Two Entrepreneurs Share Tips on Hiring a Remote Team | Guest: Tim Strifler

Eric Dingler: So owning a business is easy until people get involved. And if those people happen to be team members well, my friend, you’ve just entered the messy world of leadership because there’s no way around it. Leadership is messy because people are messy. But have no fear. Tim Stifler is here today, and we’re gonna talk about building a team and hopefully give you some tips and tricks and advice to help help smooth the experience out for you. Welcome to the podcast everyone. My name is Eric Dingler, and I am a full time, digital nomad getting the travel around the world with my wife and 4 kids. And one of the reasons we’re able to do this is because we have built a team. We have 4 full time team members, 2 freelancers. a fulfillment partner. And we actually this week just hired our fifth full time team member. So this is not theory. I’ve got a team and have walked through this as well. Has my buddy Tim, who is here today. Tim. Thanks for being on the podcast

Tim Strifler: yeah, absolutely. Eric, thanks so much for having me. I love that you launch this new podcast I think it’s going to be massive because of just the amount of value that you bring and or the value that you brought when we were on divvy chat together which may or may not be returning. So we’ll have to see about that one. Now that happens, it works out. Yeah, I just had somebody reach out the other day and go, hey? I missed divvy chat so but we’ll say it goes so, Tim.

Eric Dingler: I’m curious. So I define. I’m curious how you define team like, does a team have to be employees? Does have to be contract. Could it be a mix? How? How do you define team?

Tim Strifler: Yeah, that’s a great question for me. It ha! They don’t have to be any, you know. Employee contract whatever to me. It’s people that are like part of that ongoing effort that you have and are helping you move your helping. You move towards your your goals and accomplish your goals. And so, for example, you might have someone who’s a contractor, but they’re working for your team either full time or part time, and they’re they’re in there. They’re in the trenches with you. You’re you’re reporting on. Here’s what our goals are. Here’s what we’re trying to accomplish. Here’s what’s on the horizon, and they’re helping you move towards that opposed to maybe someone who is like a freelancer, and you give them a one off project and you give them you know, a defined task. I want you to accomplish XY. And Z. Boom, and they do it. They turn it over to you. Done right. So I don’t consider that person on the team, so to speak. But the person that you’re you can turn to and say, Hey, can you go? Do this for me or do this, and they’re part of that, like everyday process again, whether they’re giving you full time hours or part time, hours, but they’re someone that you can depend on.

Eric Dingler: yeah, hopefully, that makes sense. But that’s how I define it. Yeah, abs, absolutely. So II think I would expect if I have a freelancer like I’ve got 2 free lancers that we go back to on a regular basis. We. We consider them part of the the team but but only cause we’re going back to them when I hire like, if I hire a freelancer to do one type of research project for me. That’s they’re not on the team. They’re a contractor, that yeah, yeah. and from you. Then when you are talking to your customers, and II think a lot of people get caught up on this when they first get started. I I’ve had people kind of stumble that they were gonna have to go back and talk to. You know, I’m gonna have to go back and talk to, you know, so and so. And they work with me. You know, it’s it’s they’re not in a and they start stumbling over themselves where, regardless of how this person’s relationship is with your company, do you feel a need to explain that to every of your customers. Or do you just say, Oh, let me take that back to my team.

Tim Strifler: Yeah, I just say my team and like in my mind, I know who they are. They’re they’re, you know. They’re my people like, I said. They’re the people that I can depend on and and and turn to to. Do. You know a quick thing. And I think, like you said people that you go back to on a regular basis. You consider part of your team, which absolutely, I’m yeah, I’m there as well. And I think part of that is the more you work together, you learn cause a lot of like when you outsource, or you hire someone, whether it’s a freelancer, and whether it’s an agency. there’s a learning curve of learning to work together, and the more people that you hire, and the more people that you outsource to, or whatever the shorter you can kind of shorten up that learning curve from my experience. And you, you know how to like.basically prepare them for success. And you can kind of get over that learning curve. But there’s still a learning curve of learning how to communicate together, and they understand what what your needs and wants are, and you can understand what their strengths are. And so I consider someone part of the team. When I’ve kind of gotten past that learning curve so and then I can. Just. I know what they’re capable of what they can do. And then I can, just, you know, throw something at them, and it’s not going to take like a huge long list of like, here’s exactly what you need to do. I need you to, you know, do something in a really defined way. So yeah, it?

