#awinewith Kristy-Lee Billett
MEET Kristy-Lee, Founder of People Powered Business
You can find them here:
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:07):
Oh good. Christie Lee, thank you so much for joining us on Spark tv. I'm so thrilled to have you and to share your story.
Kristy-Lee Billett (00:15):
Thanks for having me, Danielle. It was so awesome to be here.
Danielle Lewis (00:19):
Amazing. Well, why don't we just start simply by telling the people who you are and what you do
Kristy-Lee Billett (00:24):
Easy. I love an easy start. So my name's Kristi Lee Billett. I am effectively a small business HR practitioner. I work with small to medium sized businesses to help them with all things. Team, getting the right team in their business, helping them manage that team, having a compliant HR function if you like, and helping them be amazing leaders because so many people get into business not with the intention of becoming a boss necessarily. And so I work with business owners to help them master that mental game of being a boss.
Danielle Lewis (00:55):
I love that so much because that's exactly what happened to me.
Kristy-Lee Billett (00:59):
I think it happened to all of us.
Danielle Lewis (01:01):
It's crazy. I started scrunch my other business 10 years ago or maybe longer than that now, and I was a salesperson by trade. So salespeople are just out on their own. The harder you work, the more you can earn, blah, blah, blah. I start this business thing and I'm like, what? It was such a rude shock. I'd never been a manager. I'd never planned on being a manager. And you just get thrust into all of this stuff. So why is it so important? Talk to me about a couple of things. I want to know why A, it is so important to have all of your HR stuff in order as a small business owner. And then I want to ask you about leadership, but let's start with the HR stuff.
Kristy-Lee Billett (01:43):
Yeah, it's a great question because I think as small businesses, we tend to think maybe the rules don't apply to us or that we'll just get away with it. And unfortunately, the legislation, particularly here in Australia isn't that friendly for businesses and sticking your head in the sand isn't a defense that the Fair Work Commission are particularly happy with. And the fines can be pretty horrendous for small businesses. So whilst a big business might be able to take a bit of a hit on an unfair dismissal claim or a fine for a small business, that can send you under very, very quickly. And also in the current market, applicants are pretty smart and savvy. They know what their entitlements are, they know what the awards are, they know all the bits and pieces, and we all know that the war for talent is pretty tight To find the best people, we've got to be doing all the right things and beyond. And so it is just one of those things that you don't want to have the headache of, and it's not hard to get it right, but it is something you shouldn't stick your head in the sand about because the risks are just too high. I think.
Danielle Lewis (02:46):
Yeah, I think you're spot on. It is really interesting as a small business owner, and obviously Spark is a community of small business owners, I do tend to hear that the, it'll just be okay, don't worry about it, worry about it when we're a little bit bigger or whatever. But you are spot on. It does come back to bite you if you're not actually educating yourself,
Kristy-Lee Billett (03:11):
Being a bit proactive. And I think there's this perception that HR is just for big business and it's not. But what small businesses need is also very different to what big businesses need. So if you've come out of a corporate environment before you start your business, the natural inclination is to think, well, I don't need all of that. And no, you don't, but it doesn't mean you don't need no HR whatsoever. You still need some employment contracts, some job descriptions, some policies, some processes, but you don't need the bells and whistles, all the stuff that a big corporate has. And in fact, most of it's not relevant to you and your team.
Danielle Lewis (03:46):
And that's probably the thing isn't it? Is you come from a corporate, a lot of us did or do, and you see that huge HR function and of course we all talk about lean, let's run a lean business. So you go, oh, that's not for me. But I don't think it has to be scary. I think to your point is yes, you may not need all of the things, but cherry picking what is going to set you up for business success, it's going to save you so much stress and potentially financial liability in the future.
Kristy-Lee Billett (04:18):
Yeah, it's all about protecting your business and creating processes that make your business thrive. That's the most important thing because I think for me, I think the key is you can't have a business that is both successful by all the measures that you want business to be successful by. And that gives you any sense of freedom. Without the right team, you can have a super successful business on your own. Absolutely. It can be amazingly profitable, but there's no holidays, there's no weekends, there's no evenings with the family or friends or whatever you want to be doing. So you need a team to have a really successful business that also gives you freedom. And most of us didn't get into business. We want to work 80 hours a week. That's generally not our plan. It's the reality, it's freedom.
