Sustainable Systems, Strong Communities: A Conversation with Benji Burrell

In this episode, Asheville-based entrepreneur Benji Burrell, founder and owner of Good People Technologies, joins Cliff to share his journey of building a business that helps organizations choose and implement the right technology tools for efficient operations. Benji reflects on lessons learned over 12 years in business—from the importance of hiring quality people and developing strong sales pipelines to finding balance and preventing burnout as a business owner.

He offers candid advice on leadership, fostering team trust, and the realities of running a business—dispelling myths like “being your own boss means more free time.” Benji also discusses how Good People Tech supports clients across North America, promoting sustainable, resilient businesses through smart systems and community-minded values.

Listeners will gain insights on planning for growth, managing change, and the power of authentic communication. 

Guest contact info 📞

benji@goodpeopletech.com

https://goodpeopletech.com/

 https://www.linkedin.com/in/benji-burrell-a0262217/ 

Thanks for Listening. You may contact me or our team at https://billgilliland.biz/

All the best!
Bill

Please hit the subscribe button, leave us a 5 star review, and share this podcast. You can reach me at williamgilliland@actioncoach.com or at https://billgilliland.biz/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:34

All right, welcome to the quick episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. I am a fiscal credit file for Bill Silvia with your local business training and coaching firm and coach business growth partners. I'm excited to have Benji Burrell with Good People Technologies as the focus for our Epic Entrepreneurs podcast episode today. So, Benji, please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself and your company and what primary products or services you offer the community.

What Good People Tech Actually Does

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Yes, Cliff, thank you very much for having me. My name is Benji Burrell. I am the founder and owner of Good People Technologies, based out of Asheville, North Carolina. Our website is goodpeopletech.com, goodpeoplech.com. For the last 12 years, my team and I have been supporting our clients, both not-for-profit and for-profit organizations, in helping them identify what their goals are and then identifying what tools they need to accomplish those goals. So if you are a distribution company or a manufacturer or a warehousing company, for example, you bring in a lot of material and then you have a lot going out the door, then you have to track all of those orders. You also have to track the money side of things. You may have an e-commerce website that you use to sell your wares. You may have that also tied into a point of sale system on it at your physical location. And so we help organizations figure out what software they need to put in place so that they can run those operations very efficiently and effectively.

Starting Over And Early Missteps

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Perfect. I love it. Love it. So if you had to start your business from square one, what would you do differently?

Sales, Marketing, And Hiring Lessons

SPEAKER_00 2:14

I would say that it everybody's journey is different and we all start from a different place. And so, you know, you you me as a business owner, I had certain skills under my belt, and then others I was completely unaware that were that they were necessary to be successful. So I think as an engineer who's been a person who's been trained as an engineer in the past, um, nothing against my fellow engineers, but I was leaning heavily on technology itself as well as just systems to try to build my business. And I didn't realize until later than I should have that relying on quality people and working to find those quality people to perform that work is the most important thing. And so uh so having a good recruiting pipeline is something that I would change. I would have proved that earlier. The second thing I think is to know that the sales and the marketing side are really important, and especially for a person like myself who's been an individual communicating with other individuals and business owners as I make my way out into the world, find, you know, it was word of mouth that basically built my business initially. Now, as I as I want to grow the business larger, I need to scale the pipeline up. And so having a good sales and marketing team has been something that I've worked on building as well. And I'm very happy to say that we've we've done so.

Managing Change And Client Empathy

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Okay, I love it. So, what have your biggest learnings been as an owner since you started your business?

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Well, I um some of it is learning about myself and some of it's learning about my clients, some of it is learning about the industry in which I operate. So um, when I say industry, I mean just general business technology. Uh I think the thing I've learned is that I'm good at managing change and a lot of other people are not. However, I have limits as well. And so I've I've come to empathize with many of my clients as as the world has changed very quickly around me and and um and I and I feel a little bit of the pain of the uh of what my clients are feeling when when their competitors, for example, change systems or or upgrade or um pushing pushing them along. So uh so that's that's been an interesting thing to learn.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

Um so what are your you know, and this is always a good one, what are some common misconceptions about running a business, would you say?

