A Fun Virtual Company Culture with Leafy Legal Services' Brian Price and Jennifer Gligoric

Asset Protection for Real Estate Investors & Entrepreneurs.

Brian Price is the CEO & Co-Founder and Jennifer Gligoric is the COO & Co-Founder of Leafy Legal Services.

Even the most experienced real estate investors put off protecting their assets because it's not as fun or sexy as booking that big family vacation. There is no reason for you to go it alone or get loaded up on legal structures that are so overly stacked they are cumbersome, complicated and have holes in the protection.  Leafy Legal Services helps you bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be when it comes to protecting yourself.

Learn more about how Leafy Legal Services can help others succeed and protect what they value by listening to this episode of The Thoughtful Entrepreneur above and don’t forget to subscribe on   Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – Spotify –Google Play –Castbox – TuneIn – RSS.

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0:00
Welcome to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. I'm Josh Elledge, Founder and CEO of UpMyInfluence.com. We turn entrepreneurs into media celebrities, grow their authority, and help them build partnerships with top influencers. We believe that every person has a unique message that can positively impact the world. stick around to the end of the show, where I'll reveal how you can be our next guest on one of the fastest growing daily inspiration podcasts on the planet in 15 to 20 minutes. Let's go.

With us right now we've got Brian Price, who is the CEO and we've got Jennifer Gligoric, who's the CEO of Leafy Legal Services. Thank you each for joining us.

0:47
Thank you so much for having us.

0:48
Okay, so let's just get this out of the way Leafy Legal Services is not in the cannabis space. Because I know that that's, that's the very first thing that I thought of because We happen to work with a lot of clients in that in that space. And there are a lot of needs for, for legal services for those attorneys who are listening, but you guys have actually done really, really phenomenal work in the real estate space, another area where there is a lot of help needed. And of course, we serve a lot of people in the real estate space as well. But first off again, thank you so much for joining us. And, and one thing that we want to focus on is, Jennifer, I think particularly your background, you have a lot of experiences in operations and human resources, talent, marketing, professional services. So you know, when growing and scaling a company, and I think a lot of people that listen to this program are doing so virtually, and that presents some inherent challenges. We're not all getting together for casual Friday and, you know, we have a spaghetti lunch on Wednesday. And, and then we're going to, you know, do some goofy game, you know, during our rah rah session on Mondays or something like that we kind of miss out on all of those things. And I'm being really silly here, you know, by pointing out those things, because again, I think what what what I'd really love to talk about is how can we manifest culture in a virtual company? Take it away.

2:27
Okay. Well, Brian and I are actually experts at this. We have been growing virtual teams for the past decade. And growing the virtual team is a very different animal. In order to do that, you have to utilize the technology that you have. So you're going to want to use slack is a great resource. It's cheap. You can get on to it very easily toggle as a timekeeping management software is is exceedingly good for remote teams without making people feel like they're micromanage, which is the number one challenge One of the number eight challenges of managing a remote team of professionals, we only deal with top notch professionals getting people who are a players out of the corporate world, or who are home now because they want to be with kids take care of someone who's disabled, or maybe they have a challenge themselves, but yet they're still top talent. They're not going to be micromanage. It's a new world. As far as working goes, the old way of working is no longer working. So people want to feel more touch points. And in a remote environment, you will get to know people better than you do sitting across from the cubicle because we have ways of walking past people or taking them for granted when they're just sitting there and not actually speaking to them. In a remote environment. You have to communicate face to face on video, talking to them on the phone, probably three times as much as you would if you're just sitting next to them, they don't get the verbal cues. So your communication skills have to be Top notch, you're going to have to be a much better manager and have the ability to very quickly get the KPIs out. So they're not spending all the time you're paying them in meetings, which will kill an organization, but able to get them what they need, make them feel valued, listen to them. And do this as concisely as possible. It is its own specialty. It is its own challenge. It cannot be approached the way people have done it before.

4:29
So Jennifer, Brian, what would be the danger of being in a having a culture where it's just transactional? Hey, you show up. You're working as a 1099 independent contractor. You clock in 30 hours this week, I pay you 30 Dino hours worth of wages. And we just call it good there.

4:48
Yeah, there's no connection to the company. A lot of times we want the a player but in order for someone to play their A game, because a lot of times if you're just being transactional, they'll give you Your B or C game just to give you what you want, they have to have a passion for the company. And that's where the culture comes in and having those touch points in the age where everybody talks about KPIs which are good, and having clear expectations are really great. But having that kind of The X Factor of human interaction is is so key, especially in virtual environments, because we're all behind our computers. And we need to have that human interaction to know that what we're doing is valued.

5:33
It's not things that don't just saying one thing that I know that I've heard is how important it is that you use video for as many things as possible video is just going to be much higher touch than just sending text messages back and forth, which I think you're probably going to do for the majority of your, you know, Operation type stuff, but it's really critical like so when we as a team to We've got over 20 people on the team now and you know, when we meet together, I say, Listen, you know, please do everything possible to try and get your webcam going, I will be on video. It's just important that we that we see each other as opposed to just hearing voices. Number one, I think it'll it incentivizes people to be a little bit more present. But number do, there's just way more information that gets conveyed when we talk over video any other ideas on the importance of using video when communicating?

