Founder and Business Coach Helps Businesses Hire Great and Talented People

In this episode, we have Craig Goodliffe, a respected entrepreneur, leadership expert, business coach, and a cool dad.

He shares his experience of connecting with talented individuals in the Philippines leading to the creation of Cyberbacker. Craig talks through challenges in hiring and retaining talent, and unique strategies like profit share programs.

The conversation emphasizes the importance of giving back to the community and helping other entrepreneurs grow and the positive outcome of having an abundance mindset and being part of a supportive community.

Website: Cyberbacker

LinkedIn: Craig Goodliffe

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Full Interview:

Transcription:

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Intro 00:01

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:28

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Craig Goodliffe. Craig, excited to have you on show.

Craig Goodliffe 00:36

Thanks for letting me be here. Really excited to Gresham.

Gresham Harkless 00:39

Yes. I'm excited as well too. So many phenomenal things in what we do before we jump in is I wanted to read a little bit more about Craig so you could hear about some of those awesome things and so that all the fans and everybody can know as well. So Craig is a respected entrepreneur, leadership expert, business coach, and a cool dad. As the CEO and founder of Cyberbacker, his expertise in cross cultural business development has led the company to become a global industry leader, transcending geographical boundaries to empower business worldwide. His insights have been featured in esteemed publications such as the Top 100 magazine, CBS, International Business Times Inc, and Forbes Business Council.

And one of the things I was reading about before prepping for this is that Craig believes that equal opportunity should be given and great talents can be found from anywhere around the globe. And I love that he taught me a new word even before we hopped on the interview. He taught me another new word, cyberbacker. And one really cool thing I thought that really brought everything home, I'm sure it does for him too, is that when he walks into his office, he sees a picture of every single cyberbacker in your family. So I think that's awesome. I think you're awesome, Craig. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?

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Craig Goodliffe 01:43

Yeah, man. I'm excited.

Gresham Harkless 01:43

Let's get it started then. So to kick everything off, let's rewind the clock a little bit, hear a little bit more on how you got started with what I call your CEO story.

Craig Goodliffe 01:51

I'd love to say there was one moment, and this one moment was a defining moment. There was some magical experience, but there there wasn't. If I were to tell you where it really came from is it's just insecurity and dissatisfaction. And what that means is my wife went ahead at the time, was having a baby. And just like everyone who's has a kid on the way and you're responsible providing, you think, how am I gonna take care of this? And see my son in the back corner, because I've got my family up on the wall, him and me and everybody else's family. But it was such being so insecure that I was gonna be able to provide that I figured out, here's what I'm gonna do to go ahead and make a lot. And then when I went ahead and I start hitting this threshold, I went ahead and started looking around with at some point, you have to go ahead and know what you're gonna do with money. If you haven't go make a lot of money, you gotta know what you can do with it.

And if your only thing you can come up with is make more money, that's a lousy answer. And you think, I'm I can't take it with me. What do I wanna do? I've come in contact with people all over the world that are just astounding and amazing. And there's people out there that just if someone gave them an opportunity, they can do amazing things in this world. I just happen to find a lot of people in the Philippines. And I'm still meeting them all over the world. We're going a lot of different places. But, ultimately, why did I start this company? Originally, I just I'm just a guy trying to take care of his family, and then I became a guy trying to help other people take care of their families, plain and simple.

Gresham Harkless 03:18

I appreciate that. And it reminded me so much of and I'm sure that you've you've heard this many times when you hop on an airplane is to make sure that you put your oxygen mask off first because that gives you the opportunity to be able to help so many people out. So I love how you don't have to choose either or. You could choose both and better, and I feel like you've been able to do that for your family and, obviously, for, so many families as well.

Craig Goodliffe 03:37

That's it. And I just I'm very aware of my family's challenges, and I watched my grandpa work with family members, and he didn't choose them because they were the best employees. He chose them because they're family. I've watched my mom and stepdad work together, which I'm gonna tell you what, if you wanna create conflict in a marriage, work together. That's the number one piece of advice if you are seeking conflict. And what I could go ahead and figure out, gosh, what would it be like if I could solve that problem for even though my grandpa's long since it's passed, if I could solve that problem for him.

And what would it have been like if my mom and stepdad weren't arguing about things in the business, they just had their happy marriage, I mean, my stepdad is tired right now, because a company like mine existed. And really, when you go ahead and say, I've got I'm going to start a business, really what you're saying is, here's the problems I'm committed to solving.

Gresham Harkless 04:25

Yeah, that's so powerful. So, I want to drill down a little bit more and hear a little bit more on how you're solving those problems. Could you take us through a little bit more on how you're supporting your clients and making that impact?

Craig Goodliffe 04:35

So I went ahead and just had a combination of a lot of things come together that created what today is this wonderful company called Cyberbacker. And it was that in 2015, I start coaching real estate business owners. And simultaneously, I had a real estate business in 2017 before starting Cyberbacker. We sold 203 units, which in two counties here where I live, according to Realtorants, we were the number one selling team. And it was really exciting those years. And I didn't get a lot of fulfillment out of it. We sold 203 homes. And I went ahead and I had entrepreneurs, business owners I'm coaching. I'm selling a lot of homes, and the problems they're having, I went, I figured out back in 2012 how to hire great people, and a lot of them are from the Philippines. And why don't I just help you do that?