Danielle Lewis (04:59):
Where's that freedom word that we all
Kristy-Lee Billett (05:01):
Say? Exactly. So you do need a team, and when you're going to have a team, you need to know how to make sure your business is protected and you've got the right things in place to make sure that it really hums along nicely.
Danielle Lewis (05:12):
You're so right. And literally before we hit record, I was saying that about I'm just about to go away and going, oh my God, I've got to dial into a couple of calls and hating life. So when do we actually think about things? Is it when we hire our first person or should we actually be thinking about HR from the get go?
Kristy-Lee Billett (05:31):
Look, I think you want to think about it as soon as you're starting to, excuse me, engage people in your business because you want to be thinking about, okay, am I getting outsourced VAs internal staff and what you're going to need around all of that is going to be very different. So of course you should always be thinking about it when you're planning, but that's not the reality. Let's be serious. So if you've got an employee on your team, you want to make sure and a direct employee who you are paying in your payroll, that's the time to start to make sure you are educating yourself. You understand your obligations, you understand all of the rules around it. And certainly as you start to build out that team, that's when you really want to get some structure. Because with two or three employees, you can wing a lot of things as long as you've got enough knowledge. When you start to get more and more staff, that's when it becomes a little bit trickier to manage. If you don't have things in place, they all want to take leave at once. Do you have a process for managing that? So with new levels, new devils, you get all different challenges, but if you are hiring employees directly, you absolutely want to start to educate yourself at the very least to make sure that your business is protected.
Danielle Lewis (06:38):
Yeah, I think that's such great advice. So how did you become such a HR guru was your experience before you got into business?
Kristy-Lee Billett (06:50):
This is so funny. I think most people, I didn't plan to do what I'm doing now. I think that's everyone's journey, isn't it? I studied forensic psychology at uni.
Danielle Lewis (07:01):
Wow, cool.
Kristy-Lee Billett (07:02):
Not quite hr. Yeah, super interesting. Learned how to profile serial killers, really interested in human behavior. And I sort of reached the end of my uni days and realized, oh, Australia doesn't really employ these people into jobs.
Danielle Lewis (07:17):
Yeah, I did the same thing, but I did it with fashion design. I was like, wow, there's no career path here. Yeah,
Kristy-Lee Billett (07:23):
No fabulously interesting, but no jobs. So I was at a loss and thought, I'm going to go do some traveling and walked into a recruitment agency to get some temp work to lead me up to when I went traveling and they said, oh, we are not going to find you a job. Just come and work here for us. And I said, yeah, sure, that sounds great. Thinking I'd do it for six months or a year and then off I'd go. Turned out I was pretty good at recruiting and had, because of my interest in human behavior, could read people very well. And so spent a bit of time in recruitment and I'd always wanted to work for myself. I'm from a small business background. My grandfather had his own business and I grew up in that environment and I'm very independent and very stubborn. So there was no doubt I was always going to work for myself. And a few years into my recruitment career, I thought I can do this on my own better in a different area and offer something very different. And so I started my business, my first business as a recruitment agency, which was super successful. But what I found was I could hire the best possible talent for a business, but everything that happened after that person walked in the door was broken or non-existent, things were going to fall over. Yeah.
Danielle Lewis (08:33):
Because recruiters usually have that window of success and it's like you can't even control that.
Kristy-Lee Billett (08:40):
No, we can't control what happens once someone walks in the door. And that's the bit that I wanted to help people fix. So it was probably 2010 that we branched out and became a HR consultancy. And now this has morphed into a small business HR specialist offering. But that's how I got into it. So definitely not by design.
