Ep 102 - Recruiters? With Mitchell Riley

0:01 Christopher. Yes. How are you, my friend? Oh, that was better energy. For all of you that don't know, we don't always make the magic happen on the first revolution. No. So now on Take 14, we've got some better energy going in here. Take 14. Well, we do actually have kind of an interesting show. A little, probably slight deviation from what people are used to. A little more tactical, I guess. Yeah, a little more tactical. Brought on a friend of ours that runs OPS staffing, Mitchell Riley. And it's kind of an interesting dialogue. We get into some things that's fairly fresh. There's some changes, particularly around... non-competes that are relevant. And we may see what we understand and know about non-competes go away entirely.

0:43 So we're going to talk about that a little bit. And then in general, we're going to get into some best practices when partnering with a staffing company. You know, right now, especially finding that upper tier talent. It's just a challenge. That's true. And these guys can certainly do a lot to partner with us and help us in that place. I think the other piece that we dive into a bit with him is just understanding in that partnership, kind of what our best, you know, what are our responsibilities as the employer? And then also, you know, some of those things that we need to understand and be able to deploy if we're going to work well with a staffing partner. Yeah, I thought, you know, we covered some good grounds. Like everybody is talking to recruiters right now. We're all struggling to find great talent.

1:25 And, you know, people have positive and negative experiences with that whole recruiting process. And I kind of get in this grill a little bit. I'm like, hey, this is... This is a pretty common frustration for folks with recruiters. And certainly some are better than others. Some have more experience than others, I said. But what's your response to that? We kind of get into it with them. And he's got good answers. He's really thoughtful about the business. Been in the industry for a long time. Long time, yep. It was great. If you're thinking about using a recruiter for your next hire, this is probably a great episode to take in. And if you're already using a recruiter, it might give you some ideas of how you can better interface with them to get better results. 100%. 100%. All right. Before we get jamming, let's talk about our sponsor.

2:07 So I'll start with Liftify. As you guys know, Liftify has just been crushing. There's been a bunch of recent activity. They did their roadshow. They met up with some of their current restoration clients that are just smashing it. And of course, Team Gutierrez is on their lead number one for the ServPro side of things. Trophy, baby. They got the first trophy, 1,000 reviews. So anyways, Liftify team has been on the road recognizing some of their clients as they're winning in that partnership with Liftify. Again, for those of you that haven't heard it yet, Liftify essentially is your partner for securing those five-star reviews, Google reviews specifically. And when we do that, when we smash that category, then we see our SEO activity gain and we see our organic ranking, if you will, in that old search engines on the interwebs increase substantially.

2:55 So Liftify.com forward slash floodlight, find out what they will do for you to partner with you and start securing masses of five-star reviews. Yeah. And CNR Magazine, our friends over there, Michelle and Sarah and the rest of the crew, we say a lot of nice things about them because we really like them. They're really easy to work with. And all of us have vendors that we enjoy working with. CNR is one of our advertising partners and we really like them. On that level, we think they're great to advertise with and work with. Brandon and I both write articles every month for CNR Magazine. We're really grateful to have that opportunity to share our stuff out there with the industry. They're a great team to work with.

3:36 So if you're a vendor looking to connect with the restoration industry, you really ought to talk to them about some of their advertising options and promotional options. As far as industry knowledge, I just saw Scott, one of our other senior consultants... posting on LinkedIn to his audience, reminding them of the CE credits that they can get through CNR, which is like, that's really cool. They're always looking. They've got these playbooks. I don't know if that's what they call them. But they have these industry business operations playbooks that they put out. I think they put out four or five so far. They're really good. I'm not saying that because I'm featured in one of them. But seriously, they're just a great resource and kind of the water cooler of our industry.

4:18 Absolutely. 100%. Check them out. All right. And last but certainly not least is AnswerForce. As you guys know, AnswerForce is partnering with restoration contractors to ensure that their intake, their inbound call, is handled in a super professional and consistent way. So as you guys are facing storm events, as you're facing increases in workload, and or you're just one of those teams that's in the midst of growing and you're going from zero to hero, think about AnswerForce. Boy, think about AnswerForce as a partner to just make sure that that intake process is consistent, it's smooth, that regardless of what's happening with the team or work volume, you've got the opportunity to ramp that up, ramp that down, And they'll make sure that they support you and your team as needed instead of you being stuck in these kind of long term contracts with fixed expenses.

