IAM665- Co-founder Provides Back-office Support for Marketing Agencies

Amy is the co-founder of Inbound Back Office, back-office support for marketing agencies. She comes from a long background of working in the corporate world as an administrative assistant in many different industries. IBO started as a freelance side hustle, but it grew so fast, that she decided to join forces with Michael Reynolds, former marketing agency owner, so they could manage it together. Today IBO is a 57-employee, fully remote, booming business. Amy resides in Pennsylvania with her amazing husband and a handful of kids and dogs.

• CEO Hack: Systematizing tasks
• CEO Nugget: Keep it simple
• CEO Defined: Creating something that enables other people to have opportunity

Website: https://inboundbackoffice.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amyfoley1008/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inboundbackoffice/
https://www.inboundbackoffice.com/podcast

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Transcription

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

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 Amy Foley from the Inbound Back Office. Amy, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Amy Foley 0:39

Thanks for having me Gresh.

Gresham Harkless 0:40

No problem. Super excited to have you on and what I wanted to do before we jumped in is to read a little bit more about Amy so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Amy is the co-founder of Inbound Back Office, back office support for marketing agencies. She comes from a long background of working in the corporate world as an administrative assistant in many different industries. IBO started as a freelance side hustle, but it grew so fast that I decided to join forces with Michael Reynolds, a former marketing agency owner so they could manage it together. Today IBO is a 57-employee fully remote booming business. And Amy resides in Pennsylvania with her amazing husband and a handful of kids. And of course, dogs. Amy, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Amy Foley 1:23

I am. Let's do it.

Gresham Harkless 1:24

Let's do it. So to kick everything off, I guess I wanted to hear a little bit more about your background, and your CEO story, we'll let you get started with your business.

Amy Foley 1:31

Sure, yeah. Okay. So back in around 2011, my son broke his femur, when he was three. And it for those who don't know what that means, when you are a young child, they have to put you in a half body cast. So essentially, he was relegated to a beanbag chair and can only move if we lifted him and moved him. And so I had to work from home. My company at the time did not like that at all. But what I found was that it was amazing. For me, as far as seeing how much more productive I can be when I could, you know, work early in the morning when I had the most energy when I could, you know, be free of the usual office distractions. So, from that point forward, it was my goal to work from home. And so my, when I went back to work at the office, they were like, No way. So from that point forward, it was just like, I just had this drive to like, find some way I could work from home. So I was able to find a part-time job that I did at night.

And then when they were ready to hire a full-time person, I was like, let's do it. So they hired me full-time. And what I found was that I completed things very quickly. So I had a lot of extra time on my hands. So I started the side hustle of virtual assistants. And I literally, I mean, I put up a very simple website, I, you know, went to Twitter, and I was like, hey, you know, I was looking for people who are looking for referrals for virtual assistants. And I would reach out to them and say, hey, I can help. Here's my website, let me know if you want to talk and the first week I got three clients. So it just took off from there. And so then my goal was to build it to a free-standing business where I could quit my full-time job and just focus on that. So I eventually did that with the help of a very amazing business coach. And then I just kept getting busier and busier and busier. And I started having to hire people to help me.

And when I hired so many people, I was like, I don't know how to manage these people, I was literally keeping track of like, how much to pay them on a spreadsheet. Like it was just a big old mess. So my very first client, Michael Reynolds was the owner of a marketing agency. And I was like, Hey, how would you like to kind of join forces on this since you know how to like, you know, manage that kind of things like payroll and things like that. And I know the virtual assistant side, and the client side and so we did that. And in 2018 it was kind of incubated within his agency, and kind of still a side thing. But then in 2018, we broke it off on its own and it had its own legs and you know, its own systems and we have been growing like crazy ever since. And now you know at the time that I wrote that bio, we had 57 employees now we're well over 60 So like we are just booming.

Gresham Harkless 4:34

I love it. You guys are going gangbusters. And I don't know maybe dating myself. When you were saying you and Michael got together to build to join forces. I was thinking like Captain Planet and your forces combine and you guys are taking Yeah, so I love that and I love how it kind of you know I think sometimes we hear somebody's story we don't see kind of like those beginning stages. We just see where they are now. We don't realise the steps that it took for you to get there and how it started as a side hustle. And then it grew into this booming business that you guys have.

