429 - Exactly how Eric found and hired In Transit Studios Team

I look to Eric Dingler – CEO of my agency In Transit Studios – often for advice, wisdom and as a guiding light for hiring, team building and delegating. And in this special podcast chat, you’re gonna find out why.

Eric walks us through exactly the steps he took in finding, hiring and managing the current In Transit Studios team which is comprised of a couple of full-time team members and a few contractors.

Head to the show notes to get all links and resources we mentioned, along with a full transcription of this episode at joshhall.co/429

Transcript

Don’t Hire A Buddy

Eric Dingler 0:00

I said, okay, this is the guy I'm I think I want to hire. And she goes, Why? And I said, I just really got along with you. She goes, Yeah. She goes, That's why you can't hire him. She said, The two of you had so much. She goes, You won't get any work done. She goes, You need an executive assistant going to show up. That's nice and polite, but then gets to work done. And when you start to go this way or that way, you can go, that's good, Eric. So back to she goes, you need that. She goes, This guy, um, you two are just gonna end up being buddies and having a lot of fun. And she goes, You don't need that. And that was wise. She was a hundred percent right.

Welcome And Why Hiring Matters

Josh Hall 0:43

Welcome to the web design business podcast with your host, Josh Holland, helping you build a web design business that gives you freedom and a lifestyle you love. Hey my friend, it's great to have you here. I am kicking this episode out on a Tuesday. Normally I send them out on Mondays, but uh I was on vacation last week and my team had let me know while I was on vacation that I had forgot to post the intro and outro for them. So that one's on me, but this one's going out, and I'm so excited about it because it is a conversation that I had recently with the CEO of my agency in Transit Studios, Eric Dingler. And Eric is someone who I look to for guidance and mentorship, particularly in the realm of leadership, hiring, and delegation. Eric is somebody who is just so good at that. In fact, if you heard our latest interview with Michelle Bourbonnier, who is both of our personal kind of SEO and copy guru, you'll know that Eric hired her years ago. And that's how we got connected. So hiring can actually, apart from just helping you and your business, can actually lead to an expansive network, which could be a huge asset to you and your business. So, what we did in this one is we're not covering any sort of framework or anything. We actually get into like literally how Eric hired every single team member of the In Transit Studios team today. So I think it's gonna help you a lot, whether you are hiring right now and you need some help or whether you are interested in doing that in the future. Go to the show notes for this one, joshhall.co slash 429. And we do talk about this, but Eric has a book that's currently on pre-order called Hire to Grow. So if you enjoy this chat and you want to learn more from Eric on a deeper level, go to Ericdingler.com/slash hire to grow to check that out. Big thanks to Eric, by the way, for filling in for me. Last week while I was on vacation, he did a special QA session inside of Web Presenter Pro answering questions about hiring. And to get your questions answered, I hope this conversation helps. Go to joshall.co slash four two nine for all the show notes, links, and resources. All right, here we go.

Leadership Joy And Team Impact

Josh Hall 2:53

All right, well, Eric, Eric is back. I don't even know what round this is, dude. This has got to be four or five. I should have looked before we hit record.

Eric Dingler 3:01

Yeah, I don't know. I lost track.

Josh Hall 3:03

But it's like our our uh every every appearance with you on the podcast is gonna be so vastly different because you know the first time you came on was a success story, building your business to six figures as my student. The second time you came on is when you took over my agency as my CEO. And then since then, we've had a variety of conversations. Today, I'm really pumped to have a chat with you that's more public about hiring delegation and leadership too. I definitely want to pick your brain on that. This is, of course, very timely just because I recently launched our uh Web Design Pro Mastermind finally, and leadership in higher level team building is is a huge part of that. Um so yeah, man, I'm I'm pumped to dive into this because this is this is your realm, right? I mean, is that is there anything that you like to get up for more than leadership and hiring and team and all this stuff?

Eric Dingler 3:58

Uh not no. This is this is it. This fires me up. I love it. You know, next week, next Tuesday, actually, um from next Tuesday to the following Wednesday, uh, one of our full-time team members at In Transit is going on vacation. And I was just doing a meeting with him yesterday, and him and his wife, they're so excited. It's their first time taking their son on an airplane. They're gonna go on a train to get to the airport, and their son is, you know, uh a little over two, and so he's you know, he's excited and and stuff like that. And they he was telling me all about their plans and all the stuff they're gonna do. And we're providing the salary that's making that happen. Now he's doing the work and he's earning it. You know, don't you know don't don't mistake that. He's he's a great guy and works real hard. But in transit studios is is provided that. Um, and I love it. I love seeing that kind of stuff with my team.

Josh Hall 4:57

That's that's so cool. And that's Peter, right? Peter and where's Peter from again? Bulgaria. Bulgaria. So if you would have told Josh in 2009 when I started in transit, that in 2026, this this brand that you set up based off of your band's third album would become a legitimate web agency that is providing employment for somebody in Bulgaria to give him an opportunity that I don't know how many people have around him to be able to travel and to grow a family and to take their little kid. That is incredible, dude. That I needed to hear a good reminder of like sometimes when you when you build something, you have no idea the impact it's gonna make. And impact looks so different. Um, but that is a very, very incredible lane category of impact for this business. So and like I said, hats off to Peter because Peter's freaking awesome. Like he's so communicative, he's worked so hard, he's come so far. Um, that's freaking awesome. I appreciate you sharing that.

