Mia Fileman 0:05
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Hello, friends! Welcome back to the “Got Marketing?” Podcast!
I’m your host, Mia Fileman.
There comes a certain point in business where you can’t grow until you resource – whether that’s in-house resourcing or outsourced resourcing. There are a lot of tough decisions that need to be made because managing a team is the hardest thing about running a business. Let me tell you.
After managing a remote team in my agency, I swore off hiring a team ever again. I was like, “Never doing this again! I’m going to have an outsourced team from now on.” But then – and I’m sure this is a common tale – I hit a growth ceiling. It got to a point where I couldn’t grow my business anymore until I resourced.
In today’s episode, I chat with leadership mentor and employee experience strategist – Hareta McMullin – about leading an outsourced team and workplace culture. H is a recent Campaign Classroom graduate and a thought leader in this space who has received tons of media coverage. I know she can handle some of my tough questions.
Welcome to the show, H!
Hareta McMullin 1:43
Hello! Thank you so much for having me!
Mia Fileman 1:45
Thanks for joining me!
I love that you pitched me on this episode, and you pitched me so beautifully because, of course, you are a Hack Your Own PR grad. I was like, “They are so well-trained!”
Hareta McMullin 2:00
Yes, the skills you learn on that program are so transferrable.
Mia Fileman 2:05
Aren’t they? I couldn’t agree more.
Let’s dive in!
Many startups are struggling to keep the lights on in 2023. This is a very difficult year fiscally. I think we are really now feeling the aftereffects of COVID on our economy. Why is workplace culture a priority?
Hareta McMullin 2:25
It underpins everything.
As you’ve mentioned, the top challenges we’re seeing now is driving revenue whilst managing costs, but also trying to hire, retain, and/or develop the right skill set in our business. How your people feel will determine your ability to attract and retain the right people but also drive performance.
One reason behind that is their level of loyalty and accountability towards your business. If that’s not there, if they don’t feel accountable – and that’s not to say they’re not held to account – if they don’t feel that proactive sense of accountability, they’re not really going to care. Or care as much.
When you need to make those hard decisions and communicate those, you may feel that you get more resistance rather than acceptance and even helping you deliver upon those decisions.
You may find that, when things get tough, instead of banding together, helping ne another, having that smooth sense of communication and togetherness, you will crumble and people will start to silo and work individually because, as humans, we are all in it for ourselves.
You will start to feel more friction and things will start to feel harder and harder and harder, and perhaps you won’t really know why because culture is one of those fluffy terms and feelings. It often comes down to a feeling that will resonate in some of those more tactical and practical elements like your revenue, your productivity, presenteeism, and engagement.
Mia Fileman 4:19
I couldn’t agree more! I feel like this is something that business owners learn the hard way.
When I ran an agency, we had three different offices – Darwin, Toowoomba, and Melbourne. We had teams in each of those offices. I have not received any leadership training whatsoever, so I was really flying by the seat of my pants. It wasn’t something that I prioritised.
I had a small team. I had seven people across those three offices. I didn’t think it was important.
Then, exactly what you have described happened. There was one particular employee who was incredibly high performing. She would exceed all of her KPIs. She was quick and efficient. She was really good at getting stuff done and really driving results, but she couldn’t work with anybody else. She was driving the rest of the team crazy.
As a business owner, I was really torn because she’s such a high-performing employee, but what value is she if she can’t play well with others and she can’t lift others up? She can’t support and help. She was getting frustrated with the rest of the team.
These are lessons hard learned, I would say.
Hareta McMullin 5:36
Absolutely.
Mia Fileman 5:38
Would you agree that this is important – even in a small team? These cracks can appear even more pronounced in a team of three versus a team of ten because you have less people. This idea that “I only have one or two employees, so this is not important.” Well, I only have two employees, and it’s still really important.
Hareta McMullin 6:00
Absolutely.
You can’t hide. It is there in front of your face.