And so I created Cyberbacker. That's what we started doing. And, really, it was just a combination of I had some friends that they're saying, I'm losing my mind. I'm working from when I wake up to wanna go to bed seven days a week. And I was coming across peep I was coming in contact with people in the Philippines who said, hey. I've got a friend, and they wanna work online with someone like you. Can you help them? Do you know of anyone who's interested? And finally, I just went I said, well, I'm just gonna try putting some of these together. And I started getting phone calls from friends saying, hey, I don't I have nights and weekends back.

And I started getting messages from people in the Philippines saying, I can consistently feed my family. And what that did to me emotionally was far greater than any amount of money you can make. And it just poured enough gasoline into me that I said, hey, what could I build? Like, what could and what problems do I really wanna solve in the world? And looking at where there were problems in the whole working online phase, one, finding someone who is fantastic is not easy. You have to go through a lot of we get 15,000 interviews or applicants per week. We'll do 5,000 interviews per week, we'll hire less than a hundred. And then the second thing is making sure that when you're hiring someone that's not in office, that they're constantly undergoing training, getting better, and they're constantly being developed.

And the next thing is, you need help with retention. And first thing is, you're hiring from the Philippines and you're foreign, like me from the US. If someone with Philippines steals from me, according to the Philippines commercial code section 150, I cannot do anything about it because I'm a foreigner. Some of them know that. So you have to start a legal entity in the Philippines, which we did, so we could make it legal for our people, but then we needed to go beyond that. So we created a profit share program. So when someone's in Cyberbacker, they go ahead and they work there until eventually, they they get a little bit every month of profit share, and then eventually, if even if they quit, they still get their profit share.

So I created a profit share program, which is a retention strategy, and then I created cyber capital, so we loaned money to buy houses, we loaned money to buy cars, and we profit share the interest. And then we put some self development in there. Because as long as you go ahead and for your client, we'll come to Cyberbacker, we'll get 15,000 applicants, that's great. Our clients need one great person they can literally bet their company on. They're counting on us to train them and us to put them in a situation where they stay in business with them.

Gresham Harkless 07:41

I love it. And what would you consider to be what I like to call your secret sauce? This could be for yourself, cyberbacker, or a combination of both. But what do you feel and what sets you apart and makes you unique?

Craig Goodliffe 07:51

One of the things that I think makes me very, very unique is the time that I spend old school pen and paper. And sometimes one of my favorite quotes is when in doubt, write it out. If I go ahead and I just write on a piece of paper I'm experiencing, and I write out and describe what I'm experiencing on paper, and I can see it visually, I can usually come up with a solution. It's amazing. But sometimes, it's hard to see the solution when you don't fully understand the problem or you haven't fully thought through it. And just being able to sit down and write it out, it's it brings a lot of awareness, and sometimes it's self awareness. Sometimes I'll write down something's going on with me or something's going on with someone inside my organization. And once I start writing it out, like I'm telling the story, the answer just pops up in front of me.

And if I had to say, what's the superpower? It's that I'll actually set aside time to do that. Where I know a lot of other great entrepreneurs and great business partners, but I'll just ask a question. What do you do to think? Or how do you get yourself making the best choices? And they're like, we just naturally do and stuff like that. I'm like, that doesn't sound very intentional. And then I always wonder, what would it be like if they were more intentional? But I wonder, am I being intentional enough? But when you sit down and you just take the world out and you look at what do I have to accomplish and what are the challenges, you write those out, you can usually come up with the answers. I think we all can do it. Very few of us, it's like going to the gym. We all know it's good for us, we all know we should exercise. Some actually do, some don't. But it's one of those things that if you're actually taking time take time to deal with the benefits, a lot of benefits.

Gresham Harkless 09:35

Yeah.

Craig Goodliffe 09:37

And you wouldn't do it.

Gresham Harkless 09:38

Yeah. I love that. I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call CEO hack. You might have already touched on this, but it could be like an Apple book or even a habit that you have. But what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Craig Goodliffe 09:50

It's who I surround myself with more than anything. My friends and my relationships, I've got a friends that downright intimidate and scare me with what big thinkers they are. Like, they're good. And getting really good at inserting yourself in someone's life who is just you admire them and you find a way to make them appear, and that's something that I've got a great, great friend. He's older. He's in his 80s. I first met him back in 2005. He was the he was speaking at this convention I was at. And I'm like, I wanna work with that guy. He's amazing. And I figured out how to get myself in his world. And now, one of my closest friends, and it's happened with with a few people, he's just the one that was first I went, wow. I wanna learn from that guy.