Eric Dingler 6:09

Yeah, yeah. He he I don't when we when he started, you know, uh with us, it was, you know, it was just before I I I you know bought you know into in transit. He was um with uh when I when I just had Coastal City Creative, and it was only like two hours a week. Um and you know, then that the that had to go up when you know we bought in transit. But uh, you know, though those first couple of weeks, like, you know, he barely knew anything about Divi, had only logged into WordPress like a handful of times, and now he completely runs everything, all of our web services, you know, anything, anything website related, you know. I don't think there's a DNS issue the guy doesn't know how to fix and stuff like that. Like he had no idea what DNS was six years ago. So

Current Team Roles And Structure

Eric Dingler 6:57

it's fun.

Josh Hall 6:57

So let's start with this. I want to kind of flip this interview around because originally I was gonna ask about some of the methodology and the framework and the tips about hiring and when it's time to do it, your your recommendations, and then talk about the team. But I actually think it might be kind of cool to start with in a high-level view, an overview of the current N-Transit Studios team and what their roles are and then where you found them, which is I think would be really interesting. So let's let's kind of work backwards if you're down for that and have some fun. So give us the the lay of the land of the N-Transit Studios team, who they are, what their role is, and then how the how you found each one of these folks.

Eric Dingler 7:39

Okay, so uh we've got Peter. Peter is director of web services. Uh Peter now has a team. Uh Peter is full-time. Minoosh is full-time, and he's on Peter's team. Uh, Manoosh is our lead uh support person. Um, every support ticket that comes in goes to Minoosh first, and he handles 90% of them by himself. Um, even to the point I I was talking to some uh people earlier today, uh, and was talking about the fact that, you know, he even now is able to the point, you know, he'll a ticket comes in and he'll go, uh, this is gonna take longer than your hour, and he'll message him back and go, hey, this is gonna take, you know, three more hours, and we're gonna have to invoice you this much. And he now submits a report to you know, Peter that's like, hey, here's how many hours I estimated last month or last month, and here's how many hours it actually took me to deliver on those estimated hours. That's helped him get better and better at that. So we've literally are starting to get layers and layers of team, which is cool.

Josh Hall 8:45

So Peter's become kind of the team team lead for web services.

Eric Dingler 8:49

Yes, he meets with Manoosh, he gives him leadership. If there's then I meet with Peter, and if there's an issue that Peter needs coaching on, I coach him so he can turn around then and coach coach Manoosh.

Josh Hall 9:03

Gotcha.

Eric Dingler 9:04

Um Peter then also has a uh a pretty decent bench of freelancers he works with. Um we have one junior developer on our team, Ivan. Ivan's from Mexico. Um we have a UX UI designer. Now uh our UX UI designer, Max, he he's from the Ukraine. Um he's literally project to project. Like there's no retainer.

Josh Hall 9:33

He it's a occasional, as I would call it. Collaborates occasionally, yeah.

Eric Dingler 9:38

Collaborates occasionally. I would say collaborates regularly. Frequently, regularly. Yeah, yeah, two to three times a month. You know, two to three times a month.

Josh Hall 9:46

Okay, that's frequently. Yeah.

Eric Dingler 9:48

Um, he he, you know, he'll do uh, you know, a website design for us or redesign. Um and so that is so so Peter facilitates all of that. Uh

Executive Assistant Systems That Scale

Eric Dingler 9:59

then we have Emily. Emily is my executive assistant. Uh Emily handles all of my email. Uh, she manages my calendar. Uh she finds and books me 12 uh podcast interviews a month to go out and do. Um I'm about to start, I have a solo podcast. I'm about to start having guests, but Emily will coordinate all of that. Um, you know, vetting all of that and and handling all that. So um, and then Emily does things. I uh a couple weeks ago I spoke at a at an event in Kent, Ohio for the Kent Chamber of Commerce. And we had 11 people there uh attend the the workshop. And at the end, I had everybody fill out uh uh trying to see if I have them on my desk. I had everybody fill out a little information for uh for follow-up, and eight people scheduled a strategy session uh out of the 11. So I took a picture of each one of those and then sent those pictures to Emily. Emily takes a builds a database of them, you know, adds them to our CRM, started reaching out to everybody and started scheduling, you know, doing all the back and forth. Are you free on Tuesday and and stuff like that? So um, so that's the kind of work Emily does for me, all kinds of stuff.

Commission Sales And Local Podcast Playbook

Eric Dingler 11:27

Uh Katie is in Ohio. She's a sales rep. So she has a little area that she builds relationships with local business owners by managing a local podcast, um, and then sells them, you know, our services. Um, and then so she's what's her podcast called again? Uh Kent and Good Company. Kent and Good Company. So yeah. Um it's in partnership. We've done these a few times, but that's in partnership with Main Street Kent. Um, yeah, it's it's it's Main Street Kent's podcast um in production with in transit studios hosted by you know uh Katie. Gotcha. How cool. Yeah, so um, and she loves it. They oh my gosh, Josh. They do the podcast. She does it by, you know, she does it in seasons. And every year right now, this will be the third, this will this will be the third year that they've they had the launch yeah, and then two, so this will be the fourth, the fourth season. Um, actually, uh, they have a launch party for the podcast. They like 150 people come. Um, this this time they're doing food trucks. Um, and they have this big giant launch party for every season of the podcast. Never seen anything like it before. It's so cool.

Josh Hall 13:00

It reminds me of a very structured on and off version of an interview series, which is that's exactly what it is. Yeah, like what I what I like, no one will do it. Well, very few people have done it, and they've all gotten a ton of clients from it. But I do have a playbook by the way, WebCenter Pro members go into Josh's Corner. There's a playbook there for interview series. Um, my gosh, it's it's just goal. Like, get your be the connector. I know this isn't about getting clients this one, but be the connector of all your local businesses. You will get so many clients. Anyway, that's freaking awesome. Good for Katie.

