DeeAnn Palin doesn’t just fix companies — she rebuilds them from the inside out. In this episode, Craig Andrews talks with the founder and CEO of OnPoint Business Solutions about her radical journey from corporate HR skeptic to trusted strategic partner for CEOs.

Palin pulls back the curtain on toxic culture, ethical blind spots, and the cost of keeping the wrong people in leadership. She explains why HR should never be treated as a compliance function — and how, when done right, it becomes a company’s growth engine.

Drawing from her experience with brands like Motorola and the Phoenix Suns, Palin shares real-world examples of betrayal, ethical breakdowns, and executive blind spots. She makes the case for firing fast, leading with values, and building cultures that actually perform.

Her boldest leadership moment? Walking away from her largest client — and $1.3 million in savings — to protect her team. That’s not HR. That’s leadership.

Want to learn more about DeeAnn Palin’s work?  Check out her website at https://www.onptbiz.com.

Connect with DeeAnn Palin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deeannpalin/

Get a free 30-minute consultation from DeeAnn. Click here to claim that.

Key Points with Timestamps

• 00:51 – Introduction of DeeAnn Palin & redefining HR as a growth lever

• 02:00 – Why she hated HR and left corporate to build something better

• 02:55 – Quitting a toxic job and marriage in the same week

• 04:36 – “Companies are made of imperfect people — that’s job security”

• 05:52 – The hidden cost of people problems on the bottom line

• 06:58 – Coaching CEOs through life and leadership breakdowns

• 08:02 – CEOs who say “I wish I didn’t have employees” and why that’s a signal

• 11:09 – Betrayal stories from the executive suite — and the price of looking away

• 13:22 – When bad hires become culture-killers

• 15:41 – Tolerating poor leadership ruins team morale and your brand

• 17:11 – DeeAnn fires her biggest client to protect her team

• 20:12 – Leadership means knowing where the line is — and holding it

• 21:00 – How to elevate leaders by getting them in the right seat

• 22:07 – Tools DeeAnn uses: Culture Index, Hedgehog Principle, Jim Collins

• 23:05 – Why HR should never be seen as a “necessary evil”

• 24:16 – HR’s role in scaling product delivery and client value

• 25:04 – How to reach DeeAnn and request an HR wellness check

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;30;20
Craig Andrews
I was in a coma for six weeks while the doctors told my wife I was going to die. When I woke up, she told me the most fantastic story. My team kept running the business without me. Freelancers reached out to my team and said, we will do whatever it takes. As long as Craig's in the hospital. I consider that the greatest accomplishment in my career.

00;00;30;23 - 00;00;51;10
Craig Andrews
My name is Craig Andrews and this is the Leaders and Legacies podcast where we talk to leaders creating an impact beyond themselves. At the end of today's interview, I'll tell you how you can be the next leader featured on this show.

00;00;51;10 - 00;01;26;00
Craig Andrews
All right. Today I want to welcome DeeAnn Palin. She is the founder and CEO of OnPoint Business Solutions. DeeAnn helps CEOs in growing companies scale through strategic HR leadership, leadership coaching and operational excellence. And she is one of a couple people that I've met in the air space that just really have a passion and a belief that HR should be a growth lever in your business, not a necessary evil.

00;01;26;02 - 00;01;27;00
Craig Andrews
And so,

00;01;27;00 - 00;01;28;16
Craig Andrews
DeeAnn, welcome.

00;01;28;18 - 00;01;31;02
DeeAnn Palin
Thank you. It's great to be here.

00;01;31;05 - 00;01;31;27
Craig Andrews
So,

00;01;31;27 - 00;01;35;22
Craig Andrews
we'll talk about that later, because I think a lot of people see,

00;01;35;22 - 00;01;37;26
Craig Andrews
hr as like the schoolmarm,

00;01;37;26 - 00;01;46;04
Craig Andrews
who's, you know, strapping people on, on the knuckles with the ruler saying, you can't do that. But we'll dig into that a little bit later.

00;01;46;04 - 00;01;50;17
Craig Andrews
But the. You were telling me a story earlier.

00;01;50;17 - 00;01;53;15
Craig Andrews
About, you know, you haven't always been the fractional world.

