Today we’d like to introduce you to Brian Montgomery and Tobie Beck.
Brian and Tobie, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
PrideGroupCo started in 2014. It was born out of a desire to support small businesses and help them overcome the hurdles of running a business.
Brian & Brenda Montgomery had recently sold their company – a medical equipment repair company Brian started in 1999. From the experience of growing that business from a one man show (or “solopreneur” in today’s terms) to more than 250 employees across 27 states, Brian and Brenda had learned a lot about running a small business and the pains of growth.
The first offering of PrideGroupCo was executive suites. Utilizing the corporate office space from their former company, we started leasing offices to small businesses who wanted to move out of their home and into a prestigious office space, immediately increasing their business image.
From there, it became apparent we had the opportunity to support them further with virtual assistant services – basically helping them run the back end of the business while the business owner focused on sales, customer service, and operations.
Today, the PrideGroupCo team is comprised of five team members, all of whom were a part of the former company. This gives us a history of 7 years working together as a team. Each person brings a unique perspective to the team and a unique specialty of service.
While we still lease office space, our primary service line today is virtual support for small businesses. Services range from social media support to human resources, from bookkeeping to general admin support, and from blog support to maintaining client web sites. Basically, if it happens as a part of actually RUNNING a business, we do it!
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
One of the biggest struggles we face is helping small business owners get to a point where they feel they can admit they don’t know it all! That’s a hard thing to do. Maybe it’s fear, sometimes embarrassment because things haven’t been done the right way.
Another challenge is getting business owners to relinquish control of tasks that should be delegated. Understandably, small business owners have so much blood, sweat and tears invested in their business and it’s hard to trust someone else to do it the same way, or do it right.
We spend about the first six months with a new client really establishing a relationship. We want to be a part of their team and their business as much as they are. We work primarily with DFW businesses, and we like to meet in person at least once a month. This helps build that relationship and get to a point of trust where we can all succeed.
Another challenge is financial – when you’re building a new business, money is tight! Sometimes it is hard for a business owner to understand that finding someone to help you is an investment rather than an expense. And finding the RIGHT person to help is an investment that will provide tremendous return.
Please tell us about PrideGroupCo.
Two things set us apart from other virtual providers:
First, we consider ourselves semi-virtual. We love working with DFW companies because we can really build strong relationships. it’s so much easier to get to know someone – their passions, their concerns, their communication style, their preferences – when you can sit down face to face.
Second, although clients are assigned to a primary contact within our company, they have access to our entire team. If a client is primarily a bookkeeping client, but an issue comes up that is HR related, we’ll bring in our HR director to help out. The depth of experience on our team is unparalleled in the VA industry.
We work with a variety of clients, because we believe at the end of the day, a business is a business. The art of running a business transcends industry.
Our pricing is typically done on a package basis. We meet with each new client for about 60-90 minutes. They get to know our team, we get to know them and more about their business. From there, we develop a proposal for services, typically with a couple of options. Services are priced as a package, rather than hourly. It’s no fun for us or our clients to try to keep up with hours! Each package is custom and based on the client’s needs. Packages start at $199/month for social media posting and normally around $500/month for basic administrative support.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Tobie: I grew up on a small, family farm in southeastern New Mexico. My family, my aunt, my grandparents and my great-grandparents all lived within 50 yards of each other! I loved the freedom of having the run of the farm, going in and out of my grandparents houses at will, always knowing someone was around. I can remember lunches with my great-grandparents and listening to stories from their childhoods. I loved working on the farm with my grandparents. I remember how hard my parents work – my dad outside the home and my mom at home – to give us everything we needed. Growing up on a small farm meant chores and some hard work, but it also meant a lot of freedom and fun. I value the lessons I learned from growing up with three generations of family. I had no idea what a treasure that was at the time!
In his book, The Nice Entrepreneur, Brian tells the story of his first business mowing yards. He shares the lessons he learned, about customer service, relationship building and accountability and how those lessons helped shape who he is today. One of his first clients was his church – in fact, they had loaned him the mower he used to start his business. One Sunday he showed up to church and realized he had forgotten to mow their grass! Rather than run and hide, he addressed it head on with one of the deacons, apologizing and promising never to forget again. The deacon responded how he had just stood up for Brian to the other deacons, and he sure hoped Brian would never forget. The feeling from that day – of letting them down – was key in determining how he would be accountable and responsible for his actions from that day forward. He never wanted to relive that feeling!
Pricing:
- Administrative Services – $30-50 hour
- Social Media Services – start at $199/month
- Bookkeeping / HR Services – $60-75/hour
Contact Info:
- Address: 735 Plaza Blvd., Ste 210,
Coppell, TX 75019 - Website: www.pridegroupco.com
- Phone: 972-538-0437
- Email: info@pridegroupco.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/pridegroupco
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/pridegropuco
Image Credit:
Tanya Holden Photography
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