As society evolves in isolation and moves away from in-person work set-ups, it has become more of a challenge to build a strong, genuine business community. Tracy Card, president of Elevated Results Group, talks about how this growing network has helped many businesspeople develop relationships and gain opportunities. Unlike other networking groups, they have maintained a positive environment and expanded each person’s reach while keeping that genuine yet professional connections with people from various industries. In this episode, Tracy talks about the Elevated Results experience and how members benefit from their approach.
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The Benefits Of Building A Genuine Business Community With Tracy Card
Those of you who have read some of my episodes know that I have a strong interest in community everywhere. I go around me. I see the results of the lack of community. When I look at some of these horrible outcomes such as depression, anxiety, drug addiction, suicide and violence, I see the results of loneliness, isolation and lack of community. Oftentimes, when people think about community, they think about the community that we once had. One of the things that I often struggle with this vision of community is that sometimes, it seems to require some of the restrictiveness that we had in the last century. A lot of people will tell me, “The only time I had community is when I had a rigid 9:00 to 5:00, everyone in the office work schedule.”
Relationships come first. Leads will follow. Click To TweetThat’s something that our society is most definitely moving away from. There are some definite mental health benefits to us moving toward a more flexible and fluid work schedule. That’s why I’m hoping to find a whole new way to approach and find community. I was pleasantly surprised when I first attended a group known as the Elevated Results network. I hopped on a Zoom call because everything is remote here during the pandemic. The first thing I noticed was the members were frequent guests that were talking amongst each other seem to have a genuine community-like understanding of each other’s lives. It has become the community where you can walk up to someone and you don’t have to always be on or always be playing catch up. You are saying, “How did fill-in-the-blank whatever your latest endeavor go?” I have as my guest Tracy Card the leader of the Elevated Results Network Group for a couple of years.
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Tracy, thank you for joining us.
Thank you so much for having me, Stephen. I appreciate it.
The first question I had on my mind is, how did you go about getting this community? You inherited it in 2014 from another former leader but how does this community revolve? How does it work? How do people stay in the known each of their lives?
Thank you so much for asking about this group. I’m a leader since 2014 and it is a community. That’s a great word for it. We do know each other’s lives. We care about each other not only personal lives but definitely in business life. How can we help each other succeed? Expand each other’s circles of influence. It’s a lot different from many other groups. I was the same way when I first met this group that you felt and I knew this is my home. It’s a different feel. There’s a lot of ways that we are different from other networking groups. The group is very engaged. One way that I can share with you is our attendance policy.
All networking groups have, “You need to come or you maybe need to send a substitute if you can’t come.” That is not our policy at all. We want our members to be there. Anything else comes up before the meeting, go and take care of that. We’ll be here for you when you come back next time. Send us a substitute. Our relationship is with the members. We want our members to be there and we have a great attendance every meeting but it’s not required. That’s a part of why we have great attendance.
One of the questions I often have is that whole not required hints. A lot of people think that requirement is what’s necessary. I found my community when we all had to be at the office, Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM, every day. How does that not requirement translate into people still being engaged and still people showing up like your typical member? How often do they miss these meetings? How often do they make it? Does it often happen where they’ll skip enough meetings where the relationships start to falter a little bit?
We might have 50, 60 people at those events. It's large enough where you have a good mix of people, but small enough where you can have great conversations with people, and get to know them, and not feel like, oh I need to spend one minute with… Click To TweetThe reason people come is because of the underlying philosophy of this group, which is relationships come first and then leads will follow. We encourage one-on-ones, people to introduce each other to people that are going to help them in their business, leads to being shared and closed business to be accomplished but the relationships happen first. It’s not a hard and fast rule that I’ve also seen other groups that in your first meeting, you can’t even talk about anything business. We’re not sending a bunch of roles. We have a great foundation. We support our members with a great environment and meeting. Every meeting has a great presentation. Members get a lot out of it because we have about 80% attendance at every meeting. There are times when we have a member that we haven’t seen in a while. Maybe they’ve got busy or they think they’re too busy for us. That does happen.