The other thing I’ll say is, yes, you may “only” have two or three people, but it’s still – dare I say – one of the biggest costs to your business. Does it not make commercial sense to proactively and effectively manage one of those larger costs to your business?
Mia Fileman 6:25
It’s 40 percent of my revenue, H. Yes, it’s a huge part of my business!
That really brings us to the next topic I want to discuss. Do you build an in-house team like me? Or do you have an outsourced team? With the rise of the gig economy, outsourcing roles and engaging contractors on a project basis has really increased in prevalence.
Many employers – like me – are looking to find a less traditional approach because that traditional model of having a commercial lease on a property, filling it with permanent and part-time employees who sit there for 40 hours or 20 hours a week regardless of how much work you have come in, having to supply them with laptops, phones, biscuits, milk, a fridge, ergonomic desks, ergonomic chairs, and all those things is extremely expensive to a business.
Entrepreneurs are innovative creatures and we have tried to find ways to approach this in a different way. However, I feel like there’s a lot of false economies when it comes to in-house versus outsourced. I’d love to get in that with you.
Hareta McMullin 7:53
Absolutely!
I’ll give you a typical HR answer and say, “It really depends!” and that is the great thing about business. When you are looking at whether or not to outsource or to hire in, it starts with having a really clear understanding of where you want to take your business, where the skill gaps are, and what those skill gaps will equal and enable you to do.
It starts with building out a really clear organisational structure.
From there, you can also research what options are going to fit for you. It’s about having an understanding of the financial implications of permanent part-time, permanent full-time, contracting, et cetera.
From there, you can make an informed decision on what’s going to work for you based on whether you need a role to do things for you longer term and whether or not you have that work or you have got that work planned or whether you need a specific set of skills for a short period of time.
It really comes down to looking at what you need. Whilst there are benefits to each, you won’t know that until you really look into it.
Mia Fileman 9:11
Yes, and I would say that it’s really important to do a side-by-side analysis.
I had our accountants do that. I said, “I want to understand all the costs of a contractor and what is a fair and reasonable alley rate.” Sure, I don’t pay their tax, so that’s super, but I will be paying them significantly more per hour versus a full- or part-time employee, including super, including tax, including everything else that goes in it.
We did a side-by-side analysis; permanent part-time and full-time was substantially cheaper for my business. For anyone that’s ever tried an outsourced team, in theory, it sounds really attractive because you only pay for what you need. If business is slow, then you’re not paying, and you can have someone who’s just as invested in your business – whether they’re in-house or outsource.
But the reality is actually quite different.
I have had people say, “I have gone through three or four different VAs then they leave.” “They only work on Mondays, and something comes up on Tuesday so I end up having to do it anyway because they only work on that particular day.”
There’s also this expectation when we hire someone outsourced that they come with a particular skill set that that’s ready to go. A VA or OBM – especially in my industry – these are not degree-qualified strategic marketers with five years of experience.
Expecting them to be able to write an email sequence or manage your social media or write website copy at the same calibre of a marketing manager is having very unrealistic expectations. Then, what happens is you end up training someone who’s not in your organisation those skills. You are not in-housing them; you are outsourcing them.
To cut a long story short, I made the decision that, as a marketing trainer and mentor, I was very happy to train my staff, but I want to retain that knowledge within my organisation. Any investment that I make in Emily and Ashley stays within Campaign Del Mar. It helps the business as opposed to training contractors to do things the way that I want them to do.
Hareta McMullin 11:41
Absolutely!
You hit on so many points I was thinking about as well.
We have to think about the non-direct financial implications. There are consequences that we don’t think perhaps have a direct financial impact – like the time that you spend upskilling and training when you look at your hourly rate. Let that sink in! How long are we spending as the director and founder training and doing a job that we should be paying a fraction for? There’s that, too.
There’s also the question of quality. A great example that I thought of with this is Qantas outsourcing their baggage handling and the mess that that made.