Amy Foley 5:03

Yeah. And it was it was tough. There were lots of tough days. Because, you know, for a while there, I was doing everything by myself before I felt okay enough because I, like I don't do anything like I didn't take on any debt. I just literally was totally bootstrapping and anything I needed. I was like, Well, I have to wait until I get paid first before I can do that and invest that money back in. So for a while there, it was just investing back into the business so that I could actually create the business. So there were definitely some tough times.

Gresham Harkless 5:32

Yeah, absolutely. Do you feel like you know, thinking back now, that was you feel like that was a really positive move for you to be able to just fully Bootstrap and not take on that debt?

Amy Foley 5:42

110%. And to this day, that is how we run our business. Michael and I are both. I don't know if your listeners know Dave Ramsey, but we're both Dave Ramsey people big time. And so we are just like saying no to debt. And, you know, if we can't afford it, then we don't get it right now. And then that's just how our mentality has been. And I think that you like especially now, when you know, so many businesses are having a hard time like we could definitely weather a storm. I mean, we're actually having our busiest time right now. So which is super fortunate, but um, we've had storms in the past, and we've weathered them, because we don't owe anybody anything.

Gresham Harkless 6:23

Right. And that's super powerful. He has David has been featured on one of our roundups as well, too. So yes, loads of great information is good to hear that that was a positive decision. So I wanted to drill down a little bit, could you take us through exactly how you work with your clients? And what exactly does that process look like?

Amy Foley 6:38

Sure, yeah. So we work with marketing agencies, almost exclusively. And we provide pretty much anything that a marketing agency could possibly need to outsource, we can provide that. So that's anything from General Administration, like managing calendars, things like that, to website development, to content creation, to, you know, social media digital ads, anything that they need for their business, or to serve their clients. And we work with clients, and mostly one of two ways, we're either helping out where needed, where you know, somebody will, right now they're like, having to layoff people because they can't, they can't financially handle the full time, you know, payroll, plus benefits and things like that. But they still have clients, and they still need the work done. So they're coming to us to kind of fill in those gaps. And then we're like, if somebody goes on maternity leave, we'll fill in a gap there.

The other way is for clients who are looking to scale their businesses, but don't want to hire people. Internally, they just want to outsource everything. And so those clients are longer-term clients, where they're, you know, we're working with them more and more each month. And they will, you know, a lot of times they'll start off with like one or two of our services, and then they'll just build on from there as they see our capabilities. And they see that our people are, you know, real and are going to respond and actually do the work. do really good work. So yeah, and it's we've streamlined the process really tightly so that you know, everybody's working directly with the specialists. So there's no middleman. It's we're really good at communication. And it's just overall a great outsourcing option for agencies.

Gresham Harkless 8:30

Yeah, absolutely. And that makes so much sense. And, you know, being able to have that flexibility, depending on what you're looking for you guys being flexible enough to have a long and strong enough team to be able to kind of complement those, those organisations and those companies is definitely a huge thing.

Amy Foley 8:44

Absolutely, for sure.

Gresham Harkless 8:46

Awesome. So I wanted to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce, and it can be for yourself or for your business, but what do you feel kind of sets you guys apart and makes you unique?

Amy Foley 8:54

Sure. So um, I had trouble kind of narrowing it down to one thing, so I have a couple. So um, so with Inbound Back Office, we're 100% USP, which a lot of agencies really love and they have a hard time finding. And the other thing is our employees are all the two employees. We don't we don't hire contractors. So they're all really invested in the success of the company. So that kind of makes them a little more invested in the client succeeding as well. The other thing is that we don't have any, like our services are all based on an hourly rate and that's tracked down to the minute we don't do any rounding there's no service fees, there's no minimums, there's no nothing. So it's truly using as much as you need or as little as you need the type of service without any type of hidden fees. And it's also fully white labelled um, so you know, we adapt to your processes, we will you know, you can add us to your project management tools and just kind of its kind of like you're hiring some someone on your team without all of the, you know, the complication that comes with hiring full-time staff.

Gresham Harkless 10:05

I love that. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit. And I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an apple book or habit that you have, or something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Amy Foley 10:17

My hack is to really systematise your tasks. Task and time management are like a huge thing. For a lot of CEOs, a lot of people running businesses, really anybody, honestly, because we all have a limited amount of time. And we all have probably too much to do.