They get too many leads and they can’t network with us anymore but we check on them, “Are you okay? Is everything all right? Is there anything we can do for you to help you get through this? We hope that you’re still wanting to be active.” Our dues are collected quarterly so we know pretty quickly if someone is not interested in continuing. They can’t pay for the whole year too if they want to. Our dues are very low. We also don’t collect a lot of money. We’re not building a bank account or anything. We’re collecting money to maintain the group, our meetup page, our website and things like that.
The mistake I feel a lot of people make both in forming networking groups as well as on the job, in general, is that they inadvertently replace an internal motivation with external motivation. Obligatory attendance is an example. That’s an external motivation. All of our grade schools and high schools should get rid of the perfect attendance award. Even worked under bosses that have inadvertently made that replacement where it seems like here you’re focusing on the member experience as far as, “I’m coming here because of what I’m getting out of it. Not because it seems like some obligation.” It seems to work well so that’s a wonderful testament to what I feel is a fear-based response of starting to crank down on requirements and mandates anywhere in life and saying, “If someone’s enjoying the group, they’re going to come.”
Some people like the more structured. That’s great that there are those. That’s not what we are. We’re very successful in our group. They are happy to be members. We have a waiting list to be a member. That’s a great problem to have.
I was unaware that there was a waiting list. That makes me feel special for getting through it.
You are special for sure.
One of the other questions I wanted to ask about Elevated Results is a lot of people when they think of networking and networking groups, they think of what was my initial networking experience a couple of years ago before I learned how to do it better. You come home with a stack of business cards but then you never form relationships with the people. Maybe you meet up for coffee once or you see them around from time-to-time but they don’t become someone who I observed when I first hopped on Elevated Results who knows about what’s going on in your life and can quickly ask, “How is your latest initiative? How is your newest business? How is your push to market yourself to this particular demographic group?” What sets you apart from those types of groups?
We do host events that are very welcoming. I can’t wait until we can do those in person again. We’ve been doing those on Zoom. Everyone is tired into Zoom and ready to be back in person. I’m hoping by the next quarterly event. We’re looking forward to that because it a great atmosphere. Those events attract a lot of people that have been there in the past and know the quality of people that come. They’re not giant events. We might have 50 to 60 people but it’s large enough to where you go. It’s a good mix of people but small enough where you can have great conversations with them and get to know them and not feel like, “I need to spend one minute with 100 people,” then you’re not getting any depth or anything there so you’re getting to know anyone. When you do follow up, you’re like, “I remember them, their face, what we talked about,” and not, “What is this card? I don’t remember what this person looked like.” It’s a different experience and that’s a great one.
The one thing I’m also wondering as far as the membership and the people you have at your events seems like making this whole atmosphere happen requires to be some control as to who you’re bringing in. How does that whole thing work?
I do have two people in my life that doesn’t speak to me anymore because I’ve asked them no longer to come to our events because they were coming not for business networking. One was a female coming there to meet possible dates. She was asking me, “Is that person married?” It’s like, “I don’t know and that is not the appropriate question to be asking here. This is a networking event. This is not for you so please don’t come back.” Another person was coming there to have a happy hour, drinking too much and being inappropriate. I have to be the police because I would make sure that our events are quality. I have to be the bad guy but that’s okay. There’s a lot of so much value with this group I’ve found over the years. There’s not even a succession plan for me right now but that’s okay. I want it to be in great hands if there is ever a succession plan for me.
You described this as specifically a business networking group. Explain how that works.
It’s not necessarily B2B or B2C specifically but it’s a good combination of both. We have both in our group B2B- and B2C-focused businesses but it’s business-related. You’re not there to meet someone to date or something. That’s what I’m talking about when I’m talking about business networking and expanding our circles of influence when it comes to a residential real estate person comes. We have a person that does home inspections there, it’s like, “I haven’t met you before maybe you could help me in my business,” or insurance people that in there with different facets of what they do and all kinds of great stuff.
Through this network, have there been a lot of collaborative relationships that are formed?
We have power partners within the group for the B2B people and B2C people so it’s been a great atmosphere. Lots of referral leads are shared with those people that are power partners for sure.