I dare say they spent more trying to clean that mess up than if they were to have retained their service in-house with the cost of PR, with the cost of directing more payroll to customer service, but also – I don’t know if you recall – they asked their executive team to help out on the ground and actually perform some baggage handling services.
Whilst that does have some benefit in terms of optics and the executives understanding what that role entails, you are essentially paying someone $100 an hour to do a job that only costs $30. There are some of those considerations to take into account as well when you think about your organisational design.
Mia Fileman 13:15
Totally. That actually makes me think of another example.
My husband is in the military. Traditionally, the military has had their own cooks. It’s a whole division. They are the ones that prepare the meals at the mess. But they were like, “We can outsource this to a catering company – a big one like a Sodexo or a Spotless Catering.” They are all about costs.
The food at the mess is substantially less quality than what it was when it was run by military cooks who are cooking for their brothers in arms and are like, “No, we want to give them something really good.” There’s pride in it.
“This is our core in the armed forces. This is what we do. We are the cooks,” as opposed to a catering company that’s like, “Yes, whatever. We go in there. We make bulk meals. It doesn’t matter what they taste like – as long as they get fed.”
Now, what we’re finding is that all the soldiers are getting UberEats. They’re not even using the mess because the quality is not there and there’s pushback because they don’t want to pay mess fees. They’re like, “We don’t want to pay for this. We’ll get pizza ordered by Domino’s.” Not great for their nutrition!
Hareta McMullin 14:32
No, absolutely.
You bring up the point of quality and engagement. When you outsource, one challenge is that sense of consistent quality, especially in the creative industry when do much of that relies on understanding the client’s brief really well but also your style as a business because that’s really what sets you apart to your clients and your customers.
Unless you engage with someone who’s so onto it and so proactive, that’s going to be additional management for you to manage that sense of quality longer term.
Mia Fileman 15:15
I also feel that, in business, you need to back yourself.
If you are completely risk-averse and you are not that kind of person that likes risk and you like security, I don’t know if running a business is for you. Sorry, not sorry! That’s the reality. If you are in business for a long time, then – at some point – I feel like you need to back yourself and not be like, “What if?”
I know that, when you become an employer, your mindset changes. You’re like, “No matter what, this has to work because I have got mouths to feed now.”
Hareta McMullin 15:53
Absolutely.
The great thing is that it’s not a permanent decision. You can change. If you try outsourcing and it doesn’t work, you can change that. If you get a permanent employee and that doesn’t work, it’s a little bit harder to change, but it is still achievable to do so. You can then outsource. It’s not a permanent decision that you are making.
Mia Fileman 16:15
Yes, and – as a small business – you do have a lot more flexibility than bigger businesses.
Redundancies in a big business are difficult. In a smaller business, if you are struggling, if you are not making enough revenue – and I am by no means an employee specialist here – I do know that you don’t have to continue to hire someone on the books if you can no longer financially afford to do so as a small business.
Hareta McMullin 16:45
Absolutely.
In my experience with redundancies – unfortunately, I have now done a few of them – it all comes down to (a) the strength of your relationship and (b) how you communicate that. It doesn’t have to be a really horrible experience.
Mia Fileman 17:02
Basically, don’t do what Elon Musk did with Twitter.
Hareta McMullin 17:05
Yes, we all know my thoughts on him!
Mia Fileman 17:10
Let’s go!
Hareta McMullin 17:11
My god. Do we have time?
I think he is the textbook definition of how not to lead.
Mia Fileman 17:20
It’s a shame in a way, don’t you think?
He was doing quite a lot of good for the world before he did this.
Hareta McMullin 17:30
Absolutely.
Mia Fileman 17:31
He is the reason why every car company now has pivoted to finally creating an electric car because they were like, “If you can’t beat them, you’ve got to join them.” Now, everyone’s got an electric car, and we’re all buying electric cars. This is finally here.
He was also making it accessible to have internet for everyone. He was also thinking about the fact that, if this planet gets destroyed, it might be worth looking at another one, but all of that has come crashing down because of how he has treated people.
