Sustainable Systems, Strong Communities: A Conversation with Benji Burrell

0:02Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of the Epic Entrepreneurs podcast where we are all about helping business owners just like you achieve success. So we don't do fancy smancy. We don't do flashing lights. We don't do a lot of things that a lot of podcasts will do. These are just real stories about real people and their entrepreneurial and business experiences. We go into their wins, their challenges, and their learnings. So we hope you enjoy it. All right. Welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs, I am Cliff McRae filling in for Bill Gilliland with your local business training and coaching firm, Action Coach Business Growth Partners.

0:45I'm excited to have Benji Burrell with Good People Technologies as the focus for our Epic Entrepreneurs podcast episode today. So, Benji, please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself and your company and what primary products or services you offer the community. Yes, Cliff, thank you very much for having me. My name is Benji Burrell. I am the founder and owner of Good People Technologies, based out of Asheville, North Carolina. Our website is goodpeopletech.com, goodpeopletech.com. For the last 12 years, my team and I have been supporting our clients, both not-for-profit and for-profit organizations, in helping them identify what their goals are and then identifying what tools they need to accomplish those goals.

1:32So if you are a distribution company or a manufacturer or a warehousing company, for example, you bring in a lot of material and then you have a lot going out the door, then you have to track all of those orders. You also have to track the money side of things. You may have an e-commerce website that you use to sell your wares. You may have that also tied into a point of sale system at your physical location. And so we help organizations figure out what software they need to put in place so that they can run those operations very efficiently and effectively. Perfect. I love it. Love it. So if you had to start your business from square one, what would you do differently?

2:14I would say that everybody's journey is different and we all start from a different place. And so, you know, you me as a business owner, I had certain skills under my belt and then others I was completely unaware that they were necessary to be successful. So I think as an engineer who's been a person who's been trained as an engineer in the past, nothing against my fellow engineers, but I was leaning heavily on technology itself, as well as just systems to try to build my business. And I didn't realize until later than I should have that relying on quality people and working to find those quality people to perform that work is the most important thing.

3:04And so having a good recruiting pipeline is something that I would change. I would have proved that earlier. The second thing, I think, is to know that the sales and the marketing side are really important. and especially for a person like myself who's been an individual communicating with other individuals and business owners as I make my way out into the world. It was word of mouth that basically built my business initially. Now, as I want to grow the business larger, I need to scale the pipeline up. And so having a good sales and marketing team has been something that I've worked on building as well.

3:42And I'm very happy to say that we've done so. Okay. I love it. So what have your biggest learnings been as an owner since you started your business? Well, some of it is learning about myself and some of it's learning about my clients. Some of it is learning about the industry in which I operate. So when I say industry, I mean just general business technology. I think the thing I've learned is that I'm good at managing change and a lot of other people are not. However, I have limits as well. And so I've come to empathize with many of my clients as, as the world has changed very quickly around me.

4:21And, and, and I, and I feel a little bit of the pain of the, of what my clients are feeling when, when their competitors, for example, change systems or, or upgrade or pushing, pushing them along. So that's, that's been an interesting thing to learn. So what are your, you know, and this is always a good one. What are some common misconceptions about running a business, would you say? I think it depends on the person that you're speaking to in terms of their perspective. That's a tough one. Let me think about that for a second. A common misconception that I held as a younger person before I owned a business was that it was easy to run a business and to make business happen.

5:05I didn't understand the challenges ahead and all of the mechanisms internally that were necessary to keep the ball rolling down the hill and the vehicle on the highway, as you were. And so, yes, there's so many moving parts and you rely on so many different skill sets. And I really admire people who have run businesses for a long time. They find a market that they are good at supporting, providing value within that market sustainably over a long period of time and then doing it in such a volume that allows them to employ others and, uh, and continue to do that over, over many years. That's, that's a hard thing.

5:47And so I really admire people who can do that. Great, great. No, that's awesome. So any other misconceptions that you hear about running a business, you know, that should be rich quick or that you're, you can take off whenever you want or anything like that. Oh, wow. That's a good prompt. Yeah, I started my business initially in part because I wanted some flexibility as an individual. I worked, backing up just for a second, I worked for many years at an organization called Appalachian Voices. And my goal there as an employee was to help the people who live in the coal-bearing regions of Appalachia and help them deal with the worst effects of some of the surface mining that they were experiencing in their region.

6:35There were a lot of negative things happening in the community. And so I got burnt out doing that work and also found that it was kind of hard to pay my mortgage trying to do that good work for others. And so I had to, I felt like the need to go out and get a quote, regular job again and deploy my engineering skills. And so I found that part of the impetus for starting my own business was the idea that I needed some personal flexibility to manage actually the sickness of my mother back at that time. This was 2012, 2013. And so I decided to leave my current job and go and support the one side client that I had as a side hustle.