I might have personal reasons for this question but each person comes into this network with their own business. What happens if someone changes the line of business? Say you have a successful company and you exit, you take a few months off and then you start pursuing a new idea. How does that work?
I have had people in the group change companies but they’re in the same industry because it stays industry-specific or lane-specific. We could have many different types of attorneys as long as they don’t overlap in what they do. It’s crystal clear who to refer business to within the group. That’s why we do that but I have had people leave one company and go to another state with the same industry. They kept their spot because you’re representing an industry but if they’re changing industries, I’ve also seen that happen and maybe the new industry they’re going to is already taken in the group by someone else then we lose them as a member, which is a bummer. If we can add them in their new lane as a member, that would be amazing to keep them.
To orient my readers, explain how these lanes work and why the policy is the way it is?
A mistake a lot of people make is inadvertently replacing an internal motivation with an external one. Click To TweetIt’s beneficial to the member to not be in a group with multiples within their same industry so they are the only ones representing that industry. My example was attorneys. If we have a divorce attorney versus a business attorney, we wouldn’t want to have other business attorneys in the group but we could have another attorney in different family law or something that would not overlap with what he does. When I have a client that I say, “I bet you need to talk to an attorney that I know in business law.” I know who to refer them to.
You’re allowed to have the flexibility. You have the experience that the member wants to have. The member wants to be there, keeps that attendance at 80% and learns genuinely about one another but it does require that quality control. Given that this is a business networking group, what I’m wondering is do you believe that the same formula or some similar formula could apply to personal networking? If people were trying to say, “I’m looking to make friends,” whether it be the person looking for someone to marry or the person that wants people to chill with?
I don’t know how to answer that except for I know that there’s a lot of meetups for everything. There’s a lot of things that you can find common ground on and filled on that.
If someone were starting a group like that, say it’s around hiking, Mexican food or calligraphy, whatever topic you want, do you believe that the concept of having some amount of flexibility but also needing some amount of quality control? I need to apologize. I hate using the term quality control because that is implying that some people are not quality people when the real answer is it’s not the right fit. It’s not that this person is not good. It’s just that it’s not the right fit at the right time. That control as opposed to when a lot of people start up community groups, the instinct is to say, “I want to make it anything goes. Anyone is invited. I don’t want to have to be the bad guy. I don’t want it to be the person that turns someone away.” As other people have told me, sometimes you do have to set that standard and apply it.
It is hard to be the bad guy but you do have standards that your group is expecting you to uphold. For example, as you were talking about our new member process, all current members approve future members. Every new member goes to a small bedding process to make sure they’re not overlapping in anyone else’s lane or industry and that they’ve come to at least 1 or 2 of our events or our meetings. I’ve got a chance to meet some of our other members because if they’re receiving their application in their email, asking to approve and they’re thinking, “I’ve never even heard of this person. Are they doing any of our events yet? If I had a chance to meet them yet, I don’t know.” That gives a new member an opportunity to talk to some of our members.
Then when they do apply, “I talked to them.” In fact, your response was 3 or 4 people said, “I had a one-on-one with him already and he’s amazing.” That’s a nice quality control because we all want to honor the members and make sure that they feel like they’re being well taken care of. That gives them the opportunity to make sure that the group stays at a certain level of professionalism. We know that these are all quality members that are coming into the group and then you can refer business to them. Your referrals are going to be well taken care of.
One problem that a lot of people end up having when it comes to some of this hard work of denying or kicking someone out is that you see the disappointment right in front of you. You saw the two people you had to ask not to attend. You saw the disappointment right there and what people aren’t seeing if they were to say go the other way is the disappointment that you’re posting or instilling upon all the other members that are expecting a certain type of experience and then getting something else. One of the examples I often think of quite a bit and I don’t know if this has ever happened in a couple of years that you’ve been running Elevated Results but the conversation hog. The person that steps on and talks about themselves for 45 minutes. That can take away quite a bit from the experiences of everyone else.
