered a free course or anything. Uh, my real goal is to make my name synonymous with the word hire. And I really love, you know, just selfishly, uh, my personal mission is to help people in emerging nations find meaningful work. And so if I had, you know, a tax relevant influence on that, let's say if I was one of the people that helped the needle move there, I think that would be really meaningful. So I would like to say that your audience, everybody is seven steps away from the greatest hire they've ever made.

Speaker B: Yeah. And what a difference a good hire, uh, the difference between a good hire and a mediocre hire and a poor hire is it's a game changer.

Speaker C: Oh, it's, yeah. I ah, mean, you know, dare I say, and hopefully this isn't hyperbole, but I think it's incalculable. We named our staffing agency Pareto Talent because the, I think the Pareto distribution, you being a financial mind, you understand it better than most, or let's say any. But I. People don't really spend enough time thinking about. I think it's the most important mathematical principle in business and in life. And the other thing people don't realize is it's fractal. So the example that I give clients is, you know, if you take uh, an organization with a thousand employees, the Predator distribution, which is called the 8020 rule. So we'll just go with 80 20, even though it's, you know, more of an articulation of the fact that there's outweighed inputs and outputs.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: But 80 20, just for easy math, because I have a 10th grade education, a thousand employee organization has 200 employees doing 80% of the work, which is pretty reasonable. Like anybody who's worked in a thousand employee organization. I worked at a couple of call centers as a kid. And you're like, yeah, I've seen that. You know, there's the 200 that do the 80% that actually makes sense. But what they don't realize is when you zoom in on the 240 are doing 80% of that work. And when you zoom in on the 48 are doing 80% of that work. And what that distills down to is in a thousand person organization, one person is doing about 25% of the work, which is insane. It's insane. And what people don't realize is you can index towards hiring that one person or the top eight, let's say. And even more interesting, most organizations repel top talent. Especially the larger the organization gets, the more bureaucratic it gets. They, they can't stand to see existential crisis on a spreadsheet because there's just no, there's no risk mitigation for that. So you know, if you're quick in loans and you're like gosh, one person is doing 25% of our output, they don't look at that as a positive thing. In their mind it's a key man insurance issue and they're going to go mitigate the risk. But what that really means is you take a dominance hierarchy and all functional hierarchies are shaped like pyramids and your highest value assets move to the top of the pyramid and they go and they flatten the pyramid and they install like, you know, mandatory minimums and quotas. But, but that means that top talent is repelled by all things bureaucratic. And so small nimble organizations, especially if they're willing to pay more, which repels everybody but they, you know, if you understand the math, it can't not work in your favor. You have to pay 10% more than the high water mark, you know, which is a lot by the way. It's not nothing. But if you're willing to pay 10% more than the high water mark, you don't get 10% more output. You get five times, 10 times, 100 times. And I've seen that over and over and over again. You know, I built the number one ranked Google Ads agency in the world. We had $100 million in ad spend under management when I sold it. The according to HubSpot, who has more data on this than anybody, the average media agency was aiming at a 15% margin which as a high watermark aiming. I had 40% margins when I sold and it's because I was able to attract top talent who and they performed at levels that other people thought were, were unreasonable. You know, I remember peers, other agency owners asking me like how many clients do your media buyers manage? And we talk about the numbers both in quantity of clients and ad spend and like how, how do you get people who do that. And I'm like, I have the best people on the planet, obviously, you know what I mean? Like, what do you do? And I'd go, like, I'd go to India. I remember there's a young man who I love to death. He's one of my best employees ever. His name's Ankar. Uh, he was making nine times what his peers were making. The average Indian specialist was making, uh, a sum of money that would. It was insignificant. Sadly, it was very low. And this is what Google's paying them. So you go to Google and they're making a very low, you know, I mean, I guess you could sustain in India. And I went and I paid him what a US Media buyer would make. And people are like, oh, why would you do that? You can go get yourself a cheap Indian. And I'm like, well, wait till you see what an expensive Indian gets you. You know, like, I'm paying him nine times. And I got one of the best people in the world. And he handled, uh, one of my top client was a, uh, publicly, uh, traded pet supplement company. And he had that them and they paid me $54,000 a month, by the way. And he had them in 14 other clients. He had a slated 15 clients. So, like the, the math can't not math in your favor if you go and find top talent. But entrepreneurs are trot to hire people and treat people like commodities. And it's a catastrophic error because people aren't commodities. And everything about a person that is commoditizable nullifies their value to a degree that you might as well have a robot doing that job. And we're gonna, we're gonna experience that trade off here pretty soon. So I think the only entrepreneurial endeavor really is talent acquisition. Because if you're an entrepreneur, you have to learn every problem is your problem. I have an OPS problem. I have to learn ops. I have a finance problem. I have to learn finance. I have a fulfillment problem. I have to learn fulfillment. Or you can go learn talent. Oh, I have an OPS problem. Let me find an OPS person. I have an HR problem. Let me find an HR person, et cetera, et cetera. So I think if you can really crack the talent code, there's nothing left for you to do, you know, now it's sit back and let people that are smarter and better and wiser and faster than you just outrun you and make you money.