Eric Dingler: Yeah, no. I think the thing that again catches people up is we as business owners, we get to define what our, what our what makes up our team.

Tim Strifler: And then all we have to do is say to people, Oh, I’m I’m gonna have my teamwork on that, or I’m gonna go back and talk to my team about that stuff like that? Because I knew new new people that are just starting out and trying to to build a team, you know, they get really hung up on on some of this, like, you know, does it have to be a contractor? And is it if you’re a Us based person, you start wrestling with, you know versus

Eric Dingler: and why that that stuff’s important, that that’s not the point of this, this podcast. Or this this episode, because digital nomads can be from any country. And there’s legal regulations that are different in every see single country. The main point of it is we get to define. It’s our business.

Tim Strifler: it’s our business we get to define. We get to define a lot of that stuff. So so I want one last thing I understand what you’re saying now. It’s like there’s almost that like a little bit of imposter syndrome where people think, am IA fraud. If I if I refer to my team, if they’re not actually employees, and they’re like, you know, II so I totally get what you’re saying, and I think a resounding no like like what you said. You get to decide. It’s your team right. If they could be employees they could be contractors. It could be your nephew that’s working

Eric Dingler: for you for free, you know. Like it’s it’s whatever you want it to be when it’s funny. I even I forgot until you just said that I forgot to include in my my team count. We have a copywriting process, a copy editing process that kicks off with a whole bunch of copying and pasting. A lot of copy and and and pasting. So and and my 13 year old daughter does that, and she’s on our copy editing team, and we pay her 50 bucks for every project she does. Because it’s hours of copying and and pasting.but it’s like you said, it’s my 13 year old daughter. But I’ll tell. I’m sorry. Oh, you know our copy editing team is is gonna work on that for the next couple of days, and so we get we get to define it. So I’m curious. One thing I don’t know is, I have no idea, and I’d love to hear. How did you get started hiring like? What was your W. What was that like when you first hired somebody? W. What was your experience? How did you even go get about doing it?

Tim Strifler: Yeah, for sure. So I mean, I’ll I’ll go back. I’ll try to get through this part quickly, but I’ll go back to the beginning. The first time I ever outsourced. So I was. It was like my second or third job out of college, and I was working as a marketing coordinator for a small software company. They made software for manufacturing in the manufacturing industry. and I was talking to my boss at the time, and so he. We had in-house developers, programmers that were building the product. But he was also outsourcing to people in, I think, in the Ukraine.and and he was kind of telling me the the process, and like how he found them and stuff. And they’re really great. And they’re gonna help like move the business forward. And like my mind, I was like, Wait, is it really that easy? You can hire someone in another country to work for you to build something that you can’t do. and it was like one of those Aha moments. And so at that time I was dabbling in wordpress and getting familiar with it, and for those who who know my story I’ve told it a lot. One of my first I don’t even want I want to call it a ventures. Wasn’t even that. It was like a project. I created a automated wedding website platform for couples to go and create a wedding website.And I was learning web development. But I was not a programmer, and I needed some custom development done. And so inspired by my boss at the time and and what he had done with his software company. I was like, I’m gonna go and hire someone. So I went to it was odesk at the time. It’s now yeah, upwork. And I hired someone to build me some custom functionality for wordpress for the automated wetting website platform and and it was great because I told him what I wanted and he did it. He was in another country. And so where the cost of living is lower, and so it allowed me to be able to afford him. With my limited funds at the time. and it was great like it was like such a again. It was like one of those Aha! Moments from like II don’t know how to do something, but I have really good ideas, and I think if with the right peoplethat do know how to do it, I can outsource to them, and they can build it for me. And it just like, yeah, it was. It was amazing. And so fast forward. You know, I started doing web design on the side for clients and then started doing web design full time.And then I started creating divvy products, all my websites built with divvy, and I started building some divvy products on the side kind of as a side hustle, and what became was my side? Hustle quickly became my main hustle, and II was having developers build them for me again. I’m not a programmer, you know. I know I know enough to, you know, break things and get my hands dirty, but not enough to actually create a a well built and functioning plugin for WordPress. And so so yeah, I started outsourcing. And then kind of quickly started bringing people onto the the team. Right? So there were more defined team members.And yeah, so that that was kind of the the process was was using the service upwork. And then I found support people through Facebook groups like, I’ve hired a lot of people through a lot of different things. I found a designer through dribble. And so like, yeah, I mean, there’s people out there that that have all kinds of skills. And one of the benefits being from a very expensive country in a very expensive state is that there are countries that have a lower cost of living, and so it allows me to be able to afford them.They make a great living. Sometimes I almost feel guilty saying that, like my entire team is overseas, and that I’m not like hiring in America. but the fact of the matter is, I couldn’t afford people here, you know, or I’d have a much smaller team, and we wouldn’t be able to do as much, and so by outsourcing globally, I can afford the team that I need, and they’re making a great living for for their country. And so everyone wins so well. It is somebody, some. And as somebody that has used your products