Misconceptions About Running A Business

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Um I think it depends on the person that you're speaking to in terms of their perspective. Um that's a tough one. Let me think about that for a second. A common misconception that I held as a younger person before I owned a business was that it was easy to run a business and to make business happen. Uh I didn't understand the challenges ahead and all of the mechanisms internally that were uh that were necessary to keep keep the ball rolling down the hill and uh and the the vehicle on the highway as you were. And so, yes, there's so many moving parts and you rely on so many different skill sets. And um I really I've I've I've admire people who have run businesses for a long time. They find a market that they are good at supporting, providing value within that market sustainably over a long period of time, and then doing it in such a volume that allows them to employ others and uh and continue to do that over many years. That's that's a hard thing. And so I really admire people who can do that.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Great, great. No, that's awesome. So uh any other misconceptions that you hear about running a business, you know, that you'll be rich quick or that you're you can take off whenever you want or anything like that?

Flexibility, Burnout, And Going Solo

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Oh, wow, that's a good prompt. Um, yeah, that I started my business initially in part because I wanted some flexibility as an individual. I worked uh backing up just for a second, I I worked uh for many years at an organization called Appalachian Voices. And and my goal there as the as an employee was to help the people who live in uh in the coal-bearing regions of Appalachia and help them deal with the worst effects of some of the surface mining that they they were experiencing in their region. Uh there were a lot of negative things happening into in the community. And so uh I I got burnt out doing that work and also found that it was kind of hard to pay my mortgage um trying to do that good work for others. And and so I had to, I felt like the need to go out and get a quote uh regular job again and um deploy my engineering skills. And so I I found that um part of the impetus for uh for starting my own business was the idea that I needed some personal, personal flexibility to to manage actually the sickness of my mother back at that time. This was like 2002 uh or excuse me, 20 2012, 2013. And um and so I decided to leave my current job and go and support the one side client that I had as um as a side hustle. And that that client knew my situation and was kind enough to say, hey, we have enough work to keep you busy. Um, you know, we we need your help and want to support you. So they gave me the confidence to go out on my own and start that business. Um so yeah, that that flexibility was was super important for me. And and the the hard part though, ironically, in the last few years is that I I have a lot of flexibility, but I'm also working all the time. And so, you know, that's that's just the necessity of uh keeping the enterprise running.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

Okay. Do you think you are a better entrepreneur or employee in why?

SPEAKER_00 8:12

I think I am a better entrepreneur than an employee in a variety of ways. But I think one of the one of the ways that we look at ourselves as a as a business at Good People Technologies is that we like to think about ourselves as a built-on team that supports other people's teams in in fractional ways. And so we're like a fractional employee for somebody else who knows how to keep track of what they have going on and be able to, you know, if they pick up the phone and call us or send us an email with uh with an issue or something that that they'd like to have uh have taken care of, then then we're there to help them. So we kind of we dance on that line. Um, myself as an individual, I I really like the variety of things. And so being the leader of an organization checks a lot of boxes in that regard.

Vacations While Keeping Clients Served

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Perfect, perfect. I love that. So, how do you handle taking vacations while running your business?

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Uh well, that's a great question. Uh, I like the idea. My friend Kyle, who is a recruiter for the construction industry, he um he uses the term running and gunning, which is quite funny to me. But um, if you imagine, you know, if I if I were to take a vacation uh this summer and we were on a road trip, my wife and I and our dogs, then I would have to take a phone call. And uh, if it was a certain client or or whatever, I can't take every phone call when I'm on vacation, but I do do have to take those calls. And so there it just there has to be room for that. Um and and I'm going uh down the path of trying to build the organization larger so that I can have someone sit in the seat as when I'm gone on vacation and completely unplug. But that quite hasn't happened in quite a while.

Growth Drivers And Community Trust

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Okay, okay. All right. So, what have you attributed to your growth so far?

