Storie: 0:17

Welcome back to Market it With Atma, where we share the tips, tools and strategies to help your business be successful. Today we have on the show a top sales leader in the industry. Her name is Ms Brooke Hoffman. She is the business development manager at Questco and also an author and mom. I'll let her introduce the rest of what she does. Welcome, brooke.

Brooke: 0:38

How are you, I'm doing well Story. How are you?

Storie: 0:40

I'm great. So tell me, with the name QuestCo, it could be so many things. What exactly is QuestCo, and how did you develop into this role and position and begin to love it the way you do?

Brooke: 0:53

Sure, absolutely so. Questco is a PEO, which stands for Professional Employer Organization. So what we do is, in the eyes of the IRS, co-employ your employees so that we can run your payroll, do your taxes. And really the big thing for business owners or leaders is that we transfer the risk and liability of being an employer to us, so we take on a lot of, or take off a lot of the risk and liabilities so that a business can run more effectively, focusing on what makes them money. Yeah, it was. I was HR's worst nightmare and I was never. I think it's highly ironic that I'm in this role because, you know, I didn't want to put in a PTO request, I didn't ever want to do my reviews and I wasn't going to bring anything to the potluck, right.

Storie: 1:42

And look at you now and here I am right.

Brooke: 1:46

It was something that I experienced firsthand, in that the gentleman I was married to owned a business right.

Storie: 1:53

And.

Brooke: 1:53

I one day remember asking what was the hardest part of what you do?

Brooke: 1:56

And he said people Absolutely and we struggled with insurance, like a lot of people do in small business. We struggled with, you know, he was working in the business during the day and on the business at night, and so it really did affect us professionally personally, as a family. So when I learned about what a PEO is and does, I was like, wow, that could have saved us a lot of time, energy, effort as a family building his business. And so that's when I kind of fell in love with it and said I would love to bring the solution to people that don't know about it.

Storie: 2:29

So that is awesome. So it's a third party. Hr services is kind of what you're describing right.

Brooke: 2:35

Yeah, outsourced HR. Like a lot of businesses are going to like an outsourced CFO model or outsource CMO or outsource why do you feel that more businesses are diverting in that direction?

Brooke: 2:47

I think it's kind of like let the experts do what they're good at and let's focus on what I'm here and good at right, like this is how we make money. I will I always tell this story One of my first clients female business owner, great business, 40 employees, and she was a rock star at selling her business, developing the business, but she absolutely struggled with her people, and so when I reached out to her, she was like tell me more about this. What?

Storie: 3:16

are you?

Brooke: 3:16

talking about. I can, I can get this off my plate, and so she's, since was just one location here in Dallas, she's in, I think, all major markets in Texas and has just quadrupled her business and she actually got her to take her first trip to Africa and be hands off For once. Because she is all the right people in place and the things in place to operate efficiently. Wow.

Storie: 3:38

So the way you frame it like that, it's also a lot like what we do at Atma. We're a marketing agency and we really take that pressure off of having to deal with that in-house, because when you don't have the brain for certain things or the capacity to do them, it's worth every single cent when you know you have trusted people to take care of it right a hundred percent.

Brooke: 3:58

If you think about hr, it sounds like you have a little bit of background in that. There's just a myriad of things you have to think about taxes, workers comp, insurance, you know, you name it the 50 or not EEOC claims all kinds of crazy stuff, just simple things, and you know zip code to zip code.

Storie: 4:18

Even in states like California, those things can differ absolutely laws pass all the time and if you're not on your compliance, you know and that's an pass all the time, and if you're not on your compliance, you know, and that's an annual update that you guys make sure you're proficient in. Oh, absolutely, that's wonderful. So tell me more about one. How long has Questco been here in DFW?

Brooke: 4:38

So I was hired as the first person in DFW a little over a year ago. Even though we're nationwide, Dallas is an emerging market for us.

Storie: 4:48

Okay, that's awesome. So obviously you've you've continued to do well in this market. That's great. And so what led you to your your book writing? Now, you have multifaceted talents, I see, but let's shift over to a little more about you. What urged you to create this book and and to help people?

Brooke: 5:09

yeah. So this book, um, was just kind of a lightning strike, right, like I've always kind of in my back of my head, known I wanted to be an author but never really had a story to tell. I live in Flower Mound and they have this tradition that the day after Thanksgiving you're going to see all of these trees just decorated like Christmas trees, are out town and like in the most random of spaces, right, so I'll go for a run and see one out in the woods, you know, or in these funny spots, and it's always just brought me such joy. Yeah, and I was telling my friend about this who was visiting and he was like you should write a book about this and it was like, again, lightning strike. I'm like absolutely. So I went home, gathered my kids, we sat down and it was written in within a couple hours and here was this book and it's it's just children's story about finding joy in difficult times.