Speaker B: I love it. I love it. Two things I always say. It's not how, it's who.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And I hire smart people and I get out of their way. And that's why. That's what success is as an entrepreneur. It's like you're collecting these geniuses in their own little, you know, area and let them, Let them create. Let them do all the things that they're so good at. I love that. Very cool. So this book, um, it teaches you. You're talking about how to do all of these things?

Speaker C: Yes, ma'. Am. It's a, it's more of a workbook than it is a book book. There's, there's seven very distinct steps. It's also kind of sneaky. Uh, the way that we've been taught to hire is exactly wrong. Um, the whole world hires using resumes and interviews. And resumes and interviews tell you absolutely nothing about a human. And so just to give you some examples, I embed what I call fly traps. And every job description that I post, number one, it's a sales letter. People don't understand. Job descriptions are sales letters. You have to market yourself, be a fun place to work, have a mission, vision, values. That's inspiring. Pay people more, not just in money, but in things like PTO or flexibility or access or training, whatever it is that you have. Give, give, give, give. Uh, you know, if you go to jobbing or monster. Indeed, or any of those things, go pull up any, any, any job posting at random. And they all, they're all horrible. It's all like, you must comply with these rules and regulations or you will be publicly flogged. You know what I mean? Like, this just looks like, who writes this garbage? So you write a sales letter. You make the place sound amazing. You attract and repel with a lot of personality. You pay more than anybody in the markets willing to pay. And surprise, surprise, you'll get inundated with applications. You'll have hundreds, if not thousands of applications, especially if you're willing to hire internationally. And so that's overwhelming. And so you're like, well, Kasim, what do I do? And the answer is, you build in fly traps. So really small examples. The first flight trap I have is. The first functional fly trap I have is to apply. The very top of the job description says, to apply, your subject line must read. I actually read the instructions. And if somebody sends an email and the subject line doesn't read, I actually read the instructions. They're automatically filtered out using Zapier and Gmail. Like, I don't, I don't even see them, or my EA doesn't see them because she's the one that filters everything. And then I have some instructions in the job description. It'll be things like, answer this question or take this personality quiz or take this English proficiency tester, whatever's specific to that role. And if they follow the instructions, they make it to the next level, which, by the way, sadly, 80% of people, sometimes 90% of people, don't follow the instructions. And the next level, most people would think, is interviews, which I think is an absolute waste of your time. Instead, what I do is I try to shortlist no more than 10 to 20 people. So I'm hiring for a specific role. And let's say you applied for a job with me. I'd say, Andrea, really appreciate your attention to detail. Following instructions. That's exactly what I'm looking for. Really. You know, it's awesome. I think you'd be a great fit. But I've learned, because I've been hiring for 20 years and I've hired thousands of people, uh, I learned nothing from job interviews or resumes until I've worked together. So here's what I'd like to do. I like to pay you in advance for two hours of your time to do a trial project. Here's. And I explain the light scope of work. If you agree, send me your PayPal or your wiser, your Payoneer, or whatever applicable to that geography, and I'll pay you ahead of time. And then you pay a sum of money that's not going to make anybody rich, but lets them know that you honor their time. So in the Philippines, that could be 10 to 20 bucks. You know, Latin America, maybe it's 40 or 50. Uh, in the U.S. maybe it's 100. And people are like, oh, my God, custom. You don't want to pay ahead of time. Think about this for a moment, though. Let's say that you did go to Latin America and you paid, you know, 40 bucks or 50 bucks, and you did that for 10 people. That's $500 for the greatest insurance policy of your life. Because here's what I do. I pay them ahead of time, and then I don't send them the job description. I don't send them the trial project. I wait. I wait to see who follows up, who ghosts me, who lacks the integrity necessary to, you know, because some people just take the 50 bucks and run. I've had people not, uh, infrequently follow up a month later saying, hey, you sent me money and you never sent me a job. And I'm like, thank God I didn't hire you person who very clearly needs to be micromanaged. So I wait to see who follows up. And 60, 70% of people generally follow up. And then I send them a trial project that is applicable to the role I'm hiring for. Uh, and I make the project hard. If you're hiring for a graphic designer, don't say, create this design, especially in a post AI world. Instead, give them a