EntreLeadership - #247: Virtual Culture with Bryan and Shannon Miles

Episode Date: February 19, 2018

Bryan and Shannon Miles, cofounders of the wildly successful virtual support provider BELAY, have done what many would think impossible: create a unified and thriving culture among a team made up entirely of telecommuters. Turns out you don’t need to work in the same building—or in some cases, even the same state—to foster excellent communication, unparalleled accountability, and good morale. In lieu of a corporate office, Bryan and Shannon have decided to invest in their team instead of infrastructure. If eight years in business, 60 employees, and 500 contractors are any indication, it looks like they’re doing something really right. Tune in to find out how to do the same in your organization, virtual or not. Also joining us is All Access member Renee Daggett, president of AdminBooks, to highlight what you need to know now about the new tax bill. entreleadership.com/podcast  ELP Small Business Tax Prep Checklist from EntreLeadership Lifecycle Marketing from Infusionsoft Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message for Ken with the details. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is Andre Leadership. Now, here's your host, Ken Coleman. Coming to you from the Music City, this is the broadcast of leaders by leaders for leaders. Thanks for joining the conversation. Today, our featured guests are Brian and Shannon Miles, husband and wife duo, both authors. Brian's got a new book out called Virtual Culture, and we'll be talking, about the idea of the virtual offices. Is it doable? Is it sustainable? The answer is yes, and they have some

great information for you. Also, love this when one of our All Access members, a member of the tribe, and an expert help us out on this broadcast. Renee Daggett is a tax-endorse local provider. This is important information we're going to give you, as you are thinking about tax time and a small business owner who can sometimes get overwhelmed. And of course, we're going to give you some free tools from our Entree Leadership Team and from InfusionSoft. All right, folks, Brian and Shannon Miles are our guests, as I said at the top of the program. They are returned guests from episode 11, been All Access members since September of 2013. That's really cool.

Almost five years in the program. And what I love about this story is, is that they've used All Access to the maximum and they're winning big. They are formerly EA Help, MAG, bookkeeping, render, and, and ellipsis. But they combined all of those brands into one brand, Belay. And it is an online company aimed at growing organizations virtually. Now, they themselves are growing like crazy. And they have figured out how to do it themselves, not just help others to do it. Big friends of Ontario leadership, I know both Shannon and Brian personally great people. Here is Brian and Shannon Miles. Brian Shannon, good to have you back. You're no strangers to Entree leadership,

but you're in our new studio for the first time. Fantastic. Thank you. Well, this is fun. Brian, we did a webinar with you recently talking about a lot of what you've written in the book, virtual culture and how is that even possible. But before we get into the idea of building a virtual culture, I'd love for you both to just weigh in on, I'd love people to get the quick history of your company because it really is fascinating to see how your company has grown along with, I think, an environment in America that just has been very symbiotic. Give us a little bit of the story. We actually started our company in 2010, so still in the midst of the recession, which on paper sounded like the worst time, right? But in hindsight, it ended up being the perfect time.

We both left our jobs to pursue this and started very small, but knew almost from minute one that we had to get out of our own way to grow the business. So we've always been intentional about bringing people on, grooming them up for leadership and leading with open hands. And I think that's been a key to the business growing as rapidly as it has over the last seven years. And I want you to explain the core. When you first started, what was the core model, core idea? And then as things have grown, how has it evolved?

Yeah. So our core service is virtual assistants. You know, I had one in Charlotte. Her name is Trisha. She's now the CEO of our company. Wow. Which has been really cool to see for her. But, you know, for seven years, I had a virtual assistant in my old job before we started the company.

And I thought, leaders need this. You know, they don't have to have a person that's in the office working with them day to day. They can actually have somebody who's very productive and very focused that's two timesones away. And I just knew that leaders in varying capacities and different verticals could use this. And it turned out that we started it. It was the perfect timing. You know, it ended the kind of great recession in 2010. Unemployment was skyrocketed.

It was less than 10%. Friends and family thought we were little nuts. But it was the right time to start. Why did they think you were nuts? Well, I mean, you think we had two very nice, stable jobs. You know, we had two little kids. Two little kids. And then we didn't want to go get startup capital from anybody else.