6:34
Well, it's not expensive anymore. See, that was the that was the biggest hurdle for most entrepreneurs at first with video is that the offerings out there were fairly expensive. You either had to have an iPhone, which is more expensive than Android, or Google Hangouts didn't really work. But now you have incredible things like zoom, which is what we're on right now. You have a loom which is free. You have Cheap versions of Camtasia, like snag it, and in other different things that you can meet. So and the technology with Google Hangouts and FaceTime and people's access to lower cost, iPhones has really come up. So there's really no excuse now, even more so than just three years ago to not employ a video option, because you can see a lot more with people plus remote workers discipline is very important. So if you see people who are dressed and they've got their coffee, and they're ready to work, that is going to teach everyone else on the team who just shows up in their jammies that Oh, yeah, this is a job. It also trains them to and the culture starts to pull together with that.

7:49
Yeah. What are some ways that you can make your virtual company a fun place to work?

7:57
We do little contests inside and this Jennifer's specialty, so I'm going to give it to her. But she's had so many interesting ideas to do this stuff to make it fun and the companies we work with. So Jennifer, I'll let you take us through this.

8:10
Okay, well, number one, I like to have working meetings where everybody gets on like a video or whatever. And then it's casual. So we can be casual, and then we'll drink wine and the music plays, and everyone just does their drug test. But we have like work rooms, like literally water coolers. And a lot of times that's like after normal working hours, because many contractors will work different hours, but we set it up at a time, then there are ways to recognize people like I love to be able to give people money, every single month, like 10 bucks, you can start it with 10 bucks everybody you have, but they cannot keep it they are only allowed to give it away. And when they give it away to someone else, they have to say why they're giving it away. So we have a maximum you can only divide that 10 bucks up to three ways because it's too hard to track whatever. And then the top three people get recognized. First, second and third place. And it's the people who most envision the values of the company. And it's great for the people because you're getting money. And then you can spend it either on prizes or get cash or whatever, every single quarter. And then the person who wins at the end of the year, if the highest, they get to put in a drawing for a free trip, you know, a forced like vacation where they have to go on vacation, and you pay for it. And it really is not expensive to do this. It's fun for the people. But organization wise for you, you see who's plugging in and who's not plugging in, you also see who are these lone Wolf's that are just sitting out by themselves by themselves. And some of them are doing great work, but they are not meeting other people. That happens a lot. You get graphic designers, they're just out there, or you get a copywriter who's out there, but yet they are consistent, but they're not meeting enough people to make relationships. So strategically, you can start to move these little pegs around to where they can get the focus that they need from someone else and then all of a sudden you see them thrive even more people You're more engaged and feel plugged in a forced vacation is another one that's really great. You can do this periodically and force someone anyone to take a take a week off. And this is the best test of how well your organization runs is what's happening. You want things, you want them to have prepared everything where things are fairly seamless, but you kind of notice that they're gone a little bit for the person, you want to reinforce that work life balance is extremely important, whether they stay at home or whatever, and they have to report back on what they did. There should never be a penalty, even if everything goes to pot, or you don't even notice that they're gone for the an organization that's going to give you so much more than any report or dashboard. You're going to figure out what needs to happen if they're not being challenged if they're being challenged too much, or if there's something in the thing. So those are three things. Two and a half.

10:58
Wow. You know what, I don't know if you get written the book, but maybe you should I do, like, you know, the book on how to make the virtual workplace a fun place to work. Maybe there's a book out there that exists like that. But, you know, just hearing you talk about, you know, the, like, everyone gets $10, but you can't keep it, you give it to somebody else, and then just see where that $10 all kind of shuffles to, based on you know, whatever it is, that's very, very cool. Like, I could talk, we could totally do that.

11:29
Yeah, it's easy, and it doesn't cost the company a lot of money. And it gives you a lot of data. Plus, it's a fun contest to have, and the people in the it is you would think, Oh, it's just going to be a popularity contest. It's amazing how it's not how many unsung unsung heroes that will come to the forefront or teams. You also see teams that are very much there you go. That's a really strong team. They've got it real good. So yeah,

11:56
in about 60 seconds, just because we're running out of time, can you Kind of give me an overview of what levy legal services does, who you serve, and what is something that somebody could immediately engage with you on.

12:10
Okay, Brian.

12:12
So what we do is, is we help real estate investors do asset protection, we mostly do the series LLC for asset protection. We also do estate planning, and solo for one case, and so anybody that needs has a business, whether a real estate investor or an entrepreneur, you need to have the right proper structuring in place. And so we're happy to get on a phone call with anybody that has questions to understand what they should do or what recommendations we can have to make sure that they are properly structured. Even if you're just starting out. It's definitely worthwhile to know, just so that it isn't too late. If something were to happen, unfortunately,

12:57
and for investors in California Massachusetts and Delaware we do do the Delaware statutory trust. We can do anonymous LLC that tie with a series LLC structure in any state we work in any state. If you are currently buying houses as a real estate investor, even if you just have one rental property in your name, your chance of getting sued in the next 25 in the next 20 years is 95% 100 million lawsuits let last year means 25% Americans get sued over anything. But if you're a real estate investor, that skyrockets even if you're just going down the street and you get into a car wreck, that has nothing to do with your rental properties. Then a vexatious attorney will pull up by your name everything and put liens against it. And many times you don't even know that there's a lien until you go to close and it is just a payday for nothing because you want to close that buyer wants to buy and a lot of times they put it in low enough amounts to where it is literally money for free. It's a flawed system. It's what we have right now and many counties and many states, and we can protect you from that having happening to you.

14:04
Well, Jennifer Gligoric and Brian Price, you're with Leafy, Leafy Legal Services and you're on the web at leafyassets.com. Is that right?

14:16
Yeah, correct. You can go to Leafy Legal Services at leafyassets.com. Both of them get to us

14:21
and you even have a podcast, the Leafy Podcast. Well, I want to thank each of you for joining us on The Thoughtful Entrepreneur.

14:27
Thank you so much. Thanks, Josh.

14:30
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