#119: Building Your Dream Team with Veronica Romney, Dream Team Architect
If you’re anything like me, you're hiring for your business right now.
But how do you find the ideal candidate that not only will be perfect for the role you need them in, but will also fit in with the company culture?
How do you know that they are everything you are looking for and more?
Today, I was joined by my long time friend Veronica Romney, Dream Team Architect.
Tune in to this episode to hear all about how Frankenstein, Swiss army knives,and happy ears all relate to building your dream team!
Learn more about Veronica here: https://www.veronicaromney.com or on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vromney.
If you've been loving the Next Level Leap podcast, would you just stop what you're doing right now and give us a quick review?
In the Library Tab under Shows, click on the podcast subscription and scroll down to Ratings & Reviews to give it a star rating. Click Write a Review, if you wish, then click Send when finished. We appreciate your review so much. Thank you!
Listen to the Show:
Laura 00:02
Welcome to Next Level Leap, a podcast where we dive into the mindset and strategies of scaling your company and creating a legacy brand. As a top growth strategist, multi passionate entrepreneur, membership site owner, trainer, speaker, author and mom to three, I love exploring the journey of how we as founders can multiply our income, impact and influence by landing on the other side of our next big leap. Let's get started.
Laura 00:44
Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Next Level Leap show. And I want to introduce you to a dear friend of mine, who is the ying to my yang, yang to my ying. Her name is Veronica Romney, and she is a dream team architect. So thanks for being here, Veronica, it's super exciting that we are having one of our many conversations, but just in front of lots of people.
Veronica 01:05
We do talk a lot we Vox pretty much every week. So this will be fun to have people get a preview of our friendship.
Laura 01:11
Yeah, it'll be super fun. And so just to give people a sense of your background, and where you came from, catch us up to today, and just a few minutes, like, where you started and how you end up in entrepreneurship and what you're doing today, and then we'll get into the meat of what I really want to talk about.
Veronica 01:26
Sure. Well, I mean, I have this theory that entrepreneurs birth other entrepreneurs. So my parents are entrepreneurs. That's where that story really starts from as a Cuban immigrant starting a company from scratch. But I've been in marketing for 15 years I studied, graduated and have a degree in Marketing, and then worked my way up through the corporate experience until I left probably October 2017, the call of the wild called me he couldn't deny it anymore. I also had my first son. So you know, it was time to just center my life around my family as opposed to my career. And then I mean, man, talk about the last couple years, I was a speaker and trainer for Tony Robbins and Dean Graziosi. I worked for Pete Vargas for a hot second, I was the chief of staff at Boss Babe, I've worked with a number of big brands, just like you have kind of behind the scenes, helping them scale their businesses structure their teams. And here I am, I'm a Dream Team Architect, because a former employee of mine called me that and I'm just clever enough to go to GoDaddy and see that it was available.
Laura 02:24
It's always about what domain name is still available. And that's amazing. It was meant to be yours. And I know a lot of what you do is behind the scenes, you're working with seven and
eight figure businesses, helping them with their team, fractional Chief of Staff, ensuring that everybody is in the right butts in the right seats, all moving in the same direction. One of the things that you talk about is having happy ears, when it comes to hearing what it is that you want to hear versus what like a candidate actually has to offer. And I know a lot of people are hiring right now. I'm hiring. Everybody's hiring, because we're in such a place of transition in our businesses and really in the world. Right. But what is what are some of the big mistakes that people make when they're thinking about onboarding, hiring and onboarding a new team member?
Veronica 03:14
Yeah. So I say this a lot. Basically, like, for example, let's say you and I have a conversation, and you're coming to me, and you're like, I think I need this or I think I need this I really want to achieve this objective this year before the close out of the year. Do I get like a project manager? Do I get a rainmaker? Do I get a DOO? Oh, like where you and I are kind of going back and forth. And then based off the variables and the factors and like, Okay, we definitely you just need an executive assistant, we don't actually need to spend a ton of money on some, you know, high paying leader like really what you need Laura, somebody to, like, help you with you and like protect you and your schedule, right? So then you're like, okay, I have clarity, I'm getting an executive assistant, I go forth, I start my interview process. And then I come across these candidates who have more knives in their Swiss Army knife. And then the happy ears turned on where you're like, oh, and this is very typical. I'm not saying this in any kind of disrespectful way. This is super common with visionary CEOs who are true visionaries.