So you go out there and you you basically pick your profits. You pick the person that you're like, that person could teach me a lot. Not only do I wanna learn from them, I wanna be their friend. I wanna be someone that I can call them. I'm gonna add value to their lives. I got a lot of people, but they add value to mine and they're constantly, like but it's you gotta go ahead and find people, friends, that are pushing you to be better and think bigger. If you're not reaching out to someone frequently that's it's a little uncomfortable for you, then you're not growing as much as you could.

Gresham Harkless 11:07

I love that. And so what would you consider to be a little bit more of what I call a CEO nugget? A little bit more word of wisdom or piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell your favorite client, or if you have to sell a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

Craig Goodliffe 11:20

That you need to find the best way to put a lot of pressure on yourself to perform. And it's like if you had to you you've got things that you can be patient about, and you got things that are wants and things that are needs. Like, right now, I patiently might need to go to the bathroom. It's not an impatient thing, it's I can patiently wait to go to the bathroom. Doing your taxes is something you patiently need to do in your business. Those are patient needs. But some people have these patient wants. Like, I can patiently want to get my dream car. I can patiently want to start that business. I can and until you can go ahead and make it for yourself a patient need, like going to the bathroom, like, it's not gonna happen right now. But if it doesn't happen sometime, there's gonna be poop everywhere. But it's just about the way that you relate time and the difference between a want and need.

Gresham Harkless 12:13

Yeah. So I want to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And our goal is to have different quote unquote CEOs on the show. So, Craig, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Craig Goodliffe 12:23

First time that I actually put CEO after my name was we had PayPal send us a message saying that we just billed our clients. We're paying through PayPal, paying our people. PayPal sent us an email and said we're keeping your money, hundred and thirty six thousand dollars, for basically six months, then we'll give it back to you. And we're choosing not to do business. We just collected from our clients and haven't paid our cyberback, which is 2019. And I had to figure out how in the world I was gonna get everyone paid when the company almost didn't make it. And so I just thought, okay.

This is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna be honest with everybody. I'm gonna tell them the situation. I'm gonna give them my word that I will solve this problem, and business will resume as normal. And it's not their problem, it's my problem, and I'll get it taken care of, which I did. But when I type that with that email, that was the first time I put CEO. What it meant to me is I take responsibility that every problem in this company, I own, and I will solve, and you can count on me.

Gresham Harkless 13:22

Yeah. I think that comes full circle with, what we talked about and being able to have your the families that you have of you. You start to realize that the impact that you make is not just, as we talked about, checking off, I created this solution. It ends up being so much deeper than that. It ends up being that responsibility. So I appreciate you sharing that story, Craig. Truly appreciate that definition. Of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I want to do now is pass on the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know, and, of course, how best people can get a hold of you, learn about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.

Craig Goodliffe 13:55

I appreciate that. And I love that. So if I had to give some advice for the community, and I love this because you do this, biggest thing you can do is keep giving back. Keep helping other entrepreneurs grow. Keep helping other entrepreneurs think big. Challenge them. And I've got a bunch of friends and people that want to be entrepreneurs that I connect with and I talk to because I want to help them be better. I want to see them grow. And what happens is when you're helping someone else get better, you can't help but become better yourself. And, Gresh, you do that, man. And because you do that, people overlook that that right there, that's the number one superpower that if we all did as entrepreneurs, is we just said we're gonna help each other get better, and the competition we have the only competition we have is the choice of the consumer who did a better job in marketing, and it's no different than a professional sports team that, you know what, they won the Super Bowl, but we're training harder and we plan on winning it next year.

And at the same time, look, I'm gonna go ahead and care about them, the people on their team, stuff like that, I'm gonna wish them the best, and I'm gonna even help them get better because that's gonna make me better. And that's the kind of thing that when you're an entrepreneur that and you're part of this community and other communities that just genuinely comes from abundance, good things happen. So and people don't want to get at me. I'm a normal person on every form of social media. There's only three people that have my exact same name. I'm the only one in the US. The other one's in the UK and the other one's in South Africa. So if there's a Craig Goodliffe out there on social media from the US, I'm the only one. You can reach out on any of them. Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, you name it. You can go to Cyberbacker's website if you want, cyberbacker.com. If you just wanna see some videos, you can jump on YouTube. I've recorded some embarrassing stuff. I promise you'll see some stuff out there that you're like, wow. This guy's very human. He makes the same mistakes we all do. Because I'm very willing to be vulnerable. I think people need to see that, so when they know that they make a mistake as a business owner or a leader, it's okay. We all do it.

Gresham Harkless 15:58

Alright. I appreciate you so much, Craig. And, of course, we're gonna have the links and information in the show notes just in case so you won't get to the UK or South Africa or anything like that. You make sure you find the US, Craig Goodliffe. And I truly appreciate you for doing all the things that you do. Thank you so much for doing that, my friend, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Craig Goodliffe 16:15

Thank you, sir. You too.

Outro 16:18

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by CBNation and Blue16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase. It's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and everywhere you listen to podcasts. Subscribe and leave us a five-star rating. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless, Jr. Thank you for listening.

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