Overcoming Challenges and Driving 10X Growth with Brandy Burch

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work At Home Rockstar podcast. Today, I am talking to the founder and CEO of Benefit Bay, and what she does is she helps people to make the best use of their employee benefit dollars for themselves and for their families. So I’m excited to be talking to Brandy Burch today.

Hey, Brandy, you ready to rock?

Brandy Burch: I’m ready to rock,

Tim Melanson: No problem. So tell me a story of success in your business so we can be inspired by.

Brandy Burch: You know, our business has had what I would say is a bumpy early starts and years one and two were really slow adoption. And in the last two years, we’ve seen three X and now 10 X growth into 2025. So that’s really exciting for me.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Brandy Burch: We push through the hard things. I want to encourage people that are having maybe a slower start out of the starting gate, not to get discouraged.

Tim Melanson: Did you ever feel like quitting?

Brandy Burch: I did. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I did. You know, I had a little bit of fear of failure. I had a lot of Is this going to adopt? Because it was new and it felt like a lot of no’s in those sales [00:01:00] conversations and at those tables. So I would have days where I got discouraged. I think that that’s natural for people.

If you’re seeing a lot of rejection and you start to doubt, is your idea. The thing that is going to work or are you off pace? I’m glad we we’ve only pivoted in ideal customer profile, but we’ve not pivoted from our core missions and vision.

Tim Melanson: So what got you through it? Like what made you decide to just keep pushing forward?

Brandy Burch: Just think I’ve never really been a quitter. So even if I get into a negative mindset, it’s usually temporary. Talk to me again in the morning, right? It’s just after a long day. So I wake up. Positive again to see the sunshine. And I think I just didn’t allow myself to stay in that space very long.

It’s okay to have a little bit of adversity and it’s okay to feel a little sorry for yourself when things aren’t going the way you planned on your goal. But that next day, putting that action in place that 1 step in front of the other. You still you’re [00:02:00] able to get motivated as long as you’re taking action.

So I think it was the continuing to take the next action and not quitting on taking the positive steps that will get you to success. Just remain consistent

Tim Melanson: Yeah. and give it some time too. when you’re feeling all the depression and all that stuff, don’t make any hasty moves. Just wait, wait a day. Cause like you say, you wake up the next day and you’re like, okay, I feel good about this again.

Brandy Burch: and have a 24 hour rule or 48 hours sleep on it. See how you feel the next day. And traditionally, it’s got to be pretty bad for you to give up. It’s got to be a lot of days of bad.

Tim Melanson: So now, you know, speaking of that bad, like what about the bad note? Like, was there anything like any big mistakes that happened on your journey that we can learn from?

Brandy Burch: Yeah. I mean, I think early on, we tried to tackle too many things at once without a clear plan. Narrow focus [00:03:00] and I think that that was 1 mistake. If you try to slay all the dragons at 1st, you’re not going to be successful. So once we narrowed to about 1 year, and we narrowed down what that focus needed to look like and proving what we were really good at.

And I think that that was a pivotal moment for us. Not being involved in some of the hiring processes as the CEO, I had allowed people to just, hire the team they were looking for or move those pieces forward. And those conversations are really pivotal in the beginning of a company when you’re really small and expectations of what it takes to be a part of a startup.

If you’re coming from an enterprise company, I wished I had been in those conversations earlier so that they’re. always clearly defined paths of what it looks like to be a part of something that you’re building. You don’t come in with all your operating procedures built. You have to be a part of the building of that piece.

And so I think once I did that, I feel like we’ve had a much better, culture because [00:04:00] expectations are set from that very first conversation and before and offer letters accepted,

Tim Melanson: Wow. Those are both amazing points. I think that it’s a path of a lot of businesses to try to figure out what it is that they do. I don’t think that it’s a discouraging thing when you’re trying to just do a whole bunch of stuff, because what will end up happening is you sort of like, you figure it out, you’re like, okay, this one seems to feel better, this direction here.

And is that how you narrowed down or how did it work for you?

Brandy Burch: I mean, we came out with a thesis at first that we were going to help really small employers that were under 50 lives who didn’t previously offer insurance and help solve their budget crisis and help them offer insurance to their employees. And it was a great thesis and it felt warm and fuzzy.