00;01;53;15 - 00;01;56;14
Craig Andrews
You were. You were inside big corporate.

00;01;56;14 - 00;01;58;16
Craig Andrews
Tell me a little bit about that.

00;01;58;19 - 00;02;07;01
DeeAnn Palin
I spent the first 15 years of my life running HR departments for big companies. Target, Motorola.

00;02;07;01 - 00;02;26;25
DeeAnn Palin
Helped privatize an insurance agency into an A-rated company. I to be honest, and maybe this is a secret I shouldn't tell, but I hated HR. I absolutely hated it. And so I rushed back and got my MBA, changed management certification, project management certification.

00;02;26;25 - 00;02;35;06
DeeAnn Palin
And I started running operations. And I loved cleaning up messes and building companies and turning things around. And,

00;02;35;06 - 00;02;49;19
DeeAnn Palin
I, I just found that I loved that. And so it was about 2014, I was head of operations for the Phoenix Suns. And in a horrible marriage.

00;02;49;19 - 00;02;55;24
DeeAnn Palin
And I quit both in the same week, and I started on Point Business Solutions.

00;02;55;24 - 00;02;56;23
DeeAnn Palin
So,

00;02;56;23 - 00;03;00;27
DeeAnn Palin
that was the first time I had ever quit anything in my life. And,

00;03;00;27 - 00;03;04;09
DeeAnn Palin
so I made a declaration. Say no to jerks, right?

00;03;04;11 - 00;03;10;19
Craig Andrews
Yeah, I was going to ask. So you wake up one morning and just like, hey, I'm bored. I'm just going to quit. Quit my job and quit my marriage or what was,

00;03;10;19 - 00;03;13;08
Craig Andrews
was there some impetus?

00;03;13;11 - 00;03;25;05
DeeAnn Palin
There was a lot of years leading up to that, you know, especially on the marriage front. It was not a good one. And in fact, it was the opposite of good. And I had two young girls, ten and 12.

00;03;25;05 - 00;03;27;06
DeeAnn Palin
X was,

00;03;27;06 - 00;03;35;12
DeeAnn Palin
diagnosed, you know, narcissist, sociopath. And I was working in an environment that was really, really unhealthy.

00;03;35;14 - 00;03;55;29
DeeAnn Palin
And I have a strong character. And in both fronts, I was not living my values and living the life I knew I wanted to represent for my girls and the clients that I work with and the support. And so it was a plan. I mean, I did it both in the same week, but I didn't think of it and do it the same week.

00;03;55;29 - 00;04;02;06
DeeAnn Palin
I, I had a plan and a methodology to that, but it was really about getting back to who I am as a person.

00;04;02;08 - 00;04;10;06
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, and, So,

00;04;10;06 - 00;04;21;15
Craig Andrews
I guess let me just clarify this. I mean, I, you know, anybody that works for a company, they have some critiques of the company because there's no perfect company, because companies are made up of people who are also imperfect.

00;04;21;17 - 00;04;24;13
DeeAnn Palin
And that's job security for me, by the way.

00;04;24;16 - 00;04;36;10
Craig Andrews
Yes. That's a good point. That's a good point because I don't know, let's I actually I went put on that a little bit. Tom. Tell me, explain that.

00;04;36;12 - 00;05;03;05
DeeAnn Palin
Well, you know, I have to show up. Most of my CEO say running a company would be so easy if I didn't have employees. Right. And it's painful to manage the emotional wherewithal of all of the issues that go on. And, you know, we're all little kids and big people's bodies, right? And so when something upsets you, you throw that same tantrum you threw when you were five.

00;05;03;07 - 00;05;28;01
DeeAnn Palin
And it doesn't matter if you're a CEO or the front desk receptionist, that stuff shows up at work. And I worked in so many executive teams in corporate America, and I'm surrounded by peers. I used to joke all the time that it's alphabet soup. Every one of us has OCD, ADHD, you know, some version of something that's most of the successful people you know are diagnosed.

00;05;28;01 - 00;05;52;01
DeeAnn Palin
And so I hated HR. I told you that. And what I realized is that if you can fix or at least stabilize the people side of the business, there's so much money that runs out of the back end of a company that we don't even see, and it's lost productivity. It's lost opportunity with customers. It's turnover, it's payroll expenses.