That’s an example of a non-fit because that person is not looking out for the best interest of everyone else. They’re in it for themselves. We all show up in the events for ourselves but we also want to do it in a way that, “Who can I help along the way?” Givers gain, give first, and it will come back to you. That is how we have survived and thrived.
From my limited experience over course of two months, I see that you’re still thriving even through a global pandemic and the Zoom fatigue that everybody’s having. Every single member has a different vertical and business. Your particular business is HR Consulting or what you call PEO Consulting. You have some interesting ideas about workforce development especially at small and medium size of companies. Tell me what that is all about and how you’re changing the world of work.
PEO is Professional Employer Organization is what that stands for. We’re underlying everything that we do is HR compliance for our clients. In the process of doing that, we offer large group benefits, multi-employer workers’ comp policies and 401(k) policies. We have a great HRIS technology platform to bring all that together, bring some automation to our client’s office and help remove some of that administrative burden for them. It is HR Consulting but there are some people out there that’s what their focus is. That’s in that package.
There are also people that do payroll or benefits. What we do is we bring all of those vendor relationships under one roof where we can leave things where they are. I’ve been in the PEO industry for years and I love what I do. HR for twenty-plus years before that. My passion is around HR. I can see the value that this service brings to small and medium-sized businesses and helps them be successful. They don’t have to worry about HR compliance, hiring practices and termination practices when they’re needed to term someone. That’s not what they got into business for in the first place.
Is it safe to say that your motivation behind having this internal satisfaction within this industry is helping all these other small business owners and entrepreneurs focus on their core motivation? As opposed to all this HR compliance and some of the paperwork that oftentimes ends up distracting people from what they need to do, which builds their business and serves their customers.
That’s the core of it.
For a quick point of reference. As far as the Elevated Results Group Network goes, would your vertical be all of HR or specifically to PEO?
It’s been specifically to PEO. We’ve had HR consultants in the group in the past. There’s not currently one there now. That felt a little bit more confusing to some of the members. They would ask me, “Should I go to them or should I come to you if I have a question? Will we also do have a payroll provider in the group?” We have an employee benefits broker, worker’s comp broker and 401(k) provider in the group too. All those different facets of what we offer as a package but sometimes it doesn’t make sense for companies. Maybe they’re not ready for that so I refer business to all of those people all the time because I meet companies that are not a fit for the whole thing. They might need a great health broker or payroll provider. I know that they’re going to be well taken care of by my referrals.
That shows another great aspect of this group and other groups like this where you can say, “As opposed to trying to get every piece of business regardless of whether it’s the right fit.” People coming in and saying, “What you need?” For your particular solution, there’s a specific point in a business’s life cycle as it goes from seed to wherever you go after seed but there’s a point where it becomes worthwhile and the most efficient solution to package all of the HR solutions into one particular package, right?
It’s different for different companies too, some companies are ready for that with five employees. I talk to a business owner that has 65 employees and she joined a PEO when she had five employees. She said, “I would not be here with my 65 employees if I didn’t have that PEO partnership almost from the very beginning.” It helped her set the groundwork of the policies, procedures and the steps to take when there’s a new hire, a term, promotions or whatever. Everything’s been flowing where she doesn’t have to recreate the wheel each time and wonder how to handle that.
She has had that partner all along and it’s been a great fit for her but some companies feel like they need to be larger than five to start with a PR relationship, maybe 20 or 30 or something. PEOs are here to assist small and medium-sized businesses whenever they feel like that’s a perfect time. When they start getting those different vendor relationships before they get too deep into those vendor relationships, it’s hard to undo those then that’s maybe the perfect time to consider working with a PEO. There are often cost savings involved. With multi-employer policies that a PEO can offer can often save money and offer a Fortune 500 level benefits package that a small employer could not even get on their own. It’s a huge value.
Would you say that PEO services, in general, are helping level the playing field in some ways because there is a discrepancy between what a 50 to 100-person company gets versus what a major employer with 10,000 to 20,000 employees will get? Would you say you’re helping level that playing field?