5:07 And a business, as you guys all well know, that is just constantly changing and fairly dynamic. I want to say something too, because to me, I think as business owners and leaders and whatnot, we all understand that there is no such thing as a perfect service provider. And the credibility and the reliability and the character of that company comes out when something goes wrong. And recently, we had a client that had an experience that wasn't rad, came to us, told us about it. We immediately forwarded that information to our friends at AnswerForce. And I was really impressed with their response. I mean, probably within the hour. of sending that email, they immediately popped back and said, Hey, totally get it.

5:50 We've made a series of different switches and changes in the business to deal with that thing. I'd love... Let's jump on a call and let me talk about it and kind of walk you through with changes we've made since that thing happened. Yeah. Just so you guys feel confident that you're recommending a great service. It's powerful. I just thought, man, that's the mark of a great vendor. Yeah. Right? Is when something comes up. Because I mean, shoot... we make mistakes in our consulting company. Our clients all make... We all make mistakes. We all have errors. We all have parts of our process that need to be improved. I just thought, okay, that's one of the reasons why you and I have so much confidence in that company as a sponsor. So I just thought that was worth mentioning. So answerforce.com forward slash floodlight.

6:31 Great people to deal with. Johnny on the spot. They care about the service quality they're delivering. And it's an essential function. I would say most of our businesses need to have a call answering partner that we can fall back to or we can rely on. 100%. All right, my man. Let's get into this one. Right on. Welcome back to the Head, Heart & Boots podcast. I'm Chris. And I'm Brennan. Join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead. Man, I love this industry. Well, Mitchell, sir, thank you so much for joining us, my friend.

7:15 Appreciate you having the time to come on to the show. We're going to get into some interesting topics. So again, thanks for hanging with us, man. Yeah. Thank you so much for bringing me on, guys. All right. So obviously, people know the cat's out of the bag that you do what you do, i.e. you are a recruiter specifically for the disaster restoration space. And as part of that history, you've learned a lot. about the client base that you serve. And you bring an interesting perspective because you're not a jack of all trades. You really are focused on this group and can speak very deeply to the things that you probably grow frustrated with alongside of your clients. And we want to dig into some of that stuff.

7:57 I think this is the first time that our audience will actually hear what it looks like or feels like from the other side of the table. We have our woes, but we don't always understand what it is that our service provider or our partners are going through as they try to help us win. So I think this will be a pretty meaningful conversation. Yeah. You came to the table with some concepts that you wanted to dig into and we're excited about it. And so I'm going to let you set the pace in terms of some of these things that you're really wrestling with in your zone. And then I think Chris and I's job will be, let's pull some more detail out of this and really unpack what it is that you're wrestling with in your head.

8:37 I have a little bit of a deviation from that. And here's the only thing. I think... The industry right now is so desperate for talent. Well, of course, it has been for a long time here. But the industry is desperate for talent. And the industry has a wide range of experiences with headhunters and recruiters. And I think I just want to get the elephant out of the room. I want you to be able to address the elephant in the room is that right now, in particular, with talent being so scarce at really all levels of recruiting, not everybody has the best experience with recruiters. I want to address probably the chief complaint that we've heard. So the audience can settle back in their chair and hear the rest of what you have to say, because I think you brought up some really important topics.

9:20 But one of the most common things that we hear is that they get sent candidates to that either just by looking at the resume and background and experience relative to the role, they look at it and they're like, why the hell did they send me? This person is not qualified for the role that we're hiring for. So number one, but then at times it happens in the resume or when the person shows up to the interview. And they're like, why in the world would they send me this person for this role? So I think there's, with some people in some companies, and it's not an insignificant amount, there's this sense that I'm paying a whole bunch for...

10:05 people that send me kind of rando candidates that aren't really optimal for the position I'm hiring for or the company culture that I'm building. And so there just seems to be a real generic approach or a perception that everybody's kind of doing the same old thing and the quality of candidates that they're putting in front of me is, eh, But I kind of have to do it because I don't have time. I don't have time and we're not getting the results we need from Indeed. And so it's almost like there are a lot of people who look at the recruiting industry and the headhunting industry as kind of a necessary evil at some level for all of our most common hires. I think it's probably different when we get to maybe C-suite roles we're hiring for, that kind of stuff.

10:48 But in all the kind of major roles we're recruiting for, that's a sentiment that Brandon and I hear pretty consistently. Yeah. And what's your view of that? I know you see that up close with competitors and you hear probably that feedback from other clients coming to you. But how do you guys differentiate yourself? Or how have you adapted your process to create more valuable connections for your clients? Man, I love this topic because it's kind of what spurred... place and the real elephant in the room is recruiters suck. We do as a whole, as a group, we're terrible. And the reason I say that is because there's such a low barrier of entry into what I do, into being a recruiter.

