Scale Smarter: Empower Your CEO with PEO Strategies for Growth

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0:56 Live Ladies and gentlemen, you are once again welcome to The Kingdom's Podcast and Diary of a CFO. And Today, please make welcome with me a very, very, very special, very important personality fighting out of Atlanta, GA Susanna, the PEO to the CEO, Martinez. How? Are you Susanna? I am excellent that it's actually PEO for the CEO.

1:34 OK. PEO for the CEO designer. The PEO for the CEO for. That introduction, I thought, I'm going to go out and become a boxer. Here, let's go, let's go. Wow. So did you watch the UFC at all? No, I didn't. Oh, so that that's the Bruce buffer introduction. You know, I just stole his his style of introduction.

2:01 It's it's quite energetic, it. Is very energetic. Yeah, exactly. And of course, you know, everybody in life is a fighter. Let's, let's not deceive ourselves. We all fight for something. Absolutely, yeah. Who who, Who would you say you fight for? You fight for the CE OS. I fight for the CE OS. I'm their advocate.

2:19 You bet. OK, so. Actually CEO's and CFO's as well. So, oh, he's like a so I'm actually both, you know, I run a fractional CFO service and of course I'm the CEO of the company, so. So I would fight for people like you. Oh wow, wow, wow. That's. Cool, that's cool. Fight to maximise your benefits without overpaying in PEO.

2:44 Whoa, I love that. I love that. I love that. We're going to make we're going to make a highlight reel with that. And of course he's just going to go viral. Whoa. You know, I'd say you, you're very much welcome. And this is something that I always say the risk of being cliche or sounded like a broken record. Gratitude is good attitude.

3:05 And of course, when a person shares their time with you, they share their life with you because the SI unit for measuring life is time. But having a highly resourceful person, highly experienced person, highly educated, enlightened person like yourself, you know, come on the show. But today I, I don't take it for granted. I show, you know, appreciation for it. And of course, words are actually inadequate to express how grateful I am to, to have you on the show today. God bless you.

3:35 And of course, from me to you, it's it's love and respect and to you. So thank you. Thank you. Same to you. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, yeah. You're welcome. You're welcome. You're welcome. Right, So this is the kingdom's forecast. You know, where trailblazing leaders, strategies, and thinkers impact mindset and methods behind transformational success.

3:55 So today's guest is a dynamic problem solver in the world of business operations. She's a founder and president of PEO for the CEOA company, helping businesses skill efficiently while slashing costs and simplifying HR. So with over a decade of experience in payroll, compliance, benefits, and risk management, she's the secret weapon behind countless founders who want to focus on growth, not admin cares. So she's sharp, strategic, and committed to empowering CE OS to lead smarter, not harder.

4:31 Susanna Martinez, welcome to the show. Thank you, thank you, thank you for that introduction. Let's set the stage. You know what is APO? Because I'm quite curious. Yeah, that's that's probably the best place to start. So APEO, it stands for professional employer organisation model and basically what it does is it pulls several thousands of Co employees into a large group to get buying power and economies of scale when it comes to insurance like health insurance, workers comp insurance and retirement services.

5:06 At the same time it helps companies scale their businesses by helping them with the back end HR infrastructure. So it's basically outsourced businesses are outsourcing their HR infrastructure, their administrative functions, it's systems and technologies all consolidated in one single source solution when it comes to payroll, benefits, HR, workers comp, retirement services, all in one system.

5:35 So it just helps the CF OS and CE OS and their whole HR team to just operate more efficiently. Wow. So this actually sounds like a game changer, especially for SMEs, you know, small and medium skilled enterprises and of course, especially the meat market companies, right? You are a founder yourself. And probably something I forgot to to tell you on our pre introduction call is the fact that I'm actually a published author as well.

6:06 And I, my first book is titled Master in the arts of Entrepreneurship. So a lot of the things that I talk about and the philosophies of business that I express, you know, we're actually embedded in that book. I'd urge you to buy it, you know. Yeah, let me, let me do a quick cheap plug. Right. Somebody from your neck of the woods, Morgan Anderson. She's a top tax debt resolution expert, you know, in the United States.