Danielle Lewis (09:00):
I love it. But isn't that interesting how that is the journey, right? Nobody comes out of the womb going, I will be an entrepreneur and I will specialize in X, Y, Z. It is a bit of a trial and error sometimes and having life experiences, it's really interesting. I find sometimes people say to me, I just dunno what the idea is. I just don't have the big thing, the idea, the plan. I was like, I'm like over a decade into business, I still dunno what the plan is.
Kristy-Lee Billett (09:35):
Plans are overrated.
Danielle Lewis (09:36):
Totally, totally. But I think that's so important to have experiences learn from them and take the bits that you love and apply that into your next step. So I think that the journey is actually part of the fun.
Kristy-Lee Billett (09:52):
And I think as entrepreneurs are a little addicted to doing that and morphing and changing and tweaking sometimes too much
Danielle Lewis (09:58):
Maybe. Maybe I have a little ideas list,
Kristy-Lee Billett (10:01):
Shiny objects here and there.
Danielle Lewis (10:02):
Exactly. So how did you go moving from employee to business owner? What was that sort of mindset shift and life change for you?
Kristy-Lee Billett (10:13):
Really quite simple for me because I think, well, I'd already had the inclination to do it. And what had happened was I live in regional New South Wales and I had been doing the big commut into the city, and that was exhausting. And so I'd secured a job locally with a very, very big name, national, international actually recruiter, which was great. And about three weeks into a senior position with them, they did a nationwide restructure and said, look, we're not going to have two of these positions in this particular regional area. So there'll be one position. There's obviously two of us in the role now. The other person had been with that business for 20 years. And what had happened in that few weeks that I was with them was that I got the insight that there was a massive gap in this market that I was working in regionally.
(10:59):
There was no one servicing a particular professional services sector. So I could, and I'd very successfully built that business in the first few weeks. And I thought, well, if I can do it for someone else, I can do it for me. And so it was so early in, all I had to do was give a week's notice and I said, look, I'm not going to go up against someone that's been with you 20 years. She's great for the job, she should take the job. I'm going to leave. And I had a week, and conveniently I had a week where my ex-husband, who was very risk averse, would not have been okay with me quitting a corporate job. He was away on business, not surprising. It's an ex-husband obviously. So whilst he was away, I quit my job. I rented an office space, I registered my company name and was in rental office space by the time he arrived back from his work trip
Danielle Lewis (11:44):
Surprise and
Kristy-Lee Billett (11:45):
Had a new business, I've got a business. So I did it in a week and I spent that week. This is really odd given I'm a massive planner. I wrote every process and procedure, I created all the templates. I knew I was going to need to just hit the ground running. So when I walked in, and ironically, I was also adamant I had to lease an office rather than even the thought of starting the business from home was not even in consideration. And I now work from home and love it, but I was, nope. I've got to be in an office and at a desk with the phone
Danielle Lewis (12:14):
How times have changed on the old office space thing. Isn't it
Kristy-Lee Billett (12:17):
Hilarious? Yeah, absolutely. So for me it was not difficult because I already had the inclination and when the opportunity presented itself, I was just ready to jump.
Danielle Lewis (12:28):
And that's interesting, isn't it in and of itself, when opportunities do present themselves being ready, I think sometimes we think we've got to jump in, we've got to take big risks, but sometimes the planning phase and biting our time and waiting and then up, there's the opportunity and then jumping on it. There's nothing wrong with that. That's awesome.
Kristy-Lee Billett (12:51):
Absolutely. And I think until you get started, you could overplan things. You can really overcook things when you're overthinking it and thinking about all the things that might go wrong or the things you need to think about. And you can really get lost in that process, I think. And if you just jump at the opportunity, you've got to get started to figure out what's going to work and what's not going to work. And until you're in it, you don't know for sure. I think,
Danielle Lewis (13:13):
Oh my God, I couldn't agree more. There's so many assumptions that I made going into business that were completely wrong. And I can't tell you even over the last decade how many things we've rewritten, right? Things change. So policies have to change or processes have to change. I think that there's this thought that you have to know it all and it all has to be perfect from day one, but it's just figuring it out as you go along and doing the best you can with the information you have at hand at the time. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Kristy-Lee Billett (13:49):
No, that's perfectly normal. And actually the best way to do things. I think if you want it to be perfect before you start, you're never going to get started.
