Chanie Gluck’s Vision: Creating A Place Where People Want to Work Ep. 74

If it's just about the money and it's just about the profit. That's not a driver anymore, but making a difference in someone's life, treating your employees amazing, giving them an amazing experience, creating a place that they belong and giving back to the greater community and just really making an imprint in this world in a positive way is what I'm super passionate about. Follow me along for the journey.

Welcome to FASCINATING ENTREPRENEURS. How do people end up becoming an entrepreneur? How do they scale and grow their businesses? How do they plan for profit? Are they in it for life? Are they building to exit these and a myriad of other topics? We'll be discussed to pull back the veil on the wizardry of successful and fascinating entrepreneurs. My book RELENTLESS is now available. Everywhere books can be bought online, including Amazon and barnesandnoble.com. Try your local indie bookstore too. And if they don't have it, they can order it, just ask them. The reviews are streaming in, and I'm so thankful for the positive feedback, as well as hearing from people that my memoir has impacted them positively. It is not enough to be resilient. You have to be RELENTLESS. You can go to therelentlessbook.com for more information. Thank you so much. Chanie Gluck is the founder and CEO of 4D global Inc. A medical billing staffing company, dedicated to supporting healthcare companies grow and scale their business. Today, we talk about how she's doubling her workforce this year, how she manages a mostly overseas team and what her strategy for growth is now let's get right into it.

I loved EOS. The moment I read traction, I'm a self implementer. I did it in my first business for the last four years that I owned that business. And I sold that business. When I started this business, I just started at straightaway. So level 10 meetings, core functions, all of the stuff that I love about EOS. And I really do think it's helped me scale. It's supposed to help me step into my visionary role and be comfortable with that. And know that I'm a true visionary. I love rocket fuel, you know, that relationship. So, yeah. I love EOS. It's great.

How do you think it helped the sale of your business and the sale amount for your business that you sold after you used it for the last four years?

So I think the value of the company, I think I got more because. I created a lot of systems and processes. And so in the few years before I sold, I just documented everything. I know that's kind of like an EOS principle or like an E-Myth principle, but being able to hand over an entire like policy procedure manual on every single aspect of the company, not just the operations, but I had a bio on every customer and I had. Everything was documented really well. I think that helped for sure.

How many customers did you have at that time? Cause I'm thinking about myself. We have thousands of customers because we're high volume, but-

I would say hundreds of doctors, one practice could have like 200 physicians. So I'm going to say many hundreds of doctors.

That's a lot of work. And then for your current company with EOS, here is a question that I just made up. If you had to choose one thing to do with your company from EOS and not anything else, which is never going to happen, but what's the number one most important element in your mind for your company.

I'm going to say using ninety.io, Because ninety.io really guides you through the EOS process. If you have everything in that system, it makes quarterly plannings easy and makes annual plannings and makes your L 10 meetings easy. Like everything flows very seamlessly. So. Getting that product and having your entire team use it. And I use it for same page meetings. So that's the one thing, get that software.

It's so great that you said that because, so for listeners, BOS is the entrepreneurial sort of operating system that Gino Wickman devised. And I think it really did. Harkin from Verne, Harnish's scaling up and we use it as well, but the software part is interesting. So in your last company, before selling, did you use a software or did you do Google docs, et cetera, et cetera?

Yes, I did Google docs.

Okay. And what would you say is the benefit in percentage, is it 50% better to use on online tool? Like ninety.io? And one more question about EOS. I have nothing to do with the EOS, like right. I'm not getting anything from them, but it is very interesting to me. There are other softwares that use the EOS, you know, they're in tandem. Did you check those out or did you just go straight for ninety.io?

I went straight for ninety.io.

Because you didn't compare.

I mean, I did look at others, but this was hands down to me. It made the most sense. And I just tried it like the offer a trial. I tried it. Right. And then I just get going with it.

Good. So how do you source them, qualify your new employees? And I know you're talking about onboarding some fairly new employees. Where are you finding that?

So all my employees are in India. I have a few employees in the U.S. but that's what we do. And we have an HR team and recruiting team. So we have a pretty large team that does the recruiting. I don't personally do any recruitment, but for a high-level position, I am a bit of a LinkedIn stalker. And so. I think anyone that's good is a working thing somewhere. And the person that's unemployed is probably not someone I want on my team. So I really look around and do some digging and I found a few of my best people. Thrillington through private messaging, them seeing whether at and many times people are unhappy and want to make the move.

