Speaker 1: Ruby.
Speaker 2: Every boss knows that a call after hours rarely bodes well.
Speaker 3: If my phone rings after six, I get nervous.
Speaker 2: That's especially true in Q McNeil's kind of work. Her company,
Speaker 2: House of Logistics, has thirty five trucks on the road.
Speaker 2: One day, one of her drivers took the truck well
Speaker 2: a little off roading.
Speaker 3: I received a phone call telling me one of our
Speaker 3: drivers just hit a tree. The first tree he made
Speaker 3: contact with took the side mirror off, broke the glass,
Speaker 3: bent the driver's door.
Speaker 2: The truck was totaled, the packages were scattered. The driver
Speaker 2: fortunately was fine, but he was shaken up.
Speaker 3: My ops manager, he's standing there with his hands on
Speaker 3: his wheel. Looking at me, because he's waiting to see me
Speaker 3: just explode.
Speaker 2: They called the police, a tow truck, and medical services
Speaker 2: to make sure the driver was safe. After they had
Speaker 2: all the photos they needed from the scene, everyone was
Speaker 2: sent home. The next day, Q and her ops manager
Speaker 2: caught up about the accident.
Speaker 3: He was like, miss cute, you were so calm out
Speaker 3: there at the scene of his accident.
Speaker 2: Good managers know how to solve problems even when others
Speaker 2: get emotional. Great leaders know how to solve problems while
Speaker 2: they manage their employees' emotions and their own emotions at
Speaker 2: the same time.
Speaker 3: So you asked me a question about what do I
Speaker 3: do to keep it together? That is when you want
Speaker 3: to go into a moment of silence and solitude.
Speaker 2: By this point, Q was well practiced. House of Logistics
Speaker 2: was only six months old, and she had already dealt
Speaker 2: with an inventory of challenges. Staff had turned over, some
Speaker 2: trucks had run into trees, and most notably, her business
Speaker 2: partner had left just a month into its operations. And
Speaker 2: there's more to it, just wait. House of Logistics was
Speaker 2: all on her. Fortunately, Q is a masterclass in resilience.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Unshakeables from Chase for Business and Ruby
Speaker 2: Studio from iHeartMedia. I'm Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business.
Speaker 2: On the Unshakeables, we're sharing the daring moments of small
Speaker 2: business owners facing their crisis points and telling the stories
Speaker 2: of how they got through it. This week, we're heading
Speaker 2: down to Alabama, but before we get back to Q's story,
Speaker 2: we're also joined by doctor Gia Wiggins, founder and CEO
Speaker 2: of Auditocity, a SaaS platform helping businesses with their compliance
Speaker 2: and HR Processes GEO, Welcome to the show, Thanks for coming,
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me in. I'm really happy to have
Speaker 2: you on today because I mean, you're an expert in HR,
Speaker 2: which a lot of businesses, particularly small businesses, when they're
Speaker 2: starting out overlook, So I can't wait to have you
Speaker 2: weigh in on this story. And you're also from Obile, Alabama.
Speaker 2: Not only am I from there, but there's still a
Speaker 2: store on Dauphin Street which was opened by my great
Speaker 2: grandfather around nineteen oh seven.
Speaker 4: That is fantastic. Well, we've welcomed you to come down,
Speaker 4: especially during Marty Gras.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, come on down. All right, let's get
Speaker 2: into this show. This is House of Logistics from Birmingham, Alabama.
Speaker 2: Now I have some personal ties to the state, so
Speaker 2: I'm really excited to do an episode about Alabama. We
Speaker 2: were lucky enough to find an incredible business owner, Quanetta McNeil.
Speaker 2: The first thing I learned about her when we met
Speaker 2: was that no one calls her Quanetta. Quanetta, it is
Speaker 2: so nice to meet you. I understand that most people
Speaker 2: call you Q. May I call you Q.
Speaker 3: Absolutely everyone calls me Q.
Speaker 2: The second thing I learned was about the name of
Speaker 2: her company its house of Logistics spelled HAUS.