Danielle Lewis (13:57):
Yeah, I so agree. I just keep telling people, just do it. What's going to happen? You'll be right back here where you were. It's all good.
Kristy-Lee Billett (14:04):
Yeah, exactly. Exactly right. You've got to get started.
Danielle Lewis (14:07):
And what have been, so as you reflect on your time in business, any big challenges that you've had to overcome, any great lessons learned that you would impart wisdom to other female founders? I
Kristy-Lee Billett (14:20):
Think because I'm an extraordinarily impatient person, I've had to learn a bit of patience along the way. And I think for me particularly, I haven't learned that yet. No. When I say I've learned it, I've come to accept it to an extent. I think for me, particularly when I went to take a very bricks and mortar face-to-face in person business online, which ironically I started to do the year before covid hit. So it was handy timing on my part. In my mind I could see it so clearly that I was like, well, that'll just happen overnight. And it didn't happen overnight. And it's still a long extraction process to move from a one-on-one kind of model to a online delivery membership course program type offer. That appreciation of slow growth being actually really steady growth in that sense because I'd grown my in-person consulting practice 30, 40% year on year. So I'd seen very fast growth and I quite liked the fast growth, but in some environments, slow growth is actually better and really embracing a lot of the good stuff that comes with that. So learning to be a little bit more patient with myself and look at the benefits of some of that slow growth has been a bit of a challenge for me.
Danielle Lewis (15:36):
You mentioned, so I'm really interested, you mentioned moving to from physical office to more of a virtual model. I think that it's really interesting because obviously through Covid we all had to move to that model, but now a lot of people have either retained complete virtual or a hybrid model. So I'm really keen, because obviously you're someone who has spoken to a lot of potential candidates over Zoom or video. How do you go about getting the vibe from someone on video and what questions would you ask? So I'm just thinking about selfishly myself in hiring mode at the moment, and yeah, wondering, do you have tips for small business owners who are making that first or first few hires over video for getting that gut feel?
Kristy-Lee Billett (16:28):
Yeah, interviews, there's a real art to interviewing, and it's something that I think when you're only doing it a couple of times a year at most, it's really hard to get that right. So asking the right questions is absolutely essential. And I think when we're looking at video type interviews, we can do a lot in terms of we can see reactions and responses, but we can't see everything. So if this person is ultimately going to be face-to-face in an office, please get them in for an interview in your office prior to hiring them because if that is the environment they're going to be working in, you do want to a visual, you want to sort of see, okay, are they turning up in their trackit pants or are they presented? Well, we can only see so much on.
Danielle Lewis (17:07):
That's right. I've got trackit pants on right now. You'll never
Kristy-Lee Billett (17:10):
Know exactly. And if they're only working virtually who caress?
Danielle Lewis (17:13):
Yes,
Kristy-Lee Billett (17:13):
Exactly. But if you are going to bring them in, you're going to want to sort meet them and see them. But if it's just about understanding them, it's about getting your interview questions. So one of the most common mistakes I see people make is they start out the interview by saying, hi, I'm Danielle, and here's everything you need to know about my business and the role you've applied for. And the problem with that is you've just spoonfed the applicant all the answers that they need to have ready to give to you when you start asking questions. But if you just simply reverse that and you start with asking questions, you start with getting to know them, you ask the right type of questions, they're not already preloaded with information, and they're not going to then tailor their answers to what they think you want to hear.
(17:56):
So there's some really simple strategies you can use in interviews. It's definitely about asking the right questions. So questions that get them to give you specific examples about when they've done certain things in previous roles, what they would do differently next time, examples of when they've had to deal with a difficult customer if they're in a customer service role. So getting some real tangible examples of them and getting them talking about themselves to an extent as well. Getting them relaxed enough so that they're not in interview mode and only giving you exact answers, but relaxed to talk naturally how they would usually talk when you're going to pick up the little nuances that maybe might be problematic or that mean that they're a great fit for you.