So we basically used all the money in our 401Ks. So we took a risk. We left our jobs the same day. We gave notices where we wanted to come back if it didn't work. It just as fortunately worked out really well for us. And I know, too. I mean, we talked to a lot of small businesses that that's not their story. So we're very grateful where we sit today.

How has the business evolved? What does it look like now versus those early days when it was just, hey, we're helping connect, you know, virtual assistance to people that need the help? Yeah, very shortly after we launched with virtual assistant services, we offered bookkeeping services. And we were specifically focused on the nonprofit and church sector when we initially started. And then we've evolved into for-profit work and have added on webmaster design and maintenance services as well as content writing. So even just the offerings, it's kind of been born out of our own experience and then what our customers are saying that they need where we've added on additional services. So we've grown from Brian and I and our basement in the early days to 60 employees and about 500 contractors that provide the virtual assistant bookkeeping webmaster and writing services. Oh, this is fun.

Okay, so here's where we get into how this works because this is really cool. 60 people that doesn't account the contractors, the bookkeepers and the bookkeepers and the. assistance. It's our employees. Yeah. So none of them. How many? None, right? None are in one like central location. No office. There's no office. Zero office. Yep, on purpose. Even for you and Shannon. Yeah. I mean, we work off our back deck or, you know, walking around outside on calls or whatever, but there's no office on purpose. So, yeah, on purpose. Explain that. About three years in, we were getting successful and we had about 30 employees at the time. And we kind of looked at each other and we said, well, I guess legitimate companies go get office space.

Yeah. Something we should do. This is something we should do, right? And so we hired a consultant. We started looking in Atlanta, looked at Kaspers Square, looked at all these other crazy things you have to have when you have an office. And we figured out it was easily $200,000. And I just thought, no one wants to come work in an office.

Like the people that we have are here partially because they don't have to come to an office and put up with the Atlanta commute. And then it kind of also went against our virtual nature of our services. You know, like if I had to come sell you and come see you to sell you, kind of defeated the purpose of having a virtual service. Right. So virtual just made sense for us. And so we made a decision. It wasn't that hard of a decision.

We just said we don't need an office. Yeah. And I think that's a key point, Shannon, is that I like that it was really more about coding to your DNA. Yeah. This was your DNA. And you're going, okay, I'm going to make some decisions here that don't even square with my DNA. Right. And so because you were running this company that was virtual help,

then you're going, wait a second, we know how this actually works and what the traps are, what the downside, upside, all that stuff. So then you're able to go, okay, well, we can do this. So when you decided, okay, we're going to do that and stay that way, what were some intentional things that you begin to think about? Because you write about culture. Your new book is virtual culture. So take us back to those days. You're looking at land.

And at some point, I guess you tell the consultant, right, Shannon, hey, we don't. need you. Yeah, we've decided not to do this. And a lot of it was just talking to our team members and being realistic about how much we would actually use that space. And, you know, if you're growing as an organization, you guys have experienced this. You grow out of your space very quickly. And so even what we could afford at the time wouldn't be scalable. So we basically told them, thanks for all of the due diligence. You helped us make a decision to not pursue this. And we really decided just to double down on building our culture virtually and leveraging all of the tools that are out there to make that happen and investing more in our team than in the infrastructure.

Okay, this is great. This is where I want to camp out for a while. Great. Because those that are listening in here right now, Brian, Shannon, they don't have to be a virtual company, but I talk to people all the time who have multiple offices in different locations. So what works for virtual culture and what's worked for you all can work when you have multiple offices, you're not like Ramsey Solutions where everybody is on one site. So let's talk about some practical things that you have done. You guys can pop corn off each other. I'm going to really throw the ball to you because I want to know, what did you do? How did you invest? Where did you invest? What does culture look like now as a result of saying, we're going to be intentional