However, most people who work for a small business who don’t currently adopt benefits. Have a spouse that are on a benefit program or are seeking their benefits in some other way. And so we, we were outselling to a lot of these businesses that would have maybe 1 to [00:05:00] 10 people adopt the program. And it takes a long time to get to your revenue metrics at 1 to 10 people at a time.

And it’s not that we don’t care about those size groups. It’s just that most people have already solved for their health insurance. They’re not going uninsured. Right. So they’re on somebody’s plan. They’re on a parent’s plan. Cause they’re not yet 26. They’re on a spouse’s plan. So even if we get to that company and we get in the door and we offer those programs, we’re just not seeing a lot of movement in the market.

Actually, this is a really great solution for large employers. And we said, our technology can handle large employers. Let’s move up to applicable large employers. A lot of others are doing the under 50. Well, let’s. Differentiate ourselves. Once we did that, and we kind of looked bigger, I think we were looking mission based.

And once we looked bigger and solve benefits for more people and got excited about that, that’s when it really pivotably changed for us. It’s not that we were off base, but what we do is what we do. And we bring individualized benefits to employers. We’re just doing it on a [00:06:00] larger scale and moving the needle forward.

Faster, which is what’s helping us grow faster. And then what’s helping the industry in general adopt and what will move healthcare to the positive impact that we want to do. So it’s just kind of realigning. How do you get to what your goal was?

Tim Melanson: Nice. And I mean, it’s potential, it’s possible now, I suppose, now that you’ve grown to go back, you know, if you want to serve those industries, you know, once you have some cash flow going on, right? Or maybe not. I mean, it’s up to you, right?

Brandy Burch: Well, we’ve strategically partnered with a company that’s out there servicing the under 50 space, their name, and we really give. And his team, those under 50 leads. And then his team refers for those over 50 leads to our team because it costs more to be able to service all of the compliance spaces.

All of the extensive services that we have to service a large employer and we don’t necessarily do the smaller ones. So it’s definitely a relationship in harmony. And I think that we all can grow when we handle it this way.[00:07:00]

Tim Melanson: that’s an excellent strategy that I think would apply to a lot of different businesses too. I mean, if there’s a certain target market that you are really good at and you’ve got somebody that, you know, who’s in the same industry that serves as a different target market that you can sort of join forces like what you’ve done.

And now, you know, if you happen to find somebody for them or they find someone in for you, you’ve got this referral partner and you don’t have to worry. If you’re, you know, that anybody you talk to is going to get great service, right, you know, it just might not be from you.

Brandy Burch: Yeah, because that’s, that’s part of having a great brand and knowing that they have a great brand and relying on each other to service the market. I also think it’s part of feeling confidence in, in where you play and not feeling insecure to, to have those type of strategic relationships.

And so I think that’s important too. it’s a lesson that takes a while to learn in business in general to, Play well with others who are servicing the industry and the ways that you can do that and the way it makes sense, but you still have to know who you can trust and who you can’t, and you don’t want to [00:08:00] send an agency that trust you to someone who’s not going to provide good service.

Tim Melanson: okay. So now let’s talk a little bit about practice. So what does that mean to you? Like what, what do you have for practices? Hmm.

Brandy Burch: I have practiced the CEO seat since getting it. I had previously been a CFO, VP of finance. The skill set that’s required for that job versus the CEO job has been completely polar opposites. A CEO jobs, more sales related. It’s absolutely more outward facing extroverted.

I’m introverted by nature as an accountant. So I’ve had to stretch. Being extroverted all day, I’ve had to stretch the power of accepting rejection, like we talked about when you deliver numbers, it’s not much of a chance for rejection. There’s a chance for people being unhappy with the facts of where the numbers are, but you’re not really being vulnerable when you’re in a CEO seat, you’re being vulnerable all the time and [00:09:00] you’re managed by the market.

And a lot of external uncontrollable factors, and you’ve constantly got to have your eye on. I say this thing in this job. I didn’t have that on my CEO bingo card today, because it feels like there are always things that are surprising that come that you have to slay. So I think I practice all of those skills that I didn’t necessarily have to build throughout my 20 plus years.

