Strategic Hiring: Growing Your Consultant Business

Safety Consultant with Sheldon Primus

Links mentioned in this episode:
Safety Consultant Podcast: https://podcasts.bcast.fm/safetyconsultant
Emily Elrod episode: https://podcasts.bcast.fm/e/489vk0yn-unlocking-the-power-of-body-chemistry-enhancing-safety-and-corporate-culture-with-emily-elrod
Justin Barksdale episode: https://podcasts.bcast.fm/e/r8701lqn-justin-barksdale-barksdale-safety-solution
Safety Consultant Blueprint: https://primus.freshlearn.com/checkout/Course/448
Announcer (00:00)
Sheldon Primus. Welcome to the Safety Consultant Show with Sheldon Primus, where we blend safety smarts with business brilliance and a pitch of Sheldon's signature wit. Whether you're a safety pro, a fresh-face consultant, or just safety curious, get ready for a show that will educate, entertain, and elevate your safety game. Let's dive into the Art of Consulting with your Safety Sherpa himself, Sheldon Primus.
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This episode is powered by Safety FM.
Sheldon Primus (00:37)
Well, welcome. I think you may have noticed something different. I'm just saying, I I don't know. You might have noticed I did something a little different there. Yes, the wonderful dulcet voice of J. R. Kitchens. That man's voice. Blessing from God. So JR is helping me out with some stuff, which honestly, I really needed to do. You guys know that I've been doing a lot of my... Well, all of my intros. So this is a new thing for me. I am this year, my goal is to get diversified, to get myself to truly start gaining where... I should say, maybe not gaining. That might be a different terminology. I don't think that word means what you think it means. All right, all you Princess Bride nerds, you guys know what I mean by that. Anyway, I am going to take some stuff off my plate. That's the idea. I'm going to take some stuff off my plate because I don't need to do everything. I honestly need to grow whatever the side of the business that I'm looking to grow. And honestly, that's truly helping people out and becoming consultants. That's why I started the podcast. That's my primary purpose is to really help you guys get going. And for those of you that aren't consultants yet, but you play the role of a consultant and your day job is working for whoever the company is, then you are the one that they go to and you're pretty much playing the role of a consultant. Then when you need some help, you call me and come out there and help you out. That's how the business works. Then the other person that I'm supposed to help is, and I want to help, and I hope I have been, you guys let me know. But that's the people who've already your safety consultants, and it's time for you to level up. You want to level up. When you're thinking about that stuff, then honestly, that's where I come in. I'm the one to help you think that through, right? I'm hopefully doing it in an entertaining way. You don't want to bore anybody out there. I'm just doing it entertaining. Make you laugh, make you feel like you could do this thing. All right, wake up.
Sheldon Primus (03:07)
This episode, before I get into it, I'm going to give you guys a little preview. It's exactly what I was just talking about is when do you know it's time for you to start releasing things you're doing and getting a team of sorts. That's what our idea is for this day. Before we get into too much, though, I want to thank everybody that's listening, let you guys know where you're from. So hopefully, if there's a networking scenario and you just happen to be in conversation, you talk about the show and someone's like, Hey, I listen to that show, then you know that's where you are. You guys are in the same wavelength. Also, this helps spread the word, too. So if you're listening to this and you know someone who is either a safety consultant or playing the role of a safety consultant, or they're thinking about doing it, taking that plunge into the next big thing, help them out. Help a buddy out. Share the show. For those of you that have found value in the show, do me something that's absolutely free. Something for me. That is, subscribe to the show. I have more listeners than I do subscribers. I got to slow that one down. I said subscribers.