7:32And that client knew my situation and was kind enough to say, hey, we have enough work to keep you busy. We need your help and want to support you. So they gave me the confidence to go out on my own and start that business. So, yeah, that flexibility was super important for me. And the hard part, though, ironically, in the last few years is that I have a lot of flexibility, but I'm also working all the time. And so, you know, that's just the necessity of keeping the enterprise right. Okay. Now, do you think you are a better entrepreneur or employee and why? I think I am a better entrepreneur than an employee in a variety of ways.

8:22But I think one of the ways that we look at ourselves as a business, at Good People Technologies, is that we like to think about ourselves as a bolt-on team that supports other people's teams in fractional ways. And so we're like a fractional employee for somebody else who knows how to keep track of what they have going on and be able to pick up the phone and call us or send us an email with an issue or something that they'd like to have taken care of. Then we're there to help them. So we kind of dance on that line. Myself as an individual, I really like the variety of things. And so being the leader of an organization checks a lot of boxes in that regard.

9:06Perfect. Perfect. I love that. So how do you handle taking vacations while running your business? Well, that's a great question. I like the idea. My friend Kyle, who is a recruiter for the construction industry, he uses the term running and gunning, which is quite funny to me. But if you imagine, you know, if I were to take a vacation this summer and we were on a road trip, my wife and I and our dogs, then I would have to take a phone call. And if it was a certain client or, or whatever, I can't take every phone call when I'm on vacation, but I do, do have to take those calls. And so there, it just, there has to be room for that.

9:48And, and I'm going down the path of trying to build the organization larger so that I can have someone sit in the seat as when I'm gone on vacation and completely unplug. But that quite hasn't happened in quite a while. okay okay all right so what have you attributed to your growth so far i would say that a couple of things part of it is just people knowing about the skills that we can bring to bear in their world and how we can help them so uh being out in our community and and communicating with business owners and their team members and um and just and asking people questions about how their day is going.

10:30I know it sounds simple, but if I walk into a business and I'm speaking to the owner, and I've done this many times actually and found new clients this way, I walk in and I'm a patron of a business and they're having a hard time checking me out at the register or they're something going on and they're complaining. And I say, well, tell me more about your complaint and tell me more about how that gets in the way of you operating. And what are some things that you may have tried to resolve this. Go down this rabbit hole and eventually they find out that I have some business technology experience and my team does as well.

11:06Making us known to those in our community that might have the need has been the top number one way and in those interpersonal relationships. Because really what we do is based on trust. We operate much like a law firm in many respects. We do very hard things for people that a lot of folks don't understand that are very important to the foundation of their organizational existence. So we must be trusted to a great degree, and it takes a long time for that trust to be built up. And so we pride ourselves in providing good service and then slowly not trying to push any service on anybody. So how do you balance your personal life with the demands of running a business?

11:52I mean, are you typically a 5 p.m., 6 p.m., shut everything down guy or around the clock? How do you handle that? I am not good at finding that balance personally lately. I used to be better at it, but I think, you know, to be honest with you, I have more to lose as an adult as I've gotten older. That is to say, if I have a car payment or something to that effect, you need to make those things. And so the balance is harder to find. Now, I do know that it's important. My wife is a mental health professional in the school system in North Carolina, and she knows very well the importance of preventing burnout.

12:35And she and I both, we try to monitor that, although it's hard to see the forest for the trees if you're in it all the time. And so that's not easy to find. But I do talk to people about it. And this is my big advice to folks out there. If you're running a business or working in one and you're working really hard, talk to somebody around you about whatever it is that's bothering you. And I'm not talking like you don't have to bare your entire soul to someone. But if you say, hey, well, how's it going today? Well, just be a little bit honest. Say, well, I have a lot going on. There's many things happening.

13:14And this is the list of things I'm working on. And it's overwhelming me a little bit. And you'd be surprised as to how many people around you will say, hey, oh, me too. Let me tell you how I solved that problem. And just being open to sharing those needs with others, I think, is really useful. especially if you're doing it on your own. Yeah, I see what you mean. Yeah, like you know how it is when you ask somebody, you know, how are you doing today? You just give them the standard answer. You're saying be more truthful about it, right? If you got something going on, speak up about it and kind of talk with people, right?

