Tangled Rabbit (00:00) Welcome to Untangled, a podcast for founders and people considering becoming founders. This is where building a business gets personal. Each episode features honest conversations with founders about standing out in crowded markets, defining what makes them and their work different, and building something that actually fits. I'm Beth Elliott, and I'm glad you're here. Let's jump in. Tangled Rabbit (00:23) Welcome back to Untangled. Today I'm meeting with LeiLani Quiray. LeiLani is founder and CEO of Be The Change HR, which she started back in 2017. She is in the business of empowering businesses to scale with heart and purpose, blending HR excellence with meaningful social impact. Now I've wrestled with this episode on how to categorize LeiLani's story. I think we're gonna both be in a radical shift episode. and a Choosing Elaine episode, but I plan to jump in and we're gonna just figure it out together. Welcome, LeiLani. LeiLani (00:57) Thank you so much for having me. Tangled Rabbit (01:00) I am so glad that you're here. I wanna just jump right in. Can you tell me about your founder story? LeiLani (01:07) my gosh, where do I even start? Okay, 2017. I launched my company at the end of 2017. And so in the beginning of 2017, I was working in house as an HR executive at a PEO. And ⁓ I had an experience at this workplace that was awful. And I also was having issues with my own health and my mental health. And it was sort of this trajectory of I had had an HR career for quite some time leading up until that point. I was trying to do the math in my head. like, was it 20 years by that point? About, about, we'll call it maybe ⁓ a little under 20 years. I was in a terrible work environment. My health was failing. And I was like, you know what? And my medical doctor. Not my actual medical doctor was like, you need to take a leave. Like I normally don't tell people this because they're always asking for leaves that I can't justify. But he was like, you need to go on a leave. And I was like, OK. And I walked out on my job. I walked out. I was like, I can't take this anymore. And I've never every other job before that I gave at least a month's notice. I was very kind about I knew how important I was. This one I was like, F this place. I'm out of here. I grabbed a couple very important things to me and said goodbye to my other one coworker that I knew really well and I was like, I'm not coming back. This is insane. And I took some time off. And in that time off, I did a wonderful road trip with my son up and down the Western seaboard. And in part of that trip, I had an epiphany. was like, you know what I should do instead of stressing out for working for somebody else, I should start my own business. Cause what's less stressful than launching a company. I laugh and I say that, I actually, all these years later, I will take this stress any day over someone, over like an environment that's unhealthy or even really any where I would have to work for somebody else, to be honest, it's my personality. And so I had three months off. I launched the company and then I started to change HR with the idea that I wanted to do HR and philanthropy under one roof. Now rewind about 10, 15 years before that, I had started to do workplace readiness volunteer work. And it was on the tail end of a deep, dark, terrible period in my life where I knew I wanted to go help others once I came out of it. And so I had done this volunteer work. I had had this HR career and then I quit my job and I started this new company. And so I already knew I'm going to do something like that in Be The Change HR. I just don't know exactly how that's going to look. And it took me about a year and a half to really like stumble through what that model would be. I didn't even know I had a social impact organization. And I came up with, okay, obviously it's still HR consulting, but also workplace readiness for survivors of sex trafficking, offering classes and coaching free to these nonprofits that are helping those individuals who are survivors. But the company internally, absorbs all those costs. And so at the time it was just me, so I'm paying for myself, right? But now that I have a team, the team is paid for their time. They're not asked to volunteer. It's part of their job to teach these classes. And so we dedicate 1 % of our top line revenue to this job readiness program. Everyone on my team teaches a class, including me. And that is equated to helping hundreds of survivors of sex trafficking. And I think we're teetering on six figures of dedicated funds to the program, all the while doing that HR work. So as far as like, you're like, tell me your founder story. was like, where do I start? But I think that's the best way to like articulate how I got into founding, not my first business, but founding a business, you know, I think it was my third. And then, and sort of where we're at today in general. Tangled Rabbit (05:05) There are so many people who are incentivized to feel like they have to have it figured out when they start. Make your business plan, know your projections, put all these things in order, and then you will magically be able to create a business. Will you talk about that first year and a half and what things you went through to figure out