Danielle Lewis (18:35):
And it is really tricky, isn't it? Because you've got say small business owner who's going, oh my God, how do I conduct an amazing interview? And then you've got candidate who's nervous they want a new job. So actually getting it right is super tricky.
Kristy-Lee Billett (18:50):
It is really hard, and I think an interview is the most important part of the hiring process, but it's not the only thing you should be doing. When you layer a great interview in with lots of other screening strategies, the chance of making a great recruitment decision just really skyrockets and the candidates are nervous, and then sometimes they overtalk or under talk, and lots of things happen. But also candidates are really smart these days, and they're often very well prepared with prescripted answers. So you really, part of it is almost trying to trick them up to get some actual realness. Exactly.
Danielle Lewis (19:23):
Yeah. And it is so funny. I remember, so this might be taboo, but back in the day, once I'd gotten down to the last couple of people, I would actually take them out for a wine. I was kind of like, you know what? If I am spending eight plus hours a day in the office, so that was when we were in the physical office with you. I want to be with people that I can actually have a real conversation with. And I think I was speaking to a leadership person about how there was this time we went through as employers calling people family, and how toxic that is.
Kristy-Lee Billett (20:00):
I don't like it.
Danielle Lewis (20:01):
No, no. So not quite to that extent, but I was like, we need to be good humans, and when times get tough, I need to know that we are going to be able to talk things out and just appreciate each other on a human level. And I used to find that. I was like, well, if I can't sit and have a glass of wine with you for 30 minutes, then you're probably not my vibe.
Kristy-Lee Billett (20:26):
I actually don't mind that recruitment strategy. I quite like it. I think if that's your culture, if you're going to be the card of business that is going to have Friday drinks, for example, then is this a fit? And I think it's no different to taking someone out for a coffee, really in that sense.
Danielle Lewis (20:42):
Yeah, totally. We might start with a coffee for the interview and then I'd up with the phone.
Kristy-Lee Billett (20:48):
Right. Onboarding week is a wine for sure.
Danielle Lewis (20:50):
That's right. That's exactly right. Oh, I love it. I love it. Amazing. So, okay, I'm just sort of thinking through small business owners going through the interview process. When you said as a recruiter it was really challenging to then once you'd placed an amazing candidate into a small business or any business, were there any things that, we mentioned obviously the formal HR things like the appropriate job description, contracts, processes, procedures. What does actually set a candidate up for success in those first couple of weeks when coming into a small business?
Kristy-Lee Billett (21:26):
Good onboarding is absolutely essential. And we are bad at it. We are really, really bad at it. Big business and small business are both bad at it, but what we forget is we offer someone a job and they say, great, I'd love to join you. And then it might be like four weeks that they've got to give notice or there's a period of time before they start. And what happens, particularly in this current market, is they're getting other offers. Maybe they're getting a counter offer from their current employer. They've got recruiters contacting them on LinkedIn saying, Hey, I've got all these amazing offers for you. They've got other job applications they've had out in the wings that are now coming to them. They're a little bit in limbo. They've resigned from their position, they know they're joining us, but if we're not communicating with them from that point on, it's very easy for them to get lost.
(22:13):
So onboarding starts from that moment because so often what happens is we go, great. They're starting on the 6th of December. Cool, we'll get everything ready before then. And we're in the background getting the IT stuff sorted, making sure we've got everything ordered for them, but we're not communicating with them. So they don't know that we're excited that they're coming. They don't know that we're getting everything planned. So you've really got to start that onboarding then. But obviously the big part of onboarding starts the moment they walk in the door on day one or log in on day one. And if we get the onboarding right, the chance of retention skyrockets well over 50% increase in retention rate if you get your onboarding right. And onboarding is not about giving them the policy manual to read on day one, and that's it. Yes. I want them to approve the policy.
Danielle Lewis (23:01):
Is it about swag? Because I feel like swag cool.
Kristy-Lee Billett (23:04):
I like swag. Yeah.