13:45Especially if you're doing it alone. Correct, you know. Yeah, if you're doing it alone and you're a solopreneur or you're a leader and you're kind of head down in your business, make sure, and this is kind of an overarching advice I have for any business owner, Make sure you take time to back up, pick your head up from the books, pick your head up from your client relationships, and ask yourself how you're running your business and whether the systems you're using to run your business are effective and giving you what you're looking for. And making sure you take that time, that reflection time, gives you time to think through what problems you would solve and then also think through who else can solve them for you.

14:25I like to use the 80-20 rule across the board. The 80-20 rule is a rule of thumb, like a heuristic. And it says that if you, let's say you're a handy person and your business, your profession is to work on people's houses and go fix things. Well, your toolbox that you keep in your vehicle has, let's say, 100 tools in it. Well, 80 % of the time, you're only going to use 20 % of your tools. And then 20 % of the time, that remaining 80 % of the tools that are specialty, they come into play. And so I like to think about the work that people do on my team along those lines as well. So there's not enough time in the day for me to accomplish all the promises that I know that my team and I can make or that we make and can deliver to our clients.

15:21I can't do it alone. I have to rely on others. And so 80 % done by somebody else is 100 % awesome. That's my quote for you. Perfect. I love that. I love that. And thank you for that. So what qualities do you look for in potential employees or potential people that you're looking to work with? I in the industry that I operate in, which is business technology and operational efficiency. We are consultants across the board for a variety of different organizations. And so I look for people who are a couple of different things. When I hire folks, I look for these characteristics. I look for someone who's self-motivated and can keep track of what they've been assigned.

16:09and look for opportunities for things that they haven't been assigned but would be useful to benefit the outcome of the project. So self-motivated, self-starting, responsible individuals. And they have to know that even though we are a fully remote team, they have to deliver as if they were a full-time team member when they've been asked to do a project. And so that's not easy to suss out sometimes when you hire folks, But that's who I look for. And then great communicators, people who are empathetic and can ask questions of the person they're sitting there with and try to get to the root of what the client is trying to accomplish.

16:52So getting into that a little bit more, how do you foster positive and productive work environment for those employees? I try to set expectations up front. And as a leader, for many years, I didn't want to be a leader. When I started the business, Good People Tech, I tried to keep it small on purpose and avoided having to oversee others. But now I know, as I mentioned earlier, that we must rely on each other in order to accomplish great things. And so I'm learning to be a better manager and setting expectations up front is something that is important. It's not easy. Making it known when an expectation is not met and when it is met.

17:44Both of those are important to me. And then also admitting when I don't know how to approach a situation, but I am aiming to communicate something. and so I'll say, hey, team, you know, it might be addressing an internal conflict or might be addressing a performance issue or something. And I'll say to the team, listen, I'm learning to be a better manager, but these are the things that I'm seeing and I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on it and if you have any ways that you think we can improve this and just seeking feedback from the team as well. Okay, perfect. Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry. I was going to say also that it sounds callous, but I take the advice from a friend who started a software company and was able to sell it some number of years ago.

18:38He said hire slowly and fire quickly. And it is important for me if I think about the business as being a house or a ship. And if you don't have a good hull on that ship, then it will not sail well. And anybody that you bring onto that ship is going to have to deal with any problems that are caused by the hull being not properly constructed. The same thing with the team. If I have a good team of people who are good at working with each other and who are responsible and show up each day, it almost doesn't matter what their skill sets are. We get more things done. And then we can all stand on each other's shoulders in a new platform.

19:22We've leveled ourselves up by having a solid team that works well together. So that's our goal. Okay, perfect. So now we're going to head in what's called the quickfire round. And basically how this works is going to be, I'm just going to say one word to you. And basically you're going to let me know, you know, what comes to mind when you hear that word in regards to running your business. Okay. Education. Paramount. education is a big part of what my team and i do for our clients we help educate our clients about what is available out in the world that could solve some of the issues or or address some of the goals and opportunities that the client is aiming for next word is planning planning is the root of a successful business operational let me start over Planning is the foundation of a good business that will last.

20:28Planning is necessary to take the most advantage of any infrastructure that you put in place. Because if you plan and know what it is you're trying to accomplish in the first place, then you can always compare that checklist of what you're trying to accomplish to the tools you're aiming to put in place. Each time you put a new tool in place or a new person in place, then make sure it matches your plan and your goals, and then you will have an efficient organization from there. Inspiration. Inspiration can be hard to find sometimes, especially for small businesses. I know it's been tough through Hurricane Helene in the Asheville area for a lot of businesses, including mine, and a lot of individuals.

21:16it's hard to find inspiration to get up and get out there each day and get after it, even though the day got harder and you didn't expect it to with disasters like Killeen. But I think I am personally inspired by the way people responded in our community to our natural disaster and the way we looked after each other. I am inspired by that so much. And one of the things that I've taken away from that event is that my business, Good People Tech, we are here not just to make money for ourselves, but our goal is to help build people – excuse me. Good People Tech's goal is to help build sustainable communities and sustainable businesses.