00;05;52;01 - 00;06;02;21
DeeAnn Palin
It over time, it's all kinds of levers that have to do with people. And, you know, I help companies prepare for sale. It's I geek out on that I love it.

00;06;02;21 - 00;06;11;26
DeeAnn Palin
And when I'm working with companies and I look at their margins and I'm like, you are losing massive margin on your people issues, let's fix those and get you more money.

00;06;11;26 - 00;06;13;28
DeeAnn Palin
When you sell this baby.

00;06;14;00 - 00;06;30;12
Craig Andrews
So yeah, I went back up a little bit back to the whole the fact that people are broken is good business for you. I don't feel like that's totally clear yet. What's why why is why are broken people good business for you?

00;06;30;14 - 00;06;58;04
DeeAnn Palin
Well, it's not necessarily broken people. It's people have issues, right? Like we're we're all imperfect in in who we are, myself included. Right. So every day I'm looking in the mirror saying, how can I be better? But when I prepare for a coaching session with the CEO or I'm working through a strategy with the nature team, it's really about meeting people where they are, you know, founder based businesses.

00;06;58;04 - 00;07;27;05
DeeAnn Palin
There's a bunch of individuals that show up imperfect and build these brilliant companies, and they're trying to lead through them with all their imperfections. And a lot of times I'm holding mirrors up. I'm coaching skills, I'm supporting them through, you know, horrible situations, not having enough cash to make payroll or working on their cash plan. And I can't tell you how many times I've asked a CEO, does this same thing show up at home?

00;07;27;07 - 00;07;27;24
DeeAnn Palin
And

00;07;27;24 - 00;07;50;23
DeeAnn Palin
now I have a couch in my office, and I can tell you there's been some tears shed on that. You know, it's we show up the same, you know, imperfectly at work and at home. So I feel like when I'm working on businesses and I'm working on their HR issues and I'm working with CEOs, I'm also working with their lives and people's lives.

00;07;50;23 - 00;07;56;13
DeeAnn Palin
And so, yeah, it is it's business for me, but it's also purpose and passion.

00;07;56;15 - 00;08;02;05
Craig Andrews
Well, one of the things you said that surprised me was that you have some CEOs that say,

00;08;02;05 - 00;08;13;00
Craig Andrews
business would be so much better if I didn't have to deal with the employees. I just have to say that surprises me because I think.

00;08;13;02 - 00;08;35;26
Craig Andrews
In my mind, if you want to be a great leader, you have to figure out how to take some of these dysfunctional people and get them all moving in the right direction. You know, you agreeing on your own to do something that you're never going to be great. You'll never be great operating by yourself. I don't know, that's just my take.

00;08;35;26 - 00;08;37;28
Craig Andrews
So that surprised me when you said that.

00;08;38;00 - 00;09;02;06
DeeAnn Palin
And let me let me be clear. They don't say that every day, all day long. They say it when employee issues are flared up, when their CFO is misrepresenting financials or their best salesperson leaves for a competitor, that's when they say stuff like that. They they build their companies. You know, I work with amazing CEOs, like really, really passionate, heartfelt.

00;09;02;11 - 00;09;34;14
DeeAnn Palin
I won't work for people that are jerks. And, you know, I care a lot about character because that really drives culture. And the values and our ability to be successful. So the people I work with have strong passion for what they do and for the people and the families they support. And sometimes that causes the hurts to be worse when someone violates them or violates their company or affects issues or leads to go to a competitor, it it hurts more.

00;09;34;16 - 00;09;46;20
DeeAnn Palin
And so that's when they make the comment like, gosh, I wish I didn't have employees. They're they're lying. It's just a moment. But it's the reality of what I coach them through.

00;09;46;22 - 00;09;49;18
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And you know, when you were talking about the hurt, I

00;09;49;18 - 00;10;04;22
Craig Andrews
you know, I grew up in a small town, and my dad had a business there, and he had one guy, he had a business partner, and they had one guy that was, you know, an associate, basically the third highest position in the company. You know, he had the two partners.

