Taylor Evans On Building a Business with Purpose

Business Ownership & Purpose

In this episode, I talk with Taylor Evans, founder and owner of Rust Belt Recruiting, about some of the lessons he has learned from his own experience as a business owner.

Listen to this episode to hear about some lessons Taylor Evans has learned as a business owner and why he thinks it’s important to build a business with purpose.

[00:00:00] Julie Bee – Host: On today’s episode, I talk with Taylor Evans of Rust Belt Recruiting about constant evolution in business ownership. The truth about the fear of failure and the immense joy and responsibility that comes with watching a business vision become its own living. Breathing entity. I’m Julie B and they don’t teach this in business school.

[00:00:25] Midroll Spot: Julie has spoken to countless organizations for 13 years on topics including leadership, management, employee engagement and morale, workplace culture, small business ownership and entrepreneurship. If you’d like it, engaging, relatable, and inspiring speaker for your next event. Book Julie to speak to your group more details@thejulieb.com.

[00:00:48] Julie Bee – Host: Hey there, I’m Julie B and you’re listening to, they Don’t Teach This In Business School, a podcast where we discuss business ownership lessons learned through experience, not in a classroom. [00:01:00] I’m excited to interview Taylor Evans. He’s the founder and owner of Rust Belt Recruiting, and I know we are going to have a really great conversation today about some of the lessons he has learned from his own experience as a business owner.

Taylor, welcome to the show. I’m so glad to have you here. I’m excited about this conversation, so thanks for being here. 

[00:01:17] Taylor Evans – Guest: Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. It should be a lot of fun, and I’ve definitely learned a lot in my five and a half years that wasn’t learned in the classroom, and I don’t know if it would’ve been taught in the classroom, so.

Excited for the conversation today. 

[00:01:30] Julie Bee – Host: I think we’re constantly learning. I think we, we just learned some things prior to the, prior to hitting recorded, so I think it’s, it’s absolutely, yeah, it’s, it’s great. So tey, why don’t you just first give us an overview of your business and what you do and what role you play in the business as well.

[00:01:46] Taylor Evans – Guest: Absolutely. So my company is called Rust Belt Recruiting, and we also have a separate brand called Workforce Strategy Partners, which is a little bit more consulting oriented, but Rust Belt Recruiting is a [00:02:00] recruiting company for the manufacturing industry, and we generally work in about a. Two and a half hour radius of, of Northeast Ohio, Cleveland, where we’re located.

And so our work takes us into industrial facilities all throughout the region that are usually having, that are, you know, either growing or having a workforce shortage and they need a true partner in the process. I started the business on the foundation that. What I saw was a lot of agencies were just trying to make a quick buck and they weren’t really helping the, the employer, the clients that we work with to this fix the systemic issues that they had within their organization.

Mm-hmm. So, you know, when we work with a company, we are, you know, placing people in permanent roles. We’re not a temporary staffing agency or attempt to hire. We are finding full-time jobs for people that are, you know, we’re putting them there to stay, ideally, and about 50% of [00:03:00] our work is on professional roles and 50% of our work is on production roles.

But at the end of the day, the, the, the, the approach and the strategy and the philosophy remains the same. That we are really trying to help companies. Think through their process in how they are bringing these people into their organizations so that there’s a more successful outcome. So we’re highly consultative.

We really like to get hands on with our client and be more of an extension of their talent team if they have one, or be their talent team if they don’t, as opposed to just being another vendor in a stack of recruiting agencies trying to fill whatever role that it is, which really just becomes a zero sum gain as opposed to a.

You know, much more vibrant outcome when we’re able to not only find them the individual, but maybe leave them in a better place relative to their strategies around talent. 

[00:03:49] Julie Bee – Host: It sounds like you really take a holistic approach to the entire talent, recruiting and retention. I don’t wanna say game, but area, industry.

Right. 

[00:03:59] Taylor Evans – Guest: You know, call it what it is. [00:04:00] It’s, it’s a problem these days. It’s a crisis, right. I truly believe. The workforce, you know, issues that we’re facing mm-hmm. As a company or as a country mm-hmm. Uh, are gonna impact a lot of companies. And we’re feeling it. I mean, in real time we’re, we’re talking about inflation.

Mm-hmm. Cost of living. All of this very real stuff that people are being impacted by. It’s. It’s, it trickles right down to our pocketbooks and, you know, in our, in our home lives. 

[00:04:29] Julie Bee – Host: Absolutely. So, tey, one thing I love to ask business owners is, what is your favorite part about being a business owner? 