to create virtual culture? We had to have tools to work in a virtual environment. So you can't have antiquated or hard-based technologies that are installed on machines. You've got to do web-based technologies. So we said, what technologies are we going to use corporately for organization? We invested heavily in that. You know, enterprise dropbox is not cheap, but you kind of got to create a system for those things. And then just say, everybody has to use these. That's part of scale. You know, another one is with our team. We believe that culture is not an office. It's actually just common vision. It's the desire to grow something together. And so we tell stories. Like, we say, and I know you guys just here too, it's really cool. You know, this is how we're moving

the dial on our mission. This is why we're here. It has nothing to do with coming into an office or the fact that you stay at home. You know, we can all be united around these stories of how we're serving our customers in different capacities. And then I was thinking also about the Facebook, you know, how we leverage that too. It was kind of a repository for conversation for us. We had a closed Facebook page for our employees. And then also we have one for our contractors where they can collaborate and share stories and ask for suggestions. So that became a platform for community. You guys do the high lows, right?

Absolutely. And we do too on Facebook. It's now workplace, which is Facebook's business version. But, you know, as the technologies evolve, we're always looking for ways to incorporate that. Was that a regimented highs, lows? I mean, was it a certain time where, okay, everybody's heading to the Facebook page on Friday at 1030 and we're going to do this? Yeah. So there was structure. Oh, for sure. Companies have to be intentional about their culture, whether they're physically together or whether they're working in remote locations or whether everybody's working from home. And so even though we're not together, we're very regimented about our meeting cadence. You know, our leadership team gets together every week on Zoom for meetings, every quarter for off-sites. You know, our company, we get everybody together four times a year physically, face-to-face. In addition to, you know, individual teams,

having meeting rhythm. So it's not haphazard because we're to spare it. It's very, you almost have to be more intentional because you're not going to walk down the hall and see somebody and think, oh, I should, I meant to tell them that. And it started with Brian and I, you know, in those early days. And even though he and I are the only ones that have ever worked in the same place together, like in our basement, we had to be really intentional to say, no, let's meet. Let's not just assume that we know what's going on because we're around each other. Let's have an agenda. have intentional meetings and be focused in what we discuss. And that has replicated across our business. Something else that was very intentional, too, is we decided in Atlanta that our corporate teams,

our employees would be in Atlanta. So if we had to circle the wagons, I wasn't putting someone on an airplane from San Diego. And I couldn't afford that. We couldn't afford that at the time. So that's just worked out that our corporate team is in Atlanta. And we can all get there in an hour for a meeting if we had to. And then they collaborate. They'll have sales meetings or account management meetings. They have that at their disposal. We use Rome, which is kind of like a co-work location place in Atlanta, and that works really well for us. So that's kind of our in-person office when we need that. Another follow-up on this, because I'm trying to think of the listener who's going, okay, that's interesting. Accountability. Again, you've got a leader in one

location and people that they are leading in a different location. What has worked for you all as relates to accountability or maybe another way of saying it's not just accountability, but just quality communication so that it is virtual, but they're in sync. Well, I think, you know, one of the things that we try and find with people that work in organizations is they value working from home. A lot of them have come from like a traditional corporate America type of environment where they've already kind of have like a salaried role and it's about results. It's not about punching the clock. You know, so accountability, we take something from the playbook at Entry leadership with our KRAs.

We have KRAs. Everybody's got one in the company. And so we make it really clear that this is what winning looks like in your role. And then we tie off to that and our managers kind of hold them accountable in that way. But it's the type of people that we're looking for, when you have somebody that works from home, they value their autonomy. So they respect that and they're result-oriented. They know that when they're done with this one thing or these tasks that they have to do, they've got to go jump in carpool and get the kids or whatever those things are that they need to do.

So it really starts with finding those people that value working from home. and a result-oriented. But then you still have processes. For sure. Where that leader is kind of developing their own thing. You know, there's a lot of leeway to just get the job done. Yeah. Yeah.

We measure everything, too. So it becomes very clear if somebody's missing the mark and not delivering on what they're supposed to. I mean, Basecamp is a widely adopted tool where you're tracking projects and with due dates. And so if somebody's got something due on Friday and we don't get it until Monday, it's very clear that they weren't accountable for that. And so we have those conversations early and often. So the book, virtual culture, I want to call out a couple things of the book. The chapter that jumped out to me, I was like, what is going on here? It's very provocative, and I love provocative chapter titles. I love provocative talks and thoughts. Let's bury Henry Ford. That's chapter one.