00;10;05;05 - 00;10;22;28
Craig Andrews
And then this guy and I ran into him at Walmart or something one day when I was back visiting, and I said, oh, I saw Bill, blah, blah, blah, and I saw him said he was acting pretty weird. And my dad was like, yeah, you should act weird. I'm like, really? Why? He said, well, he,

00;10;22;28 - 00;10;25;08
Craig Andrews
he he ran a surveying crew.

00;10;25;08 - 00;10;47;11
Craig Andrews
He was in charge of all the surveying, and he said he started taking the company vehicles, the company equipment and the company employees and running a business of his own inside the company. And he corrupted the employees by getting them to fill up their personal cars with gasoline using the company credit card. So he had dirt on them and he said,

00;10;47;11 - 00;10;48;02
Craig Andrews
and then he.

00;10;48;02 - 00;11;09;14
Craig Andrews
Yes, I fired him and he left and started competing company down the street, violating his non-compete. And so I went after him and he said, well, you can come after me, but do you know that your business partner has done this? This, this and this, and I have the proof and that's going to come out. And I just look at that.

00;11;09;14 - 00;11;36;20
Craig Andrews
And my dad, you know, when you said they felt betrayed, he felt completely betrayed to help this guy build an amazing career. But the thing that was so sad was there was a little bit of corruption. I think I heard you hinting at this earlier. There was a little bit of corruption in the organization that was left and dealt with, and that ended up becoming a cancer that cost my dad, who knows how much money.

00;11;36;23 - 00;11;59;27
DeeAnn Palin
Yeah, it's it's just that innocent, inexcusable behavior, you know, and I help a lot of companies hire people. And we use tools like Culture index and, you know, really good top grading processes to hire. But you don't always know what people bring to work in terms of character. Right? You can interview the heck out of culture and and whatnot.

00;11;59;27 - 00;12;24;28
DeeAnn Palin
But it's when, you know, when iron rubs iron that you find out who the real character is and, and in a person. And and so it is shocking, you know, as a CEO, myself and coaching CEO, some of the stories that I hear where you you think you hired an, a player, amazing person and there's just something not right.

00;12;25;01 - 00;12;49;15
DeeAnn Palin
And when that happens, you know, a lot of times CEOs will blame themselves for making a bad selection or, you know, beat themselves up for not seeing it earlier. And sometimes there is process issues and there could have been more time spent hiring. But I, I remind CEOs a lot. It's oftentimes a company. It's a microcosm of society.

00;12;49;18 - 00;13;22;20
DeeAnn Palin
You know, you're gonna have bad people sneak in sometimes and sometimes people become bad because of situations or dealing with outside. Right, like financial stress or whatever. But it is very violating to the CEO. These are people. They chose to be on their team and entrusted. And the more senior they are, obviously the more trust that's built. You're expecting those executives to carry your culture, to protect your company, to engage with employees and train them around the right things.

00;13;22;20 - 00;13;30;05
DeeAnn Palin
And what happened to your dad is just it is criminal. But it's also just so disheartening for someone.

00;13;30;07 - 00;13;39;25
Craig Andrews
Well, and I think part of the pain was, here's his business partner of many years who helped him grow the business. He finds out he's been doing some unethical things.

00;13;39;28 - 00;13;41;03
DeeAnn Palin
Yeah.

00;13;41;05 - 00;13;49;06
Craig Andrews
And it just yeah, all sorts of betrayal. It's. Well and I think the.

00;13;49;08 - 00;13;52;04
Craig Andrews
I think companies bring it on themselves. You know, I,

00;13;52;04 - 00;14;08;26
Craig Andrews
I have a, I have an interview question that if somebody fails that question and I'm not going to say what the question is on air, but because I want people to figure out. But if they fail that question, they don't come back from the interview. They will never be hired.

00;14;08;28 - 00;14;16;13
Craig Andrews
And it's 100% focused on figuring out how ethical they are. Yeah. And the,

00;14;16;13 - 00;14;35;20
Craig Andrews
you know, and Jack Welch learned a very expensive lesson. He had to he had to fire a buddy of his. Somebody had been a good friend who was running one of his divisions, and he had to pay a to $2 billion fine to the government for defrauding the U.S government.