Eric Dingler: to help my, I’m a Us. Based business owner. You know, my business was able to grow, and and and I was able to work. When I, when I was starting out on building websites, I was able to leverage your services. And even even though I don’t do the designs and and development anymore, we still use divide products. And so you’re you’re contributing. You’re contributing to the. you know, the economy of of the United States. But you’re all, and I’m I feel the same way.We we now have one full time person in in the United States only because as a digital nomad, I have. I have been working to position myself so I can be at a time. Sync with my client base. So all of my customers are us and Canada. What’s really hard for me to be, you know, to go to Asia and and and be 12 h time. Difference if I, if I have to do every sales call and every customer support, call and and stuff like that, I’d be up all through the night working. And we don’t wanna live that way as as nomads. So last fall we did bring on our first full time, us person. To be that to be the sales and and customer success relationship. yeah. Yeah. So that way we can. We’re in in April. In fact, this is a really good time for me to bring up. You know, we’re we’re recording this. And this. This is coming out in the the beginning of 2024. And I am currently in Costa Rica, and we’re gonna be in Costa Rica until April 2024, middle of April. And so if you’re listening to the podcast and it is the beginning of 2024, send me an email, [email protected] love. Take you out by a great cup of Costa Rican coffee some tortillas, you know. Oh, I just had lunch today at at Columbian restaurant I had not been to yet. Oh, my gosh! It’s so good! And if you’re if you’re listening some other time. Well, still sending an email, [email protected]. And if we’re in the same place, we can meet up, because, like, I said, we are getting ready to head to Madrid in April. And so I’m gonna be very much at a time. Sync with our our customer base. But the rest of my team, Tim is is allmyou know, offshore outside of the unit United States. So

Tim Strifler: yeah, yeah, absolutely. Where’s your team. Where? What are the different places your team are from? Yeah. So I have. I have customer support, one in Pakistan. She’s been back and forth between Pakistan and Dubai, and then I have. Carlos, who is in. He’s he’s Guatemalan but recently he’s been temporarily he’s relocated to Germany, and so he’s like a he’s on a like a so I don’t know if it’s a student visa there or something, so he’s still working full time. But he has to do like a German immersion program over there. And so so yeah, his time time zone shifted quite a bit. But yeah, so Carlos is great, and then I have a full time developer in Argentina who is phenomenal. And then I have full time designer in Bangladesh, who’s also amazing. By the way, Bangladesh is like a hub of like designers and developers like, there’s yeah, actually, quite a few divvy product companies from Bangladesh. Oh, really, yeah, this last year I actually acquired A product company, an elementor product company, actually. And the team who built it that I acquired it from was was from Bangladesh, so I don’t know what it is about Bangladesh, but they they have a lot of really talented designers and developers over there. So just throwing it out there for anyone you can definitely find some incredible talent in Bangladesh. And then. yeah. And then I have another, a frontend developer in Montenegro. Which is a country I did not know much about until he started working for us. And then it’s like a little European island. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it, Eric. But yeah, looks like a beautiful place. And then let’s see. And then, yeah, I have a couple of part time. part-time team members in in different places. So one is in and Spain, and then another one in India. So but yeah, that’s that’s kind of my rundown of my team.