[00:04:38] Taylor Evans – Guest: Yeah, so I think my favorite part is rooted writing.

Why I started the business to begin with. I like the opportunity to do a lot of different things in the course of my day. Right. I, I was, Personally never really good at just doing one job and like mm-hmm. That’s my personality. Having grown up was diagnosed with a d d in a d [00:05:00] h, adhd. Mm-hmm. I’ve harnessed a lot of that.

Mm-hmm. But still, I need the room to do, you know, talk to marketing, talk a little bit of finance, talk, of course sales, just really touch all corners of the business. And also the freedom within that to be creative and bring ideas. Like I’m, I’m always thinking if you, the, the, the biggest risk to the. To the team here is giving me like a day by myself because I just start to like, think of things and come up with new ideas and you know, all of a sudden flood everyone’s plate with a bunch of things that they may not have been looking for me to come up with.

But you, you know, usually they’re good in my mind. Right? And, and fortunately I have the, the leadership in place to sometimes say, that’s a great idea, Taylor, but we’re not prioritizing it today. Or, Hey, that’s a great idea, let’s like, Get moving on that, so. Mm-hmm. But it’s just the freedom to be creative and make decisions that I like about being a business owner.

It’s, yeah. It’s, it’s, 

[00:05:58] Julie Bee – Host: you’re, you’re visionary is what [00:06:00] I’m hearing. Yeah, 

[00:06:01] Taylor Evans – Guest: absolutely. I can see over your shoulder the book Traction. We are an e o s company. Mm-hmm. You know, I’ve read, I, I can kinda squint and tell the, tell that two of those books are traction and good to Great. You know, Definitely have read both of those in, in that journey.

That Eeo s journey has been interesting for our company, and it 

[00:06:20] Julie Bee – Host: is a journey. You know, you, you, I remember the first time I picked up the book Traction. I, I think it took me about five years to re read the whole thing and really be able to see how it would, how I could use it in my organization. Like I would read parts of it and take it Yeah.

And put it into the organization. And then I would read like the next chapter and say, oh, I’m not ready for this yet. And, and so it’s, it is, it’s a never ending. I think that’s one thing that that owners who are just getting started maybe don’t understand is that it is a neverending kind of evolution.

You may do the same. Technical, technically the same service for 30 years as a business owner, but the way [00:07:00] you do it evolves constantly. 

[00:07:03] Taylor Evans – Guest: Constantly. Yeah. I was just talking to my wife last night and I said, you know, we are about to and need to kinda reenter the 2.0 of our e o s journey. We, we’ve been doing it for two years.

Mm-hmm. It’s been great. Mm-hmm. Um, we’ve seen, you know, a quantifiable results in, in. You know, multiple corners of our business. But you know, talking EOS lingo. Mm-hmm. We need to re-approach our vto, our vision traction organizer where. Uh, the vision of two years ago, I, I don’t know if it necessarily is what the vision is, you know, for, for the next, uh, 3, 5, 10 years.

And so we need to sit down and, and reboot that, and I think it’s gonna be great. But once you really embrace it and appreciate it and understand it, as, you know, it can be the roadmap for your company. Mm-hmm. If you really start to have a roadmap for your organization so that I can walk up to anyone in, in, in Rust Belt recruiting and say, [00:08:00] This, this doesn’t help us get to this.

And they, you know, they’d be like, well, why are we going? Well, you already knew because like, we share our vto, 

[00:08:08] Julie Bee – Host: this sold the vto, 

[00:08:09] Taylor Evans – Guest: it’s all the vto. Yeah. Yeah. Like this is, this is like the direction this company is what we can share it with people before they even start working. Mm-hmm. Right? And, and, and, and they can grasp the vision.

So yeah, it’s a really powerful tool. So hopefully Gino Wickman. Is listening and, you know, knows that we have two advocates for EOS on, on this call. You 

[00:08:31] Julie Bee – Host: would be, maybe you wouldn’t be surprised, but I, a lot of, a lot of my past podcast Gus have said, I see traction. I see traction. There’s a reason I keep it back there.

It’s because it’s a conversation starter. And they’re also, the people who publish traction are publishing my book. So it’s also like, Hey. Oh, there we go. That’s awesome. Congratulations. There’s, there’s a whole ecosystem there on its own. Yeah. You know, one thing I’ve done recently with traction, because I’m, I’m a visionary like you, and like I’ve, I’ve go, I’ve been going [00:09:00] through some, some.