In Colorado, it makes sense for me to say, you can have a benefits package like Xcel Energy. We had to change the name of the sample when you’re talking to someone in a different state but that’s definitely what we’re here to do. Smaller employers feel like I can offer the benefits of the big employers too, attract and retain that top talent that the bigger employers are getting. Let me have some of those cuts too because I need them for my business as well. It’s to help my business be successful.
For a point of reference, Xcel energy has over 10,000 employees so they’re a huge employer. By what mechanism does the 50 person entrepreneur get that same level of health benefits, 401(k) benefits and all of that stuff?
My PEO has about 50,000 worksite employees under the PEO relationship. All the different employers that have come together, there are buying power there. We have this group of 50,000 that needs a health plan. We have this group of 50,000 that needs a 401(k) or workers comp. You can imagine the buying power that we have. There are some PEOs that are much larger than us too that have even more buying power. The bigger the PEO gets, sometimes the little guy gets lost in that giant so they don’t maybe get the attention they should get from a big PEO. There are all sizes and a lot of PEO. Lots of options for employers to consider. I consider myself a subject matter expert in PEO.
Givers give and gain first. Click To TweetI always love to consult with people to figure out, is PEO even the right fit for you or as I said, you need a payroll provider that’s better for you? For example, I referred my church to our payroll provider that’s in the group. They were with an arch payroll company, a national one and they were not being well taken care of. They were paying a lot of money. I care a lot about my church. I care a lot about the prospects in my mind. I wanted them to have a great experience so I connected them with the payroll provider that’s in our group. They have been so happy. Every time the office sees me walk by, they go, “Let me tell you again. We love that payroll. They’re amazing.” I love hearing those stories. That’s the perfect fit for them. That’s what they needed. They didn’t need this whole package that I can offer and that’s okay.
That reminds me of the whole idea of coming from a mindset of abundance versus scarcity. The scarcity mindset says, “I have to get everything I can get.” I’ve had a big lesson in humility as far as the abundance mindset all year because shamefully, I have to admit I have not purchased any cryptocurrency. I have no Bitcoin or anything like that. I was intrigued but never pulled the trigger. I watched it go up and up. I had to practice my abundance mindset and saying, “There are other opportunities when it comes to investing or maybe there’s going to be a new cryptocurrency that emerges. If I keep my ears open, I don’t have to sit here and look for every little dip in the Bitcoin chart.” That ends up being not always the best use of time. It’s good to come from a point of abundance. When it comes to the approach to HR with a PEO, from PEO-to-PEO, does it vary from a standard approach to HR? Is there workforce development, workforce optimization or success planning type of endeavors included?
The larger PEOs may not be able to assist a client as well as a smaller PEO. If they’re in multiple states, for example. January 1, 2021 is a great example of all the employment laws that changed in all the various states. Colorado specifically had the healthy families and workplaces act. The equal pay for equal work act and those were very taxing on a lot of employers. I also have clients in Arizona, they didn’t have either of those new laws but they also started recreational marijuana in Arizona which now we’re an expert in how to handle that. Everyone, almost every state, that I have clients in had changed to their minimum wage laws. In Colorado, we have minimum wage laws change. We had the Denver minimum wage law changed for the city and also for the state. A lot of intricacies there with employment laws. Some of the larger PEOs can’t keep up with, “You have 2 employees in Colorado, 5 employees in Kansas and 6 in Arizona where all the employment laws changing then I need to update you about?” They’re not doing a great job with that.
I talked to a company that signed up with us. They’re headquartered in Colorado but a lot of their employees are in Ohio. Their PEO is in Dallas. I heard of all these new employment laws in Colorado. They were like, “Our PEO hadn’t told us about any of that stuff.” I’m like, “It’s April 2021 and you’re a little behind on getting all that in place so let’s make sure that you get up to speed on that right away.” We do webinars all the time to help educate the community on employment laws and COVID. There’s a vaccine policy webinar. All kinds of education that we can share with the community to help and share our knowledge with everyone whoever might need it.
You’re able to keep up with a lot more things going on.
We provide value. We love that.