Of course, I got to call that out. What in the world? He's already dead and gone. Why would you want to bury him again. A great American impacted our nation. You know, I think he stands for, in a lot of ways, the industrial age. And we're just seeing that there's a shift in how people work today, virtual, remote, whatever kind of fancy word you want to throw at it. And if you think of like a traditional workplace factory when they were building cars in the early days, what they did was they'd put their workers in the middle and they put their managers around them. And if you think about corporate office space today, what do you do? You put your workers in the middle and you put managers around them. And what's happening is there's a group of, there's two ends of the spectrum.

There's large corporations saying, we can't get leaders to come in anymore to an office because they've already had a job of meaning they're paid well and they work off their back deck. So there's a leadership deficit growing and bigger corporations today. And then you've got startup saying, we don't need an office. Like we just can get stuff done globally. And we can have a great team. We can have something of meaning. And so there's two ends of the spectrum kind of pushing on what really was a kind of a creation from the industrial age. So Henry Ford, an amazing person, but just felt like it was time to acknowledge that times are changing. Right. They are changing for some and then not for others, because I think this is important. I put you both on the spot because I know you can handle it,

but I think we have to address it. I mean, here we are at Ramsey Solutions. You guys are big fans of Entree leadership. You've been through, seems like everything, you've adopted a lot of the principles and made them your own and you're winning with them. But that's not happening here. For sure, yeah. And so I just want you to address that in the sense of who is it right for, who is it not right for? If someone's listening and going, okay, boy, what Brian and Shannon are saying are making sense, but I can't get my head wrapped around it.

I just want you to address that elephant there because it is for some. It definitely works. There's no denying that. But for others, it's just something that they're not willing to do. How do you address that? I think that even those that are not willing to do it currently, I think in the next couple of decades, they'll be forced to think through this in a greater capacity. You think it's a cultural trend that's going to be. Why is it? What are we looking at that? I just, you know, we talked to hiring managers of larger corporations and they're struggling to get people to come and work in the organization because these people won't work from home.

You know, a decade ago when you said, hey, I want to work from home, there was almost this assumption that that person was lazy. Yeah, right. You know, your sweatpants all day. Yeah, your boxers or whatever. Right, that's right. And now that's this, you know, we're in such a fluid environment where autonomy is valued. I think that it's really great that an organization like this, right, what you do is such meaningful work and you have an amazing culture.

I just think that there's going to be a time in the future of this organization where you'll have to think that through. It may not be now or for the next decade or I just see it happening because we talk to enough people in different verticals. They're struggling with this. Big and small. There's a lifeway here in Nashville. Just went through a four-year migration that since 75% of their people. people home. That's 5,600 people that were affected by that. That's not just a little tiny

segment. I mean, that's big and small companies are faced with this. So I totally respect it. And sometimes it's just kind of the personality of the leader. You know, they value having everybody together and how they built their culture is that? That's right. And that's great. Do you see advances in technology, Shannon, also making this happen faster? Absolutely. We couldn't have had belay 10, 15 years ago and have it be as effective as an organization as it is now. I mean, the technology is the underpinning to make this work. It doesn't substitute communication, right? It doesn't substitute culture.

It augments it. Right. Yeah. It's not like work is changing. Right. It's just the location is changing or the means by which it has always been done. This is not new. I know.

This has been going on for a while. But you guys are obviously on the forefront of this. All right. Let's talk about myth busting. You have another chapter on myth busting. What is the myth? Well, there's several, but the biggest one that we talk about oftentimes, I hear it, and we felt it as well. It's this assumption that we're not a legitimate business because we don't have an office.

Right. And that's just not true. I mean, we're winning awards. We've won Inc. 500. You know, we've been on that thing three years in a row. We're of size as an organization. We're scaling. And we just kind of got to a place where this is a myth.