6:36 She's ACEO of Golden Lion Tax Solutions. She conferred upon me the title of a modern day business philosopher and I haven't run in with that title ever since. You know, for founders, we we go through an evolution, right? A journey. But you have been able to build a fast growing consulting firm that's rooted in helping others, right? And it's something I often say my business is to help you mind your business.

7:05 My business is to help you grow so that I can grow, right? And you are also in that same piece as to help. The business to grow, yeah, absolutely. The same mindset is to help businesses grow, be more efficient, save, save on the bottom line. Yeah, I love that you mentioned mindset because the philosophy of The Kingdom's broadcast is growth mindset, leadership and pieces, insights. And there's a reason why your episode is going to be on both The Kingdom's broadcast and Diary of a CFO. Of course, you're not just a finance person. You're not just a person who is obsessed with the business size side of things and the financial numbers. You're person that I, I would say you're well balanced, you know, individual, well balanced,

7:56 professional, well balanced leader as well. But you take leadership very seriously and you take a growth mindset very seriously. Absolutely, yeah. There's a reason why I'm connecting with you today because you know, I'm that's I would I say 7 leader who is making the sacrifice to congregate the top of the crop across the globe when it comes to growth mindset, leadership and business insights. You know, to a one stop shop platform, 1/3 leadership platform where you can learn.

8:35 I tell people there's two goals. I have only two goals for establishing this broadcast. Number one goal is to educate and number two goal is to inspire. Once I do those two things, I think my job is done right and I don't do those two things just on my own. I actually, I'm an opportunist, right?

8:56 I take the opportunity to have fun, stick, you know, team mind. You you outsource to the professionals. The the fantastic minds, you know, from across the world to come on the platform to help me people like Susanna, the PEO for the CEO and CFO's. But he does, you know, I have, you know, people like you come on board and do justice to to these topics. And that's why I'm always overwhelmed for gratitude when I have, you know, persons like like yourself on on the show. But what would you say has packed your journey into HR, payroll and operational strategy and what keeps you going even till today?

9:45 Oh, that's, that's kind of a loaded question. So I started in the industry, gosh, over 2 decades. So I've been working with small businesses nationally for many years as an employee of a lot of publicly large traded PEO companies. And about four years ago I went off on my own. So I'm basically an independent, basically a PEO matchmaker for the CE OS and CFOs.

10:09 I don't work for the PEO company. I'm not, I'm going to be the clients advocate versus working for an actual PEO company. And I, I would say because I just founded my consulting firm about four years ago, I had to put into practise. Four years ago, yeah. There are four years between two World Cups, you know, in soccer.

10:32 So it's not just. Well, I had to have a different mindset of being AW2 employee versus having your own consulting firm. And I basically put into practise myself. What I was always telling businesses to do from the onset is I learned to outsource to the professionals myself. For example, technology, bookkeeping, outsource to the professionals, outsource to the best of the talent versus trying to do everything yourself.

10:58 Have a good CPA. You know, yeah, you might have to pay more, but it's going to be more value for you and help help help you grow your business. Yeah, I've said this in on the podcast before that there's a reason why professionals are professionals. There's a reason why a person went to school for, you know, a number of years to come a specialist to something.

11:21 There's a reason why a person you know, works with professional firms, right in other to become a specialist or something, and you think on your mind that they don't deserve, you know, to earn consulting wage. You must be joking. You know, the joke is actually on you. But I think like being a professional actually helps you appreciate professionals more.

11:51 I, you know, I finally think about my time, you know, in the beak for accounting firms. PWCKPMGI even had, you know, a brief stint, you know, one of the UK top 10 firms as it's Blake Rothenberg. And you think about what you do with this firms. You think about the time you invested, you know, the specialisation you're able to acquire. People cannot just get it.

