Show Notes
[1:50] - Let me Introduce today’s guests.
- In studio we have Andrea from Phoenix IT Advisors and Tony from Insperity
[2:45] - Tony, you reached out to me on LinkedIn and at the time I was just looking for people to connect with and I kind of asked what you did and what’d you tell me?
- You told me you help small businesses that want to grow. Help them run better.
[3:50] - Tony’s bullet points of the main ways he helps businesses.
- Payroll
- Onboarding
- Recruiting
- Compliance
- Taxes
Whatever it might be for someone who is great at one thing and wants to start a business in that thing and maybe they don’t have too much an idea in the other areas.
When you have questions or concerns or maybe there’s something you’re not comfortable with, that’s when someone like Insperity comes in and help you make sense of some of those issues.
[5:50] - Tony, tell me a little bit about a significant challenge you’ve delt with in your professional career.
- Tony started with Insperity March 16th of this year (the week most businesses started sending employees home and shutting their doors)
- I was in the office 2 full days and a half day before COVID lockdown.
- Significant challenge - he started a new career among the pandemic.
- In addition to starting a new career in pandemic he is also planning a wedding in October.
[8:14] - What was your Initial reaction when you started your career 2 days prior to the lockdown?
- Terrified.
- Deeply concerned for my well being, not from a health standpoint but for a career standpoint.
- Because, like I mentioned, my intention for this job and being a business performance advisor was to truly be involved in the community. That’s the Insperity mission. I didn’t want to just be a stranger over the phone cold calling businesses.
- Hard to do that when you can't meet business owners. So, I sat there really concerned, new to any sort of undertaking like this. Before I worked tutoring children in math and running a math learning center.
- So my focus really was in I need to build relationships however possible. LinkedIn became a huge resource to me.
[13:05] - What do you expect will be the long-term value of having to go through that for your career moving forward?
- Being seen right now, being here on this podcast with you.
- Be a resource and provide value for small businesses.
- Long-term, been fortunate enough to build relationships, meet people, and engage with them in a way that’s more organic and not so sales focused.
[15:00] - Timeout to give Tony a shoutout: If you have any of the issues that Tony takes care – weather it’s HR, Payroll or group health Insurance - give Tony a Phone Number is 972-409-4311
Shift gears - Value we can add for our listeners –
[16:10] - My question is, as you’re going out and meeting with people, whether it’s LinkedIn conversation, zoom meetings, or whatever. What do you see as the #1 fear, concern or problem that your clients or potential clients are dealing with?
- We have this PPP Loan, it helped a lot, it’d be great if we don’t have to pay it back.
- What do I need to do to make sure that it’s not the case? What do I need to have prepared? What are the steps I need to have done?
- There is 5.2 Million outstanding PPP Loans as of last week.
- This represents about 15-20% of all small businesses in America.
- And that’s about $520 Million dollars in loans.
[26:20] - As a non-finance professional, if someone were to ask me in a state of panic, what they need to do about this PPP Loan – My advice would be: Take a breath.
- As Finance professionals, both of you, would you give different advice? No. Take a breath. Relax. If you’ve been documenting everything, you should be good.
[28:07] - Which brings me to my next question. You hear “document everything” all the time, but to my knowledge, when we do things in QuickBooks, run payroll, etc. We are already documenting everything.
Is there anything we need to be doing differently to document this stuff for the Forgiveness process?
- On the Payroll side, probably not.
- Where you may need some additional looking into, or more complex reporting is if you had to lay some people off then bring them back how does that affect your full-time equivalency.
- If you did have any legitimate firings, or workers who refuse to come back to workplace due to COVID. You want to make sure you have that in writing and on record because that’ll apply to the SafeHarbor which affects your full-time equivalency as well.
- That’s just a lot of words to say they want to make sure that what happened, during the PPP covered period reflects accurately on your reference period.
[29:15] - Dig in a little more. Let's say that a company had a full-time salesperson that they hired prior to the COVID pandemic. And that salesperson didn’t do their job right, then COVID hits, and in that scenario a boss decided to let that salesperson go? It wasn’t about pandemic, it was about lack of performance
- Tony says this is where recording everything all the time, not just during pandemic, does you a lot of favors.
[31:15] - Justin asks Tony “If you were handling HR for this hypothetical company, is that something Insperity would have gotten involved in?”
- Absolutely. Part of the great service team you get as an Insperity client, includes an HR specialist.
- So, they can answer those hard questions, and make sure you have policies in place to not only document those things but make sure what you're documenting applies to your policies.
- This way, when it comes time to fire someone, it is a legitimate firing. Not just an act of inconvenience due to COVID as some may try to spin it.
[33:45] - One thing I’ve learned a while back is that in the recession, that’s a great time to find good people.
[34:05] - Tony’s words of wisdom for fellow business owners, fellow professionals, people trying to muddle through situation we find ourselves in right now
- Like you said, in a recession you find good people.
- It's tough right now for a lot of businesses. Just stay optimistic. Take care of your people.
- It’s maybe not time to grow, but it is the time to look, there are good people available. Maybe time to reflect on the performance of your employees.
- With the slow down, there's been more opportunity for businesses to take that look and see where there’s room for improvement. Where maybe they can reduce some things and cut down.
- Remain open minded at getting better and more efficient, but don’t overexert yourself
- Some companies may have the opportunity to pivot but those who don’t, think about your solid strategies. What you can do moving forward.
- Not all businesses are going to have that genius pivot available to them, but you're in business for a reason. Chances are if you made it this far, you’re doing something okay. So, what have you done okay and what is that going to look like moving forward?
- How do you make sure you have both the workforce and processes available to handle that and move forward in a way that makes sense?
- I really think that it is the time to invest in your people and culture.
- Those business owners who do value their people, their employees are going to recognize that in this time.
- Showing who you are as a business and providing value as well.
[38:10] - Thank you for being a part of this. This was solid, great content. I learned something and I think there’s value in this for everybody that listens.
SHOUT OUT – Guys, if you have a business, you’re involved in a business that wants to grow Tony's your guy! Give him a call: 972-409-4311