Sheldon Primus (04:31)
That's live. See, doing the mix live. Anyway, I am trying to change that, right, actively change that. I want to see if I could get some more subscribers. I'm going to be more mindful of this thing. That's why I'm going to just give you a little ask. That ask is, go ahead, subscribe. If you're driving, the rules are you're not doing anything when you're driving. That's our rules. That's a no-no. Not doing that. What you are going to do, though, is you're going to wait until you get to some place safe, hit subscribe, share it with a friend. When you're just talking about a podcast that you listen to, add this to your list and tell somebody about it, and that's going to really help out. This is how I know where you are, and this is me looking at my bcast list, and that's the people who actually bring you the podcast, so bcast. It brings the podcast. In order, US is my number one subscriber base and followers. Bahrain, France, Singapore, Canada, Finland, Ireland. Oh, sorry. Italy first, Netherlands, Thailand, Germany, UK, Ireland, Hungary, Austria, South Africa, Spain, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia, Malaysia, Portugal, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, Chechnya, Kenya, Korea, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Cambodia, Qatar, Israel, Denmark, India, Oman. Oh, man, that's awesome. Algeria, Rwanda, China, New Zealand, UAE, Uganda, Greece, Martinique, Japan, Egypt, Croatia, and Poland. I think it's Martinia. Guys, help me out. [e-mail] is one way to email me. Then also, if you go to the show homepage, you would just go to safetyconsultantpodcast.com, and that's going to take you to the bcast podcast. And thereand then you'll be able to see the homepage. Once you do, then that's going to get you to the Safety Consultant podcast, and you'll be able to leave me a message with the microphone icon.
Sheldon Primus (07:15)
All right. I also forgot to tell you this is another thing I like to do. I don't want to go too far. I don't want to not get to where I need to be. Let's go ahead and give you guys a a couple of things from Chartable. This is another thing that I use. Chartable helps me out just figure out not only what shows everybody's liking, but then also it tells me where I am in the charts. That's the name. It's in the name, Chartable. Honestly, it is in the name. I try to keep up with this one because I like to know, so I know what market people are listening to me in.
Sheldon Primus (08:02)
So I start with the Apple market first. Right now, India, I am 215 in your market for Apple podcast. And Turkey, I'm 109. Here's the highest person right now, country. What this means is on your chart, and I'm in the government category, so in the chart, in the government category right now, this is the country who has me as the highest. I am 72 in Chile. That is awesome. Thank you, Chileans. Chileans, I am butchering everything. My bad. But thank you. You guys rock. I really appreciate that, and that means you're sharing it with your friends. You're actually going in and telling people, Hey, this is a guy that could help you in safety consulting, and I appreciate that. So thank you. Hold on. I just hit another button, and I guess it was a refresh button or more. I've got two more people that are in there. Let's see. People of Kenya. All right, my Kenyan brothers out there. I have not been, I literally was in Kenya in '89. I spent three months in Kenya in '89. I spent three months in Kenya in '89. To this day, it's my favorite country. You guys are awesome, and I'm number 50 in your market. Wow, that is awesome. Thank you. And wow, with this new update, I was able to see another page that I didn't see before. Hold on to your hats, gang. This one is pretty amazing. So right now in the Oman chart for Apple podcast, I'm just dumbfounded right now. You guys truly, truly, truly have supported this show, and thank you so much. Here's the number that you guys got me at. I am number 6 in your ranking. I'm in the top 10. Oman, wow. Just, wow. In the Apple podcast, top 10 in your government chart. So that is awesome. Thank you so much for supporting the show, sharing it with friends, and helping me grow in your network. So thank you. All right. Chartable in the US government reach, I am 111, but I'm not actually on the Apple US chart, so that's a little odd. So hopefully we can get that one going. So share this show with a friend, tell them a little bit about it. Tell them, truly, just let them look up any place you could hear a podcast. If they type in Safety Consultant with Sheldon Primus, and then you got me. Okay? Yes. Thank you, thank you all. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Sheldon Primus (11:24)
So let's get into what I was going to talk to you guys about. This is going to be a little bit new for me to tell you. Some of the things that I have been thinking about is I need to start doing the business of stuff that I do best. The things that I do best is I help people with safety consulting. I'm an OSHA compliance specialist. I truly am a SME, subject matter expert, for a lot of the courses that you may have taken online. I've worked with 360 Training for quite a bit, either writing their courses or just checking them for compliance. Same thing with Red Vector. I've also been one of these people that would help with HSI. American Safety Council. Alliance Safety Council. Been a few of you guys. The companies that have used me for their subject matter expert for either construction or general industry. If you're taking any of those 10-hour, 30-hour courses online through 360, I've either checked them or wrote little portions of that. Also, I'm just grateful, grateful, grateful for that type of work. That's stuff that I'm doing. That's my jam. That's the stuff that I do. The other stuff that goes with running and helping with your business, there's so much you could do. Just really think about it. How much time do you have in the day? You break up that time in the day. We're all given the same 24 hours. How are we going to utilize that? If you've got families, then you know that that's going to be a portion of your day, making sure you take care of the needs of the children. Maybe you've got a partner who they're also doing a business, and then they have to rely on you to help with some things, and you rely on them to help with some things. That means that your 24 hours gets broken down little, little, little. For a while, you could do everything. I've done my podcast, I've done the website, I'm doing the finance part, I'm doing everything for the business, growing the business, all that stuff. After a while, you just can't. You got to start thinking, How can I grow this business without being swallowed up by it? And generally, those are some of the things that gets people to quit. Burnout. Nobody wants to burn out. Let's see if we could help you give some considerations. Think about I'll take it this way. No rules, just considerations.