12:17 This experience is the best teacher, and there's a reason why experience is the best teacher. Absolutely. You've learned, I'm sure. I used to work a lot with many Cpas and a lot of them came from the Big Fours, and they learned a lot of working for the Big Fours before they went off and opened up their own independent consulting agency. And you know, that's working with the BIG4 firms, you know, basically gives you a lot of but I say competence, right, in terms of specialisation, in terms of working with cross functional teams, in terms of building relationships, you know, client management, relationship management, in terms of even your whole leadership, leading yourself, leading your teams or the

13:04 technical competence of the global acumen. And of course, the business acumen very, very important, you know, aspects of running a consultancy practise which does not come to you by way of wishful thinking, right? So it's always essential to achieve efficiencies in business and that's something that you emphasise on and I very, very much appreciate. Of course, you know, Speaking of efficiencies, you always talk about the heating cost savers, right, that most businesses are missed out on.

13:36 And you, you're somebody that has been able to help businesses save, you know, between 20 to 40% on benefits while improving their offerings. And that's, that's massive. So what's the most overlooked opportunity for CEOs when it comes to cost efficiency? Well, oftentimes it's, you know, businesses just keep on going status quo.

13:59 It's just easier to renew as is status quo and they don't have time to do the due diligence. And that's really where my firm comes in. We do the due diligence for you. We do all the analysis, gathering all the proposals from the different PEO companies, from the insurance carriers, trying to make sure that your employees are going to get the same or similar benefits than what they currently have today and hopefully help reduce the bottom line as far as the total overall premiums. And often times what I end up finding is if you've been with the PEO for 3 / 3 years and you haven't done due diligence, there's some savings there on the administrative side that we can find for you.

14:41 Because sometimes the print the, the PEO company will just increase their administrative fees slightly every year. And it's just, it's just easier to renew as is. And you just don't realise after three to five years how much you're really paying. And that's really where we come in and just do our full analysis, help you find savings on health insurance, workers comp insurance, the full administrative fees and the overall package.

15:06 So. Yeah, 20 to 40% is pretty significant and those are typically the average numbers when we're looking at everything as a whole. You know that that's, that's massive. That is massive, 20 to 40%. If somebody does that for me, my current company, I think I'll be praying for them every day. You know, I'll prepare for that every.

15:34 Day the US, our, our Healthcare is just rising every year double digits increases. So it's just constantly trying to look at different creative strategies to save money on costs on healthcare. But Speaking of creative strategies and saving money, a lot of multinationals and global institutions have actually been adopting methods like outsourcing that is cross-border outsourcing.

16:02 So I'd like to know what your thoughts on that is and also the use of freelancers to perform tasks that are not, or would I say high risk? Yeah. So I'm not sure if this is what you're talking you're talking about, but what I typically see because I'm mostly working with businesses that are headquartered in the US and they have domestic employees here, US wise based.

16:25 But oftentimes they're hiring talent in other countries and they don't want to go set up entities in those other countries. Let's say they only have like two or three employees in, you know, UK or Egypt, whatever country it may be. I don't want to set up entities because it's very costly. So there's another model kind of similar to the PEO model. It's called the EOR model employer of record model where you can actually outsource to the ER model and not have to open up an entity in those countries and then outsource to the EOR company and they can help pay your employees, make sure you're compliant with all the laws in those particular countries until you grow.

17:09 I mean, once you start to get to be, you know, 20 employees per country, then it probably makes sense for you to open up your own entity there and set up shop. But often times, you know, in companies are just trying to get the talent wherever they can, and sometimes it's spread out between multiple countries. OK.

17:27 So how about the use of say contractors for example, for like ad hoc projects. So there are companies, especially tech companies that have one off projects, right, that you don't need to employ a full time employee for. So how do you help them save costs in terms of the and I think the location matters a lot in terms of saving costs.

17:57 So you need to weigh the location and to the quality of the talent pool. In our. Country, I think a lot of people are going to locations like India, Bangladesh, Pakistan in order to employ, to employ what I say, talent from those places. What's what's the framework around that? Well, if you're going to hire a true contractor and, and they're true, not going to be an employee and you're not, you're going to avoid paying taxes.

18:25 You know, if you come into a grey line and every country is going to be a little bit different, but it does depend on the tasks that is involved, how long they're working for you. So you really want to determine, meet with the professional first to determine is this truly a contractor or is it an employee where I have to pay taxes within that country.

18:44 But oftentimes no matter where you're paying people and no matter if it's a contractor or an employee, you still have to pay them. And if there's cost to do the money movement and you know whether you're wiring the money using other type of apps like wise and most companies want. To use wise. Yeah.