Right. And how big is your company now?

Today? We're a 300 employees going to 600 this year. And our goal is to-

Wait back it up. That's double capacity. How are you managing for that?

We did grow 147% from last year. So we COVID, I know it sounds terrible because for most people it really was horrible, but I would say for our business, it was amazing and the Americans didn't want to work. People were pulling out of the job market. Yeah. People in India were hungry for work, and there are lots more people there and resources are plenty. And the objection that we had years ago about not wanting people, wanting people in their office and wanting to see them all that was gone with COVID. And so it really opened up the door. And I think a lot of other BPOs, which is what we do business processing, they were cutting salaries. And they were laying people off and we were just like all in. We just wanted a grow. And that's really what we did. So 300 employees and the 600 is easy because we now have a process. We now know how many employees we could onboard per month. And you do the math. Spread it out over the year. So it's very doable.

Very impressive. I would love to talk to you about the language barrier and the challenges that you might be having and how you solve for that. I know that probably most of your employees speak English to a certain level and it's probably various.

So there is a misconception, I think for many Americans thinking that there's a barrier and there is like for a data entry team, it's not there for English, not their first language, but it doesn't need to be, but for everyone on our executive leadership team, their communication is great. Anyone that's client facing has to be able, I have to be able to understand. And so they have to pass my test. If I can speak, talk to them and I can understand them, then that's fine. But I have to say that the culture there is culture, like I've never seen anywhere else. And what's interesting to me is that I look very different than anyone else in my team. I'm a white female and everybody else looks different and I've never felt so much love and acceptance from people that are so culturally different. That to me, I feel a tremendous amount of love. And I'm adored and I'm treated like a queen when I hum and they really roll out the red carpet for me. And they're just so, in all the years I've been there and I've been outsourcing since 2005. So it's been many years of using them and using an offshore team I've never, ever had a bad experience of somebody being mean and are disrespectful or, you know, so.

Why India specifically, I have employees in the Philippines. They're just what you described to me. I have friends in India, so I understand some of the culture that my friends particularly belong to. It's, you know, there's many different cultures within that region. So why India?

So when I first started offshore again, this is back in 2005 before social media, before anything, I just started putting out fillers to see what was going on out there. And all the companies at the time were in India. And the city that we're in Shanai specifically is where medical billing started close to 25 years ago. And so it's almost like in a hundred New York is the Mecca for finance the city in Shanai is the Mecca for medical billing talent. And so there is a crazy amount of talent, like just to give you an, we would put out a job or a job posting, and we can get 200 applicants in one day. And so to me that says something about the abundance of talent in that particular city. Now it's not all over India, it's in this city in India and the Philippines was more up and coming over the last, I would say 10 years where there it's been going on for way longer. So,

And so will you continue your concentration in India and not look outside of any other off shore?

Well, I would consider, I mean, we do have an office in the Philippines for some people that are sensitive to the accents and we do provide services in the Philippines, but so far. We've been having a tremendous success in India, but yeah, I'm open, it's a global economy, you know, so we just have to leverage the global talent wherever they are.

So far ahead of so many entrepreneurs with building a company on the foundation of off shore talent.

Yeah-

I didn't know that about you so we could go on and on and on, but I'm going to switch to another question. And so you are the visionary strategist of your company. I'm assuming you don't work day-to-day in the business. If you can answer that with this question, what is, what are the top three things that you're doing in your company as CEO now?

So for sure, the vision and the plan for where we're going. I do work a lot with my direct reports, making sure that we're in alignment, knowing where they're at, mentoring them, guiding them, coaching them. So I spend a lot of time. If people, I spend time, just the culture stuff, right? Making sure that we have the right culture, that we continue to win the great place to work certification that we won this year, continuing to be at the top of our game. And I do some of the client relationship stuff. Like we have a client services team that manages that, but I'm continuously staying on top of my most important relationship. And like the relationship aspect to the business as well. And the marketing and the podcast hosting. I have a podcast called Growing Global, and I have a, another podcast called Leaders in Medical Billing. And so I work on. But that's pretty much what I do.

So that's a lot of work and at least a 40 hour week, I'm assuming or more. And what about timeframe of your day? Are you working on your time zone? Their time zone? Somebody else's time zone?