SPEAKER_00 10:07

I would say that a couple of things. Part of it is just people knowing about the skills that we can bring to bear in their world and how we can help them. So uh being out in our community and and communicating with business owners and their team members and um and just and asking people questions about how their day is going. I know and I know it sounds simple, but uh if I walk into a business and I'm speaking to the owner, uh, and I've done this many times actually as a as a and found new clients this way, I walk in and I'm a patron of a business, and they're having a hard time checking me out at the at the register or there has something going on and they're complaining, and I say, well, tell me more about your complaint. Uh, and tell me more about how that gets in the way of you operating, and uh what's what are some things that you may have tried to resolve this, and um, you know, go down this rabbit hole and eventually they find out that I have some business technology experience and my team does as well. And uh so making making us known to those in our community that might have the need has been the the top number one way. Um, and in those interpersonal relationships, because really what we do is based on trust. We are much, we operate much like um a law firm in many respects, and that we do very hard things for people that a lot of folks don't understand that are very important to the foundation of their organizational existence. So we we must be trusted to a great degree, and it takes a long time for that trust to be built up. And so we pride ourselves in in providing good service and then slowly building trust, not trying to push any any service on anybody.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

So, how do you balance your personal life with the demands of running a business? I mean, are you typically a 5 p.m., 6 p.m. shut everything down guy or round the clock? How do you handle that?

SPEAKER_00 11:59

I am not good at finding that balance personally lately. Um, I used to be better at it, but I think, you know, to be honest with you, I have more to lose as an adult as I've gotten older. Um, that is to say, I I, you know, if I have a car payment or something to that effect, uh, you know, I need to need to make those things. Um and so the balance is harder to find. Now, I do know that it's important. And, you know, as my wife is a mental health professional in the school system in uh in North Carolina, and um she knows very well the importance of preventing burnout, and she and I both, you know, we we try to monitor that, um, although it's hard to see the forest for the trees if you know you're in it all the time. And so um that's it's not easy to find. But I do um talk to people about, and this is my big advice to folks out there if you're running a business or or uh or working in one and you're working really hard, talk to somebody around you about whatever it is that's bothering you. And I'm not talking like you don't you don't have to bear your entire soul to someone, but uh but you know, if you say, hey, well, how's it going today? Well, just be a little bit honest. Say, well, I have a lot going on. There's uh there's many things happening, and and um, and this is the list of things I'm working on, and and it's overwhelming me a little bit, and and you'd be surprised as to how many people around you will say, Hey, oh, me too. And you know, let me tell you how I solved that problem. And um just being open uh to sharing those those needs with others, I think is really useful, especially if you're doing it on your own.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

Yeah, I see what you mean. Yeah, like you know how it is when you you ask somebody, you know, how are you doing today and you just give them the standard answer, you're saying you'd be more truthful about it, right? If you if you got something going on, speak up about it and kind of talk with people, right? Especially if you're doing alone.

Systems, Reflection, And The 80 20 Rule

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Yeah, if you're doing it alone and you're a solopreneur or you you're a leader and you're you're kind of head down in your business. Make sure, and this is kind of an overarching advice I have for any business owner, make sure you take time to back up, pick your head up from the books, pick your head up from your client relationships, and ask yourself how you're running your business and whether the systems you're using to run your business are effective and giving you what you're looking for. And making sure you take that time gives you that reflection time, gives you um time to think through what problems you would solve, and then also think through who else can solve them for you. Um, I like to use the 80-20 rule and across the board. Um, the 80-20 rule is a rule of thumb, like a heuristic. And it says that if you let's say you're a handy person and your uh your your business, your profession is to work on people's houses and go fix things. Well, your toolbox that you keep in your vehicle has let's say a hundred tools in it. Well, 80% of the time, you're only going to use 20% of your tools. And then 20% of the time, that that remaining 80% of the tools that are specialty, they come into play. And so I like to think about the work that people do on my team along those lines as well. So there's not enough time in the day for me to accomplish all the promises that I know that my team and I can make uh or can that we make and can deliver to our clients. I can't do it alone. I have to rely on others. And so 80% done by somebody else is 100% awesome. That's my quote for you.

Hiring For Ownership And Empathy

SPEAKER_01 15:31

Perfect. I love that. I love that. Yeah, thank you for that. So what qualities do you look for in potential employees or potential people that you're looking to work with?