Hareta McMullin 18:00
That’s the thing about leadership. We all have strengths. There’s no denying it; he has some incredible skills, thought processes, and innovations, but does his strength lie in leadership? There’s a question to ask.
Mia Fileman 18:17
The answer is no.
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If you are going to go down the approach of hiring contractors because that’s what makes sense for your business right now, what are some of your top tips for effectively managing a contractor relationship?
Hareta McMullin 19:20
I think part of it comes down to the length of time.
I’m going to share my tips on if this is going to be a more long-term arrangement. My advice would be to approach it like you would if they were a permanent employee.
Before you even hire them, have a really good conversation around what they are going to be responsible for, your working styles, and expectations around how you work and communicate so that you’re both on the same page walking into this working relationship.
Once you have hired them, a really strong onboarding process will set yourself up for success. That doesn’t have to be really fancy. It just means taking time to teach them about your business so that they know what’s working, where your pain points lie, your tone of voice, your style – everything they need to know and you want them to know to set that up for success from the beginning. If you don’t do that, that’s where miscommunication comes in. Frustration.
Assumption is huge. We assume people because they have the skills that they have that they should know how to do this, but no one is a mind reader. My ethos has always been to share. If they say, “I already know that!” or “Yes, I’ve got it!” then at least you know they’ve got it.
Ongoing, I would then suggest regular check-ins. It’s as simple as that. Every week or fortnight or whatever you deem appropriate to have a dedicated space of time to connect about anything other than specific projects. That could be talking about how your communication flow is going or maybe there’s some mis-stepped expectations and turnaround times that you want to address.
You can pick up all these little spot fires before they become full-on bushfires. That’s it!
Mia Fileman 21:25
Can I be devil’s advocate here and say I agree with that? That’s exactly what I would do for an employee, but I feel that there might be some small business owners, listening to this and going, “What about my IP? What about sharing all this proprietary company information like our brand strategy and our internal processes and how we do business differently and our business sharing that with a contractor?”
Hareta McMullin 21:50
I absolutely totally get that.
I would assume there would be a contract in place where you could include clauses about that confidentiality which I would suggest anyway.
The second thought that comes to mind is looking at the cost benefit. Yes, there is that risk there, but what is that going to give you in return and the quality of output and your relationship long term.
Really think about that and how that will then bolster up that sense of trust in your relationship, so the likelihood of them ripping you off decreases.
Mia Fileman 22:30
Totally.
You made such a good point there which is that you need your own contract as a small business owner. Don’t rely on the contracts that the contractor has. Have your own contractor agreements which have a confidentiality and IP protection clause.
There are some incredible legal services available, specifically for female founders. Riz Mcdonald from Foundd Legal has incredible contracts for all sorts of things like influencer agreements, collaboration agreements, and also employment contracts. Do not skimp on the legal cost, please.
Hareta McMullin 23:17
Absolutely.
I have actually used her and her team for a few of my own contracts as well. It’s really important. I know legal can be a tough one and it’s not everyone’s language, but making sure you dedicate time to understand what the contract says and not skimming over there and plugging in the blank spots.
Mia Fileman 23:37
We’ve recently started implementing a confidentiality agreement during Campaign Classroom so that the students can feel really confident talking about their plans – their marketing campaigns and their marketing plans – in a room full of other people and everyone is bound by that confidentiality agreement.
I feel like that’s good business sense. It makes everyone feel psychologically safe and ready to open.
Hareta McMullin 24:05
Absolutely.
You can back up that hard piece of protection with a softer conversation around Chatham House Rules – like, “let’s not be eggs here,” “let’s work together, respectfully,” and both raise together.
Mia Fileman 24:25
For sure.
I feel like you need to lead by example in everything in life. I have had so many people say to me, “But if you don’t put firm rules in place, people will take advantage.” I don’t know.