Eric Dingler 13:34

Yeah, I networking like that, it's the fastest way, hands down, the fastest way to $15,000 a month and recurring revenue. Um, so and that's way so Katie goes and she interviews them, and I know this isn't about that, but then at the end of it, she's like, hey, thanks for being on the podcast. Can I give you a free SEO audit, uh local SEO audit to show you how you're ranking on Google Maps as a way to say thank you? And they're like, Well, yeah, I'd love to see that for my business. That opens the door.

Josh Hall 14:06

We'll get into some of these specifics with these roles. Um, because typically we would have this kind of conversation private, but I love that we're having this publicly because this is super helpful for folks who want to have, you know, want to build up a foundation in the system, especially for those who want to help with sales, for example. But is she on commission essentially for sales or is she on more of like an ongoing retainer for in transit?

Eric Dingler 14:29

100% commission.

Josh Hall 14:31

Gotcha. Yep, 100% commission.

Eric Dingler 14:33

Um, and the commission varies. Um, it's pretty much a flat commission of 15%. Um, sometimes it's a little higher if she's gonna also play the role of project manager. Um now we are we'll probably have somebody hired by the time this episode drops. So please don't reach out.

Josh Hall 14:55

It's only gonna be a few weeks, it's only gonna be a few weeks out. So depending on how fast you move fast though.

Eric Dingler 15:00

Yeah, I don't I don't, you know, I just we're we're already in process. I I don't want to be inundated, um, but we're in the process of hiring a new, we're in between project managers. So that's the next role. So right now, project management has come back on to me, um, which I don't like. Um, and so we're in, we're in, we're in the hunt for a project manager. Um, but uh so if Katie sells a project and she wants to manage the project all the way through, then I pay her a higher commission because then the project manager is not happy to touch the project.

Josh Hall 15:34

Still based off of a percent. Is it like 20 or 25 percent?

Eric Dingler 15:37

Or yeah, yeah, it goes up to 22% then.

Josh Hall 15:39

Okay. Um that's a that's an alignment with what I have in my scaling course, which is like, yeah, typically a sales rep's gonna be in between 10 and 15, depending. And then, yeah, if they have some roles in the business, it's gonna move up to 20, anywhere between 20 to 30 percent, depending on what they're doing.

Eric Dingler 15:56

Yeah, yeah. So that's exact and that's exactly where we get it and why we do it, and it works out well, you know, and and she's really happy. And and the because the commission compounds, you know, like every time she sells a monthly recurring service, she gets that commission as long as they're a client.

Josh Hall 16:16

So her case for perpetuity if it's or perpetuity if it's a uh retainer, right?

Eric Dingler 16:22

And her income potential is limitless.

Josh Hall 16:26

You know, it's almost I mean, it's almost like an affiliate relationship where especially if it's an ongoing, where it's like for for for the other side, if anyone's worried about paying somebody ongoing, it just it adds such incentive to keep sales coming. I think it's so worth it to have people promote your stuff ongoing.

Eric Dingler 16:45

Yeah, yeah. Now, she was in a position that um she is also a professor. Um, she teaches at a university. Um, she's an ESL um professor. Um and so she had she had time. She just is a part-time professor. Um her husband worked, so she didn't need something that was making a living wage three months from now.

Josh Hall 17:10

Gotcha.

Eric Dingler 17:11

Right? This is vacation money. This is this is baby, you know, they have a two-year or a one and a half year old, you know, this is extra baby money, cool, um, and stuff like that. So, but her husband is a financial planner, and he said, Yeah, but he and he's the guy that was like, Yeah, but you keep doing this, and we do it well, five, 10, 15 years from now, this could be a significant every month. And I went, dude, I'll write you a check $15,000 every single month. If, you know, that's 15% of what I'm getting from you in sales.

Josh Hall 17:51

Yeah, exactly.

Eric Dingler 17:52

Like, no problem.

Josh Hall 17:53

No problem, yeah.

Eric Dingler 17:54

Yeah. So that so if you can find someone that's not in a hurry, because it does take time to, you know, because I I can't have her, Josh, go out next month and sell 10 websites. You know, we can't I I we we're not we're we're not like we we can we can manage a little bit of a bump, um, but we wouldn't be able to, we wouldn't provide great customer service if all of a sudden we were trying to build 10 websites.

Josh Hall 18:24

That's a really good point for anyone looking to get a sales rep for their web business, which is you probably have to put some sort of constraint on how many they could sell. Um because I and that's such a common case in my experience with what I know of the agency world, where like the one company I white labeled for, they had issues with their their sales reps either getting too much business in or promising stuff that they either didn't do or couldn't do on time. And there was a real big problem with alignment there uh and deliverables and just like sheer capacity. So, really, really good point that yeah, you probably need to like build the infrastructure and foundation first before sending you know a hungry dog after the bone. Uh terrible pun, but you know, you know what I mean.