Sheldon Primus (14:03)
First is you want to do a good assessment of, right now, how am I? What's work look like? What are the things that I have to do? You might want to list this down. And what are the things that I could pass off to someone who knows a little bit better about. You want to get those things just worked out for yourself. Next thing you want to do is you want to identify those skill gaps, meaning, again, what do I do that... Like my website, I'm okay with running WordPress, but there's a whole lot more people out there that know WordPress a lot better than me. When I first got started, I'll give you guys an example, I broke my WordPress, which I seem to do in a cycle. Every three years, you'll see my site down or something because I broke it. I was in one of those cycles where I broke my site and I didn't know how to figure it out.
Sheldon Primus (14:59)
So, I got a hold of somebody through. At the time, it was Elance, now it's Upworks. This young man was, I believe, from Romania. I just could not figure this thing out. I gave him first I hired him through the site, and I gave him the access. I guess you have to do admin access. I created a username and password, passed it on to him. I was working on this thing for a good, I would say about 2-3 weeks on and off trying to get this thing going. I put in everything I need. He won the bid, the award, and then he comes in and he looks at everything, does it in two days, literally in two days. It wasn't like two full days. He looked at it a little for a few hours one day, got the gist of what was going on. The next day, he got the solution, and he was done. I believe the overall cost that I put for that project was like $30, and I just upped it to 50 and tipped him for that. But that was just awesome to me. That's the idea. First, you want to identify what skill gap you have. I really got to do that because you might be doing stuff that you're doing because you have to, but you're not skilled at, that's the skill gap that I'm talking about.
Sheldon Primus (16:33)
Financial readiness is another big one. If you guys remember my episode with Emily Elrod, and if you have not listened to that one, she is amazing. Just truly amazing. Her ideas that she has for her clients and getting them to really think of body chemistry. Awesome. You're going to have to go back to Emily Elrod's episode and also Justin Barksdale's episode, too. He mentioned the same thing. When it's time to hire somebody, you got to think of, are you stable enough financially to put on somebody who's going to be relying on you? So now that means you need to think ahead what projects you have, where's the money coming from, all of that. And how much can this person, by saving you time, energy, and effort, by employing their skills, how much can this person help you in the long run, where now you are going to be able to grow your business through hiring somebody? It's not just going to be a reduction of your finances, but it's actually going to help gain either more work or help you be more proficient or efficient, too, as well. That's the consideration there. Are you financially ready for that one? It's additional overhead, right? You got to really think about that. You got to make sure that person's trained. If they need the training, give them benefits as well. That's a big thing. In your country, make sure you look to see what a benefit package would look like for a full-time worker if you take that on, That's a consideration for you.
Sheldon Primus (18:19)
Next thing, you want to define their roles clearly so that you're going to want to know, or at least they would want to know, what are they hired for? What is the thing that they're bringing onto the table? As soon as they could define that role clearly, then that's going to help you, or you're going to have something in writing that you're going to put down as this is your role that you're going to fulfill. And as you fulfill that role, that's going to be your management side, too, right? So you're going to know that when they hit this role, this is going to be a time for bonuses or whatever your structure will be as you create that structure. And some of you may not have a structure of hiring somebody as an employee, but using them as their own boss, and basically, they are a subcontractor of you. So that's also one of the things you're going to have to figure out with the roles.
