Meet The Disruptors: Chris Kille Of Elevate Outsourcing On The Five Things You Need to Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview with Fotis Georgiadis
Don’t forget where you came from — Oftentimes, people will get a taste of success, and it goes to their head. Don’t forget the people who helped you get to where you are, and bring them along with you whenever possible.
As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Chris Kille.
Chris Kille is a serial entrepreneur and investor based in Charlotte, NC. He is currently the CEO of Payment Pilot, a financial technology and payment processing firm and Elevate Outsourcing, a global outsourcing firm specializing in elite level Virtual Assistants. Chris has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs scale their business with the help of virtual assistants.
He got his start in entrepreneurship at an early age, starting his first company while still in college. Since then, he has founded or been involved with over a dozen businesses spanning a wide range of industries including technology, marketing, and finance.
When he’s not working on his businesses, Chris enjoys spending time with his wife and their three dogs. He also enjoys golfing, traveling to new places and experiencing unique cuisines.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Growing up, I was very talkative. Not only did I enjoy talking to friends, family members, and people at school, I also enjoyed talking to strangers and getting to know people. I really liked to argue and debate. I always had strong opinions on things and was not afraid to share them with anyone at any time. As you can imagine, the willingness to share opinions and the desire to debate got me in trouble from time to time. I always knew that my career would take me down a path of constantly interacting with all kinds of people. Once I figured out that I didn’t necessarily love to read, law school was off the table. Therefore, I started a career in entrepreneurship / sales. Not only did I love to talk, but I also love to find ways to improve processes and products. I was always trying to come up with new ways of doing things that would either be more efficient or would lead to a better end result. The determination to solve problems ultimately led me to become an entrepreneur.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
In my outsourcing company, Elevate Outsourcing, we provide virtual assistance and remote help for other entrepreneurs as well as small to midsize companies. When I was conducting market research, I noticed almost instantly that there was an immediate need for someone in the market to fill in more of a team type position. You see, a typical outsourcing company will find you one assistant, and it’s up to you to train this person in order to check off all of your boxes. However, I discovered that most entrepreneurs and small businesses need more than one skill set to truly thrive. That’s where our team-based virtual assistant idea came to fruition.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I’m not sure how funny this will be to others but when I was just getting started in business, I was going door to door for a large software company in Florida. Summers in Florida can be very hot, and we were forced to wear full suits when out in public. Being that I was just getting started, I only had one suit and couldn’t afford at the time to get it dry cleaned often. Sweating repeatedly in a cheap suit not only makes it smell terrible, but it also weakens the fabric. I also only had one pair of dress shoes that were incredibly uncomfortable, but I had to look the part so I wore them anyway. We would walk for miles on end every day going door to door selling our product and one morning, the sole of my left shoe felt like it was coming loose. The soles were totally worn, and the glue that held the shoe to the sole was coming completely undone. I went in the field regardless and before lunch, it was barely holding on. I hadn’t made a sale yet so instead of going home, I kept walking door to door. Eventually, the sole of my shoe completely fell off, and I had to walk back to my car barefoot. When I got to my car, I sat down in the driver seat and my pants ripped at the seam. To make matters worse, I had a trainee with me that day. It was really embarrassing.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
To be honest with you, I was kind of a lone wolf in the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey. I didn’t know how to ask for help and being headstrong and stubborn, I thought I knew it all. I really wish that I would have embraced coaching and sought out mentors much earlier in my career. I recently joined a group called Apex, led by Ryan Stewman and immediately found a place that I’m proud to call home. Not only has Ryan helped me with business practices and operations in general, but he has also provided me with a blueprint on how to promote my businesses and have them scaled much faster. It wasn’t just Ryan though. Apex has a large network of other individuals running seven, eight, and sometimes nine figure businesses who have all been more than willing to help me along the way from sharing their experiences to one on one coaching and accountability calls. It’s really been refreshing to be a part of an organization like that. I can’t recommend them highly enough to anyone who may be reading this.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
I believe that being disruptive is not necessarily always good. For disruption to have a meaningful impact, it needs to solve two problems. The first being an improved process or end result; the second is completely creating a new process or product that people don’t know they need. There are plenty of companies who have tried to be disruptors over the years, not all have been successful but some have been wildly successful. An example of an unsuccessful disruptor that comes to mind is the soda wars in the nineties, specifically Pepsi. Pepsi had come out with a new product, Pepsi clear, that was touted as the next big thing, and it was supposed to revolutionize the soda industry. When in reality, it was another version of Pepsi that was just clear. I’m not entirely sure if they did their product research or not, as this product fell flat very soon after launch without making a positive impact and was quickly discontinued. An example of a positive disruptor, the obvious one that comes to mind is Amazon. Jeff Bezos was able to identify holes in an existing market and to this day, many industries across the board would come in and either improve their procedures and their process, or the actual end product. Some people would argue that they’ve gone too far at times, but Amazon is a very clear example of a company coming in, disrupting an industry, and completely taking it over.
Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
- Don’t take things personally — It’s only business and you’re going to encounter people who rub you the wrong way, or have malicious intentions. Know your limits and walk away when your gut is telling you to.
- Abundant vs Scarcity thinking — It’s common to see people not willing to spend money or give knowledge to others because they feel that in some way if someone else wins, they have to lose. There is enough to go around (plenty actually), and givers will always gain in the long run.
- Bring others along — This goes hand in hand with abundant thinking. Just because someone else is winning does not mean you are losing. Success is no fun unless you have people to share it with.
- Give more that you take — Givers gain. Period. Don’t be a taker, and always try to bring value to others.
- Don’t forget where you came from — Oftentimes, people will get a taste of success, and it goes to their head. Don’t forget the people who helped you get to where you are, and bring them along with you whenever possible.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
The entrepreneur in me is always looking for ways to improve people’s lives or experiences as all of my companies have been started with those goals in mind. I come up with new ideas daily. Some are awesome, some are terrible — that’s how it is. Sometimes you just keep coming up with ideas and you act on to the ones that rise to the top.
Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?
$100M Offers by Alex Hormozi. This book is amazing — it came out last year and I’ve already read it 3x. He is able to take complicated business processes and break them down to something so simple that anyone can apply his concepts.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
The saying that comes to mind immediately is he who speaks the least makes the most. What I mean by that is whenever I was starting out in sales, whether it be pitching an idea or a product, I tended to talk too much when trying to explain how my widget would help the person I was showing it to. As I was talking, I thought I was making a case as to why they should buy my product or invest in my company. When in reality, the person probably couldn’t wait to get out of the room. Learning how to listen more than you speak is a skill that people involved in business should learn. Listening helps you uncover pain points, problems, and customer needs, which can help you in building your presentation around those needs and therefore provide the best service to your customer or client.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I’d like to get people off the idea that a four year college is the only way to get ahead in this world. I feel like the kids nowadays are told that you have to go to a four year college to make something of yourself. When in reality, that’s not the case. More and more, I’m meeting people who either didn’t go to college, or did not graduate college, are doing very well for themselves and are living a very fulfilled life. I’m not saying that one shouldn’t educate oneself, but we’re finding that there are an increasing number of people with four-year degrees that don’t translate in the real world, and a declining number of people who are practicing a specific skill that doesn’t require a college degree. Am I bashing college? Absolutely not. College for the right people in the right industries is incredibly beneficial and serves a great purpose, but I do believe it’s not for everybody. For example, I have a degree in interdisciplinary social sciences, and I do absolutely nothing with it. I finished my degree because I was told that the only way I could become successful is with a piece of paper. I strongly believe that had I focused on entrepreneurship instead of going to college, I might be even further ahead than I am now.
How can our readers follow you online?
I’ve got Instagram (@killeinthenameof), Facebook (www.facebook.com/Chris-Kille-9), LinkedIn (linkedin.com/chriskille), and my website, chriskille.com.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Meet The Disruptors: Chris Kille Of Elevate Outsourcing On The Five Things You Need to Shake Up… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