Eric Dingler: Neat, neat. Well, I’m gonna be in Spain. So if you want me to do a you know a drive by and check on somebody. Just let me know. So I I’ve noticed that. I I’ve never had a chance to explain this to you. But but real quickly. What I’ve what, what I’ve what I’ve started, you know, referring to is the digital nomad entrepreneur business engine. There are. There are 6 stages that I think Bootstrap digital business owners like you and I kinda go through. And you you you hit some of those. The the first one is just the ideation. You know. We have an idea. And then we go to weekend warrior. We’ve got the 9 to 5, but we’ve got this side hustle like you said we’re weekend warriors, and then we eventually pull the the parachute cord and we jump out of the 9 to 5, and we’re in the all in stage. That’s the third stage of a digital bootstrap business. It is the all in. And then the fourth stage is is team builder.and what I’ve noticed with people and my membership and my one-on-one coaching clients is that while it was the scariest move to go from weekend warrior to all in. It’s been the hardest move for them to go from all in to team builder. Now, you kind of had a little bit of that experience at before you. You were in that when when you were still weekend warriing. But did you find that like when you went to hire that like first full time person, that this wasn’t just going to be a task. This was going to be like a central part of your business that you were, gonna you know. gives give. Give some responsibility, some ownership to did you find that to be a hard kind of challenging thing compared to when you were deciding to go all in with. Was that experience different for you as well?

Tim Strifler: Yeah. So I think I mean, because my business is is a product business, and the first full-time person I hired was customer support. It was actually a really smooth transition, because I was doing the customer support for my my divvy products by myself for the first, you know, 6 months, and I hired my support person, who’s now a support manager. And so she. She had experience with doing wordpress product support already. So it was like a slam dunk, and she also knew Divvy. And so it made it a really easy hire. And then, because I had that 6 month history of my support, tickets and everything. I’ve always used the same support system help scout. I had like, I didn’t do much training or hand holding. I just basically said, Here you go. And so it was. It was actually a really smooth transition. And you know, big part of that is because of her. She’s she’s incredible. Her name is is Shafak, and so she’s done an excellent job for me. And so yeah, so she she helped make it a a smooth transition. And then, I think, to just kind of the nature of the position. I can understand, though, what you’re saying when someone is like building, like, for example, a web design, business or web design agency, and so that that first hire might not be like mine was like a very like clear cut like this. This job is like in a in a box. Right it’s very well contained of. Here’s what you do. You you respond to customer support sometimes, though, that first hire might be someone who’s building websites. It might be doing design, it might be doing different things where it’s not as like streamlined and and and cut and drive that makes sense. And so so I can understand but and then, also because I was doing that customer support for, like 6 months on my own, I had already had, like, built up like a decent amount of of revenue, and I had good traction as a product business. And so I had the fun. So it wasn’t as scary. However, all that to say. I think what you mentioned being the hardest with hiring people, the the team member, what was the the the team builder. Yeah, I can understand why that is is can be the most challenging for people. And and to be clear like it has been challenging. But just that first hire in particular was actually pretty easy. I think it became more challenging for me when I had more people and letting go for me. That’s the hard part is letting go and and trusting, and everything with with some of the you know, the more the bigger parts of the business. But yeah, I think the reason why it can be so challenging for others is a couple of things one like what I just said right learning to let go and letting people be a part of that integral part of the business and and even take ownership of it. But then, also, like, when you’re going from a an individual business owner, and you’re doing everything yourself. A lot of times you get into it because you love to build websites, or you love to do. You know, XYZ. And then you start wanting to grow until you wanna hire people. Well, now, you’re putting on a new hat. Now you’re putting on the manager hat, and that’s a whole nother skill set than building websites or doing whatever your function is. And it’s III always think of the the example with with restaurants. A lot of incredible chefs will start restaurants because they love to cook and they love to to feed people right well. Running a restaurant being a profitable restaurant is is a whole nother skill set than than cooking food. And so you know. And that’s why so many restaurants fail is because, like running a restaurant and running a business is different than than cooking food. It’s different than