Gresham Harkless 10:38

Awesome. So now I wanted to ask you for what I wanted to what I call a CEO nugget. And that could be like a word of wisdom or piece of advice or something, you might even tell yourself if you were to happen to a time machine.

Amy Foley 10:48

The main theme that I have always stuck by and that has served me very well is to keep it simple what I have found is that anytime something starts to feel complicated, it usually doesn't work very well, Michael and I built this business on space on simplicity and streamlining everything. And I used to feel like, you know if we streamlined enough and kept things simple enough, it felt like we weren't really doing anything, and I was but you know, things were still happening. So it just felt weird, because we weren't actually doing it. But once you get past that mindset of like, I always have to, like have my hands and everything all the time. And you go, Okay, well, we can set up a forum for this and let it be, you know, kind of self-serve thing. And we don't have to be, you know, emailing back and forth to get this information. And just keeping everything super simple and streamlined is just, you know, it's just amazing. It really helps to keep your business moving. And keep you less stressed.

Gresham Harkless 11:58

Absolutely. No, I love that. And now I want to ask you my absolute favourite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote, CEOs on the show. So Amy, what does being the CEO mean to you?

Amy Foley 12:10

Okay, so to me, being a CEO is really about helping people. And when I started the virtual assistant business, I really, I mean, yes, I was looking to kind of build something and to also have something to do on the side. But I, my main goal was and the way that I approached like my selling was, I want to help you and I have this skill that a lot of people don't like to do, you know, general administrative type tasks, and I can do them fast, and I can do them well, and so I can help you in that way. And so that's always been my mindset. And then when I was able to start hiring people that just added to that because now I'm able to help people have a job.

And we hire a lot of people who are like, stay-at-home parents who, you know, they are very good in their fields, but they don't want to go work for a company full time and or climb the corporate ladder, and, but they want to keep their skills sharp, they want to make some extra money and contribute to their households, and, and I am able to help them do that. And every time we hire somebody who is just like, you know, oh, I just really can't work in the office anymore. I just want to be home with my family, but also still get a paycheck. Like, it just makes me feel so good, that I created something here that enables other people, to have that. Because that's exactly what I wanted. I was looking for that back, you know, in 2011. That's exactly what I needed. So instead of really, I mean, I did find it, but that wasn't really a great fit for me. So I decided to build it so that other people can have the opportunity.

Gresham Harkless 13:58

Yeah, absolutely. And, and I think being able to, as you said, you know, I think often we think of being of service and that servant mindset, you know, for our clients, but I think you know, as you grow, and you start to make so many impacts on so many people for you, the 60 people that you have on your team at this time, is another way that we're able to kind of make such an impact and understand like, you know, put yourself in their shoes and to be able to have that servant mindset to be able to provide something for them as well as the clients who is a phenomenal thing.

Amy Foley 14:27

Yes, absolutely. And I've also found that having that mindset really, people really resonate with that as far as customers and also employees so we ended up hiring people who you know, really top quality talent and we also ended up bringing on more clients because they just, you know, regardless of you know, if our prices are better or worse or anything like that, they just like the overall attitude instead of you know, I just want your money instead. It's more like, we just want to help you. So people really I definitely identify with that as well.

Gresham Harkless 15:03

Absolutely, yeah, I think when you you personally have that culture and it starts to, to bleed through, you know, the company and all the people when you start to attract those people, it starts to become a really phenomenal thing because I usually say the quote that I swear by, is people don't care how much they how much you know that they know how much you care. And when you show that you can, people can see that then it definitely goes to another level.

Amy Foley 15:23

Definitely, I wholeheartedly agree with you.

Gresham Harkless 15:27

Awesome. Well, thank you very, very much, Amy for that definition. And I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know and then of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you guys are working on.

Amy Foley 15:43

Um, yeah, I don't think there's anything additional I mean, your questions are pretty thorough. I'm just you know, if you know, you need any help or you know, have any questions for me I'm I'm always happy to help. Best way to contact me is through email. Amy a m y at inbound back office dot com. I'm also pretty active on LinkedIn. It's just Amy Foley and our website is inboundbackoffice.com.

Gresham Harkless 16:11

Awesome. Well, thank you so much again, Amy and make it easier. We'll have the links and information in the show notes but appreciate your time. Appreciate everything you're doing to build and grow. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Outro 16:21

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 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 iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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