Eric Dingler 19:07

I know what you mean. Yeah, yeah, it's good,

Project Manager Need And Client Checkups

Eric Dingler 19:09

it's good. So uh so yeah, so that's Katie. Um, like I said, we're the the the uh we have an opening on on a role, project manager. So the project manager is that I I do 90% of still all the sales, um, but at the kickoff meeting, I bring the project manager into the kickoff meeting. So I have the the initial discussion with the client, with the with a prospect, and then I prepare their their proposal, and then I don't send proposals, I get on a call to share the proposal with them. Um, and then when that becomes a sale, then I schedule the kickoff meeting. Um, we schedule the kickoff meeting, we send them the the a stripe link to pay the deposit or whatever it is. But then the project manager comes into that call and I'm on that call the entire time and we walk through the whole scope of service proposal. I get to come up with my fun creative ideas and like, oh, you know, we could what if we did this and this and this, um, which is what I love to do and excel at. But then I'm done after that meeting. The project manager takes it from there and takes the project forward. Because honestly, at that point, Josh, I'm bored.

Josh Hall 20:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You want you want to do the sales, the not even onboarding, right? You're just you're just purely doing sales and kickoff. And then do you do you swoop in at the end like I used to do once the project wraps up and connect with the client, do any sort of send-off or launch?

Eric Dingler 20:42

Yes, definitely, definitely, definitely. Um, and I I I show I'm the one that then shows them how to sub how to request support, you know, because that's important. I, you know, I want them to see how the system works and and what happens if they market urgent. That, you know, don't mark it over urgent if it's not, because if you mark it urgent, um, several people get a text message that your website is down, you know. So urgent isn't, oh, I have this event tomorrow and I forgot to get you information. That that's not urgent. Um, so we we walk through that. Uh and then I schedule a 30-day checkup. And I get on that call in 30 days. I'm like, website's gone. Here's some of the data we've seen, things like this. You know, this is going good. Now, I remember when we talked, you know, in your initial discussion, one of the goals that you said you had was you wanted to do this. I'd like to explore looking at your Google business profile. I'd like to l explore looking at your, you know, pay per click ads. I'd like I I schedule an ascension meeting. I call it a checkup meeting, but it's the ascension meeting. And then from there, we just have a regular system. Emily. Emily schedule I talk to two clients a week.

unknown 21:59

Um

Eric Dingler 22:00

And Emily schedules those. Um, and we just we just go down through the list. And when I get to the bottom, she goes to the stop and she starts over again.

Josh Hall 22:08

Uh, elephant in the room question why can't white, and I'll just play devil's advocate here, uh, because I know Emily's value, but I'm sure people are wondering, why won't you just use Calendly and just have your Calendly set up for clients? Why do you need an LEA to do that?

Eric Dingler 22:22

No, she does. She she reaches out and says, Hey, Eric's want, you know, wanting to know if you can meet next week, you know, here's a link. Can you grab a time? But you will say a lot of our clients, they don't they don't necessarily do that right off the bat, you know. So she's gotta, you know, prod them a couple times and stuff like that.

Josh Hall 22:39

So instead of you doing the follow-ups and the proactive, she stacks you're all off your plate completely.

Eric Dingler 22:44

Yeah. And if I have a busy week, I won't reach out to people, but I'll show up if it's on my calendar, I'll show up. Um, I need an appointment center because it's very easy for me to go, oh, I need to reach out to, I'll do that tomorrow.

Josh Hall 23:04

But then tomorrow it's gone. It's done. Yep.

Eric Dingler 23:08

And then I'll do it tomorrow. And then by the time it's, you know, Thursday, I'm like, well, I'll wait. Might as well wait till Monday. And I can go three weeks and not schedule. I didn't I was terrible at scheduling these meetings. I always wanted to, but I never did. Having, and eventually we may have an appointment setter. We don't we don't have the need for that. Emily can still handle that. Um, so Emily, one of her tasks is appointment setting because if it's on my calendar, I'll show up. Um, I need help getting it on my calendar.

Josh Hall 23:41

Yeah, that no, that's that's a very, very good challenge. I don't think I have I don't think I have recognized or appreciated how much work goes into follow-ups. I mean, I've been doing this podcast for seven years now almost, and I don't even know, I don't even want to know how much time I've devoted to interview follow-ups and scheduling. And uh I mean I've pretty dialed in, but I just it doesn't feel like work to me, and maybe that's just my personality, but that's also a trap. Um, it's a little five minutes here, 10 minutes here, oops, reschedule here, move around this. So that's a good challenge for me personally, which is like, yeah, maybe consider yeah, an appointment center and getting help. Yeah, that's interesting.

Eric Dingler 24:25

Yeah, yeah, and that's a great role for a VA, EA, depending on what you it's really the same thing. Um, but yeah, that's right, but you see, that's the thing, and it's so funny, and I tell people all the time, you know, N Transit Studios was when I bought N Transit, oh my gosh, it was so stinking organized and everything, like you are just you're very structured that way. And you you are really, really good, in my opinion, from my experience working with you. You're really, really good at having a system and working the system. I'm really, really good at building a system and then tweaking it and then tweaking it and then tweaking it. Uh um, and so I'm really bad at using a system. So we're better, we we are more in transit studios now than we were for a couple of years because my personality led us away from some of that structure that you had. But now that I've got a team where I can say, this is the process, this is the way, going, you know, this is the way. Um, and they do it. We're we've come back to that much more organized systematic structure.

Josh Hall 25:42

That's cool. Well, now I feel like it's so key too for anyone who has uh a team of of any size in place because like there has to be a structure followed because everyone has to fall in line with that, and then otherwise, yeah, it's just chaos. So let's let's dig in. And then, oh, of course, we forgot the most valuable team member, your lovely wife, Marissa, who is cool as hell, by the way. It was it's been a while since you guys were in Columbus and we got to meet. But uh, like what how how involved is she now with some of the admin stuff, or is it still kind of part-time for her, just as needed, or what is it?