Like, if someone wants to discount us because we don't have an office, it's probably someone we shouldn't work with. You know, they don't value what we value. you, and that's okay. But I think that's one of the biggest myths out there is that you actually, and for anybody that's listening, you know, the truth is you can have a legitimate company without an office. Well, Shannon, speak to this. Both of you speak to this, just popcorn in here. I mean, if you're starting a company right now and you're not worried about leasing a building and whatever your operation costs, let's just call it that, related to a building. That's right. So leasing, utilities, whatever, cleaning, all that. Well, that's a pretty sizable,

what do you say the percentage cost is for the average company that's starting? It's pretty hefty. Well, you know, in my book, I actually created a calculator so they can go in and figure out all those costs. How about that? Yeah. So you're proven the point. I'm trying. Yeah. I mean, the truth is you just spend so much on an office. And it's not, it's not even things you realize. It's hallways, bathrooms. It's wall thickness. You're paying for all of that stuff. Make your landlord cry. That's where you do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. The idea is just freak them out like, like, hey, we don't need you anymore. We're out. on our lease is up. Well, look at this. So we have 60 employees. And let's say in the next year, we're going to go hire 10, right, or whatever, as we scale up our business. You know, a person in their home has about 100 square feet in their house that they can dedicate to an office. I can scale that immediately because they just create that in their home office. So large organizations are like,

well, now I've got to go build out 100 square feet per person and, you know, do all the critical thinking on that. The truth is you can just scale immediately with the right person. And it's just, it's already established real estate. Right. And you can scale it quick. Yeah. I think a broad vision of the future of where basically this is going to become more and more of a thing where people are like, hey, I'll just pass this gig up and wait for a gig that allows me to work remotely.

Yeah. Okay. But take us even further, like, or maybe a couple other macro circumstances, where you think the American workforce is going as it relates to a virtual office remote workers. Well, one that's obvious is, if it is true, say over the next couple of decades, this becomes a greater attention for employers to solve, they're going to abandon corporate office space, which means that you're going to have all these carcasses of office space that will have to be repurposed. Architects will have to find other things to design.

So I think that that will be one thing that's really obvious from it. I think that if we continue where more and more people working from home, the government's going to probably have to step in and some regulations, protecting that worker at home, you know, things like they slip and fall, you know, there's some kind of gray right now that's around all of that. I think that that'll have to evolve and change. And then I think that, you know, organizations are going to have to really solve how to scale and grow up and lead others all from a virtual standpoint. It's, you know, we're kind of building the airplane as we're going on the runway with this.

So we're figuring this stuff as we go. And corporations, say you're a 70-year-old company. And then you make this shift. You know, that's a sizable shift in the organization and its culture. So, you know, creating an environment for that and having them prepare for that. So there's got to be training materials. There's, I think, great opportunity for somebody. Yeah, it is a shift, and I think the training is definitely something that's going to have to happen.

But am I hearing you say that leadership is leadership, whether it's, is it? Let me, let me just, I'll put myself here. I don't mind if you giggle at me and make fun of me here. But it seems though it is very different. Am I wrong? I think leadership's leader. I mean, I'm the same leader. It is, but I mean, I'm talking about interaction.

Yeah. The interaction of leadership is very different if it's only through a computer screen. Yes or no? No. Okay. Yeah. I actually think the dynamics. I actually think it's better. I think it's more real. Because when you're at home, you're inviting me into your house, and I can see, like, you in your home environment, it's different when you can kind of be buttoned up and come into an office

and put on who you are as worker can versus when I can see you in your home. There is an element of who you are in your home environment. And so if you're sick or whatever, I think it creates actually a more authentic opportunity. Like, I can tell when my assistant's sick. I'm like, look, you know, and I would do the same thing if I was in an actual office with her, but I can just say, look, you don't need to be on this call today. Jump off. Well, that's good.

Because I'm, and again, it's me trying to process the in-person human interaction. Yeah. Because I can tell you this, whether I'm right or wrong, my feeling is, is that interviewing you two here is different than interviewing you in Atlanta via a screen. I think that that's fair. And to that point, I mean, we do get together. I mean, part of our culture is we still do get together. And that's my point. Like, that has to be a part of it.

