New Year, New Series: The People Puzzle

Episode Overview

CFO-coach Tabitha Smith and host Vanessa kick off 2026 with a 6-part focused series designed to help small business owners stop guessing and start making clearer moves faster. This week: The People Puzzle—attracting, training, and retaining talent in a competitive market, even if your "team" is contractors, a VA, or family helping out.

2025 Reflection: Building Community, Not Lectures

Before diving into the series, Tab and Vanessa reflected on what Office Hours became in 2025: a real community touchpoint that felt like family, not a lecture. They launched the Tribe, hit 50 members, and proved small business owners want support that's actually usable—not preachy theory.

Tab's 2025 word: Mission—staying focused on helping people win their version of financial success (no cookie-cutter nonsense)

Vanessa's 2026 word: Attunement—leveling up personal + professional awareness to serve better, communicate better, grow smarter

What You'll Learn

The Core Challenge in One Sentence - People aren't staying aligned unless expectations are clear. Most hiring problems aren't "people problems"—they're expectation problems.

Clarity Beats Chaos - Business owners hire without defining the role, keep everything in their head, and wonder why teams get confused. Fix: Get it out of your head. Put it in writing. Even if it's rough. New hires want structure and direction, not mind-reading assignments.

Hire for Expertise Whenever Possible - Small businesses can't always afford "train-from-zero" hires. When the role is critical, hire up (someone who already knows the work). Your job becomes teaching mission/values—not teaching the basics.

Train One Thing at a Time - If you do need to train someone, don't dump the whole job on them at once. One task → let them master it → build confidence through small wins → add the next responsibility. Momentum beats overwhelm.

A VA Can Be the Bridge - If you don't have time to document processes, hire a virtual assistant temporarily to capture workflows, build checklists, organize scorecards, and turn "how we do things" into something repeatable. Then you can hire more intelligently.

The #1 Free Retention Strategy - Have a personal development conversation with each team member. Ask: What do you want? What matters most in your life right now? What does "success" look like for you this year? Then do one small thing each week to support that. This is "love languages" for leadership—stop giving people what you value, start supporting what they value.

Sometimes the Best "Perk" Is - Flexibility, being included, being seen, an owner who isn't the bottleneck, or a workplace that actually respects their life. Culture wins don't require budget.

The "Candy Bacon" Principle - You don't always need new hires or new systems. Sometimes you just need to optimize what already works. If your signature product is a slam dunk, train the team to confidently offer it one time to every customer. Simple. Repeatable. Profitable. Culture + revenue can improve from one focused lever.

Tribe Challenge

Pick one:

• One role you need help with
• One process you need documented
• One retention move you've been avoiding
• One "signature offer" you need your team to push harder

Then ask yourself: What's the smallest next step that makes this easier by next week?

Key Takeaways

• Expectations problems masquerade as people problems
• Hire expertise for critical roles; train mission/values, not basics
• Master one task before adding the next
• VAs can document what's in your head so you can delegate smarter
• Personal development conversations cost $0 and beat perks
• Optimize your "candy bacon" before adding complexity

Who This Is For

Small business owners drowning in people problems, founders who keep everything in their head, leaders losing good team members, solopreneurs ready to delegate but don't know where to start, or anyone realizing their signature offer isn't being pushed consistently.

TSAT Tell'em Tab—Part 1 of 6-part series for 2026. Stop guessing, start winning.