Eric Dingler 26:18

Very, very part-time, very, very part-time. Um, so she's our COO chief organizing officer. Um, she helps keep me grounded, you know. I because I have a new idea every day. Um, and so she's really good at going, yeah, but remember, because when she was just wife, Marissa, and I don't mean that in a derogatory way, but when she wasn't in the in the company, she would hear and she'd be like, Oh, that's nice. Oh, that sounds good. Oh, that sounds fun. You know, it was it was that because she she never wanted to howl an idea off the table. She was always what she wanted to be the cheerleader. And she didn't really know long-term goals and plans. But now that she knows the long-term goals and plans and sees it from the business side and is it her and I have a monthly business meeting where we look at the metrics. She knows every revenue number, she knows every expense, profit margin, lead count, lead conversion percent. Like she knows the dashboard. Now, when I go downstairs at lunch and I'm like, you know, I was thinking we couldn't do that. She can go, yeah, that sounds really good. But how is that gonna help with this?

Josh Hall 27:27

So she moved from she moved from cheerleader to teammate with that relationship, yeah.

Eric Dingler 27:33

And it's great. And it's great. So she does that. And then her other role is she we have we have clients where we uh manage their, we do their local SEO. Um, and she likes managing those clients, she likes creating the monthly content, scheduling it. Um, so she does that. So she does she manages the Google Business Profile side of it. We're eventually going to hand that off to a VA. Um, but she's just been doing it right now. Um, because we also, you know, you and I were talking before we hit record. We're we're trying to immigrate to the UK. Um, there's a big expense with that. And so the less we can have in payroll, the more we can, you know, bring home as owners pay to help fund them. So um, so she's she likes doing that stuff right now.

Josh Hall 28:28

So I'm excited to call you mate, by the way, here when that happens.

Eric Dingler 28:32

Um I've got to find out peers on everything.

How They Source And Vet Talent

Josh Hall 28:35

Uh-huh. Uh so real quick, let's just glance over where you found everybody here. So, Peter, Bulgaria. How did you find Peter? I know, I of course know some of this, but for those who don't know, where uh where'd you find Peter and how'd that come about?

Eric Dingler 28:50

Upwork. The answer for everybody is upwork except Emily and Marissa.

Josh Hall 28:55

Oh, even Katie.

Eric Dingler 28:57

Oh, I take that. And Katie. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Uh Katie, I officiated Katie and her husband's wedding.

Josh Hall 29:05

And you met you met Marissa on Upwork. You were like looking for a wife.

Eric Dingler 29:09

Yeah, not yeah, exactly. No, no, and not Marissa. So Marissa and I, you know, we met at camp. Um, Nathan used to work for me at camp when he was 15. Um, worked for me for five or six years. Um, and then a couple years later, I officiated him in his in Katie's wedding. So I knew them from that. That's how Katie and my relationship built. Um Emily reached out one time and asked me a question on LinkedIn. And I was just very impressed with the back and forth that we had. Um about three months later, uh, when I decided to hire an EA, I reached out to her. Um, I interviewed her and another, I then I still did my typical upwork thing. Uh narrowed it down to her and uh another guy on on upwork. And I wanted to hire him. Now, one of the things that I always teach people to do, don't hire, don't don't interview in a vacuum. Always have somebody else do at least if I do multiple interviews, and we typically have people on the team do one of the interviews. Well, Marissa sat in these interviews with me, and she, you know, asked questions, stuff like that. And at the end, I after we're done, I said, okay, this is the guy I'm I think I want to hire. And she goes, Why? And I said, I just really got along with him. She goes, Yeah. She goes, that's why you can't hire him. She said, The two of you had so much, she goes, you won't get any work done. She goes, You need an executive assistant that's going to show up to your weekly or your week meeting every, you know, we meet twice a week. She said, You need somebody that's going to show up that's nice and polite, but then gets to work done. And when you start to go this way or that way, can go, that's good, Eric. So back to she goes, you need that. She goes, This guy, um, I I forget his name, Epson or something. She's like, you two are just gonna end up being buddies and having a lot of fun. And she goes, You don't need that. And that was wise. She was a hundred percent right. Uh such a good point. Yeah, I hired Emily.

Josh Hall 31:22

It's like the uh it's the definition of the book Rocket Fuel, right? Where you have a visionary and an integrator, and you need somebody who's looking forward to the the the Eric's of the world who's got ideas, but also needs someone who reels them in and makes it happen and gives realistic deadlines and actually yeah, puts the boots on the ground to get the work done.

Eric Dingler 31:40

Yeah, and a great, I mean, still, you know, get and you can have other people on your team that are like, but I need somebody, and Emily's great. We get along well, she's very talented. I just I just liked the guy, you know, and that was Marissa's like, you don't you're not hiring a friend. We we don't know.

Josh Hall 31:56

That's great. So so Peter was upwork, started off just with just a few few projects. Yep, built from there, and then yeah, Minute. What did Peter find minush or did you find Minoche?

Eric Dingler 32:10

Nope, Peter found minuti. Um, Minoosh started at 10 hours a week, and within three months was full time. Peter found Ivan. Um I found uh Max. We've had Max for a while. Peter wasn't hiring at that point. Um we've also we we had somebody on the team for a while in El Salvador um that ended up having a baby and decided not to come back from maternity leave. Um, and uh we decided not to replace that position at that time. Uh but um she she was great. I met her in El Salvador, um, and she was getting ready to graduate from college with a degree in um uh digital marketing.

Josh Hall 33:00

So two quick questions. What when you said Peter found Manooch, how did that come about? Were they just in uh some sort of online network together? And then Peter, did Peter just come to you and be like, hey, we have, you know, he might be a good fit for the team. Hal, how did how did that come about for Peter?