SPEAKER_00 15:40

I in the industry that I operate in, which is business technology and operational efficiency. Um, we are consultants across the board for a variety of different organizations. And so I look for people who are a couple of different things. When I hire folks, I look for these characteristics. I look for someone who's self-motivated and can keep track of what they have been assigned and look for opportunities for things that they haven't been assigned but would be useful to benefit the outcome of the project. So self-motivated, self-starting, uh, responsible individuals. And they have to know that even though we are a fully remote team, they have to deliver as if they were a full-time team member when they've been asked to do a project. And so that's that's not easy to suss out sometimes when you when you hire folks, but but that's that's who I look for. And then great communicators, people who are empathetic and can ask questions of the person they're sitting there with and um and try to get to the root of what the the the client is trying to accomplish.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

So getting into that a little bit more, how do you foster a positive and productive work environment for those employees?

SPEAKER_00 16:59

I try to set expectations uh upfront. And as as a leader, I for many years I didn't want to be a leader. So as I when I started the or uh the business, Good People Tech, I tried to keep it small on purpose and avoided having to oversee others. Um but now I know, as I mentioned earlier, that I really we must rely on each other in order to accomplish great things. And so I'm learning to be a better manager and setting expectations up front is something that is important, it's not easy. Making it known when an expectation is not met and when it is met. Both of those are important to me. Um and then also admitting when I don't know how to approach a situation, but I am aiming to communicate something. And so I'll say, hey, team, you know, it might be addressing an internal conflict or might be addressing a performance issue or something. And I'll say to the team, listen, I'm learning to be a better manager, uh, but these are the things that I'm seeing, and I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on it, and uh and and if you have any any ways that we think we can improve this, and just seeking feedback from the team as well.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Okay, okay, perfect. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry.

Hire Slowly, Fire Quickly, Build Teams

SPEAKER_00 18:27

I was gonna say also that I I it it sounds callous, but uh I I I take the advice from a friend who started a software company and was able to sell it some number of years ago. He said hire slowly and fire quickly. And it is important for me if uh I think about the the business as being a house or a ship. And if you don't have a good hull on that ship, then it will not sail well. And you anybody that you bring onto that ship is going to have to deal with any problems that are caused by the hull being not uh properly constructed. The same thing with the team. If I have a good team of people who are good at working with each other and who are responsible and and show up each day, it almost doesn't matter what their skill sets are, it it we get more things done, and and if then we can all stand on each other's shoulders and uh in a new platform, we've leveled ourselves up by having a solid team that works well together. So that's our goal.

Quick Fire: Education, Planning, Inspiration

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Okay, perfect. So and now we're gonna head in what's called the quick fire round. Um and basically how this works is going to be I'm just going to say one word to you, and basically you're going to let me know, you know, what was the what comes to mind when you hear that word in regards to running your business. Okay. Education.

Quick Fire: Commitment And Leadership

SPEAKER_00 19:49

Paramount. Education is a big part of what my team and I do for our clients. We help educate our clients about what is available out in the world that uh could solve some of the issues or uh or uh address some of the goals and opportunities that the client is aiming for. Next word is planning. Planning is the root of a successful business operational. Uh let me start over. Planning is the foundation of a good business that will last. Planning is necessary to uh take the most advantage of any infrastructure. That you put in place because if you plan and know what it is you're trying to accomplish in the first place, then you can always compare that checklist of what you're trying to accomplish to the tools you're aiming to put in place. Each time you put a new tool in place or a new person in place, then make sure it matches your plan and your goals, and then you will have an efficient organization from there. Inspiration. Inspiration can be hard to find sometimes, especially for small businesses. I know it's been tough through Hurricane Helene in the Asheville area for a lot of businesses, including mine, and a lot of individuals. It's hard to find inspiration to get up and get out there each day and get after it, even though the the day got harder than you didn't expect it to, you know, with disasters like Helene. But I think I I am personally inspired by the way people responded in our community to our natural disaster and the way we looked after each other. I am inspired by that so much. And and one of the things that it I've taken away from that event is that my business, uh Good People Tech, we are here not just to make money for ourselves, but our our goal is to help build people, help, excuse me, Good People Tech's goal is to help build sustainable communities and sustainable businesses. So if we have another hurricane Halloween or another pandemic or another whatever major disaster, any kind of economic downturn, my clients, if they have the right tools in place to run themselves efficiently and effectively, they are more likely to survive a negative economic downturn or a natural disaster. And their team members are more likely to be resilient through such a thing. And they are more likely to have extra resources available to give away to their community members in the situation if that need arises. That is my goal. So I am inspired very much by the work that a lot of people have done around us and for many years uh in our community to try to help prop up the business community here. It's it's a it's an unsung, very important part of where we live. Commitment. Commitment. Commitment is an important part of being a leader, I think, that um is is necessary. If your team doesn't see you committed to a cause or to to to a company, then that team is not going to be committed as well. So I try to carry that commitment. But my commitment is not just to the organization Good People Tech being successful. It's to myself and my family being successful, it's to my clients being successful, and to my team members being successful. So I'm I'm committed to those things.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Perfect, perfect. Now, this next question, you can be as candidate as you'd like to be, but what words of advice would you truly offer to other business owners who are looking to grow their business?