Veronica 04:11
Because if you think of visionary personality, we see things that others don't see, we see the Walt Disney World before it even like breaks ground. So when a candidate starts telling us about all the things they can do, all of a sudden, are happy ears, our visionary appetite starts to get perked up. And then all of a sudden, we start to imagine what they can become beyond the thing that we actually need for the next three to six months. And then on the negative side, that ends up turning somebody who would just be perfect and the thing that we needed at the moment into this kind of hodgepodge Frankenstein role that there are a little bit of this and a little bit of that and a little bit of this because they have all of these attributes, and then we inadvertently put them in a position to fail because we're not set up for success.
Laura 04:54
Mm hmm. Okay, that's so good. What are the mistakes that you see people make most often when it comes to growing their teams, making sure people are in the right roles. Because I think for so many of us visionary types, that we want to see the best, we see the best in everybody, right? And we want to believe that anybody is capable of anything and more, it's
part of what makes us entrepreneurs. What are some of the downfalls of that approach when it comes to structuring your team?
Veronica 05:26
Well, I think you and I, in particular work in an online centric industry, very personality driven businesses face forward organizations. And there is a lot of emulating and modeling that happens. So I'll be talking to one prospective client or a visionary CEO my inside of my program. And they'll be like, well, so and so does it this way, or I or I just very recently heard on a on a podcast that so and so had just hired their own Chief of Staff. So in the absence of confidence behind your choices, sometimes we want to emulate what we think others are doing to get to their success. But we're not actually behind the scenes, right? So we start to try to build a business in the way that we think our peers are the ones that we aspire to become, have built their companies. And then what happens more often than not, is we just blowed our payroll, and our p&l, and there goes our net profitability, and we burn through cash, and we get frustrated. So that's one thing that I see a lot where I get on phone call, especially when I've worked with the brands that I've worked for, maybe that's been your experience where like, well, I saw that you work with Jennifer, when I saw that you worked for boss, babe, I want to do it how boss babe did and I'm like, Well hold on a minute. Yeah, that's a different arena, that's a different animal. And that not, that might not be what you need to do right now. So there's that.
Veronica 06:41
I think the other thing that we're seeing a lot of is, the entrepreneurial space is like the Wild Wild West, it doesn't 100%, it really doesn't translate to the corporate arena at all. Or even books like, gosh, there's a lot of organizational books out there that I love and adore. But it doesn't mean that they always translate into our arena and our space. And so I do see a lot of people promoting way too fast and giving people really, really high level, you know, titles chief, this VP, this director of this, when the actual candidate themselves doesn't have the experience, or the skills to actually write, you know, be deserving of that title yet in their career. And then we put people in a position that they get unhappy because they think they're not getting the salary or the position, the title that they've been granted. So I'm seeing a lot of that for our clients as well.
Laura 07:37
Okay, that's so good. You have really funny reels. And there was one in particular recently where I think I posted beneath it or I was like, I feel called out. And it was the Frankenstein position one. And it was the catch all. And it's hard because I'm hiring right now like a somewhat catch all position. It is like an Operations Coordinator slash executive assistant. And they are kind of doing all of the behind the scenes admin slash coordination, which is sort of feels Frankenstein ish. But according to you, it's not as Frankenstein ish as having somebody customer facing and behind the scenes what you helped me kind of think through what are some of the other characteristics that the Frankenstein Have you seen?
Veronica 08:20
And I wasn’t calling you out, you like voxed me immediately. You're like, are that about me? I'm like, no, I had recorded that before our conversation, ironically. But okay, so let's define Frankenstein roll what they mean, because I, they're really amazing candidates that are like little Swiss organized, they can do a ton of things. And then there's what I would deem a Frankenstein role, which is a guarantee turnover position. So a Frankenstein role is where they're serving too many masters. So if you look at their job, I can tell immediately take three different colored highlighters, pull up the job description, highlight everything on the job description that's serving the prospect in one color, then take the same job description, another color and highlight everything that's serving the member, the customer, the person who's already paid man, and then take another color highlighter and highlight everything that serves just the company and the people inside the company. So a Frankenstein role is somebody who's serving too many masters they're serving the prospect and how you court a prospect how you care for a prospect how you convert a prospect is a different language, a different style of service than when you're carrying and servicing your customers, right, like different.