what model you were following? LeiLani (05:30) Yeah, I so for more background, ⁓ didn't, I've never had a business plan per se, not the traditional what you would sort of turn in with an executive summary. have a plan. I'm obviously I didn't get this far without anything, but I didn't, I didn't start with a business plan. ⁓ And I know this will land with a lot of founders. I started with a fire in my heart and an idea. that I was going to do something that would change my part of the world and that it wouldn't fail because of that, whether you call that karma or just my, my, ⁓ my drive in this is the right thing to do not only for me, but you know, for the, the world that I can affect. And so in my first year, that's, mean, that's like 95 % of what it was. It was just like, just put your nose to the grindstone, figure this out. Um, very serendipitously the day after I launched the company, fell face first into some gravel and like really messed up my face, like to the point where people would gasp when they saw my face. So, um, I, I was like, well, I can't meet people in person. What do I do? So I dove into my LinkedIn and started reaching out to individuals that I didn't know that I thought would be interesting to me. And I would say, Hey, I'm not trying to sell you anything. I'm not creepy. But do you want to have lunch or coffee with me so I can get to know my LinkedIn connections that I honestly don't know in real life? And that first exercise worked out to, I met over 80, think maybe even 100 people that year. And some of those people that I met are still champions and friends to this day. And so that was one exercise that I did in that first year. And then the other was just a lot of inner work. I had said early on to a friend that I, when I was walking into these rooms as a new business owner, I felt like I set a five-year-old with a suit on and she said, that's imposter syndrome. And so there was a lot of work done internally about, no, I know what I'm doing when it comes to HR, right? And I've got the drive behind me to just sort of, I mean, I feel like this is every founder, just figure it out. There's no like. super manual to figure out, how do I actually start this? How do I make money? Like, how do I serve? I mean, I didn't have any, I started with negative money. started, I was already in debt when I started the company. So there was no funds sitting there to carry me. had no choice but to make it happen. And so there's a lot of mental work behind, no, I belong in these rooms and I'm, I'm very capable of doing this. I know what I'm talking about and everything else. I'm just gonna, I'm going to figure it out and learn as I go. So I think my first year was a lot of that. and probably some luck. Tangled Rabbit (08:20) When you talk about going from those first conversations to add it to building offers and how you service people, can you talk about that transformation? LeiLani (08:29) Yes. I give this advice because people will come to me who are starting HR consulting firms as a solopreneur. And they're like, what? Can you talk to me about advice? I'm like, yes. The first thing I had to learn, and I was lucky I had a CPA I used to work for in high school who was mentoring me at the time. And he saw how much I was charging per hour, which was $50 an hour, by the way. So this is 2017, $50 per hour for me. Look at your face. You're like, what? And he, he did some calculations. gave me that lesson of like, no, like it's not, it's not what that money isn't what you think it is. And also you need to charge. was like, you need to charge at least three times as much. And so in, in offerings and building the packages, the first lesson I had to learn was, well, what do I charge and how do I figure that out? ⁓ and much of my first years was less of doing an analysis of what my competitors or what people in my space were charging and more about my own comfort behind it. To be really honest, I kept raising my rate until I was uncomfortable. And then when I became comfortable with it, I would raise it again. Now that's not the scientific or MBA way of doing this, but that's how I did it in order for me to do that. And, ⁓ and then building. you know, building packages and there's a shift I had, right? So in 2019, at the end of 2019, I started recruiting to bring people on. So that dollar amount and that structure was very different than just paying myself. but in all the lessons that I've learned, you know, in my first full year, I was almost at six figures. I I, I worked my butt off to get there. and there were so, I mean, I can't even, I can't even count how many iterations. of how much I charge per hour and then moving to packages, right? Learning the lesson of like, if I charge only by the hour, how do I project income? And then when you bring people on board, you have to be able to project and you have to be able to have some type of cushion there. And so once I got to that space of bringing people on, then it was retainers and a lot of cashflow work. How do I get the money in the door? Because payroll will be coming every two weeks. I have no choice but to pay that. I've never paid my people late. No matter what is going on financially, they get their check on time. So it was a lesson in there. So I wish there was a clean