Speaker 3: The foundation of the company was established to keep my
Speaker 3: team fully informed. I run a transparent operation and typically
Speaker 3: transparency resides in your home right, and so I have
Speaker 3: my leadership team that I developed from the start of
Speaker 3: my operations, identifying them as drivers. They became the heart
Speaker 3: of the house. So we wanted to be a little different.
Speaker 3: In the street version for a house means someone that
Speaker 3: does things ridiculously well.
Speaker 2: Q has a ton of experience in business and entrepreneurship,
Speaker 2: so it was no surprise to hear that she does
Speaker 2: her job ridiculously well. She bounced around a bit at
Speaker 2: the start of her career. She joined the military, she
Speaker 2: worked in HR she taught business to seventh graders, and
Speaker 2: then started a virtual assistant company supporting small businesses and individuals,
Speaker 2: an opportunity that took her all the way to the Caribbean.
Speaker 3: I loved traveling and started helping couples with planning their
Speaker 3: special occasions such as their anniversaries, weddings all across the
Speaker 3: Caribbean market. And while I was in Jamaica, I was
Speaker 3: approached by Pepsiicola to do contract negotiations for them in
Speaker 3: the hotel industry.
Speaker 2: There, she'd made so many connections with vendors, hotels, and
Speaker 2: decision makers across the island that another beverage company saw
Speaker 2: huge potential in her.
Speaker 3: Eventually, Heineken came into the Jamaican market and they recruited
Speaker 3: me to come over and maintain relationships that I had
Speaker 3: established with the hotel industry. I worked with both the
Speaker 3: manufacturing and distribution side of the business.
Speaker 2: Now we're only about four minutes into this episode and
Speaker 2: Q has already used the word relationships several times. It's
Speaker 2: key to her business story, and.
Speaker 3: I think that's what keeps me alive. It tickles me.
Speaker 3: I do not meet strangers.
Speaker 2: A lot of folks tend to think of connections as
Speaker 2: a soft skill, perhaps less important than other things when
Speaker 2: running a business. I disagree, and Q does too. Her
Speaker 2: ability to create relationships has served her exceptionally well, both
Speaker 2: personally and professionally, so much so that it led to
Speaker 2: what was likely the most important professional call of Q's life.
Speaker 3: So I got a call from a large US retailer
Speaker 3: and they gave me an opportunity to return back to
Speaker 3: the US. I came in in the corporate space as
Speaker 3: a senior business coach supporting other small businesses. They were
Speaker 3: also launching their delivery service partner. These were small business
Speaker 3: owners that had been contracted out to do their deliveries
Speaker 3: from their warehouse to customer's door and or to commercial spaces.
Speaker 2: Interesting because I think of them as doing their own deliveries,
Speaker 2: but it sounds like they don't do all their own deliveries.
Speaker 2: It's a mix.
Speaker 3: No, they do not. They use tharred party contractors to
Speaker 3: facilitate the last mile of their delivery.
Speaker 2: So Q is coaching small business owners in what's called
Speaker 2: last mile delivery. This is what those in the business
Speaker 2: call it when packages are picked up from a main
Speaker 2: distribution center and put on the trucks to get to
Speaker 2: your door. And a funny thing is happening when Q
Speaker 2: is coaching these folks. They tell her that she should
Speaker 2: get in the game too. This is people who would
Speaker 2: be your competitors encouraging you to come compete.
Speaker 3: Yes, the small business owners would encourage me to start
Speaker 3: up my own operation.
Speaker 2: Q loved coaching the small business owners, but really wanted
Speaker 2: to own her own business, so she decided to apply
Speaker 2: This process is a little more involved than when you
Speaker 2: click easy apply on LinkedIn.
Speaker 3: Well, it starts with the application process, and while you're applying,
Speaker 3: you really have to be developing your company, like you
Speaker 3: have to get it to creation mode at the same time,
Speaker 3: because you have to be able to present your idea
Speaker 3: in terms of how are you going to run a
Speaker 3: logistics company, how are you going to overcome the challenges
Speaker 3: that are going to come your way, how are you
Speaker 3: going to deal with your fleet, how are you going
Speaker 3: to do your recruiting. You kind of have to be
Speaker 3: developing and thinking about all of this while you are
Speaker 3: in the application process.