Personal interaction face-to-face is still very valuable. And the reason why we spend a lot of money on these events by our team is for that. You kind of, it's got to be a both-in. I don't think it has to be all or nothing. You know, and I think it is a huge leap if you take an organization like yours to say, oh, all virtual. Like, you need steps in between, you know, to get there. So there are hybrid models that companies can evaluate. It's just starting the conversation.

That's right. It's looking at your workforce and saying, am I having a. a hard time recruiting, you know, millennials are graduating from college and going into corporations and hating it and realizing this is not what I want from my life. I want more freedom and autonomy. I want to work. I want to produce. But I want more agency. That's right. Because many of them are going to school and they barely darken a classroom. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. It's just the way that that the world is moving. Well, I think this is an important conversation, obviously. And again, I'm going to circle it back around to something I asked you earlier, Brian.

I want you to both speak to this if you want. But what I do think is wildly important is that traditional workplaces that are leaders that are listening in right now and watching where they have satellite offices, I think they can learn something from virtual companies. For sure. Because I hear this. I hear this. When people come here to our offices and they ask that question, how do I really systematize things and make things more efficient. How do I build positive culture when I've got satellite offices? And I think, I just want to bring it back to that because I want you to really challenge them. They can learn something

from virtual companies because you're nimble with all of your operations. And they're trying to figure out, okay, I got real people on the ground gathered in one building. But they're two states away. Yeah. What can they learn from you guys? I think that they can actually take heart and realize is that they can have a meaningful culture and an established thing, even though it's away from the headquarters or their corporate office, wherever that might be, and that if you set yourself up as a leader, you do the things that are expected that they expect you to do as a leader,

and they follow your lead, you can create a powerful culture, even though you're two states away or whatever. Let me ask a follow-up. These are notes that I took mentally from earlier. Is it they need to be super, super intentional with getting efficient on systems? Absolutely. then you've got to upgrade technology. So is that right?

That is part of it. If you invest in technology and systems, then you can essentially create what you have with a virtual company that runs like a charm. Take that money you were spending on the office and put it in your systems and technology. Well, for these people that are still in an office. So this is an additional investment where they're going to have to invest in the ability. What you guys figured out is how to create real systems that make your business work. But then you drive all your communication.

I mean, really, you just become a really good communication company. Is that right? I think that's a fair thought. I mean, communication is very important in our business. We have to at times even over communicate. Right. Because, like, you know, you can't just walk down their office and kick your feet up and have a conversation. So we have become very good at communication.

Yeah, I believe that. You need to have to. To the extent that the leader can communicate well, I think that their culture will thrive as a result of that. Because it's not just the day-to-day. It's the casting vision. This is where we're headed. This is why we're doing this. This is why this is important.

And reminding them of that stuff, oftentimes more than the what, the how, and the win. Yeah. Well, before I let you go, I'm very passionate about work and working on purpose. As you all know, this audience knows that. Shane, you got a book coming out later in the spring called The Third Option. I just, I want you to tease this. And not so much to tease the book, but the reason why you wrote it,

because this is what you're seeing. And I think this is really encouraging to a lot of our people that are listening to it. Yeah, the third option is really about why a woman doesn't have to choose between career and family, but can actually have both and succeed. So it's my journey of how I've been able to navigate the space between working full-time out of the home in an office with usually a crazy commute, right, to not working at all. And so the challenge to the reader is that we need to dream bigger about, what our work-life balance should look like and decide if what's currently your situation if that's going to work for you long term or if you're stretched too thin or maybe you're a stay-at-home

mom and you're pulling your hair out because you're missing that professional part of who you are and then actually doing something about it taking action on it. So I'm excited to share my story, but then also the stories of a lot of the women that we've partnered with over the years to make this happen. Yeah. Well, one thing I love about You too, is that you're always thinking outside the box. And the box is a, it's just a joke to you all. You see boxes and you chuckle. What box? Yes, exactly. You don't even see the box. I love that. The third option. I think it's a very important message. Look forward to that coming out. And then, of course, Brian's book is Virtual Culture. Brian again and Shannon, both they are a part of the Entree leadership tribe.