22:03So if we have another Hurricane Helene or another pandemic or another whatever major disaster, any kind of economic downturn, my clients, if they have the right tools in place to run themselves efficiently and effectively, they are more likely to survive a negative economic downturn or a natural disaster. And their team members are more likely to be resilient through such a thing. And they are more likely to have extra resources available to give away to their community members in the situation if that need arises. That is my goal. So I am inspired very much by the work that a lot of people have done around us.

22:41And for many years in our community to try to help prop up the business community here, it's an unsung, very important part of where we live. Commitment. Commitment. Commitment is an important part of being a leader, I think, that is necessary. If your team doesn't see you committed to a cause or to a company, then that team is not going to be committed as well. So I try to carry that commitment. But my commitment is not just to the organization Good People Tech being successful. it's to myself and my family being successful it's to my clients being successful and to my team members being successful so i'm committed to those things perfect perfect now this next question you can be as candid as you'd like to be but what words of advice would you truly offer to other business owners who are looking to grow their business if you're a business owner looking to grow your business, I would ask you to make a list of the things that you would like to do over the next three months, six months, one year, three years.

23:57Then, backing up from that list, ask yourself how you're going to accomplish those major goals in those time periods, and ask yourself what you need to put in place in order to accomplish those goals. that overarching 50 ,000 foot plan is going to be a big help to you if you do not have something like that already. And then revisiting that plan regularly would be my next piece of advice. So you pivot and say, oh, that didn't work out or that particular approach is working really well. So let's measure how well it is working and then try to put some measurements on it and compare them to other tactics that you may be using.

24:41Let's say it's advertising. Maybe it's a new way of installing drywall. Maybe it's a new way of new route you use on your deliveries, whatever it might be. Try to set a goal and then measure whether you've accomplished that goal and how effective you were at it. Perfect. I appreciate that. So what's the next big thing for Good People Technologies? Good People Technologies is very proud to be working with local businesses here in the Asheville region, as well as around the country. We've got clients from California to Vancouver to – excuse me, let me back up and say that again. We've got clients from California to Toronto, Canada, and everything in between.

25:25And the organization Good People Technologies that I run is really looking forward to expanding our customer base and growing the number of people that we can support in creating and building sustainable businesses and sustainable job engines. So the goal for 2026 is for us to tell as many people as possible in the world that we will offer free 15-minute audits to any business or not-for-profit that has the desire. I would love to sit down with you and ask you a series of questions, go through what it is you're trying to accomplish and give you some recommendations at the end of it with a report that says, these are a few places that you could lean in and make some changes in a positive direction.

26:15Perfect. I love that. And lastly, what's the best way for someone to find you or get in touch with you if they're interested in that? Best way to find Good People Technologies and to take advantage of that free 15-minute audit is just to go directly to good people tech.com and sign up on the pop-up form good people tech.com. Perfect. Any social media? We are on LinkedIn and I do not know that domain name right out of the long URL, but, uh, but yeah, you can look us up on LinkedIn as well. Okay. Yeah. I'm sure you could just go to search and good people technologies. It should pop up. That's correct.

26:52And we actually do have, thank you for asking that. We have a team internally that publishes quite a number of posts on LinkedIn aimed at helping folks out there with some free advice. So it might be a series of questions to help you get out ahead of some issues, or it might be some free advice as to how to use a piece of software or what tactics or techniques you might be able to use to improve your operations. So, you know, follow us on LinkedIn and you'll find something useful. Fantastic. Yeah. Thank you so much for being a part of this community and for all that you're doing. We certainly wish you continued success.

27:32And I really appreciate you coming on the podcast, Benji. Thank you, Cliff. Really appreciate it. Thanks for all you do. Yeah. Thank you very much. Hey, thanks for listening to the Epic Entrepreneurs podcast. Here's three things that you can do. Number one, remember to subscribe to the podcast. It takes very little effort on your part. It's going to help you and your fellow entrepreneurs. Plus, you guys know how it works. The more subscribers we get, the more cool things we can offer to you. Second, to learn more about growing your business, just download my book, The Coach Approach. It's free for you at giftfrombill.com.

28:16That's giftfrombill.com. Hey, and if you'd like more info about growing your business and what we can do to help you grow your business, send me an email directly. Just send it to williamgilliland at actioncoach.com. That's my personal email that I read. No one else reads it first. It's not screened. It's my real email. Just send it to me. I can't wait to talk to you. Hey, and until then, all the best.