Speaker 2: Q turned to the small business owners to pressure test
Speaker 2: all of her ideas. They offered up a lot of advice,
Speaker 2: and all of them have a different strategy. You have
Speaker 2: a lot of strong business leaders that have mastered their
Speaker 2: way of what success looked like for them. I had
Speaker 2: an opportunity to learn from many of them in terms
Speaker 2: of what work and what does not work. I also
Speaker 2: saw some of them have partners such as their spouse
Speaker 2: for example, that are in this with them. I was
Speaker 2: very impressed with their ability to share the load. Being
Speaker 2: in the in the weeks with them every day help
Speaker 2: prepare me for what was coming my way. Gee, I
Speaker 2: want to bring you back in here because Q story
Speaker 2: is already diverging from a lot of what we've heard
Speaker 2: on this show so far.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think to work for a company particular, to
Speaker 4: be in the area where you are helping other businesses
Speaker 4: to be successful within that company, and then to have
Speaker 4: the opportunity to actually be a vendor and a part
Speaker 4: of that company. Oftentimes, when people think, Okay, I'm going
Speaker 4: to start a business, one of the questions that we
Speaker 4: often ask is do you have any expertise at all
Speaker 4: inside of that industry to be able to look at
Speaker 4: the business and the way that the business operates from
Speaker 4: behind the curtain, and to look at the challenges and
Speaker 4: then to say, hey, I think I'm going to do that,
Speaker 4: and then to be able to execute it so quickly
Speaker 4: and to be able to ramp up so quickly because
Speaker 4: you have that institutional knowledge of what it looks like
Speaker 4: to be successful in their role. This is a fantastic pathway.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Gia. I want to pivot a little bit
Speaker 2: to Q for a second. Now she's an employee, but
Speaker 2: she still has to go through this whole application and
Speaker 2: vetting process. So she works there, but she has to
Speaker 2: make a case for why she should be one of
Speaker 2: their last mild delivery vendors.
Speaker 3: I was successful with the application process and they extended
Speaker 3: a contract to me to leave the business and start
Speaker 3: my own logistics company. And we launched on the thirtieth
Speaker 3: of August.
Speaker 2: Wow, so just over year ago. About a year and
Speaker 2: a month ago now because it's early October, so not
Speaker 2: that long ago.
Speaker 3: Not that long ago, all right.
Speaker 2: So Q, armed with tons of knowledge from others in
Speaker 2: the same industry, launched House of Logistics on August thirtieth,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three in Birmingham. She returned home CEO of
Speaker 2: her own company, and of course it was smooth sailing
Speaker 2: from day one.
Speaker 3: Oh no, it is a lot of work to start
Speaker 3: up a logistics business. They want partners that are willing
Speaker 3: to accept the challenges and a partner that is willing
Speaker 3: to grow.
Speaker 2: Okay, now, you had something personal going on in your
Speaker 2: life at the same time, right.
Speaker 3: Yes, the personal side of my life, I mean, why
Speaker 3: you're doing this. Life still happens, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Life happens all the time. Just before launching her company,
Speaker 2: Q got married. She and her partner went into the
Speaker 2: marriage as they launched this company together.
Speaker 3: We were married one month before we launched. We didn't
Speaker 3: have a honeymoon. The business was our baby. You know.
Speaker 3: We had conversations around the challenges that's going to present themselves.
Speaker 3: It was a very intense period. It did require both
Speaker 3: of us to be very committed to what was necessary
Speaker 3: to get the business up and off the ground running,
Speaker 3: but led to, you know, this tension.
Speaker 2: They had decided prior to launch that Q would handle
Speaker 2: the business part of running everything, and he would manage
Speaker 2: the fleet and their operations. She asked him to give
Speaker 2: six months to get the business up and running and
Speaker 2: then they could properly celebrate their love. To Q, this
Speaker 2: was a sacrifice she was more than willing to make.
Speaker 3: I absolutely loved my job. And I think when you're
Speaker 3: doing something that you enjoy, when you're doing something that
Speaker 3: you're passionate about, I think you come to the table differently.