Eric Dingler: building a website or, Yeah, yeah, that’s that’s that’s a good way to look at it. That’s good. And you know. you don’t have to start with hiring a a team member like that’s what you and I both did. But part of our service offerings I don’t even I mean II call him my team, but II outsource to another agency that just provides white labels. So like we don’t manage, we we in in my digital marketing agency like we do pay per click, for example, and and Facebook ads. But we don’t actually do that. We have a white label company that actually has all the expertise, all the systems. And I, just they they charge me II mark it up 60%. And I charge the client that and so that’s another way to get started that honestly, I wish I wouldn’t know about cause. I wish I would started there first, cause I would. You don’t have to the nice thing with hiring a fulfillment partner like that is, they already have all the systems. Yeah.and and a lot. You know, the pricing and all of that you just, you know. Now we’re starting to like some of the things I used to put on to. We we use Pennington creative is who we use. We used to also use, and from time to time still use focus Wp on some service things. But for for some ongoing things we use. We use Pennyton. But we started even bringing some of that stuff in house. Now that we’re growing, we were able to learn how they were doing it. And we’re like, Oh. I can actually do that cheaper now myself. Yeah, yeah, no, that’s great. Yeah, no, that’s a good point is yeah. Those white label fulfillment partners. And yeah, it’s it’s a it’s a win-win because you don’t have to hire like a full time team member where there’s a lot of risk there and then, like you said, you don’t have to build the systems, and and yeah, the whole onboarding process and all that. You can just throw it over them. They make you look really good.

Tim Strifler: They’re happy because you’re you’re giving them business without them having to manage the client. And so you get to market up 60% to to be project manager, essentially. And so, yeah, I’ve done that on on a handful of projects. And and it is great. It almost feels like when you do that for essentially an entire project like not just like for like one service, but for an entire project. It almost feels like you’re cheating because you’re like. Wait, I’d actually do any work like I just outsourced it to this other business. But you know. That’s that’s the way it works. You know you’re getting paid for the fact that you found the client and for managing, you know the project, and being the project manager which

Eric Dingler: can definitely be no easy task. Yeah, absolutely well. And I think it helps to look at the look at it this way. I don’t know why we struggle as much and web design. Now it’s not. We don’t struggle with this in all of digital marketing, because there is a whole are in all of the digital space, because there are Sas. But you know, software as a service that you can, you know, sell as your own thing and and and stuff like that. But for the most part, especially web designers, they feel like they have to sell it and build it. And what I’ve been trying to to to teach people say to to web designers that I’m I’m coaching is, you know, real estate agents aren’t building the houses they sell. So somebody else built the house. But the real estate agent sells it. We could do the exact same thing and and web design if that’s what you want to do as a as a as a digital Roman. Yeah, thanks. I appreciate that. I appreciate them. So the question is, and this isn’t, you know, II didn’t tell you I was gonna even ask you about this, and because I just kinda thought of it. So, considering that the you know people that are listening to this are nomadic or aspiring to be nomadic could you do your business? I know your I know your location. you know you’re you’re in your passport country, and and and and stationary there, but could you be location independent and and be nomadic traveling full-time as a product, as a digital product, creator and and seller?

Tim Strifler: Yeah, absolutely. And and II do that when I when I travel I don’t do the long trips like like you do, but like when I go on vacation, like being a small business owner like, I don’t ever really take a vacation, you know. And that’s okay, because I love my business and I love what I do. I you know. II stay, you know, caught up on what’s going on right. I might not be like spending all day working like I do when I’m here in my home office. But when I’m on vacation, like I bring my laptop like I will be doing, you know, a little bit of work every every day just to kinda keep making sure everything’s running smoothly. But yeah, I can run anywhere that I have an Internet connection, and and a computer or smartphone. I can. I can run my business. And so obviously, when I’m in my home office, I have my my lights. I have my nice camera, my big monitors. And you know I’m I’m spoiled with like having all the the the extra stuff or being able to do my my videos and all of that. But as far as running, my business being a product creator, absolutely like, as long as I have my laptop with me and an Internet connection. I can work, I can work anywhere. And and that’s why I love my business. So much is is that I have that freedom. And so I do tend to work like pretty consistent hours, like, I don’t work weekends. I don’t work nights, and II try to have you know, during my normal business hours that I’m like at my desk working. But I make a lot of exceptions, and that’s the freedom that having a business like this gives you is like. It’s a really nice day out. My wife and and kids want to go to the beach. I don’t want to be stuck in my office when I know they’re having fun at the beach. I’m going to the beach, too, you know, and like that’s, you know, being a business owner and having