They are Entree leaders doing great stuff. So I think this is a very important consideration. I mean, even if you still aren't ready to swallow it, I think you need to chew on it a little bit more. So good stuff. Thanks for being with us. Good to have you up at the house. Always happy to be here in person. Face to face. Yeah, exactly. Shocking. We had a in-person interview with the virtual guru. So big fun. Thanks for being with us. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I told you that we were bringing one of our tribe members who is an expert, Renee Daggett, the founder and CEO of Admin Books. She is an all-access member since 2015. So we've got a theme going here. Renee was named into its top 200 accounting advisor in 2017. That's the top 1% in her field. She and her team also earned into its prestigious

firm of the future worldwide award. They were a top 15 accounting firm. And this is super practical information. So thrilled that Renee joined us. Here is some great practical information from Renee Dag. Well, Renee, this is fun. We were just talking before we went live to tape here that we hung out a couple years ago. So it's good to see you again and appreciate what you do for us at Ramsey Solutions. You represent us so well and take care of people so well. And you're now going to take care of our audience here as we talk about one of the most complex, convoluted, yet wildly important topics for a business owner. And that is taxes. So a lot of new stuff. coming together and new changes out of the Trump tax plan and Congress and all that stuff. So I've asked you to put together some things that are going to really help people practical. Let's start with the good, the bad, and the ugly when we think about the 2018 tax season. Exactly. That's what I call it, good, bad, and ugly because there are winners and there are losers with this new tax reform bill.

I think this is the largest tax bill in 30 years. And there's so many different changes. And it affects people in different ways. And there's people that are going to be excited, the winners. And there's people that are not going to, you know, have a good feeling about it. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Some of the winners are going to be young families. So, for example, it's fantastic with parents with young children that are getting a child

tax credit, it used to be a thousand dollars per child that you qualify for, but now it's doubled, $2,000 per child. The best thing is the income level goes from $110,000 up to $400,000. So what that means is more people are going to qualify for the child tax credit, and it's just going to be a win-win situation for those small families. However, there are losers in the game. For example, if there are W-2 wage earners that have employee expenses, a lot of those expenses are now going to be eliminated completely. So when you think of legal fees, safe deposit box, union dues, like for contractors, nurses and police officers, all of that is going away for 2018. Wow. So there really is this spectrum. So again, you being somebody who is an endorsed local, provider for us on this. How important is it? How quickly do our audience need to get with their

tax professional and make sure that they're fully aware of all this and how it affects really their business? Because you gave us some great personal examples, but this is a business issue. And if you're not careful, you're not going to be able to A, take advantage or B, may not be aware of some unexpected hits, correct? That's absolutely right. You need to get with your tax professional because the biggest thing for businesses is that entertainment expenses are totally gone. That means ball games, movie tickets, all of those things that you do, like, go golfing. You can't do that anymore and write it off as a deduction. So connect with your local provider and find out what is available to you.

Another thing is corporations. Some of the corporations are going to be excited about the new tax reform. For example, C corporations that pay 35% are going to be super excited because the percentage is going to drop down to 21%. Huge tax savings there. However, those corporations that have been paying 10% will not be happy. You want to get with your tax professional and see, okay, if I'm been paying 10%, and now it's going to go up to 21 percent, do I need to switch my entity to have a better tax savings?

Okay, so let me ask you this. Across the board, when you see a big benefit for a business, do you also see with this tax bill or some of the implications that it's not as big a benefit because they may be getting hit somewhere else? Or are you just seeing it's not that consistent? It's kind of all over the place, kind of the good, the bad, and the ugly, because there are definitely things that are going to be fantastic for the business owners. For example, there is the 20% deduction for those that qualify on pass-through entities. So a pass-through entity would be a Schedule C, an S-C, an S-Corp, a partnership. So those that qualify will get a 20% deduction that is fantastic. However, that's if your income is under $315,000 if you're married and $157,500 if you're single.