Speaker 3: I kind of felt like I wasn't thinking about myself
Speaker 3: to be because this was part of who I felt
Speaker 3: like I was, If this makes any sense. I love
Speaker 3: people so much that I felt like I was investing
Speaker 3: in myself by investing in other people. And I felt
Speaker 3: like at some point I was going to reap the
Speaker 3: reward of it, and so for me, I believe I
Speaker 3: may have come to this totally different with a different mindset.
Speaker 2: Her husband, though, didn't share the same passion for the business.
Speaker 3: You have to have your own drive. I can't give
Speaker 3: that to you. I don't know if the challenge was
Speaker 3: that I knew more when I was training my team,
Speaker 3: I was also training him. I don't think we ever
Speaker 3: really sat down and absorbed and talked about how are
Speaker 3: you feeling about this? Unfortunately, my marriage did not survive that.
Speaker 2: Two months into the life of their company. Sadly, their
Speaker 2: marriage fell apart.
Speaker 3: I had to get up and be at work morning
Speaker 3: and carry on.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: You know, by the business being so young, I literally
Speaker 3: had to go in, I had to dispatch, I had
Speaker 3: to carry on operations as business as usual. I really
Speaker 3: didn't have that room to figure out what just happened.
Speaker 2: Right, You couldn't grieve essentially, no, Wow, And you also
Speaker 2: lost a business partner and someone who carried some of
Speaker 2: that load, correct. I mean, that's a big moment, huge
Speaker 2: for you for the business, for everything. Tell us how
Speaker 2: you got through.
Speaker 3: That, and even my staff, you know, and even managing
Speaker 3: you know who they interact with every day. I have
Speaker 3: to remind myself whenever these challenges come up, why did
Speaker 3: I start this. The good thing is that part of
Speaker 3: my business plan that I had written, I did put
Speaker 3: my heart and soul in this document. I was able
Speaker 3: to remind myself why, and when things was not working
Speaker 3: out personally, I had already got this in motion. I
Speaker 3: stayed'su to the plan.
Speaker 2: This is really interesting, Q, because we've had some people
Speaker 2: on the show who sort of have more of the
Speaker 2: Mike Tyson approach to life, which is everybody has a
Speaker 2: plan until they get punched in the face, right, and
Speaker 2: then you just have to sort of wing it, Whereas
Speaker 2: you've taken quite the opposite approach, which is I have
Speaker 2: a plan, and when I get punched in the face,
Speaker 2: I'm going to go back to the plan. I'm going
Speaker 2: to stick with the plan. So that's really interesting. You know,
Speaker 2: people have different approaches to this.
Speaker 3: This is what I needed to do, This is what
Speaker 3: I needed to stick to. Now we have also had
Speaker 3: to make changes because as we've grown as a company,
Speaker 3: I also had to adjust. But the core portion of
Speaker 3: it remains the same.
Speaker 2: And do you still own one hundred percent of the
Speaker 2: business and.
Speaker 3: I still, oh, one hundred percent of the business.
Speaker 2: Gee, I think we have to take a moment here.
Speaker 2: You know, people generally take time off to deal with
Speaker 2: personal emergencies. Of course, I encourage my own team to
Speaker 2: do the same. Family comes first, but entrepreneurship can be
Speaker 2: a different beast. You don't have a safety net. There's
Speaker 2: no one else to call or show up and take
Speaker 2: care of the business if you're not there.
Speaker 4: Right, That's very true. It's another sort of relationship, kind
Speaker 4: of like a marriage, one that absolutely requires one hundred
Speaker 4: percent commitment in order to succeed.