19:07 So similar PayPal or however you're using to pay these international contractors, there's a feat, there's a cost to doing that. Yeah, and people have been annoying lately. They've increased their fees. Yeah, they've increased the fees and it just, and then sometimes it just delays the the in person, the contractor getting their money. And so that can be disruptive there. So in an EOR model, it makes direct deposit really easy to do, to be able to do an AC-8 of the company's business account and then do direct deposit into the person, the contractor or the employee.

19:47 Very easy. You know, people want to get paid. If they're not going to get paid, they're not going to stay loyalty. They're going to move on to another project. Whoa, no finance, no romance is the order of the day in the current global business ecosystem. But when you talk about compliance I always tell people that the cost of compliance is always less than the cost of non compliance. Absolutely.

20:15 You, you get somebody come in and to do a fine and tap to pay penalties. You know, I'm, I'm dealing just here in the US, the IRS comes knocking on your door, having to pay IRS penalties depart. We have the Department of Labour, they come knocking on your door. There's going to be some additional penalties there.

20:32 We got different local and state entities that can also penalise you as well. And I imagine internationally it's, it's the same. Every country is going to be different and there's going to be penalties if you're not, you know, abiding their laws and paying their taxes and being compliant with the people that you're hiring in their countries. Oh wow.

20:51 So how do you help the CEOs not to lose their minds when it comes to the regulatory compliance issue? Well, helping them outsource whether they're all their domestic employees here in the US to the PEO model and any of their international people to the EOR model, which is the employer of record model. And the employer of record is actually taking on liability, liability of risk and compliant to make sure that everything is compliant in each country in the PEO model here domestically in the US, it's a what we call a Co employment. So it's a shared risk compliance. So both companies are named on any type of lawsuit, but at least you have a partner with you that's going to help ensure they're going to help you dot

21:38 your IS cross your T's when it comes to compliance per state. And often times, you know, what we see is employers will have employees in certain States and then all of a sudden they'll start hiring in different states. That happened during COVID. They just started hiring wherever they found the talent. And you know, having to deal with different multiple states here in the US can be very cumbersome. So you might be a very small technology and only have 151015 employees, but every employee might be in a different state and then maybe a few internationally. Why take the risk of, you know, being out of compliance fines and just why, you know, why don't you just pay to outsource it to the professionals?

22:21 Let them handle it. And that way you can focus on what it is that you do, selling widgets, making widgets, what you really want into business for. Nobody ever goes into business because they want to handle their employees and making sure they're compliant in different States and countries. I mean, nobody ever goes in, nobody ever goes into business for that, right?

22:42 It's it's just a way too much headache. And yeah, as a young CEO myself, the. Professionals. I, I, I know I don't always want any extra burden. It's a lot. I think a lot of people want to be CE OS, a lot of people want to become CF OS. But I talk about this heavy lies the head that there's a crown. Heavy lies the head that wears a crown comes with a lot of responsibilities, you know, and a lot of risks. Yeah.

23:14 The higher the risk, the higher the reward. But do you have the capacity to get the risk? Do you have the capacity to handle the responsibilities? Right. So it, it sounds really fancy, you know, to to be known as AC, to be known as ACFO. And I know, I know the burden that comes with it. And it's it's actually not funny.

23:42 And I always say that I am the most authentic person walking the surface of the Earth, right? I'm sorry, Susanna, I know you're authentic, but I'm still, I'm still the world leader right now. I could beg to differ. Yeah, you can disagree, but it doesn't, it doesn't change what is on my books. You know, you notice that.

24:01 And yeah, this is me being real. I joined the the the session for this podcast 5 minutes late. Exactly 5 minutes late. And trust me, I had to push myself, right, to make this episode work out today. And he would notice when I said there's a lot of goes on behind the scenes, right? People don't see the pains behind the canes, right?

24:28 I was literally at the verge of postponing today's session. But I'm, I'm grateful I did not postpone it, right? There's been a lot, you know, going on behind the scenes in terms of the company structure, the company infrastructure, you know, talent recruitment, everything. And the CEO has to be on top of everything.

