{"id":8229,"date":"2021-10-18T15:21:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-18T05:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/?p=8229"},"modified":"2021-11-01T15:39:44","modified_gmt":"2021-11-01T05:39:44","slug":"putting-employees-first-with-sherry-deutschmann-of-braintrust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/putting-employees-first-with-sherry-deutschmann-of-braintrust\/","title":{"rendered":"Putting Employees First With Sherry Deutschmann of BrainTrust"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-listen-on-apple-podcasts\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/putting-employees-first-with-sherry-deutschmann\/id1532346146?i=1000538919417\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Listen on Apple Podcasts<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-listen-on-spotify\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/episode\/3iRdgeS9H0fkmXxLdaG3NL\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Listen on Spotify<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-listen-on-google-podcasts\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/feed\/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zb3VuZGNsb3VkLmNvbS91c2Vycy9zb3VuZGNsb3VkOnVzZXJzOjg4MjY1MjIyOC9zb3VuZHMucnNz\/episode\/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvMTEyODY0NTg0NA?sa=X&amp;ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjwlZeJufbzAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQDg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Listen on Google Podcasts<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<iframe width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" allow=\"autoplay\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/1128645844&#038;color=%23ff5500&#038;auto_play=false&#038;hide_related=false&#038;show_comments=true&#038;show_user=true&#038;show_reposts=false&#038;show_teaser=true\"><\/iframe><div style=\"font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/theexitpodcast\" title=\"The Exit - Presented By Flippa\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" rel=\"noopener\">The Exit &#8211; Presented By Flippa<\/a> \u00b7 <a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/theexitpodcast\/ep57\" title=\"Putting Employees First With Sherry Deutschmann of BrainTrust\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" rel=\"noopener\">Putting Employees First With Sherry Deutschmann of BrainTrust<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Today we\u2019re talking with the CEO of BrainTrust, Sherry Deutschmann.\u00a0 Sherry had a rough start to her working career, but never gave up.\u00a0 With no college education, she relied on her grit to pull herself up by the bootstraps.\u00a0 It took a poor work experience to inspire Sherry to start her own company that put employees first.\u00a0 Learn how her approach got her noticed and ultimately acquired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Importance of Morale<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Sherry grew up in a family of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses and spent a lot of time going door to door.&nbsp; Having no education beyond high school, she had the idea to be a singer and moved to Nashville.&nbsp; When she realized she didn\u2019t have what it took, she also realized she didn\u2019t have any skills to fall back on to make a living.&nbsp; Looking back at her time going door to door, she thought she could excel in sales and got hired at a car dealership.&nbsp; Eventually, she would move on to work for a company in printing and selling patient statement services.&nbsp; She says her first few years in Nashville were hard and that she couldn\u2019t afford both electricity and daycare, so she often went without electricity.&nbsp; Sherry also didn\u2019t have health insurance, so was unable to take her daughter to the ER right away when she hurt her leg.&nbsp; When she finally was able to take her in, the Dr. said if she had waited even another day, her daughter could have lost her leg or her life.&nbsp; Sherry knew she needed something better and went on to work selling medical goods and services, where she did very well.&nbsp; In fact, she was making enough to buy and flip houses as a hobby.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The company Sherry worked for ended up getting acquired and soon tanked.&nbsp; When Sherry took a step back to look at why service had declined, she found that it was because her fellow employees stopped caring because no one cared about them.&nbsp; Sherry got all fired up and ran to her boss about boosting morale.&nbsp; Her boss patted her hand and told her she knew nothing about business.&nbsp; That was the day Sherry walked out and never came back.&nbsp; She soon decided to create her own company to compete with her old employer.&nbsp; She found herself going up against a $10 million company, not knowing anything about business.&nbsp; Not only that, but she ended up getting a book on writing business plans and soon started LetterLogic.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Employees First<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>With her new company, Sherry was determined to put employees first.&nbsp; She asked for a bank loan and was denied.&nbsp; She went on to ask people to invest in her company and while they all said yes, Sherry turned everyone down because they didn\u2019t believe in her employee first approach.&nbsp; Sherry ended up cashing in her 401K and having a garage sale to get her company off the ground.&nbsp; She paid 100% of her employees medical, dental, and life insurance.&nbsp; She let employees bring kids and pets to work.&nbsp; Sherry even gave employees 10% of profit every month.&nbsp; She says that approach was the right one, as it got the employees invested in the bottom line.&nbsp; Their service was so good that they became the most expensive in the industry in the nation, but still continued to grow.&nbsp; Sherry\u2019s company would hit a million in revenue in just the first 14 months.&nbsp; She would grow the company to $40 million in revenue without a penny in debt and 52 employees before selling in 2016.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Getting Noticed<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Sherry says she met with employees monthly to let them know exactly where they were at, and her approach got her noticed and featured in the NY Times.&nbsp; She went on to be recognized by President Obama and got to address congress on why minimum wage should be raised.&nbsp; With all of this attention, Sherry started to get offers on the business.&nbsp; She says she wasn\u2019t interested in selling at that time, though.&nbsp; Then after years of being profitable things slowed down, and then they had two months of losses.&nbsp; Sherry found herself having to stand in front of her employees and tell them that they wouldn\u2019t be getting a profit share check that month.&nbsp; Sherry had been spending millions building out the technology to try to reach her competitor&#8217;s level.&nbsp; She decided to go back to what she was good at and focused again on the level of service provided, and sales quadrupled.&nbsp; The bottom line dramatically outgrew the top line, and Sherry knew it was the perfect time to sell.&nbsp; She says she had kept in touch with all the people that had expressed a real interest in buying LetterLogic.&nbsp; Working with a broker, she got a free valuation and was even taught how to do her own mini valuations.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Going forward, every Monday and Thursday, Sherry and her team did a mini valuation.&nbsp; She says you wouldn\u2019t think much could change in three days, but it can.&nbsp; This approach made them much more mindful of the KPI\u2019s to track, and it was especially good for the sales team to see what drove value.&nbsp; Sherry was finally ready to pull the trigger and had several companies competing to buy her out.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Knowing What You Know Now What Would You Tell Yourself Ten Years Ago?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Sherry always prided herself on having zero debt, but looking back, she says she would\u2019ve acquired some debt and some investors to grow her business even more.&nbsp; She says she was lacking in confidence and knowledge of how to use debt to build.&nbsp; She would\u2019ve told herself to be a lot bolder and more aggressive.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>To Learn More<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Sherry currently runs a company called BrainTrust which helps women business owners to reach the pivotal $1million in annual revenue.&nbsp; To learn more, visit ourbraintrust.org.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify Listen on Google Podcasts The Exit &#8211; Presented By Flippa \u00b7 Putting Employees First With Sherry Deutschmann of BrainTrust Today we\u2019re talking with the CEO of BrainTrust, Sherry Deutschmann.\u00a0 Sherry had a rough start to her working career, but never gave up.\u00a0 With no college education, she relied [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":130,"featured_media":8230,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,19],"tags":[],"dipi_cpt_category":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8229"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/130"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8229"},{"taxonomy":"dipi_cpt_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dipi_cpt_category?post=8229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}