Uh, basically what I’ve been saying internally to, to my staff is we’ve been riding two buses. I have two businesses, and so now we’re trying to like split it into actually two buses. But I have broken down for the new business because it is, it’s, I mean, it’s basically starting and a brand new business. I took the VTO and broke it.

Instead of doing well, I still have the 10 year vision and the 10 year stuff, but instead of the three year, one year, Quarterly. I took it quarterly, monthly, we weekly, so I made it like a 100 day vto. Yeah. Which is something that I’m actually sharing with, with other people that, that have heard about it, but don’t quite understand how to implement it.

I was like, I, I, that has helped me a lot because yeah, thinking yearly sometimes is really hard as a business owner. 

[00:09:47] Taylor Evans – Guest: You and I are really on the same wavelength. You know, we have been bringing in and onboarding some new employees, and I, I just actually said to our managing director, Nate, the other day, I said, You know, we need to [00:10:00] write a 90 or 100 day plan for this individual.

Just like when someone takes office. Mm-hmm. Right. You know, they, their a hundred day plan, what are you gonna accomplish in that a hundred? It’s the same thing, right? It’s framed a little differently, but like, how are we gonna get you up to speed as fast as possible? Mm-hmm. On whatever it it is. And I totally see how that’s applicable to.

Uh, getting a, a new business. Yeah. Going as well what’s my a hundred day plan? Mm-hmm. Uh, to get it there and, you know, to that end right. I think, you know, One nugget that I would say, and, you know, how do you start a business, right? And it’s like, I just firmly believe that even if you’re, you know, doing a side hustle or doing whatever it is, if you have intentions for it to really grow into being a, a, a business with purpose and meaning and, and legs under it, if you will.

Mm-hmm. Uh, you gotta just start doing forward moving actions. Yeah. On a daily. Basis, right? Mm-hmm. And I, I smile, I, I [00:11:00] think of a conversation I had with my father-in-law when I was starting a business. You know, this might been what they taught you in like business school or whatever, as opposed to like the real world uhhuh.

I started my business, like I planted my flag, Julie, it took me like, By the way, 10 tries to actually register my business with the state of Ohio. Mm-hmm. Like I almost gave up there. Like, I, I think you sent us some pre-questions. Was there ever a point you thought of giving up? It was like, yeah, I just couldn’t get the freaking l l c file to like, to sign up and I was like, nevermind, I’m just gonna get a job again.

If, funny to look back on that at this point, because Ohio is actually a, a. Pretty business friendly state and the system’s super easy, like mm-hmm. I just had to file an LOC the other week and it’s pretty easy. But you know, my, I started then t tring around town, you know, lo like meeting with lawyers, meeting with accountants.

Mm-hmm. Like all these people who could like support my business. Mm-hmm. And after like two weeks of that, [00:12:00] maybe three weeks of that, my father-in-law who owns a business was like, Taylor, just make a sale and these people will find you. You know, like, you know, he was like the nu, you know, you just gotta start getting your product out there, see if the market wants.

I was trying to do all this stuff where I was trying to like set up all the back end, but it’s like, yeah. I don’t need any of these people without a sale. And so, you know, I I, I, that message reverberates in my head today, he was right. Those, those type of, you know, partners tend to find you. Mm-hmm. Uh, if you’re making money mm-hmm.

Uh, you know, we’re. Word travels and we’re really blessed to have a lot of good partners, but definitely wouldn’t have a need for those partners if we didn’t have great clients. So that was some of that early business advice that I took that was super important. So yeah, 

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Elevate your business. She’ll also share some awesomeness happening in the business community. Don’t [00:13:00] miss out. Subscribe to the Be Awesome brief@thejulieb.com. 

[00:13:05] Julie Bee – Host: Hey, this is Julie B and you’re listening to, they Don’t Teach This in Business School. I’m here with Taylor Evans today, the founder and owner of Rust Belt Recruiting, and we were just talking about.

Uh, getting started, just, I, one thing, I, I’m actually teaching a class to brand new entrepreneurs right now, and my, my very first class, the lesson was progress, not perfection, because many of them have been thinking about a business for 3, 4, 5 years and they haven’t. Started it. So you know, I’m going, I’m working through all these modules and this provided facilitator, instructional manual, and I just keep repeating progress.

Not perfection. Progress, not perfection. And to your point, like going out and getting a sale. But Tyler, you, Taylor, you said something about how when you were first starting, how you were trying to do all the backend stuff. Yeah. And you weren’t [00:14:00] just going out and selling how much, how much was fear? How much was the fear of failure playing a part in that, do you think?

[00:14:08] Taylor Evans – Guest: Okay. Good question because I let, let me answer it this way. Mm-hmm. I don’t know if that fear has subsided today. Mm-hmm. With where we are versus five and a half years ago from where we began, I think, I think fear of failure has. In some ways increased more. Mm-hmm. With, with having built it in, you know, which is ironic because a good friend of mine, uh, we were talking the other week and he was like, he, he owns a recruiting agency mm-hmm.

As well. Mm-hmm. It’s, you know, it’s not just one man band. It’s got some legs under it as well. He goes, our businesses, yours in mind. Are now built. They, they, like now they’re, they’re not perfect and they could certainly go away. Mm-hmm. But he goes, our businesses are built to where they will run. They are, they are established companies now.

And that kind of helped with that. Mm-hmm. But like, when I think about it, I’m, I’m often really [00:15:00] running like, my, my fear is not rooted in it. It is most rooted in like, Not letting down the great people who work here. Yeah. Like the, the opportunities in lives that we support, you know, the, the, the, the families that are tied to this business, right?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And certainly, I, I believe, like, you know, I did my strengths finders test recently and one of my five that came up was belief, like I genuinely believe. In what we do. Like there’s no, there’s no dollar sign attached to that belief. It, it’s the biggest, it’s the biggest thing is belief in the importance of the impact that we make on the lives of the people that we work with, be it the client or the candidate.

So before, The, the, the fear was actually somewhat less because I had no proof of concept. I didn’t frankly know if I could do this or not. Like 

[00:15:55] Julie Bee – Host: you didn’t have anything to lose? 

[00:15:57] Taylor Evans – Guest: Kind of, yeah, like I, like what would’ve happened? I went [00:16:00] back, Hey, you know, Mr. Interviewer, I tried to start a business. Clearly I’m sitting here interviewing for you.

It didn’t work out like that. That would’ve been the extent of my fear. Mm-hmm. I am comforted in the reality that like, I think I’ve worked really hard to build a really good network and relationships where if it didn’t work out here mm-hmm. Like if Ross Belt went away, whatever happened mm-hmm. I do believe I could.

I’m employable. Mm-hmm. I could probably go get a. Good job because of the, the, the work I’ve put into this. Mm-hmm. But to be letting down those people that I work with now that have like really invested their, their hearts mm-hmm. Their, their minds, their, their blood, sweat and tears into Ross Belt and, and want to see it grow in the same way that I do.

Mm-hmm. That’s, that’s where my fear is rooted in current day. But to your question, yeah, I don’t know. Maybe I was naive. Maybe I was just, you know, running on, running on dumb luck. But I, I’ve got a great wife who really supported me in those early months of the business and [00:17:00] it, it allowed us to, you know, build something that today we’re really proud of and provides a great life for, you know, not only my family, but the families of the people that, uh, work here as well.

[00:17:11] Julie Bee – Host: What you said about the. The feeling of not letting down your, I, I mean, I’m paraphrasing here, but not letting down the people who believe in you, who work for you, who, who have bought into your mission and vision. How do you, because you know, I’ve written a book about burnout, and one of the things that I say that’s different for business owners that causes burnout is that, I probably need a different word in the book now that we’re talking, but I call it a burden.

It’s a, it, it, but it, it’s, the way that I spend it is, it’s a burden of, you know, you’re, you’re financially responsible for three to four entities at all times. Your, your personal self, your business, the people who work for you, and possibly clients, you know, possibly, depending on your, what you do, you know, sometimes you’re financially responsible [00:18:00] for your clients as well.

But, but specifically talking about that, like. That people issue or the, the people part of the motivation. How do, well, how do you, or can you, have you figured out how to. Just draw a line at some point. Like it’s definitely, cuz I have that too. Like I, I, I tell my, a couple of my very close team members that I often, I think about their career a lot and I sometimes with, with one of them, I joke, I’m like, I think about your career probably more than I think about v and I really do.

How do you separate that though? Like eventually you’ve gotta be able to go home and say, I’m not gonna think about. Like, I’ve got to turn that off for right now. Is there, do you have any insights into that? Because I could use those pointers quite frankly. 

[00:18:48] Taylor Evans – Guest: Yeah. Well, it sounds like we’re, uh, we’re, we’re due to be in the same support group then because, you know, I, I admittedly I am.

I, I struggle to have an off switch. Yeah. [00:19:00] I really do. I struggle to have an off switch and, and walk away from it, and it’s, it’s one of the perils that I think a lot of manu or, you know, manufacturing business leaders struggle with. Mm-hmm. Probably, especially at the entrepreneurial level. Mm-hmm. Where. By no means is our business, you know, on a financially day-to-day or month-to-month basis.

But we’re still a small business, right? Mm-hmm. And, you know, we didn’t bring in outside financing, so this is, you know, self-financed from the ground up. And it’s been an amazing run, and I’m so proud to see how far it’s gotten. But at the end of the day, like, you know, I look, you know, you, you mentioned burnout.

Like I’ve run myself into the ground mentally multiple times. I mm-hmm. I actually, um, Julie, we have yet to, like, when we speak EEO s mm-hmm. We have yet to have our two day annual mm-hmm. That we were meant to have in like early December. Yeah. Because the night before I, I got sick as a dog. Yeah. Like through the night, right?

Yeah. [00:20:00] And like my, my, my off switch even, you know, for the first hour I was sick. I was like, I, I’ll just get through this and I will be able to make it to the two day annual and then realizing, Nope, this is, this is bad. This is, I, I can’t put, I a can’t get the rest of my team sick. Mm-hmm. But B, like I can’t do it.

Right. But it wasn’t because like I ate bad food that night or something. Yeah. When I look at my calendar in the way I had approached things for those like. Few weeks before I was running so hard. Yeah. Right. And so self-care, I am, I am whatever the opposite of a poster child is, that is what I eat. Right.

And so like, And, and, and I struggle to, you know, even as a small business owner, reward myself. Yeah. If you will. Right. Like, I, I struggle to, I, I, I try to do it. I try to mm-hmm. Like, you know, indulge where is appropriate and within, you know, scope of who and what we are. But, you know, even, you know, the topic of compensation [00:21:00] is something I’ve, you know, wrestled with, right?

Mm-hmm. And it’s like, because, you know, I just operate from the philosophy of. Every dollar that the Evans family, you know, needs to take. Julie, I’ve got four kids, a wife, and, you know, all, all these things. And so this all costs money. Yeah. Right. And so I have struggled mm-hmm. With the idea of paying ourselves.

But it’s like, you know, you, you talk to, you know, advisors and stuff, and they’re like, you do still have to pay yourself. Like, don’t I, I’ve, I’ve had a board member who’s like, you know, do, do not play this like startup. Growth mode, compensation narrative in your head. Yeah. For, for too long, because you’ll never feel right.

Catching yourself up and, but I, but to this day, to this hour, to this minute, I still struggle with meaningfully compensating myself because I want to reinvest that money in the business. But with a wife who’s, you know, given all the kids, we have a [00:22:00] stay-at-home mom. Yeah. And she’s great at it like, You know, this, this is a single income family, and, and it, it, it can be a struggle and it creates just mental havoc.

Mm-hmm. Sometime that I, I wish I didn’t have, you know? Yeah. I, I, it’s a reality and, but, but I, but, but, but the other side of my brain is saying, Don’t, you know, keep your costs down. Don’t, don’t, don’t like live, live like below, 

[00:22:28] Julie Bee – Host: below your stand or below the standard living you 

[00:22:31] Taylor Evans – Guest: want. That’s good life advice.

Yeah. I don’t even like how I came out, like definitely live below your means if and as you can at, at any point in life and you’ll, you’ll be saving money. Like mm-hmm. You’ll be better off. That said, right. Like, I, I just, I, I wrestle with that, I wrestle with that topic and I, I wrestle period with just turning the, turning the nogging off because, um, and, and, and it, and it cuts into a lot.

And so, you know, again, you say the word burnout, like [00:23:00] if there’s burnout, it’s my inability to self-regulate. Mm-hmm. Like, and, and separate and, mm-hmm. You know, but that, that’s who I am. You know? And, and, uh, but, but I think if I did a straw pull of other visionaries mm-hmm. Uh, especially in small businesses, um, Sure.

There’s, I I, I’m 

[00:23:24] Julie Bee – Host: not alone. We all tend, I think we, you’re not, I’m, I’m the same way. And we tend to have two gear, zero and a hundred and Yeah. If we’re not going a hundred, we’re probably burned out and going zero. 

[00:23:36] Taylor Evans – Guest: Like that’s Yeah. That’s, and, and, and, and it’s boom or busted and it’s y you know, when it becomes unfair.

