People who lead with “what’s the title?” not “what’s the problem you’re solving?” are people to watch very, very carefully.
👉 They will ace your interviews.
👉 They will dazzle you and have all the right answers. 👉 They will have compelling backgrounds and seemingly been the lynchpin at each role they worked in before. It’s a wonder those companies didn’t do more to keep such an individual. 👉 Euphemisms like “rockstar” and “ninja” follow them like groupies at a mall concert. 👉 They will have had some “bad experiences” in the past as well, perhaps short-durations in jobs here and there but have the charisma to dismiss them well enough that you will dismiss them as well.
People who lead with “what’s the title?” not “what’s the problem you’re solving?” are people to watch very, very carefully.
You will want to hire them and, even when the Rewards and People teams question why they deserve XYZ title, you will find yourself using the same justifications they deftly gave you. You might even let slip that they might be a rockstar or ninja, and that we’d be foolish to let this one slip through our fingers.
The title matters. Dont mistake me. But people who are title-first are actually money-first and prestige-first and self-first.
I’ve never seen anyone who worried first about their title in a new role care about their people, their team, their work output or their company more than themselves.
And they will choose what adds to their prestige, influence, and power every. single. time there’s a choice to be made.
And some of them are in your company right now.
One of them might be who you looked at in the mirror this morning.
I have used Gusto* twice now to run my payroll in my business ventures and, in the 8 clicks or so that it took to pay my contractors and employees today, I thought I should write about it. Partly because, for some strange reason, I avoided using them during my current venture even though I loved them before. Looking back, I put myself through a lot of pain this go-round. Don’t do that to yourself. #learnFromMyMistakes
Managing payroll and compliance with Gusto makes my small business or solopreneur venture even more awesome. Key benefit for me? Paying contractors any amount with direct deposit with no extra fees or transaction charges. ? ⬇️ Finally, I can stop using Venmo!
Gusto definetly goes on my list of how to run a business smarter, not harder. Three years (and $20k in tax issues later), cough up the comparative pocket change to do this right.
The OLD WAY of paying contractors for me included trying to find their venmo account, ignore how many times they bought tacos last week (really?) negotiate on if they wanted payment from Cash App instead or maybe paypal… and then haggle over who paid the transaction fees. This worked “great” until I had enough business I bumped up against my venmo transaction limits, and my people will attest that the waiting around for payments SUCKED. I had two contractors getting paid by venmo, one on Cash app, a bunch I had to hoodwink into reactivating their PayPal accounts (and I coughed down the fees most of the time). P.S None of this included the accounting gymnastics I got to do monthly when I had to parse out which payments went to whom and for what work
The cost of using Gusto to pay yourself + 9 employees is the equivalent of 58cents an hour. If your billing rate can’t choke that down, I seriously recommend you find a regular job ?.
If you are going out (or already out) on your own or taking on a side hustle, or partnering with some colleagues at a joint-venture, it’s alluring to run everything on your own and go lean, but after three years of trying and making mistakes at this, I am learning to automate the things computers can do so I can do the things I do best — which is recruit and lead and support my team.
Things Gusto does very well (the top three were enough for me to stop kicking myself and sign up)
Manages payroll for W-2 employees seamlessly.
Send payments to 1099 Contractors direct deposit, and for no extra fees.
Run as many payroll or expense reimbursement runs per month as you like, for no extra fees.
Ability for your employees to get “instant” paychecks if they like or are short on cash (no cost to you).
Ridiculously quick and friendly support.
Awesome, simple user interface.
Access to benefits and other nifty features such as charitable contributions, 401k, 529 accounts, life insurance and more.
Helps you process 1099s and W-2 statements at the end of the year.
Know before you submit payroll exactly how much will come from your accounts and when.
Automatically handles state and federal tax requirements, sending the right tax amounts to the right withholding accounts so you can rest easy knowing the tax man cometh, but not with a scythe. They even got my account numbers for me. I did zero paperwork.
Onboard and offboard employees, even sending offer letters!
Sync magically with all accounting packages.
Causes your accountants to regularly break out into song.
Plus, they’re giving you $100 Amazon gift card to try it just for signing up at my recommendation (after you run payroll). I mean, I would recommend it anyway, but, if they’re going to front you a hundred bucks, that’s 2.5 months worth of their fee if you (yourself or others) are a W-2 employee. That’s 4 months free if you have no W-2 employees and 4 contractors (16 months free if you have just one contractor).
Full disclosure, I also get $100 if you try this. I’d recommend it anyway, so, if you feel strange about that just go to gusto.com yourself and sign up, or ask your accountant to refer you if you want to keep the cash “in the family”, so to speak.
Either way, I ran payroll and paid my contractors and ticked off a bunch of tired old tax-compliance boxes using Gusto this morning in way less time than it took to write this.
Or, keep doing payroll the hard way.
Gusto is part of my accounting stack for small businesses, which includes:
*This is a referral link. If you go here and buy stuff, I may or may not get a small something in return. It might be money or a gift-card or a discount on my service. It’s usually not much. And, I am a paying customer of all these services, so its really just soda money in the end. I am not living off this, lol. If this makes you feel strange, feel free to run over to that website all by yourself or ask someone else to refer you. No problem. But if you feel like my advice helped you, clicking this link is one way to say thanks. I mean, that or five pound box of $50 bills would work, too… but clicking the link is easier. #justsayin