00;14;35;22 - 00;14;39;21
Craig Andrews
You know, so he lost a friend and he lost a lot of money. He lost a little bit of,

00;14;39;21 - 00;14;40;25
Craig Andrews
street cred.

00;14;40;27 - 00;14;55;29
DeeAnn Palin
Right. And I think that's the hard part for CEOs because it's the personal violation. But it's also their credibility, right. Because they're doing it under the umbrella of your dad's company as an example.

00;14;56;01 - 00;15;01;11
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, and, you know, this is a much smaller thing. I mean, I'm running a,

00;15;01;11 - 00;15;02;29
Craig Andrews
I'm launching a networking,

00;15;02;29 - 00;15;18;02
Craig Andrews
chapter of a networking group. And I told my officers, I say, here's, here's what we're looking for, and the people join. We're not looking for people who have a credit card and can pay and said, if we let bad people in this networking group, then they will judge us.

00;15;18;02 - 00;15;22;09
Craig Andrews
The people in the group will judge us for those choices.

00;15;22;11 - 00;15;41;13
DeeAnn Palin
Well, and that's I mean, that's a great coaching message that I give to my CEO is about lingering performance issues, right? Because there's there's a couple things that happen when you have an executive or a leader on your team that's not performing or violate your culture, and you allow it.

00;15;41;13 - 00;15;49;18
DeeAnn Palin
First of all, no B player or C player leader is ever going to be able to hire an A player team member.

00;15;49;20 - 00;15;53;08
DeeAnn Palin
So by virtue of that, leaders, you know,

00;15;53;08 - 00;16;15;19
DeeAnn Palin
lack of performance or lack of culture alignment, you're polluting that entire pond that reports to that leader. And then on top of that, you've got employees who look at you and say, you tolerate this, I'm not working here. I'm out, or I'm going to lower my standards to the level that I know you're accepting already.

00;16;15;21 - 00;16;39;14
DeeAnn Palin
And so you've now just tarnished your entire culture and in the world that all of your employees are showing up in and therefore your brand, because those people are talking to customers every day. They're talking to their friends at a barbecue. You know, there's a pretty vast impact on culture when you're tolerating poor performance or just not reacting to it.

00;16;39;17 - 00;16;49;24
DeeAnn Palin
And I tell people, culture is as much what you choose not to react to or respond to or do as it is what's written on the wall or what you do.

00;16;49;26 - 00;17;11;12
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, I, I mean, I had a client a number of years ago who has sales guy that I was a little bit of a crook and he wouldn't fire him. Yeah. Because he loved the revenue too much. They're not in business anymore.

00;17;11;14 - 00;17;21;23
DeeAnn Palin
Well, I just fired a client about four months ago. That was my largest client. Great. Reoccurring revenue. I made a huge impact in his business.

00;17;21;23 - 00;17;25;05
DeeAnn Palin
Saved him over $1.3 million.

00;17;25;12 - 00;17;26;11
Craig Andrews
Wow.

00;17;26;13 - 00;17;39;11
DeeAnn Palin
And I fired him because he was not treating my team as partners. And his behavior wasn't what I want my employees to have to deal with day to day.

00;17;39;13 - 00;17;40;05
Craig Andrews
Yeah.

00;17;40;08 - 00;18;03;13
DeeAnn Palin
And I had talked to him 2 or 3 times, and I knew we were kicking butt and taking names, helping him increase value in his company who's preparing for sale. And finally, the third time I just said, I can't keep tolerating this. It's affecting my credibility and my team, and I'm not going to continue to do it. So this will be our last month.

00;18;03;15 - 00;18;18;01
Craig Andrews
Good for you. And and I think what that does, I think that really that sends a powerful message to your team, especially when they know it's a very valuable client and that creates a special kind of loyalty amongst your employees.

00;18;18;01 - 00;18;22;11
Craig Andrews
Yeah. You know, and kind of going back to the team and just thinking about

00;18;22;11 - 00;18;29;15
Craig Andrews
the, you know, the people problems and that, you know, everybody has people problems and we're going to bring it back to basketball as well.