Veronica 09:32
But a Frankenstein role basically, is that like at any given day, they walk into their workday, or they start their morning, like, what's the most important task? Is it to do this task that serves the company, the prospect or the customer, and it's confusing and it's hard to prioritize, and they just feel like they're a c minus across the board. Yeah. A Swiss Army Knife is a candidate who just serves one master, which is let's say just the prospect of just like a marketing manager and marketing assistant, and they can do lots of things inside of a marketing channel. They can do Canva graphics, they can write some copy and deploy in your email service provider, they can help you with your sales page, they can do some of the tech behind your funnel software, like, that's cool. That's totally fine. That's all within the lane of Prospect centric activity, and ideally, just one manager. That's not the same thing as a Frankenstein role.
Laura 10:19
Oh, gosh, okay, this is so good. Because I think what happens is because I know because this happened to me, is that the company outgrows the role of the person. All right, so maybe if you're small, and you don't have a lot of clients, they can be customer facing, and they can do some behind the scenes work. Or let's say I'm thinking about my membership, right? There's somebody who could potentially be a director of operations in two different companies right in full time and split their time. What are some signs that your company is outgrowing the person?
Veronica 10:54
Well, actually, let's go back to how I think this happens more often than not, I think what happens or what I see happens is we find this really awesome human being we love them, we think they're incredibly talented, we as visionary see enormous potential, because we start to vision cast for this person's future. And the needs of the company at multiple, six figures is different than the needs of a company and seven figures, eight figures, like just serving marketing is going to keep you 40 hours plus busy enough, yeah, when you're just starting to scale, you have an incredible candidate. And some of the marketing things is only like, you know, 10 hours a week, and then some of the customer stuff is only another 10 hours a week, and then somebody like my executive assistant company stuff, like that's only another like maybe five, six hours a week. So you're like, well, I want to I want to ensure that I keep this person, I don't want to lose them. So I want to give them as many hours as I can. So I'll just spread the hours across the divisions of the company. That's honestly how it happens probably more often than not.
Laura 11:51
So what do you do?
Veronica 11:54
So this is where having more of an operator personality. I'm both I'm certainly a visionary, integrator type, but I tend to be more of an integrator, I feel more comfortable being behind the scenes, it's actually taking me a lot to like, own my own visionary capacity. But I have enough discipline to know that it's better to have somebody part time than a multiple personality, multiple role, full time individual. So I don't do that I rather have somebody who's part time and marketing part time and operations versus one person who spread and that has helped me retain my people for a really, really long time because they grow with the company as a company grows.
Laura 12:33
Yes, because they can expand their hours or expand their scope as the company grows. Right. Is there anything else that you would say when it comes to helping people build a team that complements that visionary personality? Like, how do you even know like how many people you would need in relation to like the company size?
Veronica 12:55
I don't go to the grocery store when I'm hungry. So same idea, I don't want to just hire because I'm going to place it insane burnout cuz you're not going to make the wisest choices. Let's be clear. I also don't ever bring somebody on board without checking with the money people ever. I just don't so like I have a conversation once a month with my CFO, I advise my clients to do the same thing. And there is such thing as under and over leveraged, I like I remember being
on a phone call with the CFO at Boss Babe. And we were too profitable. And like we're, we're under leverage we can personnel to help us go faster, that's rare, but also it does actually happen. And then there's the situations where like, you're only 5% profitable. So we don't, we can't hire anybody. Right.
Veronica 13:37
So like, let's actually let the stability and the profitability of the company dictate whether or not we invite people to our party. And then once you do that, what I normally start with when even working with my private clients is I usually have the visionary CEO themselves do their own shed list. So I just kind of have them like, for lack of better word vomit, everything that they do on behalf of their company. And you can very quickly see, especially when you take out your colored highlighters, where they're the most lopsided, they're either spending an enormous amount of time in the marketing department, which is very common. They'll spend some time maybe in the customer, and they're still the primary fulfillment mechanism of the company. They're the coach. They're the consultant, they're torn between getting more clients and servicing clients. Or they're spending way too much time in the company. That's usually pretty rare. So I can just tell when I'm working with my clients, we start with a shortlist, we do the highlighting thing. And we're like, okay, you need the most help here because you're being bogged down the most here first.