Speaker 2: I'm really stunned by her commitment. I mean, she talked
Speaker 2: about it a lot, but that commitment to a plan
Speaker 2: and clearly like what she thinks of as a plan
Speaker 2: is not what a lot of people think of business
Speaker 2: plan is a lot of people think of business plan
Speaker 2: is a few notes on a page. She thinks it's
Speaker 2: a lot more. And I it sounds like from what
Speaker 2: she said, if she hadn't had that, she'd have been
Speaker 2: in real trouble.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it did sound that way.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I think that her having the understanding that you've got
Speaker 4: to have that strategy somewhere where you can look at it. Sometimes,
Speaker 4: when you get in the weeds as an entrepreneur, particularly
Speaker 4: when you're going through challenges and you're in a growth stage,
Speaker 4: it's really easy to get distracted about why you're doing
Speaker 4: something and why you made the decision to do it
Speaker 4: in the first place. And so I'm sure that inside
Speaker 4: of that business plan she had all the other components
Speaker 4: that are more true aditional with the business plan, but
Speaker 4: having that mission and that reason why and the reason
Speaker 4: why you get up every single day, particularly on tough days,
Speaker 4: I mean, I think that's critical, and I'm pretty sure
Speaker 4: she probably shares that with her employees as well, to
Speaker 4: keep them motivated.
Speaker 2: It was sort of implicit in the story, but clearly
Speaker 2: she went into business with family. In this case, it
Speaker 2: was her fiance slash husband for a period of time.
Speaker 2: Family businesses have their own challenges, but talk to us
Speaker 2: about what the dynamics are that are different about family
Speaker 2: businesses and frankly, what kind of protections people might need
Speaker 2: as a result of that.
Speaker 4: The first thing I thought when she said that was
Speaker 4: attorney attorney. Attorney attorney, like making sure that the details
Speaker 4: of that arrangement are like etched and concrete. Right, I
Speaker 4: have a tendency not to hire people that I can't fire.
Speaker 4: If I can't have a performance relationship and it's going
Speaker 4: to impact the way that we can address each other
Speaker 4: at the dinner table, then we probably don't need to
Speaker 4: be in business together. Having a really good legal framework
Speaker 4: and a great relationship with an attorney where you can
Speaker 4: be really frank about protections in case that relationship doesn't
Speaker 4: work out, is really really critical. It seems like she
Speaker 4: was fortunate she still was able to keep ownership of
Speaker 4: our company, but everybody's not so lucky.
Speaker 2: So Q had made this plan on ambitious goals that
Speaker 2: she had set for the company, but her business partner
Speaker 2: had just walked out, her relationship had sadly ended, and
Speaker 2: now her entire livelihood was on the line. Tell me, then,
Speaker 2: what were the subsequent six months?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: I mean, was it just mayhem? Was it that sounds
Speaker 2: like a yes?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yes. We continue to have a lot of challenges.
Speaker 3: Growth brings challenges, right, and you have to be prepared
Speaker 3: for it. We went into November with over thirty five
Speaker 3: trucks on the road. You also have thirty five opportunities
Speaker 3: for something to go wrong.
Speaker 2: Yep, no texting and driving.
Speaker 3: No, we have challenges out there on the road. Flat tires,
Speaker 3: somebody tore off a bumper, somebody hit somebody's mailbox, to
Speaker 3: a literal collision with community members or with a tree.
Speaker 2: The tree, I just had to ask about it. Sometimes
Speaker 2: accidents happen, but not usually with a stationary object in
Speaker 2: front of you.
Speaker 3: I received a phone call from my dispatch telling me, Misque,
Speaker 3: one of our drivers just hit a tree, and they
Speaker 3: sent me photos and I'm trying to make sense out
Speaker 3: of this. I went to go pick up my fleet guy,
Speaker 3: we called the toe truck, get out to the location
Speaker 3: and there's a stop sign. There's a like a tee
Speaker 3: So he's coming up to the stop sign and you
Speaker 3: can only turn left or right. He made a left
Speaker 3: turn right into a tree like this, kept going and
Speaker 3: continuing to turn. We checked to make sure the driver
Speaker 3: was saved. He was safe, but he was red. He
Speaker 3: was walking around like wondering what Miss Qvan to do
Speaker 3: to me, you know, like okay, so if you're okay,
Speaker 3: how did this happen? Was there a community member that
Speaker 3: drove out in front of you and you had to
Speaker 3: veer off and defend yourself. None of that happened. He
Speaker 3: claims he stopped at the stop sign. He claims he
Speaker 3: was trying to stop a package from sliding and that's
Speaker 3: what made him go into the tree. He actually hit
Speaker 3: two trees. The first tree he made contact with took
Speaker 3: the side mirror off, broke the glass, bent up the
Speaker 3: driver's door, and then he nosed into the last tree,
Speaker 3: which stopped the vehicle from going any further. And on
Speaker 3: the way driving back to our station after we got
Speaker 3: everything under control, that is when you want to go
Speaker 3: into a moment of silence and solitude. And I that
Speaker 3: the entire ride back to the station, and my fleet
Speaker 3: manager knew this is not the time to have a
Speaker 3: conversation with missque and that's when you have those moments
Speaker 3: of solitude.