00;18;29;17 - 00;18;30;13
Craig Andrews
But the,

00;18;30;13 - 00;18;39;03
Craig Andrews
you know, somebody that really impresses me, I'm not a huge sports fan, but I see some things that fascinate me. And one was the,

00;18;39;03 - 00;18;49;01
Craig Andrews
the Chicago Bulls with Phil Knight coaching, you know, you look at the people he pulled together, how he got anybody to play with Dennis Rodman.

00;18;49;01 - 00;18;51;05
Craig Andrews
Just blows my mind.

00;18;51;09 - 00;18;58;18
Craig Andrews
I mean, you want to talk about somebody? Has the guy wouldn't show up for. Yeah, he wouldn't show up for practice. He did all sorts of things.

00;18;58;21 - 00;19;03;12
DeeAnn Palin
Yeah. When I ran the legal department and the HR department and the tech department,

00;19;03;12 - 00;19;17;13
DeeAnn Palin
the Suns, he would have been a spectacle. I had to deal with all of the childcare issues and the spousal issues and the partying and the handlers of all the players. He would have been a tough case for sure.

00;19;17;16 - 00;19;24;24
Craig Andrews
But Phil, I mean, Phil somehow figured out how to get him to play as a member of the team.

00;19;24;28 - 00;19;39;04
DeeAnn Palin
Yeah, and buy into the culture a little bit and make sure the rest of the team could deal with him. I mean, to to put a blunt. Right? Like he's not an easy teammate, I'm sure.

00;19;39;07 - 00;19;44;15
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And you have Michael Jordan who's like maybe the best ever.

00;19;44;18 - 00;19;44;29
DeeAnn Palin
Yeah.

00;19;45;07 - 00;20;12;17
Craig Andrews
And who could demand who he want, who he wanted to play with. I mean, it just absolutely stunning. But I do believe, you know, I do believe that if anybody wants to be a great leader, you have to be able to lead. And part of leadership is kind of bringing this back to what you were talking about. You have people that have issues and you have to figure out how to deal with those.

00;20;12;19 - 00;20;39;02
DeeAnn Palin
Yeah. And you have to decide what your breaking point is, right? Like I'm sure Phil would have not tolerated certain things out of Rodman, for example. You know, if if it really was affecting the team in a horrible way and he couldn't keep the wrapper around his culture and the performance of the team, he he would have made the tough decisions and I think ultimately did right.

00;20;39;02 - 00;21;00;17
DeeAnn Palin
But I, you know, I think with leadership, I talk to my CEOs all the time about how do we level up, how do we level you up? So you can level up the next level so you can level up the next level? It's all about highest and best use. And a lot of times that comes down to that leader at the next higher level.

00;21;00;17 - 00;21;31;23
DeeAnn Palin
Are they freeing that person up to be stretched and grown, and are they putting people in the right seat? Yeah, I can't tell you how many times we've got people in jobs where they're just stressed out and you spend the majority of your life at work. If you're stressed out and hate your job and you're a high performer and you just know you're not in the right seat, man, get them into a place where they can be successful, and it takes a lot to know the difference between is this person a bad performer or is this person in the wrong seat?

00;21;31;26 - 00;21;51;22
DeeAnn Palin
And I put that responsibility squarely on the leader to be able to assess that. And we use tools, like I said, culture index and some others that help identify how is this person wired, what are they great at? And I use the Hedgehog principle with Jim Collins to talk about what are you passionate about? What are you really skilled at?

00;21;51;22 - 00;22;07;16
DeeAnn Palin
Where can you add the most value that pertains to a company? But it also pertains to people. And if you can get people in the right seats with the right skill sets dialed around, something they're passionate about, man, your productivity goes up like 50 knots.

00;22;07;19 - 00;22;13;07
Craig Andrews
Right? You're right. And looking at Phil Knight, he took some very desperate,

00;22;13;07 - 00;22;22;28
Craig Andrews
players and pulled them together and won championships again and again and again. Michael couldn't do it by himself. Jordan could not do it by himself.

00;22;23;01 - 00;22;39;29
DeeAnn Palin
Well, other teams tried to take him down singularly. Right. So he needed to have wingmen. He needed to have people that were strong around him. Because you can't you can put four people or five people on defense against one guy. If that's all you need to do, there's no chance he's gonna score, right?