Laura 14:37
And then what are some success stories like you, we've talked about a lot of the problems that people have, what is life like on the other side of having a dream team?
Veronica 14:45
Okay, so this just happened yesterday, and I really hope she doesn't mind me sharing this but I was on a genie call. So Genie sessions are hour long sessions I do with my Rainmaker residency members, and we just go really deep in one particular thing for an hour between them and their a marketing leader. And I was on a call with Ashlyn Carter, if you know the Ashlyn Carter, Queen Ashlynn. She's lovely and all the ways, there was a really beautiful moment on the phone call where she got teary eyed. And she's like, you know, for the first time ever, I really feel like my team has my back, really, really cares for my company like I do. And I just don't even want to get in their way, or stand in the way or even have that be a thing, because I really, I've never had this experience before. And she started getting emotional. And I'm like, I'm getting emotional, emotional. And that's happened. And that does happen, where I will, I will just have these calls. And then the CEO is like, I've never felt this level of support. I've never felt like somebody cared about my baby business, the way that I care about my baby business.
Laura 15:46
What do you think? Is there anything? In addition to what we've talked about today, that creates that result? Is there anything else that you want to make sure that we touch on?
Veronica 15:56
It's a good question, like any like, I think, if I could say one thing, I think growing and scaling a company is extremely messy. And I think a lot of people, a lot of CEOs have a sense of quarter shame. What I mean by that is like what we project and the persona that we have on social media and our email newsletters, like what we put out to the world, of course, is the version of ourselves we wish to be and the highlight reel. And then we think that only our company is this chaotic, that we think only our company is this messy behind the scenes. If somebody saw how I was running my company, I would just be like, I'd be mortified, I'd be dying. And I'm just and I'm sure this you can attest this to i When you work with very, very big brands. And you think that they have it all together to get to the place where they're multiple millions of dollars and millions of followers. Nope. Everybody's got a hoarders house. Everybody's got a messy junk drawer in the company. And it's totally normal. Where it's not normal, is when we have burnout and turnout at insane rates with our staff. It's normal to not have your SOPs be completely clean and put together. It's normal not to have like it's normal to change your org chart more often than not, because you're really rapidly growing. That's fine. Those are unhealthy attributes. But when I've seen you burn through the seven marketing leaders and nine months, we have a problem.
Laura 17:23
Yeah. Yeah. That is such good advice. Is there anything else that you think like just even using Ashlyn as an example? Is there anything that you could think of that she did that allowed her to have that experience?
Veronica 17:39
Yeah, and I can't speak too much for her because she's still very much in the process of doing it. But man, and I would say this for even some of my most favorite clients in the whole wide world, just that radical humility, that she shares that I know, you share that a lot of really, really great people and entrepreneurs, there's some really good people out there that are trying to do the right thing. And they're trying to do right by all by their audience, by their team, by themselves by their family. And it's a big mantle. It's a heavy mantle to carry. But the humility that I see, is shocking sometimes because I look at these people like you're Ashlyn Carter, you're like Queen, I think the more admire, like you're the cool, Adrian Richardson, like I can just name all the names. I'm like, Oh, my gosh, these are like the most epic human beings in the world. And they're walking beyond Beyonce in our industry. That's how I look at them. But then when you talk to them, they're like, oh, no, like, no, like, that's just they won't even like own it. Yeah. And I know, I feel that way, too. Sometimes we'll be like, Oh, you're Veronica. I'm like, no, like, oh, you know, because I'm also the one that comes home and my kids vomit on
me when they're sick. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you have those humility markers in your life where like, I'm not, it's nothing, but that's the one thing that I will say, is being radically humbled to invite people into your circle that can help you and not make you feel less than.