Eric Dingler: a a business that’s online, right? That’s not location dependent. Like, you have that ability. And and yeah, I absolutely love it. So you, you’ve got the time independent. So you’re you’re not leveraging the location of dependence. But you’re leveraging the time independence that that being a business owner has, especially in a digital type business like, we have yeah, for sure. That’s really cool. And I, it’s funny. So when when I reached out and said, Hey, you know, you know, I’m starting to podcast. Would you come over and and and be on it? You were like, sure. And I said, Can you send me a scheduler link. So I can find a time on your calendar. And you were like. Yeah, I don’t really have one of those. I don’t do meetings, and I’m like, Oh, you were like, can you send me yours? It was really funny, cause I’m like my gosh, I am, that’s all I do. I feel like fine. I love it. But I’m like, Oh, my gosh, I live and die by my calendar And and you’re just like I don’t really do meetings.

Tim Strifler: Yeah, I my team. We we like. I run my business in slack, like my team is is in slack and like we’ll do a monthly like team meeting. It’s mainly with my support people. Because, by the way, if you’re using WordPress products doesn’t matter if the company sells plugins and themes, or sells hosting, or sells whatever. At the end of the day any wordpress related company or web design related company. At the end of the day we’re all support company. So support is like the backbone of my business.And so I yeah, I run my business in slack. We’ll have team meetings once a month. And we haven’t even been that consistent with that. Because, you know, if there’s something we need to go over, I’ll just, I’ll just, you know. Go over it through text-based communication in slack and part of that is just because that’s the like. The way II like to to run things, and then the other part of it is or all of my team. I was, gonna say, most of my team, and now I think it is all my team English as a second language. And so they’re actually better and more comfortable with with text. They’re all fluent, and I don’t think anyone’s putting stuff through translators or anything but it’s it’s much easier and comfortable for them to to have to read and and type opposed to doing face to face calls And so that’s another thing, too. And then I just find that II get a lot more done. It’s and I think it’s just a preference kind of thing. Like I’m I’m a millennial and like, if someone calls me, even if it’s someone that I know. I mean, gonna answer it. I’m gonna be like, why are they calling me like, why don’t they text me? And so like, I just, I don’t like talking the phone like I’ve done phone sales like, I’m very comfortable on the phone and and talking and video calls and stuff. I just yeah, prefer not to when when possible, and so but that’s the cool thing. When it’s your business. You get a, you know. do things the way that that you feel is best for for you and the company and everything. And so so yeah, and and it’s funny cause we’ll have people that will say with our support, they’ll be like, Oh, can we just like get on the phone or something like no, we don’t offer that, or they want to do like a zoom like video screen sharing. And so we actually are, we’re gonna we’re rolling out. I already support with 3 tiers and the highest tier gets access to

Eric Dingler: zoom calls. And so to do like video sharing and stuff, cause there’s people that like really want it. We’ve always just told them, no. So now it’s like, Okay, we can do it. But you’re gonna have to pay for it. So well, our director of web services. His name is Peter, and I have my leadership team. I’ll keep a wish list that will immediately show up on the top of Peter’s wish list, and I go. I go look at the wish list when I’m doing budget. You know, when I’m budgeting, and I guarantee you the moment he sees that roll out he is. Gonna be like Eric, we need to. We need to upgrade it. Divvy. When you said that I had to look real quick. A buddy of mine sent me this picture, this meme today, and it’s a fake looking news headline, and it says, Hiker lost for 24 h. Ignored calls from rescuers because of unknown number. Please just send text messages in future. That’s hilarious. And when you said that I was like, I just got some. Let me just send me something so alright cool. Well, hey! So real quick for those that are in that that are listening, that do web design and stuff like that. And they’re in the wordpress space. What? What are your products and and services? And where can they find them?