00;22;40;01 - 00;22;40;21
Craig Andrews
Right.

00;22;40;24 - 00;22;51;01
DeeAnn Palin
So you got to make sure you're surrounded by a team that spreads that wealth and and really affects the growth. And that's what good CEOs do to.

00;22;51;03 - 00;23;05;28
Craig Andrews
So let's ramp up on this. So there's just I've I've heard it I've worked for some smaller companies where they said, you know it's we're kind of at that point it's a necessary evil. We need to bring in HR and we need to have somebody from HR.

00;23;05;28 - 00;23;11;10
Craig Andrews
It's I think there's a perception that HR is the schoolmarm.

00;23;11;10 - 00;23;19;24
Craig Andrews
So there to tell you what you can't do. Right. And, but you talk about it as a, a growth factor.

00;23;19;24 - 00;23;22;13
Craig Andrews
Help, help me understand that.

00;23;22;15 - 00;23;47;12
DeeAnn Palin
Well, I think the, the challenge that founders have is that first H.R. hire, they need a unicorn. And there isn't a unicorn. They need someone who's awesome at HR strategy that understands the operational levers, that can recruit the lights out and get the best people that can manage all the compliance and employee relations issues. And you'll never get that near first person.

00;23;47;14 - 00;23;50;24
DeeAnn Palin
And so what we like to do is help them find,

00;23;50;24 - 00;24;16;12
DeeAnn Palin
a person that can kind of manage the house, manage the compliance, the employee relations, the payroll, the processes. And we come in as a partner to the CEO with the blended team for projects or whatever gaps they've got, and really look under the hood of their people operations and even their their operations in terms of are you delivering product and services on time?

00;24;16;14 - 00;24;47;02
DeeAnn Palin
Usually that stems back to do we have the right people? Do we have the right metrics? Do we have the right systems? Do we have the right hiring process? There's so much leakage on the people side of the business, not just in expense management, but just how much lost opportunity we have serving clients. And so I love when we get to come into a team and coach up a junior HR person, or be a full HR team for founder based companies, because, man, the lights go on.

00;24;47;02 - 00;25;04;01
DeeAnn Palin
We're not the police officer, we're not the schoolmarm anymore. We're a critical element to them as much as their CFO and their head of sales and biz dev and I. That juices me. I get really, really amped about that because I see the dollars when they sell these companies.

00;25;04;03 - 00;25;07;29
Craig Andrews
Yeah, well, I love that. And it's I,

00;25;07;29 - 00;25;14;22
Craig Andrews
I think there's probably a lot of people out there that need what you bring. How can they reach you?

00;25;14;24 - 00;25;21;15
DeeAnn Palin
I think the best thing is find us on our website. It's on busy.com.

00;25;21;15 - 00;25;26;15
DeeAnn Palin
You can find me on Google if you wanted to. And then we're also going to offer.

00;25;26;15 - 00;25;39;14
DeeAnn Palin
H.R. Well, check for anybody that would like to really look at how is my HR function working and what gaps do I have. And I'll spend some time with you personally walking you through it.

00;25;39;16 - 00;25;43;23
Craig Andrews
Well, excellent. Well, Diane, thank you for coming on Layers and Legacy. This has been awesome.

00;25;43;26 - 00;25;47;27
DeeAnn Palin
Thank you. It's great to talk to you, Craig.

00;25;47;27 - 00;26;14;23
Craig Andrews
This is Craig Andrews. I want to thank you for listening to the Leaders and Legacies podcast. We're looking for leaders to share how they're making the impact beyond themselves. If that's you, please go to Ally's for me.com/guest and sign up there. If you got something out of this interview, we would love you to share this

00;26;14;23 - 00;26;16;18
Craig Andrews
episode on social media.

00;26;16;20 - 00;26;40;00
Craig Andrews
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00;26;40;02 - 00;26;48;07
Craig Andrews
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00;26;48;07 - 00;28;50;12
Craig Andrews
It means a lot to my team. If you want to know more, please go to Ally's for me.com. Or follow me on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.