Eric Dingler 33:18

Yeah, same process we always do. Um, so the first thing we do is we do a time audit and look and see where where time is going, what we can, you know, offload to free up time for for one of us. So we did that specifically for Peter. Um, and then we write a job description. Uh and the, you know, we have a see the the interesting thing, Josh, is and I I didn't realize this until like two years ago. Um I I just thought everybody knew how to do this because for 15 years I ran a summer camp and every summer I had to build a team. And so I just assume everybody knew how to do do this. But I I I didn't realize that it was such a unique experience. So that's where to me having a system was kind of just like a no-brainer. Um, because we had done it. So we I've I've written so many job descriptions in my life that I have finally figured out a formula for a job description that works. So we use that that job description layout. If only there was a book that outlined this. Right? Somebody should write that.

Josh Hall 34:26

Welcome for the segue. Welcome for the softballs. We'll talk about that for sure.

Eric Dingler 34:31

Yeah, they could call it higher to grow, maybe. I don't know. But anyway, um, so we post it, then we go on the upwork, we post the job. Uh we used to at that time used to we used to vet people real quickly by posting uh three hidden questions in the job description, but now people use AI um to read the job description and write their reply. Um, and so we've had to come up with other ways to now vet people.

Josh Hall 35:03

Um I mean, it seems like the the team is quite built out. I would imagine like, is there much of a need once you get the project manager to hire anybody for a while? Because I imagine you could max out the team in place and build the revenue substantially.

Eric Dingler 35:18

Yeah, because we've got freelancers we can grab for just a project if we need to. We've always got our friend Stephanie at Focus WP. Um, I mean, I can always have them do a website. Yeah, I've done that before. I could jump into the pro community and and you know, I've done that a couple times. Um, so if if we got inundated, we've got sources to with pre-vetted people we could, you know, grab.

Josh Hall 35:46

Yeah. And then one question on Emily. You said that she reached out via LinkedIn. That's really interesting. Like that's uh that's a very unexpected way to hire because it's not like she was even reaching out to say, like, hey, I do this, and you know, is there an opportunity? I'd love to be um, you know, in a in a like if you could be in a mentorship kind of role or an intern kind of role. What what did she reach out to you originally for? Was it like a consulting type thing? Or how do you remember how that yeah?

Eric Dingler 36:17

I I I had a post go mini viral on LinkedIn um about working with VAs. Um, and it's the only time I've had a post get like, you know, you know, 80,000 impressions and I mean it was ridiculous. Um and I just got inundated with VAs, you know, wanting wanting to be hired. Uh, I mean, hundreds, hundreds. It it was ridiculous. Um, and and I, you know, she was one of the first one, because it got to the point I just couldn't go through them anymore. Um, and so she was probably one of the first 50 or 60. And I could just tell that her message that she reached out to me with, um, it was genuine, it wasn't AI, it wasn't self-promoting. She had gone and looked on the website, pulled something off, and just she shared that. So she went to the website, she picked up on the about page that I was a pastor, um, and that my faith is important to me. And it's our policy, our our HR manual for In Transit Studios is the Bible. Like, if you want to know how you're gonna be treated, look in the Bible. That's it, very simple. Um, and she just reached out and was and commented that it was refreshing to see that, that she, you know, is a is a Christian, um, and that if I could, you know, if she if she could ever help me in any way, you know, just she'd love to have a conf the opportunity to have a conversation. Everybody else was, oh, I saw you know, I could really help you. Oh, you know, I'm great at this. It was just all about I can do this, you know, here's my here's my upwork profile. Here's it, you know, it was just it was almost demanding in a way. Um, and her approach was just softer, and I appreciated it.

Josh Hall 38:12

That is great. I I love hearing those type of hiring stories that are just not a typical, and there's nothing wrong, of course, with going to upwork or doing something like that, but those those roundabout opportunities that don't look like a hiring opportunity. And I think especially in the age of just especially LinkedIn, good God, the amount of like you know, junk cold DMs and everything with AI and everything and and templatized cold outreach. Like if you can, yeah, if you can make somebody feel like that with a just honest and real message, I think that's gonna go even more far and um like further today than ever. So that's really, really cool to hear how that worked out. That's awesome.

Eric Dingler 38:58

Yeah, and knowing that she was going to be the person that was now communicating to everybody between me, I I needed somebody that communicated genuinely and softly. Um and so that's what that was the big selling because I don't check email, I I haven't logged into my email in ages. She she 100% handles all of my email. If I need to handle it, she forwards it to my Nasby. Um, and it goes in my inbox on my Nasby as a task. What's Nasby? It's just my to-do list. Um it's yeah, it's I've used Nasby since I ran the camp. Uh it's it's based on the uh getting things done GTG system. Um, and you get a customized email address that you can forward emails to your to-do list. And so that's what we do.

Josh Hall 39:56

She just had a is it a platform?

Eric Dingler 39:58

What is or so is not it's a there's an app on my phone, on my computer, it's a browser N-O-Z-B-E. The reason I started using it and other I I tested all kinds of ones. It's a very simple, very, very simple user interface. Um, but what I liked was it was the first one, and like I said, I used started using this oh my gosh, 2010, 20, yeah, it was probably around 2010. It was the first to-do list that I found that you could set a recurring task that when you clicked it done, it disappeared and then automatically came back the next day. Um now I'm sure a lot of them do that, but back then that was revolutionary.