Sheldon Primus (19:16)
Another consideration, I mentioned it a couple of times, but you're really going to think about hiring someone who not only could fulfill that current need that you have, but could be a way for you to grow the business. You want to have that person help you with stuff that they're experts in, but that expertise is going to lead towards growing the business. That's the potential growth. Right now, I think we've about five, go through five. I got a few more that I think I throw in there. Let's call this the halfway point. I'm going to break to a commercial, and then when we come back, then we'll go ahead and talk about a little bit more. After this message, let's come on back, and I'll finish the rest of this.
Announcer (20:16)
We'll be back with more of Sheldon Primus and the Safety Consultant Show in just a moment. Are you ready to make a difference? Introducing the Safety Consultant Blueprint course. Unlock your potential as a safety consultant. Learn the skills, strategies, and ethics to create safer workplaces for your very own client. From risk assessment to client acquisition, we've got you covered. Become a safety consultant and open doors to being your own boss. Join us and be the hero of workplace safety. Enroll today. Safety starts with you. Take the first step now. Visit our website and enroll in the Safety Consultant Blueprint course. Empower businesses, protect life. Safetyconsultantblueprint.com. We now return to the Safety Consultant Show. Once again, here's Sheldon Primus.
Sheldon Primus (21:28)
All right. Still getting used to all my buttons. So for a show, I'm a one-take guy, so I'm not doing this over. All right. So now the consideration potential growth we just ended up with, right? So let's Let's see, the next thing that we want to think about, and again, I'm giving you guys considerations. It's up to you to figure out how you're going to do this, but we want to figure out, is this new hire, or potential new hire, or potential partner, or however you want to do this, is this going to be something where you could have a cultural alignment, a cultural fit. I'm talking about your organizational culture here, your business values. Do you have that fit with this person where you feel like you guys are in the same place together, that there's some alignment there between you two? At that point, if there is, then that's another consideration because you are going to be putting some trust into them to help you run your business and do certain aspects. You wanna make sure that you get the same mentality. Don't want to hire somebody that is... If you are one of these people that start at 5:00 AM and you expect them to start with you at 5:00 AM and they're the person you want to hire and their day usually starts at 10:00, 10:30, might not be a good fit. It's going to be a struggle for them to keep that 5:00 AM. At that point, you got to think of considerations. It doesn't mean that that's not the right person for you. It just means you might have to say, All right, let's start you at 10:00. I'll start at 5:00, and then you work it that way. But anyway, looking for some cultural fit. I want to make sure you guys align with values, especially work values, business values.
Sheldon Primus (23:19)
Next is you want to make sure in your country that you check legal obligation. I mentioned it before, but here's a little bit more of a consideration. If I were to hire somebody, and in the US, there's something we consider our person who is our full-time employee or employee as a W2 employee, and that's just a designation from our international revenue service, IRS. If you hire somebody and they're now going to be your employee, then that is going to lead to some regulatory responsibilities for you. In your country, you want to really look up what are regulatory obligations that you need to meet for someone that you're going to hire, that they're going to be your employee, part-time, full-time, however you do it. But if you're going to hire them and you're going to give them the tax designation and take out taxes before you pay them and all the stuff you need to do legally, and then that's the consideration. Then also for OSHA, that's the Occupational Safety Health Administration. For us, In US, OSHA, if you hire one person, OSHA has jurisdiction, and that's in general industry, construction, maritime, and agriculture. You'll hear a misnomer out there that it takes 10 or more. That's not the case. You could even look at OSHA's budget. It's in the second page of the budget that says they're not going to spend budget money on small businesses unless they do six things. I'm not going to read you the six things, but just look up OSHA's budget from the Office of Management Budget, and it's literally on the second page, maybe, a consideration there. OSHA does have jurisdiction over if you get one W2 employee in the US, OSHA has that jurisdiction if you're in maritime construction, general industry, which consulting would be, or agriculture.