Now, if you exceed those numbers, then there's called a phase out or a phase in process where it becomes a lot more complicated. So there's some great things happening, but you really have to get educated on what's going on in your specific situation. So in your professional opinion, not political opinion, but in your professional opinion, is this one of those things where it's like they were all at the bargaining table and they're like, okay, we'll do some tax cuts, but you've got to give me this over here and this over here, because it sounds like it's a little bit of an odd Mr. Potato Head, which is why it's so important that our audience have a Renee Daggett in their life, correct? Absolutely.

There's a lot of give and take. For example, those of you that have been paying estimated tax payments, now that the tax brackets, have changed. There's still seven brackets, but the brackets are lower. So think of it this way. If you're used to paying $2,000 for an estimated tax payment, that's based on the higher brackets. You need to have a projection done on your 2018 income because most likely that $2,000 is no longer valid. You're going to be paying a little bit less because the tax brackets are lower. Okay, I want you to give some practical advice to our audience because I know that Dave Ramsey would say this. I believe in this as well. We know you well. You have been vetted through the Ramsey Solutions process to become a superstar, endorsed local provider. So we love to send people to you. But it's not that simple. We would want people to sit down and interview you and get comfortable that, hey, I trust Renee, obviously you need to feel confident that you know what you're talking about. They feel that. But I'm just, curious from your point of view on the other side of the desk, what would you say to our business

owners if they don't have somebody that they really, really trust, maybe they've been using somebody for a while, but they don't have a deep relationship with them? What should that relationship look like? That's the first part of the question. And then the second part of the question is if they don't have the relationship that you're about to describe, that's a solid relationship, how should they go about interviewing somebody like you to make sure they've got the right fit. Well, when it comes to taxes and finances, you are financially naked. It sounds kind of an odd way of putting it, but you're vulnerable. You need to find somebody that you trust that is going to speak your language. Taxes are complex. They're getting even more complex. So does your

tax preparer speak in English to you that you understand if somebody says bonus depreciation? what does that really mean in English for you and what are your options? So having somebody that can speak your language, hear what your needs are, present to you options. Here are three options that are available to you. Here are the tax consequences and the benefits of each option. And then knowing what your goals are, because everybody has different goals, whether they're wanting to put as much money into retirement or cash flow. So looking at those goals, it's going to be important to know what option is best and make a recommendation. So the best thing is to find somebody that resonates with you, that listens to you, that answers your phone call or your email within, you know, calling them. It's just so important

that somebody's going to be responsive. I know Dave Ramsey has an ELP program that you can go to the website and find out who's local in your area. But it can be anybody in a virtual team, because that's what, you know, you guys were talking about earlier is having a virtual team. And that's where we come in, where we can talk about being a paperless accounting firm and work with anybody all over the U.S. Yeah, absolutely. Good stuff. She is Renee Daggett. It's a big part of our tribe of All Access and a rock star ELP. Really practical, helpful stuff, Renee. to see you again, even though it's over the video airways, if you will. Appreciate what you do for us on so many levels. Good to hang out. Thanks for the opportunity to educate your listeners

because tax reform is fun, right? Yes, it's one of my favorite things to discuss. So this was a great joy. All right, our tools this episode, we got one from Entree Leadership, one from InfusionSoft. The first one from Entree Leadership is the endorsed local providers, small business tax prep. checklist. So taxes are scary. They're not fun, but they can be even scarier and way more not fun if you don't do them the right way. So we've got a great tool for you. This is a very thorough checklist that will help you make sure that you are paying attention and handling every issue that you need to so that you don't get behind on taxes. You don't create unnecessary penalties or work. You can text the phrase tax prep That's tax prep, no space.

Tax prep to 33444. That's 33444. And Infusionsoft has a great tool to help you with lifecycle marketing. There are three main categories in this resource. It's going to help you attract, sell, and deliver the wow. So who doesn't want to do that? And it's a free resource. And it really gives you a model that you can practically apply in your business.

So go get it. The link is in this episode. notes. Entreleadership.com, click on podcast, episode 247. All right, that's going to do it, but before I let you go, I want to say on behalf of Will the Producer, Jim the Engineer, and the entire Entree Leadership team. Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon.