Stacey Crumrine

Understand that challenges are the way we learn and grow. Embracing adversity and rising to meet those challenges always yields a great learning opportunity even when we fail.

 

Go-Staff was established in 2001 by the husband and wife team of Scott and Stacey Crumrine. In their day-to-day roles, Scott acts as the CFO running the back-end operations and Stacey as the CEO running the front end. By utilizing a combination of innovation, sound and ethical business practices, and attracting top tier talent, they have grown a successful full-service staffing company with locations throughout Southern California.

Go-Staff’s success is driven by sourcing, identifying, and placing the right candidates with the right job, right when they’re needed in industries such as construction, business administration, hospitality, logistics, and event management. Go-Staff is exceptionally proud to be the recipient of the 2018 Best in Staffing Award from Inavero (a national competition). Considering that only a mere 2% of staffing agencies nationwide receive this award, Go-Staff feels privileged to be a recipient.

Utilizing a personalized approach to identifying and understanding their client’s needs, Go-Staff is able to tailor solutions that more accurately accommodate their clients’ requests. Whether it’s 100 temporary staff for a week, or 5 full-time employees to complement an existing payroll, Go-Staff offers the right solution perfectly tailored to the need. Being a strong strategic partner is their goal. They believe that getting it right the first time reduces turnover, improves operations, and is a win-win for their team as well as their client’s team.

Go-Staff believes in being a good neighbor in the communities it operates in. Not only do they do this by connecting people to jobs, they also partner with private organizations to offer training opportunities to at-risk youth or individuals transitioning back into the workforce. They believe in the power of second chances and that their actions should drive their beliefs.

Where did the idea for Go-Staff come from?

Scott and I always knew we wanted to start our own company. We’ve always believed that making a difference in the world is important, and we wanted to impart that idea to not only our children but to the staff who work as part of our team. The Go-Staff name was inspired by the cartoon Inspector Gadget. Gadget’s catch phrase “Go-Go-Gadget” inspired Scott because the good inspector always had something up his sleeve to solve even the most complex of problems in a pinch. In the same way Gadget was ready for any situation, Go-Staff is ready with “The Right Staff Right Now.”

What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?

I strive to achieve a work life balance as I believe it’s incredibly important. For me, that means taking the time to exercise. I start my day with dropping my kids off for school and then I head to the gym. I find this allows me to achieve the right state of mind for my day.

My next step in my routine is to review our daily schedule of jobs for the day as well as the results of our prior day jobs. I then discuss the results of my review with our division managers to address both the controllable and uncontrollable items. If a controllable item wasn’t controlled, we brainstorm a way to control it in the future. Constant improvement is our key to success.

I spend the remainder of the day receiving input from our management team as well as reviewing our performance reports to strategize from a “big picture” perspective how we can improve our operation and automate various tasks to free up time to focus on other objectives.

How do you bring ideas to life?

I try to keep in mind that every idea isn’t always going to work out. That doesn’t stop innovation. I challenge our staff to come up with something better. When something isn’t working, don’t just say it isn’t working; solve the problem. By fostering an environment of innovation, our ability to solve problems and grow is enhanced.

We meet regularly as a team to brainstorm current challenges and new goals. Meeting as a team allows for ideas and solutions from a wider variety of viewpoints and experiences. When the flow of ideas runs out, we sometimes bring in someone who doesn’t work directly with the challenge or goal we’re working on to break the idea roadblock. Bringing in this “third brain” helps us elevate ideas to the next level and improves the likelihood of those ideas being successful.

I also love flow charts! One time I was at the movies and could not get an idea out of my head. I had to draw it out on a napkin and go through the steps that we needed to make it happen.

What is one trend that excites you?

Technology is rapidly changing the way we do business. Staffing as an industry has been revolutionized by it. Harnessing it and utilizing it to its fullest potential is important to us without losing that personal touch that our clients love. Despite the advent of auto-attendants, you can still call Go-Staff and a real human being will answer the phone.

What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?

I believe that getting things done in a prompt and efficient manner is paramount to succeeding as an entrepreneur. Today’s information is old information tomorrow. It’s important to identify priority items and address them in a timely manner. For items that aren’t a priority but are important, putting them on a road map of things to accomplish is effective.

What advice would you give your younger self?

Understand that challenges are the way we learn and grow. Embracing adversity and rising to meet those challenges always yields a great learning opportunity even when we fail.

Tell us something that is true that almost nobody agrees with you on.

No matter how busy you are, find time to do some exercise, whatever you enjoy doing. I talk to business owner friends and they are always telling me they have no time to even eat. I remember those days, but that little break from the constant day-to-day is what will give you that next idea or open your mind to solve whatever problem you are working on.

As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?

It does not help to dwell on problems. It is better to treat them as challenges rather than problems and to focus on finding solutions.

What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business?

In business it’s easy to get distracted by noise that detracts from focusing on the business and growing it. It’s important to remember that our employees rely on us to provide them a paycheck to support their families. Staying focused on generating revenue while staying true to our core values must always be key.

What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?

Growing Go-Staff has introduced many challenges. Key among them was ensuring that our staff and management team were all on the same page about maintaining a professional service without sacrificing the personalized approach we built the business on. A large contribution to achieving this for us was introducing standardized best practices in regard to testing and onboarding of candidates. By implementing state-of-the-art software and testing platforms, we are able to move candidates from applicants to placed on a job in a shorter period of time than we were able to previously. We also optimized and improved existing process documentation in our internal knowledge base; doing this has allowed us to retain organizational learning as we grow and maintain the standards by which we service our clients.

What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?

I spent it on a yearly subscription to Audible. I love that you can listen to books while you are driving. I drive around quite a bit and my time can be spent productively. I can always tell the difference when I’m listening to a book while I’m driving vs. when I’m not. I always tend to be much more positive and think of higher level things related to my business, instead of just the day-to-day. It’s nice to have another perspective of what works for others.

What is one piece of software or a web service that helps you be productive? How do you use it?

We upgraded the software for our entire company a few years ago. It integrates our payroll with our application tracking, and we can view just about everything within the system. It has really improved our productivity and reduced emails throughout the company.

What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?

“Multiplying Your Time” by Rory Vaden shows you how to look at your time and find ways to optimize each task you do.

What is your favorite quote?

Some of the most meaningful decisions I’ve made at Go-Staff were influenced by a quote by David J. Schwartz: “Action cures fear.”

Key Learnings:

● Don’t ever feel that a problem is too difficult to solve. Embrace it as a challenge rather than a problem because you will learn from it and grow.
● Don’t sacrifice core values such as integrity and honesty when trying to generate revenue. It is counterproductive in the long run because it affects the building of relationships, which is essential for success.
● Always rely on team input to take an idea to the next level.
● If you have several offices, like we do at Go-Staff, it is important to follow processes so that everyone is on the same page. This speaks to the professionalism and competency of a company.
● Try not to procrastinate. Address each issue as it arises and if you cannot, have a system for when you will be able to do it.

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