Sheldon Primus (25:22)
All right, and all the thing to do is your training plan because you want to make sure you grow in training and that anybody you hire is going grow, so you got to train them, too. So consideration is what is going to be their performance improvement plan to keep them going, keep them learning more to help the business learn more, because you're going to have to learn different skill sets, and they are going to have to learn different skill sets in order to grow, so try to create a training plan for them.
Sheldon Primus (25:51)
Another thing that you want to do is to find the right person is to leverage your network currently. That means your LinkedIn, your Facebook, your people you see day to day. If there's symmetry and connection between someone and they have a skill set that you need, reach out to them and say, Hey, what do you think about taking some hours on for me? Start small and then launch bigger. That might be a good way to get started. Those are the additional consideration, leveraging that network for yourself.
Sheldon Primus (26:27)
Then last thing is, You may just do like I did with that young man that took on that WordPress problem with me. You might just say, Well, right now, I can't get someone on a regular basis, but I could just go ahead and outsource somebody and contract somebody. That's the key. My primary help is my wonderful daughter, Sierra. Sierra, I love you. Thank you. You're listening to this in post-production to give me a show notes and everything else. Honestly, that was a consideration my wife and I had to make because I needed someone to help me do some stuff to free me up. She's a world traveler, so it makes it easier for her to do some of this stuff as she's traveling. Honestly, that's what we have in our new economy globally. We have a lot of people who are working remotely. That could be some of the pool that you guys could see that you could use. It may not be someone right here in the US or right where you are in Oman, Kenya, Chile, Turkey, India, any of those countries. You might say, Hey, let me outsource this to someone else and do it through some global networking system. There's a bunch of them out there. The one that I mentioned earlier, which was Elance, but now it's Upwork. I use them from time to time. I still have a profile with them. I hired my daughter through them, so she could get credit with their Upwork system to get into that system there. So honestly, you could just use what you can to get yourself going. This is your business, you want it to grow. At some point, you're going to get burnout if you don't start releasing some things that you can release. You could do this. Think of those considerations. Listen to this episode over again. Do it slowly and write down some of these things and take a pen and paper. Every topic or consideration I just mentioned, write something down and pause, write it down, and go ahead and listen again. Next topic or next thing I gave you to consider, pause the tape. Pause the tape. Yes, pause the tape. How many of you guys still remember that statement, pausing the tape? Yes. Remember when Eric, those of you that remember this reference, to pause the tape? Remember when your cassette tapes used to get eaten up by the player and you had to pull it out, grab the pencil and put in the middle of that little teeth area and fix your cassette tape back? Those were the days. Those were the days. All right, so no one's pausing a tape anymore. You pause your podcast and then you're going to write down what you're thinking in your notes and everything else, and then just keep going from there little by little until you get all these 10 things that I gave you there for consideration of growing your business, right?
Sheldon Primus (29:24)
You could do this. I'm hoping you guys grow your business This is the year for me. I'm going to start outsourcing. As you guys could tell, I got JR to give me that professional voice, and he's helping me out with that stuff. I'm going to give you guys a commercial that's for something I'm doing, Safety Consultant Blueprint. I'm going to do that with other clients, so you're getting ready to hear some more clients on the show, just to give you something that you could... For yourselves. I'm here to give you something, services that's going to grow your business, give you value. That's my part. I want to grow your business for you, give you value. Those are the people that I'm going to bring in to help me with the show. All right. Hope this helped you. Let me know. Go get them.
Announcer (30:17)
That's a wrap for today's Safety Show. Remember, safety isn't just about hard hats and caution signs. It's about business smarts, too. Thanks for joining us on the Safety Consultant Show with Sheldon Primus. Until next time, stay safe, stay savvy, and keep consulting like a boss. Go get 'em. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast or broadcast are those of the host and its guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the company. Examples of analysis discussed within the past hour, only examples. It should not be utilized in the real world as the only solution available as they are based only on very limited and dated open source information. Assumptions made within this analysis are not reflective of the positions of the company. No part of this podcast or broadcast may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic recording or otherwise without prior written permission of the creator of the podcast or broadcast, Sheldon Primus.
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