Julie is, I, I, I don’t even think of myself in this situation. When it, when it comes out on the family. Mm-hmm. Or when it comes out on, you know, tho those who like, you know, love you, support you mm-hmm. Want the best for you. Mm-hmm. But there’s, it’s, it’s that [00:24:00] crash that’s hard on everybody and let alone yourself.

Right. And it, and so it’s, you know, it’s, it’s not for the faint of heart. I love what I do. Mm-hmm. I love what we do and I love why we do it above all else. But, you know, it can be extremely challenging to. Regulate, and that’s just, you know, again, I’m five and a half years into owning, building, and growing this business, but I don’t know if I’m anywhere close to the, to, to, to, to, to that type of zen.

And, you know, people will talk to you about things like meditation, right? Yeah. Or, you know, all these things. I suck at that too. Yeah. You know, like 

[00:24:36] Julie Bee – Host: I’ll tell you my own journey with meditation I for like, I don’t know, 13 years. I was absolutely not. I would try it and I’d be like, I cannot do this. I cannot do this.

And because I just couldn’t turn my mind off. But you know, what I finally figured out is that I actually bought the CALM app and Guided Meditations helped me because somebody’s telling me what to do, like while I meditate. [00:25:00] So I have to listen to what they’re telling me to do. And it keeps me from just, you know, having all these random thoughts that come up and, and I’ve actually learned how to.

Let go of those in meditation. So it took me about 13 years to figure out how to meditate. So don’t, you know, don’t give up on it if you, if you’re interested in exploring it. Yeah. We’ll, 

[00:25:18] Taylor Evans – Guest: we’ll, we’ll check in towards the end of the decade and maybe I’ll be in a better place with that, but Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, that’s definitely a challenge for me.

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[00:25:43] Julie Bee – Host: Hey, you’re listening to, they don’t teach this in business.

School, and I’m Julie V, the host. I’m here with Taylor Evans, and we are just having this great conversation about all things business and turning things off and not being able to stop and then going from zero to a hundred and burnout and all of those [00:26:00] things. But Taylor, I wanna ask you some, some not. So, maybe not so hard questions, maybe more fun questions, but so what is your biggest win as a business owner so far?

[00:26:13] Taylor Evans – Guest: My biggest win as a business owner so far is turning what was an idea into a reality. Yeah. I still remember the feeling of taking a pen and writing down the name Rust Belt, recruiting on a notepad when I’m just sitting, you know, I, I, I hadn’t named that the business yet, but about two weeks into it, I knew that’s where I wanted the name to be.

Mm-hmm. And then Rust Belt recruiting is now an entity. Mm-hmm. It is. It is its own thing. It is. And, and that was always a priority for me. It was never meant to be the, it was never gonna be the Taylor Evans [00:27:00] recruiting company. Mm-hmm. You know, I wanted it to be, Rust belt recruiting. Mm-hmm. Right. And, and I, and I love opportunities like this, but you even see little stuff like our podcast.

Mm-hmm. We, we have our own podcast, the Rust Belt rundown, which you can find on all channels as well. There’s a quick plug for it. But you know, Paul, our host is, The, you know, it separates my face from just being about me. So I am super proud that Rust Belt stands alone as a brand. Mm-hmm. And, and, and, and it’s a thing.

It’s made up of people mm-hmm. And outputs and wins. And just to again, that, that, that feeling and. You know, maybe you had this feeling mm-hmm. When you started your business, you’re just scratching some of those things. Or, you know, even for me, another win is like, I stumbled upon a document that I wrote in the first, I could tell by the timestamp on it in the first like 20 minutes of being in business.

I’m like, who are we? What are we [00:28:00] gonna be? Yeah. And, and I, and I stumbled upon this maybe, you know, month or two ago, sometime recently. But man, those core values were the same. Mm-hmm. So, you know, we’re still chasing the same vision, the same passion. Like you can go watch the video on our website that we made in November of 18.

Mm-hmm. And the message, you know, still rolling forward is the exact same, you know, and so we stay true to who we are, but been, you know, been able to, like you said, someone can be in their business for 30 years, right? Mm-hmm. Delivering the same service, but they’ve had to move and grow and, you know, make changes.

Yeah, that’s a win for me too, that above all else, like with the ups and downs of the economy and the world in the last five and a half years, this business still stands strong. It’s still delivering results. It’s still a meaningful growing, impact oriented partner to the companies that we support. That to me is a win that that is the win.

Right? And, and I’m super proud of it. Yeah. And 

[00:28:59] Julie Bee – Host: it sounds [00:29:00] like there’s something really beautiful in that, because I under, I definitely understand as a visionary, like you, when your, when your vision, your dream becomes a reality when you see it. You know, I mean, for, without getting too poetic, when you birth that into the world, when you see that, take it, you know, you see it, you feel it, take its first breath.

You almost take its first breath for it. You know, you just feel it happen. I’m getting goosebumps right now as I talk about this, but I love that. Yeah, there are, there are things, and you and I, but I, I, I do think that it’s, it sounds like, you know, we, we all have these definitions of success. And I always tell people that, you know, you can’t just define, success cannot be only defined by goals.

You have to be able to define it by something that you can arrive at and stay in for a little while, because otherwise you’re just gonna be chasing goals and you’re never gonna feel successful. And it sounds like. Where you are right now, you feel like you, [00:30:00] I mean, I get, there’s all of these things and you probably never feel like most entrepreneurs, you feel like you’re never really living up to all of the things that you wanna live up to.

But there is something very beautiful about feeling like, I have launched this thing and I’m gonna live in this success for a little bit of time, because it has, it has grown beyond me, and it’s what I wanted it, you know, it’s, it’s what I wanted it to look like. Or maybe it’s better than what I want.

Thought it could look like. That’s just a very beautiful thing. 

[00:30:25] Taylor Evans – Guest: Absolutely. And you know, you, you said the word poetic and it’s ironic you mentioned, or that word because you know, Ralph Waldo and Emerson is credited with a poem call success. And in that there’s a sentence that says to know that one life has breathed easier because you have lived this is to have succeeded.

And actually we’ve got a little side car sized card of that poem. It’s the only thing taped to the back splash above our, you know, stove in, in our kitchen. But it’s there for [00:31:00] my kids to see, for, for everyone to see. And it’s a beautiful poem and it is poetic, right? Mm-hmm. Um, because I, I think about the meaning and the intention of our work and our success.

Our success is the hundreds of people that we have put into meaningful employment, right? It’s, it’s the person who, like we. We, we went and took their wage from here to, you know, it doesn’t have to be sky high, but even that meaningful climb up the ladder mm-hmm. To know that, you know, success doesn’t even have to look like money.

But, you know, they, they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re more financially stable. Maybe they’re commute is 15 minutes shorter each day, which is 30 minutes, you know, a, a day. With, with, with their kids. Mm-hmm. And, and that’s two and a half hours a week. And, and that two and a half hours begins to cascade into the wellbeing of that child and being with their parent in quality time and just enriching their lives.

So like success can take so many avenues. Mm-hmm. Uh, the work we do right in recruiting, which can be very lucrative [00:32:00] financially, which. Can give the opportunity to lose sight of the meaning of the work, but the meaning of the work that we do is impacting the lives of others in in ways. Well beyond financial gain, it is truly enriching their lives so that they are better members of their community so that they have stronger family units.

Mm-hmm. So that they live better lives. Like, and, and that everyone around them blooms and grows to make it poetic Right. In, in, in a meaningful and powerful way. That’s success. That is success to the nth degree, that we truly make a difference in the lives of people. Um, Again, on a daily basis, or if it’s a hiring manager mm-hmm.

Or an owner of a company mm-hmm. Who’s sitting in the same seat that I am. Mm-hmm. And they’re bleary-eyed because they can’t figure out how to get good, talented, motivated people into their organization. Mm-hmm. And we come alongside ’em. And, and help them fill those seats and the company again, blooms and grows and continues to rise and be best in class at whatever it is they make that.

Mm-hmm. [00:33:00] That’s my wins. So it’s truly in support of others that we, that we thrive or, you know, certainly I do and, and I know that the team around me feels the same way that the work that we do, Does make a difference, and we try to keep that as the ethos of our organization, that it’s the impact that we make, that we call our success or our wins.

[00:33:22] Julie Bee – Host: Yeah. Oh man. Taylor, we have had a conversation and I, I have to start wrapping it up because my editor is always like 30 minutes, Julia, we’re already over that. So I have one more question for you. All right. Maybe we’ll do a part two at some point, but the question I ask all business owners, Is if, if you were going to teach a class to future business owners or people interested in being business owners, what is the one thing you would really want them to learn in your class?

[00:33:51] Taylor Evans – Guest: So, from my experience, I set out very early on, and what I’m super proud of was building [00:34:00] a brand. I wanted to build a brand because I wanted it to have staying power in the local market, in the in, in the region that we support. I did that at the expense of the, the, the bottom line, right? Mm-hmm. Like, you know, the, the, the financial health.