Danielle Lewis (23:05):
We're all competing with Shopify and the big guys who've got the desk full of T-shirts and mugs and all the things.
Kristy-Lee Billett (23:12):
Onboarding is at its core, making someone feel comfortable in the workplace and excited to be there. That's really all it is at its core. So making sure they've met everyone on the team virtually or otherwise, making sure they understand where they fit in this whole big picture and where all the moving pieces are going, understanding where to go if they need to order something, what the appropriate processes and protocol are, who they need to talk to about what different things. And for every business, obviously that process is going to look different, but if you can make someone feel comfortable in the environment, comfortable in their role, comfortable in the team, they're going to be much more productive, much more quickly. And so there's a whole range of layers you can load into that. But onboarding is not just, here's your desk, here's where things are, see you later. And I think that's the most common approach we see.
Danielle Lewis (24:03):
Yeah, and it is funny. I find as small business owners sometimes we think, I don't have time to train you. It is that short-term, long-term attitude, right? It is the short-term. If I sit down and I really make this person feel amazing, feel like part of the team and feel like they're set up for success, that short-term investment in time, whilst for us, we're going, oh my God, I don't have time
Kristy-Lee Billett (24:30):
Today.
Danielle Lewis (24:31):
It's such a big payoff, huge payoff.
Kristy-Lee Billett (24:34):
Huge, huge payoff. A successful recruitment project comes down to three things, creating the right role. Because if you're not hiring for the right role, that's a problem. Finding the right person for that role, which is all about your interviews and everything, and hiring at the right time. If you don't have the time to onboard and train, do not hire. And if you don't have enough work yet, do not hire. You've got to get the timing right. I've worked with businesses that have hired someone, right as they're coming into their busiest period of the year and everyone's frantic. No one has time to give them the time of day, and they just don't stick because they feel like they're in the way, they don't belong. They dunno what they're doing. No one's training them. They don't feel valued. So you are often better if you are in the thick of the busiest period of the year holding off hiring because you're not doing anyone a service by bringing someone in at that point in time.
Danielle Lewis (25:25):
And I also think it disrupts your current staff.
Kristy-Lee Billett (25:28):
Absolutely. Yeah. Because they don't have the time. They also, yeah.
Danielle Lewis (25:31):
And I also, they're good people too. They feel bad about not giving that new person the love that they need.
Kristy-Lee Billett (25:38):
Absolutely. Yeah. So you've got to get those three ingredients. Right.
Danielle Lewis (25:41):
I love it. That's awesome. Okay. Is there, I always like to wrap our podcast interviews. Is there a piece of advice that you would give another woman in business who, just reflecting on your journey, is there one piece of advice that's really helped you through tough times or being one of those things that you're like, if only I had of known this, or one mantra or a piece of advice that you would pass on to somebody else?
Kristy-Lee Billett (26:09):
Just one's tricky. I think there's, I'd say two things. One, back yourself. If you want to do this, if it's in your bones that this is what you want to do, back yourself, there is a way through it. And also surround yourself with good people, because being in business can be lonely. Your staff don't get it. Your family don't get it. No one else gets it. So surround yourself with other people who are doing this because they will be there to catch you. When it all goes to pieces, they will be your biggest cheerleaders. They will help you solve all the problems, and you're all solving similar problems. So having that support network of peers, like-minded business owners, other people around you, I think is gold. And when I haven't had that around, I've really noticed it.
Danielle Lewis (26:55):
That is spot on. I could not agree with you anymore.
Kristy-Lee Billett (27:00):
Yeah.
Danielle Lewis (27:01):
Christie Lee, thank you so much. I know our chat has come at a time where I am going to steal those pieces of advice. Yay.
Kristy-Lee Billett (27:09):
Great. So
Danielle Lewis (27:10):
I know that anyone listening in that's going to make a real difference to their business. So I do appreciate your time and sharing your insights and wisdom with our community. You are incredible. Thank you.
Kristy-Lee Billett (27:21):
Thanks for having me, Danielle. It's been so good to be here with you today.
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