problem. Hey, here's the client that we have. They have a very specific brand, very specific brand guidelines. We're trying to create an ad that gets this emotion across without crossing these boundaries. How would you do that? Now you get a person who really thinks for themselves. And then I'll do other things. I have hundreds of fly traps. They're all in the book, but one of my favorites is, uh, I'll ask, you know, based on the scope of work, when do you think this will be done? Never tell them a deadline because you want to know. There's two jobs when somebody's working remotely. There's the job and then there's the job of doing the job. Can you manage expectations? Can you communicate that type of thing? So they say, let's say it's Monday, and they say it's going to be done by Friday. Great. Here are all the assets you need. And I'll give them like a Dropbox account with a username and login, but I'll send them the wrong password. And then I wait to see how long it takes for them to follow up, because if I get a frantic email Thursday night saying the password doesn't work, now, I know you're a procrastinator, and you know there's a bunch of. For salespeople, I'll. I'll have them schedule a call with me, and then I'll cancel the call last minute. Or I'll ghost them and I won't even answer it. And then I wait to see if they follow up. Because if you're sales, that's going to happen to you all the time. And you'd be shocked at how many amazing salespeople on paper don't follow up with the ghost. You know, so take whatever's hard about the role, difficult about the role, caused you to fire before. Other people have issues, and you can see those as little fly traps, and you can start to see who's good, who's bad, who's not. At the end of this process, you're gonna have three to five bloodthirsty assassins, deadly killers, like just the best people. You've ever encountered in your entire life. And now your job is to not ruin them because you can ruin peak performers in 90 days. Uh, and that'll be my next book. I'm gonna write a book on delegation. But this is how I've built every business that I've, I own. And the thing that's really interesting is I'm so much more successful and wealthier than I deserve to be because every other entrepreneur is trying to do it themselves. And all I've done is figured out how to find people who are smarter, better, faster, hungrier than me, put them in a situation where our interests are aligned, and then I cut them loose and I get out of their way. And it's been extraordinary and it's been so fulfilling because most people, especially in the emerged world or western nations or whatever we're supposed to say now from a PC perspective, they're not willing to hire international people for anything but grunt work. And so the thing about that that's really interesting is if you're in the us, Canada, uk, Germany, France, England, doesn't matter. Uh, you don't have access to top talent, period. Because a kid, a young man or woman who really is extraordinary, wants to do three things. They want to go work for Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, right? Some like great big Iber Tower, $12 croissants, conference room business. Or they want to go pre IPO where they can get made a billionaire. Or they want to go into business for themselves, which by the way, is easy here. It's easy. Like with we've God bless this, you know, what we've done from an infrastructure, we've made it accessible. So you're left with the leftovers. And they're not bad people. My cousin's like this. I have a cousin I love. We raised together. He's like a brother to me. He's great father, great husband, great friend, great racquetball player, great. I can go 15 times. But what I'm not going to say is a great employee. He makes $150,000 a year working as a supervisor at a call center, which is a bullshit phone in job, forgive me for saying so. All those people that are like, you're still in American jobs. No, I'm not. Those Americans don't want those jobs. But go to Latin America, North Africa, Eastern Europe, all of Asia, and you will experience something that is an American employer, Western employer you've never experienced before, which is gratitude. These are people that you get to pay three, four, five times what they'd make domestically and they will blow your mind as to what they're capable of. And don't everybody who's like, oh, I've tried outsourcing. It didn't work. No, you didn't. You tried to get some kid in Bangladesh to make 500 cold calls a day, and surprise, surprise, he burnt out. Go try to find, like, a real. You know what I mean? A C level, director level, manager level. Anything, insert anything here. You want to tell me the rest of the world doesn't produce extraordinary talent, you know, like. And they don't have the opportunities that people in this country do. So that's my soapbox and my thesis. And I know that some of it's a little offensive, but I've done it over and over and over and over and over again. I sold my business. I had six U.S. employees. Employees. Everybody else was international. And. And there's a framework for firing, for finding those people. And man, will they just blow your mind. They're extraordinary.