Tim Strifler: Yeah, absolutely. So. Divvy life.com. That’s I would say, my my core business. That’s where we have our divvy plugins, our child themes, our layouts, tutorials and courses. And so for anyone that’s using the divi wordpress theme. Our business helps. You take divvy further. So with our plugins you can get more out of divvy with our Mega menus and our pop ups, and extra modules, and then we have our layout templates as well, and child themes and then we also have courses. So we have a course called Divi Creator pro, which helps you create better websites more efficiently. We have a speed optimization course. We have an SEO course, and then we have 2 upcoming courses, a e-commerce course and a theme builder course. and so that’s all part of divvy life. And then I kind of mentioned it before. But last year I acquired a elementor product company called Exclusive add-ons, so exclusive add-ons com. So if you’re an elementor user, you can use our add-ons over there. So a bunch of widgets and extensions. And so yeah, going to be dedicating some time and resources this year to that to continue promoting that we we bought it. It was a very, very good product that was not marketed very much, and so, which is like a prime for an acquisition, cause you can take it and run with it and promote it. And so yeah, it’s I. Actually, I hired cause. I was like, I’m not an elementary user like, how can I evaluate this? So I hired 2 web designers that exclusively use elementor and just told them like, Go get this product. I’ll this because it was before I acquired the the product I’ll like. I’ll reimburse you. Go buy it, I’ll reimburse you and then evaluate it like. Just use it like, let me know what it is, and then I’ll pay you for your time. And so they both gave me thumbs up, said it was awesome. So I was like, alright great, because I’m not an elementary user. But yeah, so those are. Those are kind of my my core offerings. And yeah, I love teaching with the courses I love creating products. And and those are the the outlets for that allows me to do that

Eric Dingler: alright. Well, very cool. Well, I I’m gonna close things out here, and Tim, one of the things that I do at the end of every single episode is, I wrap things up with a leadership tip of the week. And the reason I do this is because, I really wanted to start a leadership, podcast one but there’s so many out there. And I had really no new thing to do it. And nobodyI get asked about leadership, but not nearly as much as I got asked about being a digital nomad entrepreneur. And so II did this. But leadership is the capacity of your business. E! Every time I talk to somebody that is is struggling with their business. It’s the it’s always a leadership issue. They’re they’re struggling with, you know, delegating. They’re struggling with trust. They’re struggling with hiring the right people that it just it. It’s the health of the the the top leader, the business owner. Your leadership capacity is the capacity of of your company. And so we’ve been talking about hiring today, and leadership tip of the week is the is is connected, the hiring, but also the other side of it, and my leadership tip is higher, slow, but fire fast. Keep crazy off your team. It’s not worth it. There are so many amazing people out there. In the world that love to be on the team, and would like to be on on your team. And so hire slow. I don’t know about you. We we have a a slower hiring process. Now we, we have a 3 interview process. So like like I said, we just hired somebody this week, and he’s been through. Our entire process took about 2 weeks. But it helped us weed out a couple of looms and we didn’t have time for that, and so we hire slow and. if need be, I fire fast if we come to a necessary ending dr. Henry Cloud talks about in his book. Necessary endings it. When I come to a necessary ending, I used to ho hum around about it and stress about, and we’re I don’t anymore. I I’m not doing anybody any favors by doing that. I’m not helping my the rest of my team. Luckily I haven’t had to fire anybody in a really long time. We’ve really honed our hiring process. But yeah, hire slow fire. Have you ever had to let anybody go.

Tim Strifler: Yes, IA couple of people, and but both were related to like just being total liars and being dishonest. And yeah, so yeah, not not fun, but but necessary, probably could have fired a little faster. But yeah, overall, like my team is, is awesome. And so I would say historically, I probably hired too fast. But now that I have the the team and the culture that is is so great I don’t wanna screw that up. So now I am hiring a lot slower and going through a longer process because it’s like I wanna find someone that’s gonna fit within the team and is not going to mess anything up that we have. That’s going really, really well. And so I kind of got lucky. And even though I did hire fast. Initially, I ended up with really great people. And so but yeah, now, I don’t want to. I don’t want to jeopardize that. So now I have to to hire slower.

Eric Dingler: Yeah, yeah. Well, cultures, culture trumps vision. And so you you’d have the best vision in the in the world for the best company in the world. But your culture is gonna determine whether that becomes reality or not. Culture trumps vision. And and as as leaders, our job is to to create and protect that that that all important culture. So our team can go after the vision together. So cool stuff. Alright, sir. Well, thank you very much and for everyone that is. Listen, thank you. I look forward to reading your review and an upcoming podcast and until next time, chase, the big dream, lead with courage and safe travels.

Tim Strifler: Take care, bye, bye!