24:53 Yeah, they have to do everything. Be the janitor and I'll pay the bills. Pay payroll. I'm telling you, be the janitor. God bless you for that. You know, it's, it's a lot, but I always pride myself in being being a 7th leader, right? And I tell the people that work with me. I tell that I work for you. You don't work for me, I work for you right? So please help me to help you.

25:17 Yeah. OK. So you know, if you don't help CEO, right, everyone has to put in the work, right? Everybody has to put in their weight, right? And that actually is a great way to segue to the next question that I'm gonna ask you. And it is on growth without burnout. So like how do you help the CEO's win without getting burnt out? Because we often talk about skilling in revenue, but not enough about skilling in infrastructure. How does your see a team rather support that side of business and help CE OS to avoid burnout?

25:59 Well, you know, here in the US, there's companies that are known as Unicorn companies. These companies are heavily funded with venture capital or private equity money or just personal money. But those businesses that are heavily funded know that they want to grow and they want to scale quickly. So majority of those companies are outsourcing already to the PEO model because they believe in the concept, they believe in outsourcing to the professionals to help them grow and scale. So if you're a company, you know, you typically or you're always looking at those Unicorn companies, like what are they doing different that I could be, you know, taken into some best practises as well.

26:43 And that's, that's one of them. That's, that's definitely one that they do. They outsource to the professionals when it comes to HR benefits, payroll, and they're outsourcing to the top PEO companies. So you should take a look at the model if you're not currently doing so today. Absolutely. You know, it's always good to have, have professionals take off burdens from your chest. And yeah, that's, that's something we we actually do right here as well, right.

27:10 Being professionals ourselves, we, we very much appreciate the work and the competence and specialisation of professionals that has to be taken very seriously. And I think for the CE OS, for the entrepreneurs, for the founders watching us today, if you do not take anything home from this episode, at least at least take that home.

27:33 You know, at the very least take that home. You know, let's talk about the future of work and of course, the rise of smart partnerships. You know, what trends do you see in the future of HR and operational strategy? And how can CE OS prepare for that shift today? Well, I think the trend is, is often times when you're in startup mode, you don't have the revenue to be able to hire people internally and you can't afford to hire the the professionals internally until you've really grown into revenue. So what we're seeing is a lot of companies are outsourcing to the PEO model and then at some point when they get a certain revenue, a certain size of a number of employees bringing in some internal HR people.

28:21 But they might not have to have such a large HR team if they're still using the PEO model at some point. Sometimes they might outgrow that model if they're able to afford to hire in the professionals in house and to be able to hire in a lot of the what we call the HRIS systems, the human resource information systems like an Oracle platform.

28:45 You know, people in the accounting software probably recognise that software, those softwares can get pretty expensive. So at some point point, you know, your business might be able to afford to bring all that internally, but as you're growing and scaling, you know, why not use some professionals to outsource and help you grow and scale? I think that that's absolutely resourceful, absolutely resourceful.

29:12 You know, we've been talking more from the business insight perspectives right today, but I'd love for you to give you a quick two cents on what the growth mindset means to you and what's style of leadership is what I say most appropriate for business success, right, The growth mindset for success and of course, the leadership style for success.

29:36 I think the growth, the growth mindset to me as as a person that's always going to continue to be learning, no matter where you are in your life's journey or in your professional journey or whatever title that you might have in your work, we could always be learning. I mean, even the top professional athletes are always practising their skills.

29:57 They're always willing to learn new skills and practises. So I think if we have the mindset of, you know, what can I learn today or if we're going to, you know, go to a seminar or whatever it is, we can always learn something else from somebody else or something else. And just keep keep an open mind no matter you know where you are professionally, what title you may have. Thank you very much for that one, and Many thanks to the Riverside at D10.

30:22 When you're D10, it gives you the option of removing fluff, and I'm sure it's just going to like identify it very easily and remove the fluff from the conversation. OK, back to the conversation. You were talking about what the group mindset actually means to you, but in terms of business philosophy, right? For me, I always say that a win win perspective is the best philosophy for continued and sustained business success and collaborative leadership is the best type of leadership from my perspective.