No. So they're always working in my time zone and they adjust my schedule and that's fine because we have a 24 hour business. So there are people working at night and there are people working during the daytime, but all the people that report to me work during my daytime. I would say that the way I structure my week, I don't know if you're familiar with strategic coach and Dan Sullivan, but he talks about free days and focuses and buffer days. And so I really do set my schedule like that. So like podcast days are today, like Thursday are days that I reserved for that. I have my Tuesday, Wednesday that are my focus days, and I know exactly what I need to do those days. And on Thursdays are also my one-to-one days. So I have all my ones, ones on Thursdays, Fridays, a free day. Monday's a catching up day. So I kind of scheduled like that. Definitely give myself a lot of free time and downtime because I need time to think and to process. And if we're cram everything together, there's just no time to.

Right. Not to mention that you have a family as well.

Four children and a husband, and yes.

Okay. So. I'm just trying to imagine what that could be like, because we're not even talking about carpool, baseball games, ballet lessons. Somebody's got to feed everybody. Right. That's a lot of work and more power to you. I think you have it under control. You look like you do. So what is your number one? I asked this question because we see so much of the shiny glossy. Successes of entrepreneurs and that's what we really want to put forward first. But I like to find out from successful entrepreneurs, what their number one challenge and the businesses. So I would make an assumption that with a company that's growing from 300 to 600, that you actually, are great. And there's not really many downfalls, but you've got to be faced with the challenge because it's life and we're human beings. What is that challenge today?

There's so many Natasha. I could write a book about all the challenges I've been through. Cause it's not been a easy pleasant ride at all. And you're right. We always like to focus on all the great things, but oh my gosh, there's so many crazy things that happen. From left-field like unexpected, right? For me, I'm two weeks away from a trip to India and onboarding this new operations person that I'm super excited about and flying in my American people to India, I'm planning this whole retreats. And so the challenge right now is to make sure that. We continue to grow and have a aligned leadership team, even bringing new people in, like everything stays, the culture stays the same that people see the vision. And as you add different people, you know how it is, what do they call it? When you put someone else in it's storming, forming and norming, right? So you like know, you anticipate there's going to be a storm. Right? You bring someone new. The storm is about to happen. How are we going to make the storming as short as possible? So we can norm and form and like, and thrive. Right? So I know what's coming up. I know that there's going to be a bit of a storm, but I'm ready for it. I have to talk everyone through it. So that's my current challenge. This very moment as I'm talking to you, but a challenge a week ago was "oh, my gosh, this employee got this fantastic offer and told us they were going to join." And now I have to like try to match this offer and, you know, that's challenging and some wild things actually, without getting into details. I don't want to reveal too much, but I was kind of in a war with. Other employer in the same business as me without ever meeting him. And he said to his employee, "I've never lost to a woman before, and I cannot believe I am losing to a woman." And I'm like, "damn" like, Good for you like, wow. Right. So I'm glad I won great vanilla, unless feel like I hope he's not going to do anything bad to me.

Right. And would you say that is a cultural situation, you know, as eating much older? Like what do you attribute to.

Look, this is what I'm trying to change actually, because in India and in Asia, there's a lot of command and control leadership and people want to command. And this guy even said to me, he was yelling at his direct report and said, "Why aren't you listening to me?" And I'm like, which employee talks to their people like that. "Why don't you listen to me?" I mean, I don't need to listen to you. Like this is not a father-son relationship, like, so there's a lot of command and control and I am a trust and inspire a type of leader. And I like to lead by trusting and inspiring people. And every day is a choice. If you're going to come to work or not. Like, I'm not holding you down, you know? So I think it's like changing the way business is being done. Like as Americans we're used to it, we expect a certain culture over there. It's oppressive. Like the employers have power. And they use it and it's not nice for them. So anyway, that's a, long-winded answer to your question.

It's okay. I mean, it's good to explore, especially with someone like you, the challenges that might come with working in different parts of the world, right. It's a different experience. I don't know if I would ever encounter that sentiment from somebody in the United States, unless they were much older than. Me. I think that's the one thing that I would attribute to maybe some old fashioned thinking. So for your business, what is the strategy beside hiring, you're hiring. You're doubling your team because there's a need, but what is your strategy for growth to make sure that that business is coming in to sustain all of the growth?