Storie: 5:57

Oh, I love that. I need to definitely get the link to that and to put at the bottom of your bio on this. So, with that being said, you have a brilliant mind, obviously. How do you balance the business development, the author and being a mom all in one?

Brooke: 6:13

Yeah, it's a lot of fun. I enjoy what I do. I was a college athlete so I just kind of have that team winning mentality. I don't ever let anything get me down, or if it's you know something I'm having a hard time with, I see it as a challenge rather than you know, a distraction or anything like that. So with the kids I just make sure that they're, you know, first and foremost, happy, healthy, doing well, and they all seem to be good so far.

Storie: 6:41

They're still alive, that's okay. They win.

Brooke: 6:47

You know, when I'm lucky enough that I have a hundred percent remote job so I'm at home or structuring my day schedule in a way that it's effective and efficient again to be, you know, I get what I need to get done and focus on knocking that stuff out and allows me to go pick up the kids when they need to be picked up and then, the author thing.

Brooke: 7:06

It's kind of. I find the time writing is kind of cathartic to me, right, I find the time to write working on book number two, and it's a bit different. It's not a children's story, but it allows me to kind of process the things that I've been through. So yeah.

Storie: 7:21

Do you take your experiences with QuestCo into thought like what people have overcome? Kind of helping people. When you, when you think of that. Author mentality.

Brooke: 7:31

Yeah, I think when you go to anything in sales, yeah, it's a lot of difficult times in some really good highs, right. So it's a challenging place to be and you have to have this positive mindset and I think my history in sports and writing through things really helps me process them again. I don't know that I bring work necessarily into my writing, but I think I take my personal experience into work for sure, absolutely.

Storie: 8:01

I think a lot of. I hate the word sales, but business development is creating relationships. No one is going to work with you. They don't trust you. Would you agree?

Brooke: 8:10

Absolutely.

Storie: 8:11

And you can tell you're very authentic. So, with that being said, you have a perseverance. It seems like this is one of your values, so how do you transfer that into your? The PEO with people that are unfamiliar?

Storie: 8:23

with PEOs, I know you kind of gave a brief description. How do you transfer that into the PEO With people that are unfamiliar with PEOs? I know you kind of gave a brief description. How do you transfer your personal insight and creating relationships in with your job, your day-to-day with HR support and onboarding these people to show that they can trust you?

Brooke: 8:41

Yeah, trust is the biggest challenge, right, I think, for me. I've always protected my brand being me right. I am never going to go out there and sell something I'm not proud of or misrepresent something to where, if I bumped into this person in the grocery store, I'd want to hide right.

Storie: 9:05

You don't ever want that experience. I don't think.

Brooke: 9:07

No, no. And so for me it's just being, you know, working with ethics, you know telling the truth If I don't know the answer, if it's not the right fit. I mean, peo is great for some businesses and maybe it's not the right fit for some. You know, there's definitely times when I run into people and they just are like Nope, not interested, and that's okay.

Brooke: 9:30

You know I think, when you're in business development you put so much pressure on yourself that when you can get to a place where you say, and that's okay, you know, a no is is is like.

Storie: 9:43

I'm just moving on right like it's.

Brooke: 9:44

They don't need my help right now exactly.

Brooke: 9:45

But I'm gonna put them in my queue to follow up and make sure that in three months I say hello again you know so it's that perseverance, um interest, like you said, trying to be wholly authentic to where my clients become my friends and I check in with them consistently and make sure we're all on track and and that they're happy still and you know, if there's something that changes in the business and they need to do something different, I'm going to support them and help them get them there.

Storie: 10:13

So I know I touched on you being in Dallas now, but how long has this company been around?

Brooke: 10:17

Gosh almost 40 years since 1986.

Brooke: 10:22

So y'all must be doing something right, it seems like you have a great company structure. Yeah, so I think about the PEO industry. There are probably a thousand PEOs in the country, right, but a lot of them are small, regional or industry specific type PEOs. Okay, you'll know the big dogs like ADP, trinet and Sparity. About eight years ago, questco decided, hey, this is where we want to take our business, and so they hired Jason Randall who is our CEO. He's phenomenal. Got to spend some time with him recently and he's really brought a people-centric, customer service-centric approach to Quesco in all ways. Like, if you read his bio and look at his book, he just really strips it down to putting people first.

Brooke: 11:12

And so when you go into the PE relationship again. They're all different and one size doesn't fit all. Here we're looking for the companies that have a heart set for their employees. We're just not a payroll benefits solution. We want to make sure that we're supporting the business so that the HR team or the leadership team can look at culture and employee engagement and really build out what the future of our workforce looks like. And how do we want to get there and what kind of company do we want to be. Do we want culture by default or do we want culture by design?