I have a Facebook group with 700 people in it. I have had to remove one person, and I don’t even think it was a person. I think it was a bot. The rest go in there, get a feel for the group, and no one goes in there and hard sells. No one is a bully. No one is trolling.
I think that we overcomplicate things. I feel like you need to set the standard and the expectations, and then people will follow that.
Hareta McMullin 25:08
I couldn’t agree more.
That’s my philosophy and how I approach HR and employee experience – let’s not treat our people like we think we need to treat children. The more you put rules in place, the more people resist those because people want autonomy and they want to be trusted. If we’re putting all these hard and fast rules in place, we’re telling our people – right as they walk through the door – that “we don’t trust you.”
Mia Fileman 25:35
Yes, exactly right. Such a good point. I love that.
You have some pretty firm views about what employers and business owners should be responsible for when it comes to both an in-house and an outsourced team. What are some of the things that you should be doing?
Hareta McMullin 25:55
When we look at hiring someone permanently, we take on that responsibility for providing those financial and non-financial benefits. When we hire someone on a contracting basis, the understanding is hat they are not here for the long haul, so it’s not worthwhile to invest in them because, theoretically, we are not going to get the return.
Where my opinion lies is there may be certain direct financial things that don’t make sense to do and that’s fine. It is those softer, more relational, human side experiences that I believe you should be doing.
A lot of that comes down to conversation and how you make that contractor feel like they are a part of your business with the end goal being to drive that sense of ownership and accountability and care level. Also, it flows on to the quality of work and your overall sense of enjoyment at work.
If you are working with a contractor and it feels like you are pulling teeth out, then I would not necessarily define that as a success either.
Mia Fileman 27:15
Yes, you’re so right.
I feel like people work with contractors, they don’t have a great experience, and then they cancel the contract and say, “Bye! See you later! We don’t need you anymore. Thank you very much!” but never stopping to go, “You know what? I’m actually going to have a difficult conversation with them, tell them what they are doing wrong, give them an opportunity to improve it, and maybe look at keeping them because then I’d have to start from scratch with a new contractor.”
Hareta McMullin 27:43
Absolutely.
You make such a great point. A lot of the reason behind why we perhaps let go is because we are too afraid and we don’t have the capability or the skills to have what we perceive to be a difficult conversation but it’s really not that difficult once you know how to do it.
That’s part of being a leader – developing yourself to do some of these things. When you have a contractor that’s with you for the longer term, the stakes are higher.
As you grow, and as you perhaps add headcount and it’s permanent, over time, you’ll get this sense of emotional inequality where perhaps you organise a company-paid event and your permanent come but your contractors aren’t invited. Or you have strategy and leadership meetings or relationship-building days with only really half of your business.
That’s where I would encourage business owners to have a good hard think about “how can I integrate my contractors into my more permanent side of my business so that we feel like we are one team?” because, if you’ve got the feeling of multiple individual teams, then that’s when silos start to form, miscommunication, no communication, and friction.
Mia Fileman 29:08
Yes, I’m living that now, actually.
I have Emily and Ashley who are permanent, and I have Cassandra who is a contractor. The reason why she’s a contractor is because she’s a little bit like me. She wants to run her own business.
I’m never going to force that someone gets a job when they want to be in business for themselves, but she comes along to our weekly WIP. She got a Christmas present like the rest of the girls. She’s involved in all of the strategic planning.
But I’m also very cognisant of her time because she’s not a salaried employee. Her coming to additional team building, team bonding, I feel like I have to ask her if she wants to do that. If I really need her to be there, then I need to pay her extra because it’s not part of her job description, but I don’t want her to feel left out because she is an important part of our team. She’s just on a different contract, I guess.
Hareta McMullin 30:11
Absolutely.
You make a really great point about their time. I think the simple action of asking if she wants to be involved is huge because you are still involving her and it’s up to her whether or not she has the time and inclination to join.
Mia Fileman 30:29
Exactly.