31:01 Yeah. What would you like to add to that in terms of what's modern day business leaders need to add to their arsenal in order to achieve success? Always be learning, always be humble, always keep an open mindset. You know, you could always learn for somebody else. So when you're talking about the win, win the mindset. There's always an opportunity to give back to others. Givers gain.

31:29 You know, the more you give, the more you get. It's you. Reap what you sow. But some people are not even sewing, so how can they? They're not even sewing exactly. They're reaping nothing. Yeah. This reminds me of a past guest that said while we are playing chess, others are playing checkers and I was like some people are not even not at the board at all. Some people are playing nothing.

31:54 Yeah, exactly. Wow, It's, it's, it's been a really, really great, haven't you? Aren't they? Because I definitely have a positive bias towards you because you are ACEO and of course your friends are CF OS. So why? Why hate when you can't collaborate? And that would lead me when. You can collaborate.

32:21 I like. That, yeah, you can keep that. You steal it. Steal it, I give you. Hate when you can collaborate? There you go. Tell me why you know you've got a reason. Why? And you know, that's a good point because oftentimes I like to can collaborate with friendly competitors as well. There's always things that you can learn from one another. Absolutely.

32:40 Versus being so cutthroat, why hate when there's opportunity to collaborate? Perhaps they might specialise in something else where, you know, there can be some synergies between friendly competitors. Absolutely. You know, and the the sky is big enough for the stars to shine. Absolutely. There's plenty of business too, to go around for everybody. Absolutely.

33:04 You know, when you have a star mentality, it enables you not to be a gatekeeper. Because we're in the age of artificial intelligence, anybody can know anything. Anybody can gain, you know, superior competitive advantage by way of enhanced research. AI aciduates research. And for me, I've always been a good researcher.

33:24 When I was in university, I had an A in my research course. So now adopting AI with my research today, it's just putting me on catalyst mode. And guess what, guess what, I'm AI, of course, my initials are at the AI, actually at the. So AI is my name. I guess my parents knew, they understood the assignment and like this one is going to be an AI enthusiast in the future. Let's give him a name that you know, will structure aim for the future.

33:55 You know, my parents saw the future. Thank you very much. Love and respect to you guys. Oh, OK, so we're going to end with a quick firebound questions. 5 questions for you. Are you ready to rumble? Let's rumble in the jungle. OK, let's go, let's go. So number one, number one is one thing you wish more entrepreneurs understood about growth.

34:24 The value of outsourcing to the professionals, I think I've pretty much talked a lot about that. But so many, especially the old timers, they want to do everything and they want to control everything and do everything themselves. Well, you're, you're going to be spread too then and you're not going to be able to grow your business efficiently if you're going to try to be everything to everybody. A Jack of all trades and a master of none. Of none, I'll tell you the.

34:49 Joke that one of my God, rest his soul, he's late now. He was my lecturer when I was taking the courses to become a chartered accountant, right? He said something and yeah, he he was a Class 1 strategy, right? And he was like, there's this guy who is a founder and his title in the company is vice chairman.

35:17 And his employees were like, excuse me, Sir, why did you give yourself vice chairman? Right. We've been working with you for a couple of years and we've never met the chairman who is the chairman of the company. And guess, guess what the guy said. Why? I said God is the chairman. I'm the vice chairman. There you go there.

35:39 You go. And that's why I could do all of these two crimes. That strengthens me. Because he's God is the chairman. There you go. Like that's a good, that's a good enough practise to have, yeah. So you can steal that for your company now just, you know, change your designation to vice chairman, you know.

35:58 Vice Chairman. God will be the chairman, you know. Yeah, absolutely. So #2 is what's the best piece of advice you've ever received in business? What was the best advice I've ever received? Make sure your books are clean. Make sure your books are clean because it's going to be easier for you to get financing, easier for you to get loans easier easily. You're going to be more taken seriously when you have your books in order and clean.

36:28 And as as ACPA you would you would value that. Absolutely. The I remember the headaches I had to go through, you know, having to audit entities with that. Were a. Mess that were a. Mess and kept their books in a shoe box. It's, it's, it's never a nice thing. It just makes you unhappy. You wake up and you don't feel like getting out of the bed.