We have a large sales team. We have a marketing team. I mean, everyone's like geared to go. My strategy in relation to my business has always been focused on a niche within health care. And like get the market, share of that niche and then move on to the next. And so what is your current niche? Current niche is urgent care, radiology, anesthesia, so, encoding. We have it set up for the rest of the year, so we will focus on a niche per quarter. And so we just go really hard on that one area. And it's been amazing for us. And so then we become experts in that area. We continue to get more, it's just easier to acquire more customers. So, yeah.

And is the acquisition process in your field really challenging? Do you stand out in the market as just best in class and, or is it so much referral based that the salespeople are really just creating and maintaining relationships?

I would say that. Our customers see using us as their secret sauce. They don't tell anyone. A lot of them don't say anything.

So it's not referral.

Right. So they don't want anyone else to know. But when it turns out like, Servicing all of their competitors, but like, we don't talk about it. And we don't tell anyone who our customers are, would if they ask, I have to get permission. If someone asks-

It's confidential.

Correct. Because it is a sensitive thing. Well, it's their choice. If they want to tell their clients or not, we are bounced our clients. So it really is not as much referral basis, Mather business, my billing company, which is all doctors that was all referral based. This is a little bit different, but the truth is word spreads in the market. The medical professionals are really tight and when someone's having success, It usually does spread word of mouth, but I would say my sales team is amazing. Like they're great and they know exactly who we want as a customer. And they're doing like outbound. Pursuing our ideal customer.

Do you, as a company provide specific sales training, do you outsource that?

So I had hired initially when I started my sales team, a sales sales trainer, he hired some of my top salespeople. We have a pretty large sales team in India as well. And so we have data mining people in India. And so we do that there. And then in the US, we focus on, we have closers in the US they're just closing deals and that's a perfect setup for us.

And is that part of your training module when you're onboarding and is it continuing, or does someone get that injection of training for the first three months and then they're on their own or

So we already have recorded training sessions that we've done with our very experienced sales manager. Who's the one that set things up. So he did a bunch of sales trainings and we recorded them all. And now we onboard somebody new. They just watched. And that's their sales training. And then obviously ongoing, we listen to calls once a week, we get feedback. We help them figure out what they did, right. What they did wrong, things like that. Yeah. It's an ongoing process with sales, but it's also, I find with sales, I use something called Culture Index where we find the right profile. Right. So it's all about finding the right profile for a sales person, the right personality type. Once we know that within our culture index, they has to be either a Rainmaker or a persuader. And we know that those profiles, personality profiles make really good salespeople. And so we don't even interview or hire. People that don't fit the personality profile of a salesperson.

So they have to take the assessment, correct? Right.

Yeah.

Okay. So if you're doubling in size, I'm going to assume you're doubling at least in revenue this year. What is the next five years look like on your vision board?

So 10,000 employees. I would like it to take five years. May it take eight years? That's really like the target of where we want to go, but still maintain the culture. I think to me, culture is key. I don't want to come from my culture. I don't want to do any acquisitions because I'm worried about the culture. And so that's kind of where I am right now, where I want to make sure that we retain this amazing thing we have. So that we can continue to grow. So that's what everyone's looking at, but you know what, to me, it's a lot about the journey and I have had in this last year or two, so many amazing moments throughout the journey that I stopped focusing on that horizon. And I just started enjoying. The joy of today, the joy of yesterday, like all the amazing things that are happening and just being able to sit with this is so good.

And if you don't make it to 10,000.

I don't care.

Yeah, that's what I assumed, but it's always good to have a goal in a number somewhere so that people are shooting towards something.

Yes.

Is there anything else that you wanted to share with everyone before we sign off? So

I would say I am really passionate about, not just looking at business as a way to be profitable, but looking to business to be a better world and to be a better place for people. And so we've done a lot of work with this orphanage. I'm super excited in India. I'm super excited for our next trip because we are doing a make-over of their bedrooms and it's going to be amazing. And I would love to see businesses out there. Provide meaning for their employees and find something to do to give back and to make this world a better place, because if it's just about the money and it's just about the profit. That's not a driver anymore, but making a difference in someone's life, treating your employees, amazing, giving them an amazing experience, creating a place that they belong, and giving back to the greater community and just really making an imprint in this world in a positive way is what I'm super passionate about and follow me along through the journey.

For more information, go to the show notes where you're listening to this podcast. Want to know more about me, go to my website, OfficialNatashaMiller.com. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you loved the show. If you did, please subscribe also, if you haven't done so yet, please leave a review where you're listening to this podcast. I'm Natasha Miller and you've been listening to FASCINATING ENTREPRENEURS.