And I try to pull on areas where I used a skill set that was similar, maybe board reporting or shareholder reporting in the past was a way that I had to go communicate with others. Now I have to go and speak at an event, right? So it’s a little bit different, but still pull on that confidence that you’ve done these things.

Tim Melanson: It’s just not been in the same type of audience. So I think that that’s what I do every day is just practice at getting better at those types of things and just not being as hard on myself if I. Had a hiccup, or if I was on a podcast and didn’t say something right, [00:10:00] Yeah. And it sounds to me like, you are up for a challenge, right?

Brandy Burch: up for a challenge to it’s fun. I mean, it’s probably the most challenging opportunity that I’ve had. Into something that is uncomfortable.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. So what would you say, would be the main difference between, being the CEO of a bunch of other people versus the CEO of your own company and your

Brandy Burch: Yeah, I think the CEO, I really am an entrepreneur here because I am a shareholder and I’m one of the, major owners here. I think the CEO seat that comes with the biggest weight for me is the people underneath the stewardship.

Tim Melanson: solopreneur.

Brandy Burch: This is people’s lives. This is the company they work for.

This is their income for their families. And what we do also affects people’s families. So I think that the differentiator here and the CEO see for me and in the entrepreneur [00:11:00] piece is. This could change my family’s entire legacy to be a founding member of a software company that is this successful.

That’s not lost on me. I do not come from a wealthy family. I do not come from a, you know, a circumstance of entrepreneurs who have done really big things. I’m a first generation college graduate. So that for me personally, and my children in that example is really big. For the team members, they’re all shareholders.

So Benefit Bay does grant equity to each and every team member, But at a bare minimum, I want this to be a place where they received so much passion and excitement as being a part of building something that they can be proud of, that they take that further on in their careers, and maybe they go build something themselves or they go be this entrepreneur because they see.

But I was vulnerable throughout the process. I’ve never done it and I’m doing it every day and they’re doing it with me and they’re helping us be successful. Maybe they believe in themselves to become an entrepreneur and a work at home rock star for [00:12:00] that 1 thing that they were passionate about. And maybe they even have the means to start it because they were able to successfully experience this experience.

So I think that. That’s the differentiator. When I was a CFO or a VP of finance for a company that someone else owned, I had none of that upside for my family and the team members that I was helping be successful at that company didn’t either. It was solo for just that CEO or just solo for those, those people that owned that company,

And every success metric we hit great, we might’ve received a small bonus, but they received the overwhelming, pie. For any of those actions that you did, so I think that that’s probably the key differentiator. This is the only time that I’ve had being in the CEO seat that it’s more entrepreneurial and that there’s some actual impact that my day to day pushing through and consistency and delivery is going to have impact.

For me personally, or my family and those people under my stewardship at this company.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Awesome. So let’s talk a little bit about the [00:13:00] instruments and the tools that you use to get success in your business. Are there any kind of like go to tools that you use?

Brandy Burch: Well, I think go to tools were obviously a technology company. So my go to tools are engineers that are really intelligent that are on our team. How can we solve this complex problem that we are currently having? That’s one go to tool. Second, go to tool is to make sure that I have the setup for success for me.

So I have to travel a lot. I have to be extremely organized. I have to utilize that time well. And so what does my time management tool set look like and how do I stay on top of this ridiculous pace that we have to run as a business owner and then how do I keep my family within that as well?

So for me, it’s all about the tool sets to be successful in how you execute. So that can be full life balance for me as I mean, everything from laundry To having your office set up to be the most successful and to having the technology tool sets for me. it’s really [00:14:00] important that I don’t drop any balls and I can’t say I haven’t.

I do drop balls sometimes. Right? But making sure that I have the alerts set and the reminders and the task and and things like that is the biggest thing for me.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. I think we live in a, it’s so cool that we can have so much power in just our phone, right. That reminds us of everything that’s coming up, which, you don’t necessarily have to remember anymore. Now you just have to make sure that you have a routine set that you put it in your phone.

Right.