Speaker 2: I want to talk a little bit about where you
Speaker 2: find the energy to do what you do, because you
Speaker 2: talked about you've done a couple of things that I
Speaker 2: think we should all be in awe of. You applied
Speaker 2: for a business, serving the business that you were working
Speaker 2: for as a full time employee, did your business plan
Speaker 2: while you were a full time employee, and then we're
Speaker 2: able to summon the energy to build your business in
Speaker 2: the middle of a personal crisis, I mean, that's an
Speaker 2: awful lot for anyone to bear. So talk to us
Speaker 2: a little bit cue about where you find the energy
Speaker 2: to plow through all that?
Speaker 3: Asks myself the same thing, man, I believe honestly, my
Speaker 3: passion for people has been my driving force. My network
Speaker 3: has been very influential in terms of positioning me to
Speaker 3: be able to do what I do. From those that
Speaker 3: recruited me, those whose teams I worked on, they were
Speaker 3: such a force of encouragement, the small business owners that
Speaker 3: I worked with. That positive network was critical when.
Speaker 2: It all feels overwhelming. Where do you dig deep? Where
Speaker 2: do you find that push?
Speaker 3: I revert to my face at that point. I do
Speaker 3: value quality time with myself, and sometimes it's at awkward hours.
Speaker 3: My staff tease me and tell me they swear I
Speaker 3: don't sleep, but I do. I always made sure to
Speaker 3: find an opportunity to retreat and to have those moments
Speaker 3: of you know, just quiet.
Speaker 2: Whatever she's doing, it's working House of Logistics just celebrated
Speaker 2: its one year anniversary. Q now has seventy five drivers
Speaker 2: and a devoted leadership team who she's cultivated to fill
Speaker 2: the gaps. She's also changing Birmingham while she's at.
Speaker 3: It this first year. In terms of us looking at
Speaker 3: our impact across Birmingham, we have at some point provided
Speaker 3: persons with the ability to pursue their education. We've had
Speaker 3: people get their CDO. We've had people pursue total different
Speaker 3: industry credit counseling, medical billing. They have taken up the
Speaker 3: education benefit. We've helped single mothers and I think we
Speaker 3: have had some single fathers take advantage of our childcare
Speaker 3: stipend that we offer to help them offset some of
Speaker 3: their costs to come to work by putting their children
Speaker 3: in daycare or help paying for after school care. They
Speaker 3: are now taking advantage of our medical and dental plan
Speaker 3: that they did not have a for. We have some
Speaker 3: people that are investing in four o one K that
Speaker 3: I had to explain what is a four oh one k?
Speaker 3: They are now saving for something that they've never saved before.
Speaker 3: I challenged my people at the interview table that how
Speaker 3: I meet you today is not how I want you
Speaker 3: to be too much from now. I want to know
Speaker 3: if you have a dream or a vision outside of
Speaker 3: my company, great, let me hear about it. I get
Speaker 3: excited to note that people in my house is doing
Speaker 3: things different from when I first met them.
Speaker 2: Q is the perfect example of why we love small businesses.
Speaker 2: One of the first things we said when we launched
Speaker 2: this show is that we celebrate small businesses because they're
Speaker 2: on the ground across America. They make up large parts
Speaker 2: of your town or city. They create community, and they
Speaker 2: have the power to affect real change on a local level.
Speaker 2: It's amazing stuff. It seems Birmingham is thriving under Q.