Laura 19:00
Yeah, and for me, it's always been, you know, I'm building a team is not taking it personally. Sure, you know, if they want to move on, or if they don't like some, you know, like, it's not working for them anymore. Even if they want something else. I think that's really hard. Because when you're a female leader, I think in particular, you have this sort of maternal approach with your team, right? And caretaking approach, and probably when I was younger, to an extreme that wasn't healthy. And now I it's easier to let go. It's easier, not easy. And it's funny because you helped me through a situation I'll just share with everybody listening a couple months ago, where I had a key team member come to me and say, I don't know if I'm, if I want to do the job I'm doing and I was so afraid of losing her that that was my immediate reaction. Right. And I think sometimes that can happen where we are so afraid of losing somebody that was really important to us that is that we care about that we love that we think is critical to our operation, that we start hanging on a little bit tighter all of a sudden, and I've made that mistake before and it never works, you know, gripping on tighter never works out.
Laura 20:14
And so you had advised me, you know that it's very difficult for somebody to have a client facing and back and operational role. And so I went back to her and I was like, would you like this job more if it was only one of those two? And she's like, actually, I would. And she realized that the back end operations wasn't her love as much as client success. And I was like, well, great, it's client success is actually really hard to train in. And so let's move you entirely over there, which will free up some time and capacity for you to do other things if you'd like. And then we'll just put everything back end operations on one person. And that was an awesome outcome. That wouldn't have worked if she also isn't, wasn't incredibly mature. You know, she definitely brought a level of sincerity and authenticity to the table that wouldn't this wouldn't have been possible if she didn't approach it that way. But it was really a good for me, it was handling something differently than I would have in the past, which is kind of like no, don't go. And having that immediate reaction that I think we all have as leaders, you know, when somebody in our, in our team makes our lives easier, and we know it.
Veronica 21:34
I have a in just being a little bit vulnerable here. I feel like I can score myself or self assess myself and a lot of different titles and roles in my life. But I've struggled in my parenting because my children, my I'm an oldest who's eight years old, and man, he's a force and I want to, I want to make sure that I do my part to channel him in the right way. And I'm scared that I find don't do that right in the proper way that I like to burn out his candle or he gets extremely
rebellious or whatever. Anyways, I got a parenting coach. And one of the things that my parenting coach shared with me that I think is super relevant for even us as leaders and managers amongst our staff. She said, you know, when we don't trust our kids, we try to control them, and then we just call it help. And I was like, Ooh, because like, I like pride myself on not being a micromanager. However, when I feel the need or the want or the desire to like, quote, unquote, micromanage, it's usually because I just don't trust that something's getting done properly. And so then I step in, or most of us will step in, and we'll just call it help. But really, you're controlling a situation because you don't trust it in somebody else's hands.
Laura 22:47
That's so good. Right? He makes an Instagram real about it the next week, it's not about you. deal. It was just it was just circumstance.
Veronica 22:58
Yes. No, I was the timing was, I love that you Vox. To me, this is the kind of dynamic that we have. You nearly went to me like, Is this about me?
Laura 23:08
And the things you help with, I think are the types of things that so many entrepreneurs struggle with. I know team for me, has been a 20 year process, like everything else always came natural, like marketing came natural, natural building companies, building brands, looking for market opportunity. You know, even fulfillment i was it came natural to me team just didn't it was sort of the last thing I really had to look at as a leader. And it's a constant evolution for me. So that's why I love our friendship and love that you're here and you're sharing this. And if anybody who's listening wants to connect with you, where's the best place for them to find you?
Veronica 23:49
I am everywhere as myself so you can just go to Veronicaromney.com We're on social media. It's V Romney.
Laura 23:55
All right. We're dropping the Iglesias.
Veronica 23:59
Oh, yes. I'm Cuban. Hello, Veronica Iglesias Romney. But on social media, it's just v. Romney.
Laura 24:07
You find her on Facebook, you get the Latin flair. All right. Well, thank you, Veronica, for being here. I really appreciate it.
Veronica 24:14
Thanks, Laura.
Laura 24:16
Make sure to visit our website yournextlevelleap.com where you can subscribe to the show in Apple podcasts, Stitcher or RSS, so you never miss a show. And while you're at it, if you found value in what you heard today, we would love a rating on Apple podcast. Or if you simply tell a friend about the show that would help us out too. Thank you so much for listening.
The Scale with Joy podcast dives into the mindset and strategies of scaling your company to the million dollar mark and beyond. Each week, we follow the journeys of innovators, disruptors, experts and leaders - sharing behind the scenes stories of their most challenging moments and greatest lessons learned-all while building their multi-million dollar empires.