way to answer that. It was just emotionally learning how to get past my own ⁓ limiting beliefs and my own understanding. And then it was, how do I create a put that in quotes, like a safer financial environment for me and the team as we scaled and grew. Tangled Rabbit (11:15) It's a beautiful story of what world do you want to create for yourself and being realistic with what that money needs to look like. It's a point of velocity for you and your business. And I love your story in talking about, I had to become comfortable with it. And many founders, I think that's something that they really need to hear in order to sell yourself at a higher rate. You have to own it and you have to understand your value. LeiLani (11:47) It's such, and this is a conversation I have with my business development and sales team because it'll still come up something like, that's so expensive. And it's like, to who? you know, five grand might sound a lot to six figures, but it's definitely not a lot to eight, you know, seven or eight. it's like, got, there's sort of understanding and a lot of work around ⁓ for me personally, and also with my team around like money mindset. and what that, and there's so, my founder journey has been like 90 % internal work, I feel like, you know, few books, a few coaches. And when I say coaches, I'm lumping the coaches, my business coaches, Business books, business coaches, but most of the work has been on the like spiritual, emotional, sort of psychological side of. I have to be able to do this with like the, all the strength and all the, as much as knowing or not knowing and being comfortable in the not knowing in order to continue to lead and drive this forward. Otherwise we're all doomed. I'm the one that's got to like, you know, keep, keep, ⁓ keep that. And that doesn't mean that I don't make mistakes. And it doesn't mean that I'm not, very vulnerable with my team when I do. it's not like I'm the strongest person. in the room that never makes mistakes, but I've really done a lot of work to build myself up to be able to shoulder the weight of being a founder and scaling and growing a company. Tangled Rabbit (13:28) Talking about money and packages and how you charge seems like a natural segue into talking about who do you serve and how. LeiLani (13:36) Yes, small business. So the HR model is meant for a company who does not have internal HR, but at one point a business is gonna need it. I'm gonna argue before they hire their first employee because there's some basics that a company does need. But as a company scales and grows, a founder will naturally be holding that HR piece both in the day to day and then into the strategy of how do I... scale and grow and also have a healthy workforce, a place that people want to work, you know, and are happy at and all that translates to top and bottom line in an organization. And so the founders will shoulder that until the point where they something will happen. Either they realize I'm much more valuable over here, right? I need to be focusing on revenue generating activities and the big relationships. Or I mean, there's more instances in these two, but these are the two typicals or they get stung by something. Something happens, whether it's ⁓ an audit or a threat of a lawsuit or ⁓ things are breaking and they're starting to realize, I can't hold all this on my own and I shouldn't be doing it. And so that's our typical client, you know, and that looks like revenue can be, you know, with employees, there's like, there's no scale there, but I would say ⁓ under a hundred employees is where we see the majority of our clients. We have a few over and that's where we're helping augment an internal HR team for whatever reason. Either the executive just needs more support or the HR team is too new and they need someone who has more executive oversight to help lead them and jump in. But those are the typical clients that we serve, and then industry agnostic, although we love those in the natural products industry. And then we're also really strong in the ⁓ minority and woman owned spaces. So spaces like the WE Bank, the Women Business Enterprise National Council, and NMSDC. It's taking me years to be able to say that fast. The National Minority Supplier Diversity Council. between those three, and then it came from finance to construction. We have them all over the place. But all in the US. It has to be US-based. Tangled Rabbit (15:48) When you started, was your niche that broad? Was your ideal client that broad? LeiLani (15:54) think when I first started it was just like, do I get money? No. I feel like it was larger. Right? So the idea of like, someone asked me to do business with them. I'm just going to figure out how to do it. And that's both personally and with the team. So as, as time has gone along, we and I have really learned to stay in our lane because when we've ventured from our lane, for instance, saying yes to doing payroll administration, we don't do that. Right. Running someone's payroll, saying yes to being an executive coach. We don't do that. What ends up happening is something goes wrong and then we pay for it financially. I am the biggest, I will give you back your money, business owner when I know it's not right and sometimes more than we really should and that