Josh Hall 40:47

But hey, to the point we talked about earlier, if it works, man, if anything broke, don't fix it. That's awesome.

Eric Dingler 40:53

Yeah, yeah, I love cool. Peter uses Nosby now. I mean, it's um, yeah, we we love it.

Josh Hall 40:59

Well, super, super cool, Eric. I'm gonna start to bring this home because I know you and I ending a conversation can take a half an hour. So um this actually, I've really enjoyed just digging into the In Transit Studios team. And each one of these roles and people have come with their own unique path to getting into the team. And and I think you've said so much here without you know intentionally going through like a framework. It's like we've we've unpacked the roles, the the need for the team members, the percentages for those who are on more of a um, you know, commission type base, and then how some of these roles, like for Peter, have expanded from a couple hours a month to full time. Um, it's been very, very cool. Number one, watching you refine the roles and refine the team, but also to see a nice sticky core. Like there has not been a bunch of turnover over the past couple years, it seems like. I mean, Peter's Peter's been in it for six years. Um, like that, yeah, it seems like the it the core is strong, which is a testament to your leadership and bringing everyone together. Um, let's talk about this real quick, because there's so much that we could cover and go into all this.

Hire To Grow Framework And Ethical Hiring

Josh Hall 42:16

But you wrote a book, and at the time of releasing this, it's currently on pre-order. So I know there's probably so many follow-up questions and specifics that I I know you have covered in here. So hire to grow. Tell us about the the book that's ahead, man.

Eric Dingler 42:33

Yeah, so hire to grow is is the framework I use. I I that I wouldn't say I developed intentionally, but uh a couple years ago, you know, when we started traveling full time, Josh, be because of you being a known quantity, and I rode your coattails on that um with in transit. And then, you know, um, then I ended up, you know, eventually getting on Divi chat and stuff like that. Um, a lot of people started reaching out, how are you doing? How are you doing traveling this you know full time? Like I, you know, I want that freedom. Well, at first I thought it was the way we did lead gen. I thought it was unique. So you'll remember I started a little thing, you know, you know, lead factory and started teaching people how to do lead generation. Um and then people started going through it and they started having success and they got and they were like, well, you know, now I've got this, I got to slow down. And I went, well, hire people. And it was like deer in the headlights. Um, and so then I thought, well, maybe it's not lead generation, you know, maybe it's our all of our systems because we're we're an asynchronous remote company. We've got our core systems now set up for that. Maybe it's that. And so I started teaching people how we have the business structured operationally. Um, and people started having success. And then I was like, you need to hire. And and so it was like, like I said, like two. Years ago, I had this uh you know aha moment, yeah, yeah, where it's like, why isn't everybody why aren't people just hiring? And then it was like, I like, oh, I'm comfortable. Why am I comfortable? Because it's for 15 years I did it over and over and over. But at the end of every summer, the staff left, and I got nine months to go, what work, what didn't work, and then go find a mentor, a coach, read some books, go to conference, and I got to reinvent myself as a leader 15 times. And most people don't get to do to do that. So I had a really unique experience, and then I then I was like, okay, well, what did I what did I learn? How did I hire? And I ended up reverse engineering what I what I did, and I came up with the ROD2 framework. Recruit. Um, there's a reason I use upwork um it to start. Uh and we don't we won't get into it now, but there's a lot of protection for for somebody that's never hired before, yeah, there's a lot of protection for you hiring an upwork. Yeah. So and there's a lot of human trafficking in VA world. And so you want to recruit in a way that you're not accidentally contributing to human trafficking. Um, and so uh Upwork is is very committed to that. So if you've never hired before, up I like Upwork because of that. Um so so that that there, but you gotta you gotta recruit the right people first, um, then onboard them. Now, this is hard because like Josh, think about all the people in Pro. They're so busy building websites, selling websites, handling maintenance calls, support tickets. None of them can take a week off to train a new person. Um, you know, they'd be so far behind. Everybody on our team trains themselves. Um, Emily's first two days on the job, I was on a train one day and a plane the next day. Um she completely trained yourself. Uh so we've got that, and then delegate the right way, develop the team then after that. Um so I laid that out in the book. Um, and people can uh get it, ericdingler.com forward slash hire to grow.

Josh Hall 46:28

We'll have that linked, of course.

Firing With Respect And Closing CTAs

Josh Hall 46:30

And I have to say, just a testament to some of your leadership stuff. One thing that is not thought about with hiring is firing. And you were a guest, you did a guest coaching session for what was dubbed the Mastery Sprint, which was the precursor to the Web Designer Pro Mastermind, which is now live. Um, well, closed by the time this comes out, but it is is it'll reopen if spots are available. But Kristen, our one of our Mastery Sprint members, I told you about that, right? About that she was that she was going to fire somebody. And then literally after our coaching session that you you taught for us and coached us all on, she fired the VA that she had to let go. And she said it went so well. Like the best a fire could have ever gone. She felt so much more confident and comfortable and um like sure of herself with how to approach it without causing unneeded, you know, strife or anger or or sadness, you know, like she said it just it went so well. Um she was so stressed about it, yeah. And I understand it's like it's one of those things where, like, especially if you're new to it or the feeling of letting someone go. And she even said, like, you know, she it wasn't like she was doing a bad job, she just she just it wasn't needed anymore. And sometimes you never know the person on the other side how they're feeling. Like, is you know, is that is that recurring revenue a huge part of their income? Are they expecting it? Are they bored? Are they kind of secretly happy, or are they gonna be crushed? You just never know. Um, but I just wanted to say, like, your it was really cool to see that the leadership and your like your approach to firing as well. And it played out great. And it was like that's that was one of the biggest wins from our first little mastery sprint. Was was I never I did not think starting a higher level mastermind that one of my favorite wins so far would be somebody getting fired. But here we are.