Brooke: 11:47

And we want to free up them, to not have administrative burdens or get knocked off track, to really focus on building the culture and the employment place that they want.

Storie: 11:57

Amazing, would you say. That's what differentiates you from the big players. Quote, unquote.

Brooke: 12:02

I think it makes us different in the marketplace. For that reason we have just such a huge focus on customer service and being the best kind of supportive HR team we can be to our clients. You know there are others in the marketplace that have that focus too a few of them. And you know there are others in the marketplace that have that focus too a few of them.

Storie: 12:25

But there are definitely others that are just more of a, a feeling Right, you told me, or mentioned before, that you have a partner, not push mentality, and that that sounds like what you just described. So how do you create awareness about what you do to these business owners and business leaders and encourage them to reach out for that help that you're offering?

Brooke: 12:48

Yeah, a lot of education. I think the market penetration and PEO is in the mid 20s in terms of, you know, companies that are using PEO, so there's a lot of market share out there and a lot of people that don't even know about PEO. Back to you know my my ex-husband.

Brooke: 13:05

So for me, you know, I think the phone is not dead. I love making phone calls and again it's that challenge thing, right, like this person doesn't know I'm calling and I'm going to be super friendly and I am going to. You know, I kind of go in with a goal. It's a win for me to have a quick conversation and say, hey, would it be okay if I reach out to you again. So that's awareness, just doing the hard work and the phone calls. But I love being out in the community, I love events. There's some nonprofits that I like to support and things of that nature. So just word of mouth. You know, working from home can get kind of lonely for people that don't know what that's like.

Storie: 13:43

So I make sure.

Brooke: 13:44

I set up lunches with you, know future or current? Clients and influencers and, you know, like, outsource CFO partners that can send me business. So I'm always kind of thinking like hey, how can my mental health, you know, be, how can my energy be reinvigorated by sitting and talking to people? And then you know yeah, it's that balance and people hear it.

Storie: 14:08

When, in such an AI driven world now, it seems like people want more of a personal touch, they almost want a phone call so they know you're a real person. So I think what you're doing is really giving that to that demographic that doesn't encourage the AI as much. They really find that valuable to have that personal hands-on experience, would you say.

Brooke: 14:28

I would think so too, and you see anybody who's out there in development knocking on doors and actually stopping in to talk to people and bringing them, you know, little cookies or something like that. I think it was out, and now I feel like it's back in because of that personal touch Like hey, you know, yeah.

Storie: 14:46

I feel like our emails are constantly inundated with with here and there and trying to weed it out. When you have someone in front of you, it really just brings you out of the screen, right? And that follow-up they actually pay more attention to, which is, I think, a great being in business development. I think it's the personal touch people want right now.

Brooke: 15:04

Yeah, for sure, I don't know, if it's possible.

Storie: 15:09

They're the AI. I think my kids inform me more on what's going on and trending and digital marketing than I even know sometimes, which is great. You got to stay in the mix of all of it, I guess, right. So what would you say the company is in? Right now we have a build, launch, grow, scale methodology we mentioned earlier. Where would you say your business is this little sector of your business and then the company as a whole?

Brooke: 15:35

I'm definitely in. I would say grow. You know, I am just trying to plant seeds everywhere I can to let them know about Quesco and the value that we bring. So that's where you know personally, my goals are where I'm at With Quesco. I think we're definitely in the build stage. We're making a lot of acquisitions, bringing on a lot of BDMs in different markets. And so we've got aggressive growth goals. Mm-hmm coast to coast Wow.

Storie: 16:11

That's great, and I'm sure it varies for each region, right? So how would you say, um, how do you know when it's time to help a business owner? Scale in terms of what you do? The HR section of it.

Brooke: 16:24

Yeah, um, just a really great conversation asking a lot of questions, right? Because we touch every piece of an organization when it comes to HR right. Touch every piece of an organization when it comes to HR right. So it's a lot of questions, it's a lot of follow-up calls and you know, just feeling out, you know where are we at. Does this make sense for the organization? Does it?

Storie: 16:46

make sense for your people.

Brooke: 16:46

You know like we go back to the insurance piece. There's such a need there, but what does that look like? There's so many different ways to tackle benefits these days. Igras and a lot of people are going to these. You know the physicians where you pay a monthly thing.

Storie: 17:05

You know what's right for your people.

Brooke: 17:06

What do your people want?

Storie: 17:07

And your team's doing the research on that for them.

Brooke: 17:10

We're asking the questions like what makes the most sense for your business and your people and what do they want? And if it's something that we can do for them, we will absolutely step in and help, and or we're advising. You know, hey, maybe you don't need a traditional plan, maybe you want to look at something else and try to be bring some solutions that are different.