One last thing I wanted to cover as an HR expert, you said you’ve been in HR even before you started with PEO. Possibly some of my readers are thinking about or in the process of starting up their own business and maybe everything’s in seed-stage. At that stage, people are mostly thinking about the idea of marketing development but mostly developing whatever the idea is. Fine-tuning it, determine what their target market is and stuff like that. At what point do you think people need to start thinking about HR and HR employer-related issues?
There are laws in different states. In Colorado, as soon as you hire one person, you have to have workers’ comp coverage. That’s not the case in every state. We need to know what the mandates are. I hate for employers to get in trouble with workers’ comp with any of the employment laws because they don’t know what’s out there. Speak with a PEO with an HR consultant. Someone that can help provide guidance there as soon as you start hiring one person.
You said people should start thinking about HR workforce stuff as soon as they hire. Have you ever had to say play cleanup for a company that expanded 10, 20, even 30 people and didn’t think about anything related to workforce or HR and then all of a sudden you realized that they’re like a house of cards to stack something ready for one little thing to go wrong and topple the entire company?
The first thing we do with a new client is work with them on their handbook, policies, make sure that all of that is in order and we do completely clean up. Make sure they’re all our taxes are done and the data is correct. We’ve had some clients that come in and their system is not easy to change simple things like job titles. We had one new client that had all of their employees wear the same job title because the system was difficult and it couldn’t allow them to change it. Let’s clean all that up as we’re getting it into our system rather than putting a bunch of junk in there that’s not accurate and then make sure everyone is in the right department. We also want to export for our clients, what do you need for your accounting? Let’s even put your chart of accounts in our system so we can export for you exactly what you need. It’s specifically tailored to them, very clean going in so then you can keep it clean once it’s in there clean.
A lot of people are talking about the rise of the gig economy and more people working freelance or part-time. How would that fit into the entire system? Is that something that needs a whole bunch of law changes before it becomes feasible? If someone wants to say mostly higher fractional resources right now, how would their group health insurance or any other items in the PEO world or in the HR world manifest?
There needs to be some help for that industry. I’d love to see more associations or something that can bring these people together and give them resources. I do know virtual assistants. There’s a new big company coming up every day. It’s awesome. I love that these people are doing that and are able to work from anywhere. You talked about the remote work in a regular industry, regular job. They don’t have to relocate people anymore. They can stay right where you’re at and work from where you are. Companies are more in multiple states and that’s when a PEO can be helpful. Getting state accounts set up for in taxes and worker’s comp and all that craziness but you’re right.
These people that are part-time in a certain industry, there’s such a huge value to companies and individuals. They need benefits and help with their taxes. They don’t need to be out there being independent contractors. Maybe they do but if there’s a way for them to get grouped together and get some buying power with benefits or a retirement plan, I’m sure they would love payroll and taxes paid on their behalf rather than having to pay them themselves. I do know a lot of associations out there for some of these groups. I’m not sure specifically what you’re talking about but I do know there’s a lot of associations out there that can bring groups together. There may need to be more of those to help these people.
I hope that they find a solution. As I always say in this show, I hope that there are more options out for people for whatever you want. If you want to work a standard 9:00 to 5:00, you have that but if you also want to be a fractional resource or a fractional resource for a few different companies at once, that option becomes available to all of us.
They are great at what they’re doing. Let’s support them and let them do that. I love it.
Tracy, thank you very much for joining us on the show. I want to remind all my readers to find your community, find the people that are going to encourage you, support you, get you some leads but most importantly, the people that will keep your mindset in the right place. For those aspiring business leaders and entrepreneurs out there, as soon as you are hiring someone and it goes beyond you and your partner, you need to start thinking about these HR issues because it is a blindside that could come back and bite you sometime later. Stay tuned for more episodes with people who are doing all sorts of things to bring our workforce as the future, pursue their own ideas, provide a better mindset and create a happier and healthier society, hopefully in the near future.
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About Tracy Card
Tracy Card has worked in HR for over 20 years and specifically with PEOs (Professional Employment Organizations) for over ten years.
PEOs provide a full stack of HR services to small and medium businesses and often help small businesses provide their employees with benefits that are similar to those large organizations can provide.
She is also the leader of the Elevated Results Group, a professional networking group that provides leads, business, and also the community.