Brandy Burch: I mean, we have this rock star podcast we’re talking about, and we were so upset my fiance loves Hank Williams Jr. And we had bought the tickets eight months ago, and we just realized we missed the show. So, he had put the reminder on his phone, and we rely so heavily on these things. Right, but he had shut the notifications off prior due to some reason, and so it hadn’t sent him the notification and we missed a show.

We paid for tickets for 9 months [00:15:00] ago, right? And that goes to how much we rely on our tool sets. You know, I used to have a calendar in the kitchen that would show me Hank Williams Jr. is on September 14th. But now we rely on our phone to remind us. And if it doesn’t send that reminder, we are busy lives are so busy that we forgot.

So that’s just an example of we can have all of those tools and we can even cause ourself harm by shutting something off. Right?

Tim Melanson: Yeah. I’ve been in the same boat. I mean, you kind of have to have this plan as well for a lot of these things, because like you say, you know, I need to go on airplane mode or I need to turn my phone off for a little bit and you can really miss some stuff.

Cause if everything’s on your phone, you don’t have to remember anymore. Yeah.

Brandy Burch: I had one other embarrassing moment where I was changing time zones several times in a week and I went to multiple sites and my computer somehow glitched. We’ll call it a glitch where it remains on East Coast time, though. I was on central time. So [00:16:00] the calendaring was just. Completely off and I missed 2 appointments in a row before I realized it was my calendar that was causing it, you know, it was very frustrating to realize that we do rely on our tools and we need to validate, right?

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Brandy Burch: Trust, but verify.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and for me, I know with calendars and like, I use things like HubSpot or Calendly for scheduling appointments and I have to use it now. like even just recently, a few weeks ago, someone sent me some availability. I’m like, Oh, okay.

I’ll just drop that in my calendar. I don’t need to get them to go to Calendly to book that for me. And I missed appointment. If it’s not, like, if you don’t go through the tool, then the time zones are wrong, or I just make some sort of mistake, right? So, all those tools are so important.

over here too. I like HubSpot. I think it works really well. So I’m wondering, how do you get fans in your business? I mean, the audience is everywhere, but how do you make them love you?

Brandy Burch: Yeah. I think, being [00:17:00] authentic is number one. I think there’s so much of people trying to be something that they’re really not. I think organic, I’m really big on just being authentic. Getting out to places that align with where my expertise is talking to people who had been my colleagues for years.

And so I’m really big in the CFO leadership side. That’s what I have been my entire career. It comes natural to me. It’s really easy for me to go talk to the CFO across the table and even our customers. They traditionally are the HR executive, but once we get involved in that whole finance planning side, if I get invited to any of those meetings, it’s almost instant connection because I’m relying on the skill set that comes easy for me.

And then I have always been really passionate about teams. So I had gotten my certificate long ago so that HR could respect me at the table as their CFO colleague. And that comes easy for me as well, because I can talk about what affects a team and a motivation and what affects, you know, the [00:18:00] budget. And those are places I’ve really felt their pain points.

So I think just getting out there and sharing those experiences, I’ve been pretty open to writing articles or to contributing to pieces that aren’t necessarily about benefits. There may be about 401k, they’re about something in the finance side. And any of those organic opportunities, I think they come with a level of respect that you didn’t pay for them.

We don’t have a marketing team here, so we all just try to. Think of something that matters to us and we share it. And I think it’s working. I think it’s developing an audience that resonates with us as people. And then that’s how we’re growing fans. The podcast piece I’m willing to do podcasts that, are about being a mom or that are about being a career woman or a non traditional founder’s path or telling my story because hopefully I motivate someone else to give it a try, or if they’re in the dumps that day, because it’s not gone well, maybe they push through today.

I or two or, you know, day three of rejection because they hear, wow, she had to face that too. [00:19:00] And, and I just need to keep going. So I think that that’s how I’m getting fans in general. I wouldn’t say I, I still don’t do the Twitter. You know, I I’m still haven’t gotten that comfortable with being out there or, you know, putting my family out there from a, you know, photos and overly sharing, but from a business perspective, I.

think that’s how we’re gaining that organic follower or that marketing channel,

Tim Melanson: Yeah, that’s awesome. I’m glad you’re saying that too. And I feel like we’re in a really good time, right? Where, you know, it doesn’t really take. As much money or even any money, like, well, it takes someone, you have to have a computer, but I mean, do you know what I mean? maybe 30, 40 years ago, you had to spend a bunch of money on marketing in order for you to do anything really, but now, the organic way of just being you and putting out regular content is actually more effective than just throwing money at the problem.