SPEAKER_00 23:41

If you're a business owner looking to grow your business, I would ask you to make a list of the things that you would like to do over the next three months, six months, one year, three years. Then backing up from that list, ask yourself how you're going to accomplish those major goals in those time periods. And ask yourself what you need to put in place in order to accomplish those goals. Those that that overarching 50,000-foot plan is going to be a big help to you if you do not have something like that already. Um, and then revisiting that plan regularly would be uh my next piece of advice. So you you pivot and say, oh, that didn't work out, or or that was that particular approach is working really well. So let's measure how well it is working, and um, and then try to put some put your measurements on it and compare them to other tactics that you may be using. Let's say it's advertising, maybe it's a new way of installing drywall, maybe it's a new way of new route you use on your deliveries, whatever it might be. Try to set a goal and then measure whether you've accomplished that goal and how effective you were at it.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

Perfect. I appreciate that. So, what's the next big thing for Good People Technologies?

What’s Next: Free 15 Minute Audits

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Good People Technologies is very proud to be working with local businesses here in the Asheville region, um, as well as uh around the country. We've got clients from California to Vancouver to excuse me, I let me back up and say that again. We've got clients from California to Toronto, Canada, and and everything in between. And the the organization Good People Technologies that I run is really looking forward to expanding our customer base and growing the number of people that we can support in creating and building sustainable businesses and sustainable job engines. So the goal for 2026 is for us to tell as many people as possible in the world that we have we can we will offer free 15-minute audits to any business or not-for-profit that has the desire. I would love to sit down with you and ask you a series of questions, go through what it is you're trying to accomplish and give you some recommendations at the end of it with a report that says these are a few places that you could lean in and and and make some changes in a positive direction.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

Perfect. I love that. And lastly, what's the best way for someone to find you or get in touch with you if they're interested in that?

SPEAKER_00 26:21

Best way to find good people technologies and to take advantage of that free 15-minute audit is just to go directly to goodpeopletech.com and sign up on the pop-up form, goodpeopletech.com.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

Perfect. Any social media?

SPEAKER_00 26:38

We are on LinkedIn. And I do not know that domain name right out of the long URL, but uh, but yeah, you can look us up on LinkedIn as well.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

Okay. Yeah, I'm sure you can just go to searching good people technologies, it should pop up.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

That's correct. And we actually do have, um, thank you for asking that. We have a a team internally that publishes quite a number of posts on LinkedIn aimed at helping folks out there with some free advice. So it might be a series of questions to help you uh get out ahead of some issues, or it might be some free advice as to how to use a piece of software or what what tactics or techniques you might be able to use to improve your operations. And so, you know, follow us on LinkedIn and uh and you'll you'll find something useful.

Closing Thanks And Sign Off

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Fantastic. Yeah, thank you so much for being a part of this community and for all that you're doing. Uh, we certainly wish you continued success, and I I really appreciate you coming on the podcast, Benji.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

Thank you, Cliff. Really appreciate it. Thanks for all you do.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Yeah, thank you very much.