36:52 Yeah. Whoa, OK #3I. Would say, say too, that it's really difficult for businesses to you want to not pay as much in taxes. You want to do everything legally to not pay as much taxes. But at the same time you want to show that you're making revenue so that way you can go out and get loans and there's always that fine balance.

37:14 You know to really both. You don't want to pay undue taxes, but yet you want to make sure that you look very sound. Except for events versus tax evasion. So or go the tax avoidance route, not the tax evasion route. Totally. OK. So if you could automate one CEO headache forever, what would that be?

37:41 Oh gosh if I can automate one CE OS headache forever, what would that be? Not have so many PE OS sales reps calling them every single day, all day long and messaging them on on LinkedIn and emailing non-stop. They're bombarded. I would just say tell them to come to me, to go through me, to work with you.

38:01 Let me follow all the salespeople. Whoa, No, no, I just remembered, you know, the moment I decided, OK, I'm going to take entrepreneurship seriously and I switched my LinkedIn profile as CEO of my company, the rate at which I was getting these sales Peaches, the sales is reaching out to me. It's it's it's annoying.

38:32 Yeah, it's pretty annoying, yeah. And I'm happy my my phone is permanently on. Do not stop, even though there are a lot of people close to me that don't like that fact. But yeah, unfortunately it has to be. And I'm glad you're bringing this up because a lot of calls are not are not important and it's important to actually evaluate what is urgent and what is important for you to divide your attention to.

39:05 So one minds achieved that changed how you lead in business. And how I lead as in business, well, leading by example. And so this is kind of my first time being able to hire employees or consultants and, you know, other professionals that work with me as a team, really trying to lead by example and helping educate them where it's, it's, you know, it's that balance of really trying.

39:34 Sometimes you get frustrated because just, you know, people have different backgrounds, don't come to the table with the same type of skill sets as I do with the many years of experience that I've had in the industry. And it could be very difficult for somebody coming in new to learn the industry. So being patient with the people that are on my team. Very important to say patience is a virtue. Patience is a virtue for a reason. And I think the last one on my list is in one sentence. What does smart leadership mean to you? Smart leadership outsource outsource to professionals. Smart they, they say there's, there's been nothing smarter than that.

40:15 You know, there's been nothing smarter than that. And of course, Speaking of being smart, I would advise our audience to do the smart thing by going to peofortheceo.com and engage with the content that you have there and find ways to to do the smart thing. Smart leadership outsource to the relevant professionals that can handle business for you.

40:43 Their business is to help you mind your business, right? And the name Susanna and Susanna, they're quite would I say oftentimes mistaken, but I don't want to mistake your name. So Susanna, right? It's a very big thank you from me to you. And I'd love for you to advise my audience, right, to do the smart thing by putting their weight behind the show, right? We've we've had a really big wins lately. I'm grateful guys, but I'm an Oliver Twist. I keep asking for more so.

41:17 I would encourage the smart thing to do is hit the like button and subscribe and share to the audience. Oh fantastic. Fantastic. And of course, Susanna, your clarity, your energy and strategic mind have actually just turned HR from headache to hell. Yes, right. So thank you very much for dropping your actionable gems today. And of course, if you're a business owner or leader listening or watching, you are ready to skill without stress. Visit peofortheceo.com and of course, I am the CEO of SEO for podcasts.

41:59 This is my Stan store today guys. So go look up the show notes from me to you. It's a very, very big thank you and of course, love and respect to you to the audience. I appreciate you guys. We are now global top 5% on listen notes today we crossed the threshold on YouTube of 15,000 YouTube subscribers.

42:18 We have crossed the threshold of 10,000 subscribers on 10,000 downloads and Dreams are on Spotify, so I'm I'm. Congratulations. Thank you very much for. That thank. You because before you go, do you want to leave a shout out for anyone before you leave? No, just want to say thank you for having me.

42:39 It's been a pleasure. Feel free to follow me as well on LinkedIn at PEO for the CEO Susanna Martinez here. Fighting to maximise your benefits without overpaying and PEO fees. I just love the line PEO for the CEO, nothing sweeter. And of course guys, till I come your way again, keep winning and of course, God bless you guys.