hurts. But it's the right thing to do, but my good and I don't, you know, I don't get lawyers involved. I just, let's just do this the right way. Here's everything back plus a little extra. and hope everyone is happy. ⁓ it was more of the opposite of like, okay, we work with small businesses in the US under 100 employees versus before it was like, who can we, how can we jump in? Or maybe we'll supplement someone's HR at 40 hours a week, which also we're not a staffing firm. And we just learn these terrible lessons that we have to stay in our lane. We're not coaches, we're not specialists in these other areas. We are really high level generalists or fractional HR executive, that is it. Yeah. Tangled Rabbit (17:41) It's an important lesson for founders to learn. It's one of the biggest things that I find, I work with with my clients is there ⁓ is freedom in closing doors and saying no to things. LeiLani (17:57) Yeah. Yeah. That's so true. Because in our case, what happens is when we don't, we have to pay extra. Wait, there's a tax. So no, thank you. We're going to stop doing that. Yeah. Tangled Rabbit (18:09) There are other HR firms that people can choose. Why do they choose you? LeiLani (18:17) Our differentiators, yes. The first one is we're proactive. So everyone on the team has at least 10 years experience, most of them over 15 or 20. And we know a lot of other HR consulting firms where the inexpensive, I won't name any names, but the inexpensive ones are the ones tacked onto payroll. You'll have someone who's quite junior. And so that information, and those answers and that breadth of knowledge is only either very tactical or very basic. So we know as HR professionals, we are the top of the top and have these both regulatory-like ⁓ compliance answers and then also strategy mixed into everything that we're presenting or we're taking care of for our client. And that's really big. The other is we're really flexible. So even within our retainer model, there's movement that can be done to increase or to decrease when things change, whether it's budgets or ⁓ company size growing or laying off and scaling back. And that's been really big for our clients. Then the other is that we're a social impact organization. I haven't to date, I would love someone to tell me if this is not the case. I haven't, this is not the case. I haven't met another HR consulting firm that sits in the social impact space. where we are directly, the money that comes in the door is directly tied to the impact that we have specifically in the human trafficking space. So that's huge. For those that work with us, you just know you're gonna be helping the world. And then for the people who work here also, you directly will be helping. Tangled Rabbit (20:07) Will you, I'm gonna shift lanes a little bit. Will you talk about how we met and your unique way of moving through the world? LeiLani (20:17) Yeah, of course. So, ⁓ I'll tell you coffee and convos So coffee and combos is something. ⁓ my gosh. I don't even know how long ago I started doing this. Maybe four years ago, maybe more, maybe five. I travel a lot, whether for work or not, and I wanted to meet up with individuals in different, you know, areas of the United States, actually internationally as well. But I realized that if I did a bunch of one-on-ones, I'd be there, I should just live there, right? Especially in certain areas where I know quite a few people. And so I started first doing coffee and convos as a way to get my network together so I could see everybody all in one place. And over the years, it has changed depending on geographical area too, to where I will reach out to different individuals in different regions when I'm traveling. So I was in Minneapolis because my partner was performing at the Walker Art Center. And I like, I'm going to reach out to my network in the area and ⁓ see who would like to come out and meet up for coffee with no real agenda behind, like no, nothing planned. I get asked like, what's the revenue model and what are you pitching? I'm like, nothing. I'm going to host coffee and buy everyone coffee and pastries. And we're just going to hang out. And I believe that people in those environments are meant to meet who they're meant to meet. I keep saying people is generally mostly women. So mostly women, it's mixed gender sometimes, I'm always wanting to be surrounded by other women and help other women. So typically it's mostly women. And when I was coming to Minneapolis, that's exactly what it was. That's how we met. And I reached out and said, hey, I'm doing this thing. And I always try to pick a social impact coffee space. Like if I'm going to spend my money, it's not a ton, but I'm going to spend my money and want it to go to something that is helping the community. And yeah, that's where we met and had a couple other women show up. And it was just a really beautiful, heartfelt conversation about where we're at, what we're doing, and also what was going on in your city and how ⁓ heartbreaking and how everybody was supporting the community there. So was just a really, really beautiful get together. And then one of the people came to my partner's show, which was really nice. She really enjoyed it. Tangled Rabbit (22:49) It's a great story though for founders, especially as