Speaker B: Yeah, I love the. The thing that stood out to me the most is you're giving someone opportunity that they wouldn't otherwise have.

Speaker C: Right. Well, there's no typological impact.

Speaker B: You didn't create that. That barrier for them. That's something that they just have to deal with and work around. Um, but you're giving them another solution, so I love that.

Speaker C: Thanks, Andrea. It doesn't stop me from getting yelled at it on TikTok.

Speaker B: I. Yeah, everybody's got an opinion.

Speaker C: You're exploiting poor people. I'm like, how? They don't. You know, I mean, it's like, they don't. How is bringing a job to somebody doesn't have a job exploitation, especially when you pay them more. But you know, the TikTok warriors, nothing stops them from voicing their opinions.

Speaker B: Yeah, very cool. I'm excited to read the book, and I'm sure all of our listeners and watchers are as well, so could you repeat that website?

Speaker C: Yes, ma'. Am. Thehirebook.com. the. Or the higherbook.com and put that in

Speaker B: the show notes, too, for. For the episode, so everyone can go and get a copy of that and check it out. And thank you for being so generous and sharing that with us. That's really cool.

Speaker C: Thanks for having me on your show. I really appreciate you.

Speaker B: Yeah, this has been a great conversation. Lots of nuggets here. So go back and listen to this or watch it again because there's lots of good stuff here. I know, uh, we could probably talk for long, long, long time on all of these different things and, and go deeper into them, but we'll have to save that for another episode. So I, um, want to thank you for your time and for, uh, your generosity and it's been a great time, uh, unpacking some of these things with you and uh, hopefully our listeners or viewers got a little different way of thinking and looking at, you know, something that they're trying to solve right now in their business.

Speaker C: Yes, ma'. Am. I hope so too. Everybody who's listening, thanks for tuning in your time and attention. I appreciate you. And Andrew, I appreciate you for having me on.

Speaker A: Thank you for listening. Don't forget to like and review and we'll catch you on the next episode. If you're looking for more content or resources in the meantime, check out our website for information, blogs and our. I've got a spreadsheet for that series. That's TheCashflowCFO.com again, TheCashflowCFO.com. we can't wait to hear from you.