What I’m hearing – and what you’ve said before to me – is that it’s important to cultivate a high care factor level. What does this mean? Step us through this.
Hareta McMullin 30:42
Essentially, it’s another term for engagement or how people feel when they work for you. I’ve said it before in this conversation. It’s whether or not people feel like they care about your business as much as you do. What’s their level of ownership and accountability?
From a financial perspective, if they’re not engaged or they don’t have that care level, this could look like mistakes that eat up your time, your team’s time, their time. When you look and calculate all of your hourly rates, that can end up being quite costly when you’re trying to fix these mistakes – not to mention the customer experience, for example.
It could look like this person being in a conversation with a customer – on chat or online – and they miss key pieces of golden information that you would have loved to have known if you were in that conversation, but they don’t care enough or don’t even think to tell you.
When they do care, that stuff becomes second nature. “Of course, I’m going to tell Mia that this happened because I care. I think it’s going to add to this, this, and this.” They get the bigger picture rather than focusing on all the dot points in their job description.
The other example is it could look like presenteeism where they are there, but they are not there. They are not focused. I do want to caveat that with I don’t think we can expect everyone to be fully productive all of the time.
Of course, there are going to be days – and potentially weeks – where people are not at their best because that is life. But if there is a pattern of behaviour over a long period of time where their productivity has decreased, then that could be a clue that they don’t have that high care factor level.
All of those examples directly translate back to money because you are talking about your hourly rate and how you are paying someone.
Mia Fileman 32:52
Absolutely.
I believe it’s possible to cultivate a high care factor level without it needing to cost the earth.
Hareta McMullin 33:00
Absolutely.
Mia Fileman 33:01
Right now, if we look at the zeitgeist, employees and contractors – especially in marketing space – have a very high bargaining power because every company is looking for marketing support – in-house or outsourced – and there is not enough talent to go around. Employers are desperate to find staff.
Then, you open up social media and you see companies who are proudly sharing that they have transition to a four-day workweek, they buy lavish welcome gifts for their staff, they throw all these cool parties, and they give you the day off for your birthday.
But I am in no position to do any of that. I can’t afford to do any of that. I would be broke. That has left me feeling like I can’t compete. But then, it’s really important to figure out what’s important to your team – whether it’s in-house or outsourced – and find out what really drives them.
At the end of the day, money is actually not the biggest driver. Yes, it’s important to pay people what they are worth, but I actually saw an email that you sent on Monday. The subject heading was “Should We Be Able to Swap Australia Day at Work?”
I loved that because this costs nothing. It is neither here nor there to me whether they work the 26th of January or whether they don’t – in my team – because I have a fully remote team all over Australia. Our public holidays don’t align anyway. I have my own Darwin public holidays. There’s one in New South Wales.
As far as I’m concerned, work on the 26th of January. You’ll have no distractions. Then, take your birthday off. That’s nothing. But I think that speaks to the care factor, right?
Hareta McMullin 34:52
Absolutely.
I love this line of conversation. I often read about some really cool stuff that industries or HR teams are doing. Yes, they are cool, but (a) a lot of it isn’t realistic for small businesses, as you’ve said, and (b) I have found in reality, many businesses often skip the free basics in favour of that shiny thing.
From the outside looking in, it does seem like they’ve got all of this stuff going on, but if you were to open up the hood, more often than you would think, there is some stuff going on. Not enough sprinkles can make a bad cake taste good.
In my experience in my career, apart from you do need to pay people what they are worth because it shows that you value them, there are two other things that people really want when you distil it down. That’s career development and that could be putting some sort of intentional thought and structure behind their career with you.
It doesn’t necessarily mean a promotion within one year of working with you. It’s how do you expand and grow. That could be you – like you have already done in your business – committing time to coach, mentor, and delegate.
It could be investing a little bit of money into sending them on courses or to events – things that really align with their interests but also developing the skills that you need in your business as well. That’s the return there.