you're starting out, it's so easy to get lost in the hustle. And so as you're framing your business, thinking about how do I want to show up in this world? What kinds of connections do I want to make? How do I want to be that person? That's, I completely gravitated. It was a random LinkedIn message that came through. And so, right, I am vetting who you are. What are you doing? What do I think the sales pitch was going to be? You came in like, February in Minnesota, which is difficult because we don't have enough vitamin D. We're all a little bit cranky and we're all like, we're not going outside until May. And all of it made it all that more intriguing for me to want to show up. And so I congratulate you in how you've taken that step in your business to say this is how I want to walk through the world and this was what fills my cup as I travel across the world. LeiLani (23:49) I'm a little bit allergic to transactional networking. I cringe when the first question is, what do you do? So it just is like, you know? And I find there's just so much more when we're brought together in community under the idea that like, I just want to get to know you. Of course I want to know what you do because at the end I will support you too. But it's just so much more heartfelt to bring together community and support each other that way. And the business will come. It'll come. But I don't, haven't, you know, I just can't see the return on meeting as many people as possible, telling everyone what you do. And then that's really it. You know, it's like. But everyone has something different, right? Maybe it's not coffee, maybe it's something else, maybe it's books, maybe it's an activity where you can bring other founders and entrepreneurs together to be in community. We need it. We so need it. Tangled Rabbit (24:57) I recently had somebody ask me, what else should I ask besides what do you do? Do you have a good opener? LeiLani (25:03) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Especially when I'm in those networking environments where I know that's going to be asked. I was just at a place yesterday. I was asking this. say, instead of me asking you what you do, I would love to know why, why you started doing what you do. Like, where did that come from? And, ⁓ you know, I will hear stories like ⁓ a difficult immigration story in someone's family and they became an immigration attorney. You hear the why behind it and I find that very beautiful. So I'm still accomplishing the tell me what you do, but from a place of like, know there's a heartfelt reason why you're doing it. So I wanna hear that story. That's interesting to me. Tangled Rabbit (25:48) I feel like you've given us a ton of great advice in your journey. In closing, is there any other advice that you'd love to give to founders just starting out? LeiLani (25:58) Yes. ⁓ The ones just starting out, there was a book that was suggested to me in the beginning and it was so helpful and it was so easy to read. it was the book, The E-Myth. And the E-Method, E stands for entrepreneurial. And it's the, it's, yes, we started a business because we are passionate about what we do and we want to either make a difference or we want to use our expertise to go out on our own. But it was really helpful in basic, in like a basic understanding of like, what's the end goal and very simple ideas on how you could possibly get there. And I found that. really, really helpful of like, and I've never stopped reading books about business since then. It's been so, so helpful. And then the other is like, you know, there are days where I'm, I'm like, this is crazy. Like it's, it is hard. I call it pulling a freight train in heels, you know, scaling a business. Like this is, this is backbreaking, grueling work. No, it's lonely. No one knows really your team will know what's going on. There's so much there. And in those moments, I go back to my why and my purpose because I'm even me saying I can feel like warmth, ⁓ you know, in my chest of like, yeah. And so if you don't, if you don't have it written out, you're not very clear, like write it, write something to yourself or maybe even make it public on. why you're doing what you do, like what is the passion behind it so that you can go back to it when you have your hard days and you're bawling on the floor being like, what the hell am I doing this? It's like, go back to that. And you're like, yeah, that's right. I have a purpose in this world. ⁓ And this is it. And you can wipe your tears and go to bed. I always say go to bed and then we just wake up tomorrow with a fresh new day and on we go. Tangled Rabbit (28:09) And on we go. LeiLani, where can people find you? LeiLani (28:14) Yes, LinkedIn, my name will be spelled out on the episode. So on one of one, you can find me on LinkedIn. Please connect with me there. I have a newsletter on LinkedIn called Leadership in Life, where I talk about a lot of this stuff. So you can give me a follow there. And then Be The Change HR can be followed on any of the social media platforms at Be The Change HR. Tangled Rabbit (28:37) LeiLani thanks for joining us today. LeiLani (28:39) Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Tangled Rabbit (28:41) And for everybody else, we'll catch you on the next episode of Untangled.