Speaker 2: Oh and before I forget, there's something else that's thriving.
Speaker 2: House of Logistic under q's leadership.
Speaker 3: Within the first six months of operation, we grossed in
Speaker 3: over a million dollars.
Speaker 2: And were you cash flow positive?
Speaker 3: Cash flow positive month over month?
Speaker 2: Wow, I mean not a lot of people can say that.
Speaker 2: You know, most people start a business, it takes them
Speaker 2: a while to start generating cash. It's mostly it tends
Speaker 2: to maybe it's the nature of that business, but a
Speaker 2: lot of businesses tend to be cash flow negative for
Speaker 2: a long time.
Speaker 3: Correct, You're right.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people listening today would would
Speaker 2: love to be able to start a business that could
Speaker 2: grow that fast. Congratulations on all your success. Thank you
Speaker 2: for being so generous with your time and so generous
Speaker 2: with your story. We appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thanks, and I appreciate the opportunity, Gia.
Speaker 2: Now that we've heard all of Q's story, I'm just
Speaker 2: I'm kind of overwhelmed by it. She probably used the
Speaker 2: word relationship I don't know, three hundred times in that interview,
Speaker 2: and you could tell number one, she really means it.
Speaker 2: But too when you have people saying, yeah, we think
Speaker 2: you should come into our market. You know, you don't
Speaker 2: usually see people inviting others to come into their competitive set.
Speaker 2: But they did.
Speaker 4: Often tell people. You know, when they say that they're
Speaker 4: good at something, I say, yeah, well, you know, does
Speaker 4: somebody other than your mother tell you that?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: And so that was a great example of people being
Speaker 4: able to see somewhere that she would be really talented.
Speaker 4: And I think that's truly a testament to her ability
Speaker 4: to build really solid relationships where people wanted to stand
Speaker 4: side by side with her, even if that was going
Speaker 4: to possibly impact their revenue. I mean, how impressive is that.
Speaker 2: I want to get a little more into the HR
Speaker 2: side of things. I mean, that's your background, it's what
Speaker 2: you and your company, Auditosity does, And Q talked a
Speaker 2: lot about these HR issues with an ease and a
Speaker 2: facility that is unusual I think for companies that young.
Speaker 2: You know, how do you think young companies should think
Speaker 2: about that.
Speaker 4: That's one of the areas that I think people struggle
Speaker 4: with the most. The Department of Labor is very specific
Speaker 4: about what the requirements are for companies, and I think
Speaker 4: that most people would be really surprised about how many
Speaker 4: employees you need to have to be under the Department
Speaker 4: of Labor. There are multiple regulations that are compliance related
Speaker 4: in HR where having one person outside the owner is
Speaker 4: enough to trigger the Department of Labor for that organization.
Speaker 4: It's really important to have all of those things worked
Speaker 4: out before you bring the first employee in and then
Speaker 4: be just absolutely dogged about the way that those things
Speaker 4: are played out and the way that they are managed.
Speaker 2: So, Gia, let's get real breast tacks for our listeners
Speaker 2: in the general HR space. Give me a checklist of
Speaker 2: the things they need to make sure that they need
Speaker 2: to think about, and then maybe some tools they can
Speaker 2: use to go find out what they need to do.
Speaker 4: Okay, that was a love letter to me. Thank you,
Speaker 4: I love you too. So I think that one is
Speaker 4: a couple of the compliance things that I see a lot.
Speaker 4: If you have more than one employee, you're supposed to
Speaker 4: make sure that they have an nine nine. If you're
Speaker 4: in one of twenty two states, you have to also
Speaker 4: do everify. We go into organizations and we do none audits.
Speaker 4: The fail rate on that is normally about seventy percent
Speaker 4: of the company's. Number two the Equal Pay Act, which
Speaker 4: says that men and women are supposed to be paid
Speaker 4: equal money and money for the same type of work
Speaker 4: with a couple of additional conditions. People think that that's
Speaker 4: something that just happened, like in the two thousands when
Speaker 4: Obama was in office. That was actually passed in nineteen
Speaker 4: sixty three nineteen sixty three. Along those lines, having job
Speaker 4: descriptions makes a ton of difference. If you're able to
Speaker 4: do job descriptions, you have an opportunity to really kind
Speaker 4: of grade out what those positions are and see if
Speaker 4: those positions are truly supposed to be hourly or salaried.