I, you know, I always wanted to get the brand out there more. Mm-hmm. You know, be bigger, grow you, you need to have a really strong and well. Controlled financial structure in place and, and it took me a while and we’ve continued through our EOS journey especially to begin to prioritize that more. Mm-hmm.

Knowing that we can then reinvest more. So Yeah. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s, while building the brand is great. Mm-hmm. Make sure you’re also building a business behind it. Both can happen. Mm-hmm. I was just eager to get our name out there, build the brand, and I have no regrets with that. But if I was doing a 2.0, I would definitely be more disciplined.

The other one was, and I really, really, really think this is [00:35:00] important. Mm-hmm. I was highly motivated. To a lot of young entrepreneurs, especially if, if, if you and I got lunch today mm-hmm. Uh, you, you’d say how many people work for you? Yeah. And a young business leader will start to think, or at least I did that.

That’s the measure of success. Mm-hmm. So I tried really hard to hire a lot of people. Mm-hmm. And this ties back to that financial thing. Yeah. We, we were bringing in work that wasn’t always well aligned with who and what we are. Mm-hmm. And then we brought in manpower, you know, recruiters and team members to work on that work.

And it was not work that they could be successful in, in, in, in, you know, filling roles for, or whatever. And then the everybody loses in that situation, including your, you know, financial health of your business. Yeah. So, You know, we’ve been bigger, we’re now a little smaller. Mm-hmm. But we’re on a much more sustained and strategic growth trajectory now mm-hmm.

Than we’ve ever been before. Mm-hmm. And, and everybody’s [00:36:00] winning because of it. But I was trying too hard to, you know, grow that headcount to Yeah. You know, prove something to amongst others myself. But now it takes patience. So I’m excited to keep building the team and getting good people in here. Yeah.

We’re gonna do it a lot more strategically and thoughtfully than maybe I did for, you know, in, in the first couple years of the 

[00:36:19] Julie Bee – Host: business. I think that’s a, that’s a pitfall a lot of business owners fall into is they, they start to judge their own worth or success by the number of people they have on their payroll or, or even, you know, key contractors.

So the number of people who are working for them. And that is, that is fantastic advice, because if you’ve been in business for an, you know, if you’ve had, if you’ve kind of done that path or you’ve, you’ve had employees, you know, That, how hard that is to, to manage. Yeah. And to, you know, as, especially as a small business owner, to make sure that, that everybody is getting what they need from, from, from that individual and that individual is getting what they need from the company.

That it’s, you know, [00:37:00] mutually beneficial. Relationship. So just hiring to, to feel like you’re worth something is, is definitely, I I’ve seen a lot of business owners do that as well. And it’s, I cringe when I hear a new business owner who just keeps hiring people to like fix problems. And I’ve done that.

I’ve actually hired people in the past to fix problems that I should not have hired for. And that’s, that’s part of that lesson too, is, and part of what was driving me is I wanted to say I had so many employees, Right, and now it’s like, That’s not, that’s not a, that’s not a judge of success. So that’s a great 

[00:37:37] Taylor Evans – Guest: piece of advice.

You know, it’s, it’s great if you have it. Mm-hmm. But there’s also great opportunity to embrace fractional and contract workforce. Mm-hmm. Especially if you’re creating a new role mm-hmm. For the first time. Like, do, do, do you for sure have 40 hours worth of work for this person? Mm-hmm. Like a full-time job.

Mm-hmm. Or could you find someone who can do it in a fractional manner, actually build the infrastructure of the role. Mm-hmm. And then, you [00:38:00] know, increase into a full-time capacity. It’s, it’s, it’s a safer way than just saying, yeah. Okay. Show up and you’re full-time now. You know, so, yeah, exactly. There, there’s, there’s so much to be learned and, you know, gosh, you know, I, I, I can’t wait to have the experience you do just the number of years in, in, in, you know, being in and leading a business.

But I would say five and a half years has taught me a lot of lessons and I’m. You know, glad I did it. Boots on the ground while earning money rather than mm-hmm. You know, just the, you know, the traditional route of business school. Yeah. And, and it’s been good, you know, so thank you for having me today 

[00:38:34] Julie Bee – Host: though.

Yeah. I’ve, I’ve so enjoyed this conversation. I know the people who, the business owners, entrepreneurs here are gonna listen to it as well, are gonna get so much out of it. I just wanna thank you again for being on the show today. Yeah, thank you. And that is a wrap on this episode, but please subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcasting app so that you don’t miss out on future conversations.

I’m Julie B and they don’t teach this in business school.[00:39:00]