The second thing, as people want to work where they can be fulfilled, they want to enjoy their work, they want to enjoy who they work with, and they want to know that what they do matters. Bringing your people along on the journey, filling them in on the story, making them a part of that decision-making process is what will help you build their sense of ownership.
When you have these basics, you need less of the shiny things. Like you said before, build your benefit structure around a few key hero benefits, and then bolster it up with a few smaller things. You don’t need all the things that the latest tech company are doing. You need to speak to who your ideal employee is – like we tell people to speak to your ideal customer.
Mia Fileman 37:27
I love that. That is such good advice. It’s so true!
When I was working at L'Oréal, sure, I got all the free product in the world and I went to all the cool events, but I was working 70 hours a week, having beef jerky for dinner, and taking my laptop home. You’re so right about the shiny objects.
What I really needed was to work less and be able to go to the gym. I would have happily not gone to as many events in order to have a bit more balance in my life. Absolutely for sure.
Hareta McMullin 38:02
No amount of free lunches and gym passes can make up for a really crap manager.
Mia Fileman 38:08
That’s right.
With a contractor – because I do have contractors – it’s important to ask yourself, “What do they want?”
I use an editor – Jodie Norman. She edits all my articles before they get submitted to the publication. Because she’s a contractor, she does this work for other businesses. The thing that is valuable to her is, every time I get an article published that she helped edit, I mention her. “Shoutout to Jodie for editing my piece!” It’s a little thing. It’s a courteous thing. But it helps her get new business.
Also, it’s saying, “Yes, I’m absolutely happy to leave you a review to go on your website to say that you do this kind of work for me. I’m not embarrassed. I’m proud of the fact that you edit my articles. No one should be editing their own articles.”
It’s really about asking yourself what they want and what you can give that doesn’t have to cost anything.
Hareta McMullin 39:08
Absolutely.
Thinking outside of the box. There are so many benefits that you can provide that are at either no or low cost. I know that because I have worked in companies where you think you would be given a big budget to do this kind of stuff but, no, you would be wrong.
For years, I have developed cultures on the budget of a shoestring.
Mia Fileman 39:32
Shoestring budget.
Hareta McMullin 39:33
Is that the same? Shoestring budget. They have yielded incredible results.
Mia Fileman 39:38
Yes, it has been an absolute pleasure chatting with you.
Tell us, how do you support startups and SMEs now?
Hareta McMullin 39:48
Absolutely.
I have a career in corporate HR. Through my time there, I really found a passion for supporting the small people. My focus lies in small to medium-sized businesses and how they can achieve top quality, high-end employee experiences and HR support where they are at in their stage of their business now. That looks like leadership mentoring and employee experience project work.
Mia Fileman 40:18
So good!
As I mentioned, you are one of our grads. You were an A+ grad! All the homework done. Campaign is looking amazing. Can’t wait until it launches in a couple of weeks.
Hareta McMullin 40:32
Yes, next week, actually.
Mia Fileman 40:36
I definitely encourage people to get in touch with you. Your business is Third Space People. What’s the URL?
Hareta McMullin 40:45
The URL for the website is thirdspacepeople.com. You can find me on Instagram at third_space and on LinkedIn at Hareta_McMullin.
Mia Fileman 40:55
Amazing. I will link all of that in the show notes.
Feel free to reach out to H. She is super nice – like, one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.
Hareta McMullin 41:05
You are too kind!
Mia Fileman 41:07
Thank you so much for being so generous with your time and your knowledge. I loved our chat. I can’t wait to see your campaign launch!
Hareta McMullin 41:15
Thank you so much, Mia! It’s been such a pleasure!
Mia Fileman 41:20
Thank you!
You listened right up until the end, so why not hit that subscribe button and keep the good marketing rolling?
Podcast reviews are like warm hugs. They’re also the best way to support a small business. You can connect with me, Mia Fileman, on Instagram or LinkedIn. Feel free to send me a message! I’m super friendly.