Speaker 4: When we go in to support companies and we ask
Speaker 4: them questions specifically about their salaried employees, we find that
Speaker 4: quite a few of the positions that they have set
Speaker 4: a salary really should be hourly. And then once they
Speaker 4: realize that they've misclassified them, they don't know what to do.
Speaker 4: In order to fix it really quick. By the way,
Speaker 4: it's easy to fix. All you have to do is
Speaker 4: go ahead and make the correction, do a memos and
Speaker 4: the person another offer letter, and then do a reclassification
Speaker 4: and explain and show them how they're supposed to clock
Speaker 4: in or to change the job description and possibly promote them.
Speaker 4: And then inside of hiring, making sure that the position
Speaker 4: is established and the skill set is established in advance.
Speaker 4: So exactly what is this opportunity, Why do I need
Speaker 4: this person? What do I need them to do? And
Speaker 4: what are the qualifications that they need to have in order.
Speaker 3: To do this work.
Speaker 4: And so if you decide that you're going to hire
Speaker 4: somebody specifically for culture, I really like them. You know,
Speaker 4: we get along. You know, Well, you better make sure
Speaker 4: that that's not an immediate need, because you're going to
Speaker 4: need to give them time to be trained and learn
Speaker 4: the organization and all these things in order for them
Speaker 4: to be really effective inside of that role. However, if
Speaker 4: you have an immediate need where you need somebody to
Speaker 4: come in in day two and make a tremendous impact
Speaker 4: that you need to really hire for talent and look
Speaker 4: at the talent composition that you have and make sure
Speaker 4: that you're bringing someone in that has a skill set
Speaker 4: that is absolutely required to do that job. And so
Speaker 4: that would be like my top five on my checklist.
Speaker 4: I literally have thousands of things on a checklist.
Speaker 2: I wish we had time for thousands, but I think
Speaker 2: those are my really useful one. So thank thank you, Gia.
Speaker 2: Now one final thing before we go, can you let
Speaker 2: listeners know why Alabama is such a great place for
Speaker 2: small businesses.
Speaker 4: The thing that's really unique about being a business owner
Speaker 4: in Alabama is the quality of life.
Speaker 2: One.
Speaker 4: I mean, we're right next to the beach. We have
Speaker 4: access to go to larger areas when we want to.
Speaker 4: But the thing that's really interested about being a business
Speaker 4: owner here is that you have an opportunity to really
Speaker 4: build a relationship with your potential customers and clients. The
Speaker 4: whole thing about six degrees of separation, it's closer to
Speaker 4: two degrees of separation in the state of Alabama. If
Speaker 4: you are able to go out and you know, because
Speaker 4: I'm a part of things like the chamber, or to
Speaker 4: join and incubator or be a part of an innovation
Speaker 4: space two degrees, you can absolutely meet anybody that you
Speaker 4: want and have an opportunity to really build a meaningful
Speaker 4: relationship so that you're not only servicing customers, but you
Speaker 4: have an opportunity to build services alongside them. That is
Speaker 4: one of the most wonderful uniquenesses about being an entrepreneur
Speaker 4: inside of our state.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Unshakeables,
Speaker 2: and thank you to q McNeal and Dr. Gia for
Speaker 2: speaking with us today. If you liked this episode, please
Speaker 2: rate and review it. If you know someone who may
Speaker 2: like the series, tell them about it. Next episode, we'll
Speaker 2: hear from an entrepreneur whose city was in a big
Speaker 2: mess and she was the only one able to clean
Speaker 2: it up. We'll be speaking with Tia Johnson, CEO of
Speaker 2: Fresh Bloom Bins out of Columbus, Ohio. I'm Ben Walter
Speaker 2: and this is The Unshakeables from Chase for Business and
Speaker 2: Ruby Studio from iHeart Media.