So we’ve kind of like had this level playing field where anybody can get into business [00:20:00] right now and you can put yourself on par with some of the big guys

Brandy Burch: Right. It’s that whole, underdog story. I feel like that plays out for BenefitBay because we’ve been chugging along on the limited budget and we’ve been doing things the organic way and it’s successfully working for us.

Tim Melanson: So it’s time for your guest solo. Tell me what’s exciting in your business.

Brandy Burch: You know, I think what’s exciting in our business is the growth lately. we have 10X growth hitting us for a revenue metric in January of 2025. All of those new clients will onboard between November and December 15th. That is just, A lot of energy coming our way. It’s super excited that a lot of our, agency clients are signing three year commitments.

That to me lets me know that they really believe in us for the long haul. I think, new team members. We’ve brought on some team members lately that have really great energy that are bringing new ideas and all of our current team are all really great. But sometimes it’s really good to challenge yourself with new people and fresh minds and fresh ideas who are going to look at something from, Objective way and haven’t been way in the [00:21:00] weeds of what we built and why we built it the way we built it.

So I think that’s what I’m excited about. In addition, we are closing a capital round. That’s pretty significant to be able to invest further in the technology. So that’s just a pivotal moment for us. Somewhere I’m really proud to say that we, landed because it had been a tough route for us to secure capital with me being a first time CEO with our original founding CEO transitioning out of the organization.

We’ve had our challenges with selling a traditional venture capital firm. So. Those are all the things that I have that are exciting right now, and I think it’s a lot to list this same time last year, I was having some of those moments of yes, we had great growth year over year, but we still had a lot of insurmountable odds.

We had a very small team. We had 20 humans doing the thing we were doing last year. We’re at 47 now. So imagine we’ve. You know, 2x our team as well. I think it comes with a little bit of fear of can I manage this bigger thing as well as manage the smaller [00:22:00] thing and where’s the risk and gap there?

So, never take my eye off the prize, stay humble and know that we continue to have to service better than everyone else. Because there’s a lot of money in this space. There’s a lot of competitors joining up every day. So we have to continue to do it better.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome, Brandy. So tell me who, who is it that you’re looking for that would be the best fit for you?

Brandy Burch: Yeah, we’re looking for any consultant broker or agency that’s servicing an employer client because we should be at the table for your consultative conversation even where ICRA doesn’t fit so that you can share that you did quote it and here’s what it looks like for you. Our ideal customer profile is an employer that sits nationally, that has a very diverse team, that has diverse needs.

In health care decisions, and so that is our ideal customer profile. I think it fits about every American company. Now we are remote and we’re all remote working from home rock stars, and we [00:23:00] really want individual employees eventually to educate themselves in this space and start to push their employer to add choice.

So I think that’s a ways down the line. But I’d really like to move the needle on individuals saying I want choice. I do not want you to tell me who my carrier is going to be. I do not want you to tell me I’m going to have a high deductible plan or I’m going to have this plan. I want to make the choice for myself and I want to pick the plan that fits my healthcare desires.

So that’s, that’s what we want. And that’s our solo.

Tim Melanson: So how do we find out more then?

Brandy Burch: You find out more by going to benefit bay. com www dot benefit bay. com. You can go sales at benefit bay. com. You can be added to our correspondence and details. You can find me on LinkedIn at Brandy Birch. you’ll see the CEO founder of benefit bay. I think I’m Brandy Birch one.

I have a personal Twitter, it’s sixgirls13, since I have six girls, that’s my handle, so you can find me any of those places.

[00:24:00] Awesome. Well, thank you so much for rocking out with me today, Brandy. Thanks, Tim.

Tim Melanson: So to the listeners, make sure you subscribe, rate, and comment. And we’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar podcast