Eric Dingler 48:27

Yeah, she was she was given permission to seek opportunities elsewhere, and um yeah, and it it was yes. And the the big thing is Kristen just she didn't she just needed to see it a little bit from a little different perspective that she got to go into the conversation and start with saying, Thank you for helping me get to this point, but here's the point we're at, and you didn't do anything wrong, I didn't do anything wrong. This is the point where we're we're at, and I mean you just it's just a real conversation. She was gonna go in and ho-hum around and beat her, you know, and stuff like that. So it's just going in there and paying honor and respect for people, and you know, that's why I said our our HR manual is is the Bible, you know, treat people with respect and you're gonna go a long way.

Josh Hall 49:12

So awesome, dude. Also, to wrap this up, another awesome thing was having Gary on the podcast recently. For those who haven't heard that, one of my A clients, well, one of our A clients, one of the best clients for In Transit Studios ever, has been with us for literally 16 years, um or well, 2012, so 14 years. Um, Gary Sigris, that was episode 423. But he did talk about you, Eric. You said you really you listened to that recently, right?

Eric Dingler 49:39

Yeah, well, I started listening to it the other day, and and I sent you a message because in the beginning of the podcast, you said it's one of the first sites I built, and it's still live today. It's still live today. And that I sent you a message and went, I just got off a call with Gary and mapped out a redesign.

Josh Hall 50:01

Oh blew that one for me. Now I can't say that that site's a decade old here pretty soon. Although it did last 10 years, which is in I think is pretty dangerous. That would that site, that version of Safeguard Resolutions went live, I think, in 2016.

Eric Dingler 50:14

So yeah, and it's still the only reason we're redesigning it is because he has his his services have expanded that the site was built to promote one, it was built to promote the MERP. It was all about one thing.

Josh Hall 50:33

Um, and so I take no offense. It's been a decade. Get let's let's let's do it. Yeah, give give that thing uh I'd have to look.

Eric Dingler 50:42

I bet we got a couple other sites still on maintenance that are from when you build them.

Josh Hall 50:46

Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. I know I know there's a couple at least.

Eric Dingler 50:48

Yeah, or maybe maybe now of migrating them all to Divi5.

Josh Hall 50:54

Okay. Oh, that's right, because we talked about that with uh the the Div5 uh SOP that you put together. Yeah. Well, it was really cool. It was honestly very cool for me to hear Gary's perspective when I brought you in as CEO, because I I was curious, like, you know, what did he think? But um it's it was a big testament to communication as well, which is obviously a huge part of leadership. Um and I think that speaks to your leadership and and how well you communicate and over like over-communicate in the best way and really make people feel at ease. So yeah, man, the book, Hire to Grow, is gonna be officially out June 30th, right? June 30th, June 30th.

Eric Dingler 51:37

If you get it on pre-order, um you're gonna get the audiobook for free. Uh, you're gonna get the ebook version for free on pre-order, and then you're gonna get a five dollar um credit towards the physical book, which will be $9.99 when it launches. So you'll be able to get the physical book for $4.99 then. Um, and uh yeah. And so uh it's it's available for pre-order right now. We'll be up until the time it goes live, and then it then it goes to just the buying the book. Um, but I'm really excited. It's it walks people right through our process from beginning to end on on how to build a team without regret. And not only that, the biggest thing is that they will pay for themselves within 30 days. Because what we didn't get a chance to to talk about in this is when you hire someone for 10 hours a week to start, I that's what I recommend people start at. What do you do with those 10 hours? And that's the key that I ex that I get people to do that immediately increases revenue, and that that new hire is more than paid for within the first 30 days for most people.

Josh Hall 52:58

That's awesome. Well, it's gonna help a lot of people, Eric. I'm pumped for you, pumped for everyone who gets into it. We'll have that link to the show notes. So, all right, man. Can't wait for the next round. As always, good to see you, good to catch up, and I'm I'm glad we did this more publicly. It was really cool to give a behind-the-scenes look at the in-transit team. So, can't wait to see it all continue on, man. If you come through Columbus, let me know. Coffee time. Sounds good. Yeah, dude. All right, Eric, thanks for the time. I appreciate it. All right, so again, big thanks to Eric, not only for this conversation and for being very open about exactly how he hired every single team member behind In Transit Studios, but also for filling in inside of WebCenter Pro last week to do a special QA session that is available in the replay section. So all Web Designer Pro members go to the coaching call replays and you can listen or watch it there. And yeah, I just really look to Eric for a lot of expertise in this. Everyone has their own style with hiring. Eric's is a little more robust than mine for sure. Uh mine is not nearly as detailed, but I think you can learn from both of us and others who can help you hire to grow. And man, is that important nowadays for sure. Hiring to grow. And if you want some help with that, check out Eric's upcoming book at ericdingler.com slash hire to grow. All right, friends, thanks for joining. Make sure you stay subscribed. We've got some killer interviews ahead this summer, and I'm gonna be popping in with some more solo episodes this summer as well. So we're gonna do some staggering between some solo chats with myself and you as a listener and um some interviews and potentially some celebration episodes. And maybe even I might take your questions soon if you have questions about the podcast. So all that is coming ahead. So make sure you stay subscribed. Make sure you're on my email list, go to joshhall.co slash newsletter to jump on my email list, and that way we can stay connected on the electronic message system. Bye, my friends. See you on the next one.