Storie: 17:29

Right that they can trust that you're not just another company upselling. You're really trying to help them utilize and optimize their business without having to be so hands on.

Brooke: 17:38

Yeah, it's benefits are probably one of the biggest cost centers for any business.

Storie: 17:43

If you're offering them to employees.

Brooke: 17:45

it is expensive out there, Everybody knows it.

Storie: 17:48

And trying to understand all the different terms and how it can help your staff. I know a lot of CEOs don't have the capacity to try and educate themselves on all of that right.

Brooke: 18:00

Yeah, and that's where we come in when we want to be an educational source for their employees. You know, if we are working with them and saying this hey, let's break this down, we've got a customer call center. We will spend an hour with your employees to go through it. All all those things we want to be able to, to educate wow but ceos ceos you have.

Brooke: 18:18

They don't want to dive into those details. Generally we're working cfos and hr managers um that want to understand the numbers, but ceos are like. I just want to make sure there's good stuff for my people wow.

Storie: 18:28

So you really you're an educator. You're really educating people on the do's and don'ts of this and and being a resource they can have at any point during during the week. Are you guys a kind of a 24-7 option if things were going to go wrong? Seven days a week?

Brooke: 18:41

oh yeah, thank god, my cell number's out there all the time it's okay.

Storie: 18:47

So what's on the horizon for you? The book, the business, anything exciting coming?

Brooke: 18:53

up. Yeah, um. So, like I mentioned working on book number two, I really would love to get that launched. Um, it's a fun one for me. Um, the book still working on. So that was finished November 12th last year in terms of being able to publish that, and it's a Christmas book oh sweet holiday book, and so last year I didn't have a whole lot of time to turn that around um, so this year I'd like to really focus on getting that out to people and see if I can drum some interest up there.

Storie: 19:21

And it was always just a passion project.

Brooke: 19:24

So if it doesn't go anywhere, I'm okay with that too.

Storie: 19:26

It's great to have passions outside of what you do, though, isn't it? Oh, yeah, yeah, I would say it's healthy, and I need to be better about it, for sure, but this is what you're doing is inspiring, and I'm sure it's a great role model for your children to follow, like you don't have to be stuck in what you do all the time. You, you can expand your options, right yeah, I think it's just.

Brooke: 19:47

I mean, when my daughter saw my name on Amazon, like, she was like oh my gosh, it's real thing, um, and so that was really, really fun. I think that alone was worth. You know, the the effort.

Storie: 20:01

So absolutely, now you're making me jealous. I need to be a book writer or something for my children to aspire to, right?

Brooke: 20:09

Everybody's got a story right. Yeah, I mean, it's just I don't know. I think there's an inspiration that comes and you know, it really has been an experience. I've learned a ton. I interviewed a lot of people that had written their own books and said what do I need to do? Because it's kind of a tricky world, the publishing world and figuring out how to do it. But it's been fun.

Storie: 20:37

What's one piece of advice, since you said that would you give people that are looking to start their own business, or to create a book or tell their story? What's one piece of advice you wish you had had prior to starting all of that?

Brooke: 20:45

I would say do your research and talk to a lot of people. Like I said it was. You know, I don't think you should ever hold back, even if it's never going to go anywhere. But if you just write something and getting that off your chest or getting that story out, sharing it with others, don't be. I was very nervous to share my stuff with other people, even my family, even my mom. I'm like, oh don't judge me.

Brooke: 21:09

But when I got positive feedback over and over and over, I was like, okay, it gave me the confidence to run with it. So, share what you have Ask people questions. I think that was key for me is really asking those people that I knew, that were authors and talking about it, Just talking like hey, I've written this book. And so many people were like, oh my gosh, I know this person, you should talk to them. You know just the world opened up in terms of resources.

Storie: 21:34

So networking should talk to them. You know it. Just the world opened up in terms of resources and so networking.

Brooke: 21:37

You would say it's a great thing to do share it.

Storie: 21:38

Yeah, that is awesome, so if anyone wants to reach out to you, in terms of questco, or even advice um on how to kind of begin the process of being your own person how can they? Reach you um.

Brooke: 21:50

My email at work is brookehoffman, at questconet. I think if you Google me, my book will come up on Amazon. You can find me my cell number's available on my website for that. But yeah, it's, I'd be more than happy. One of my favorite things to do is get out for a lunch or coffee and just meet people, because everybody has a great story and I always learn something from people and love to share resources and referrals and all of those things.

Storie: 22:20

So yeah, well, you're a great person. It seems like to work with, I think we might be working with you pretty soon too. So um, to our listeners out there, if you'd like to reach out to Brooke, please do at least to, to get some feedback on how to optimize what you do now. Until next time, we'll see you.