11:37 Anyone with internet, a cell phone, and a laptop can how you can differentiate and some of the topics we'll dive into here soon is like how to interview a recruiter. How can you tell you're hiring the right one? I don't really want to iron into what we do differently because I'd like to keep it more about just educating the clients. We could do a whole topic and talk a whole bunch about us. But I feel like in restoration, I get that feedback all the time. And it was y'all's project management podcast that spurred me to think we are good at finding talent.

12:20 But we are totally dropping the ball on delivering an exceptional client experience. Which was a big thing in y'all's project management podcast. And I'm like, man, our ATS system, our software, terrible. Let's trash it. Let's find another one. I need reports, I need data, I need a client portal so they can come in, see where we're at, what we're doing at all times. Part of the problems and what you're describing are just about the talent pool and the people that you get to respond. Sometimes when you dive in and you're looking for an estimator in any given market, your client has an expectation that I need this super sharp program estimator that can write a million and a half dollars of business, do it at over a 40% margin.

13:08 And the only person that you're able to get to respond... is really more C. They're on the low end of that bell curve. So a lot of recruiters feel like I have to present something. And they probably take the wrong approach when presenting the candidate. They might oversell them. They might overfluff them. They don't point out the red flags. If you're really recruiting, you're building a relationship with both sides. And you're trying to make sure the candidate has the right opportunity for them because this is a candidate-driven market. And the client is getting something that has value for them. And that fits their need. So if I find an estimator that may be lacking a little bit on their margins or whatever it might be, it's important to bring that to their attention.

13:58 So you're not overselling something and giving them a candidate that doesn't check all the boxes. Let them know, hey, this is a guy we found. He checks two of the three. But this is where he's missing. This is where he needs help. This is what you should dig into. And if you're doing that well, they're probably going to go into the interview already knowing this is what I need to talk about. Right? Yeah. Like uncover that thing, focus some attention, additional attention into that category. Yeah. And there's so many, what I like to call throwing jello at a wall recruiters out there. Like, There's all these RPOs.

14:38 You can outsource your sourcing overseas to an RPO that's going to get you resumes. They're going to throw you a bunch of junk and recruiters are just throwing Joe at the wall to see what sticks. And that's not what we do. That's not what a lot of good agencies should do. And I hope. by the end of this podcast, we've kind of educated some clients on like, Hey, what do you need to look for when you're going and selecting an agency and all that type of good stuff? Yeah, I think that's a good segue into something that you had brought up to us earlier offline. It's kind of like what we were like, Okay, let's get a show put together because I think this is solid.

15:20 And again, I think the reminder is even for those that are... Regardless if you're working with a consulting or a recruiting partner or not, There's these troubled spots inside our organizations that make recruiting and onboarding very difficult. And they almost get highlighted or compounded when you start working with a professional organization to give you some opportunities, some leads. And I know that that was a thing for you that you... Hopefully, I'm not letting too much out here. But in part of our... We made a recommendation. We referred you to a team. And you did some homework on that team. It wasn't a, yeah, make the call, make the connection. You did your own homework on that team.

16:02 And you had identified through some previous exchanges and notes, some things that were red flags for you about them as an employer. And we're not talking about heinous stuff. We're not talking about criminal things, anything like that. It's the way that they operated, you knew you were almost throwing good seed on bad soil, even if you found them. And I think what stood out to me is a conviction that you have between a duality, a working professional relationship with both the prospect that you've put your reputation on the line for, as well as the organization that you're attempting to recruit to fill those seats. So let's start there and see what we can uncover there.

16:45 But from your perspective, highlight for us the top 2, 3, 4 things that you witness on the other side of the table that really crushes the outcome that a team could ultimately have, right? Yeah. I mean, so for a recruiter to be successful, it has to be a two-way street. If you hire 3, 4 agencies and throw us all out there in the same talent pool, all we're doing is muddying the waters. I like to use fishing as a good analogy. If it's rained and everything's muddy, you've already messaged five candidates, or my competitors have messaged three or four candidates.

17:29 Imagine you're on the other side of the table, you're the candidate, you're not really looking for a job, and all of a sudden they've got hit with three or four LinkedIn, Or if they're good, they're getting their emails and they're getting direct emails, you're getting 3 or 4 emails, in-mails, all of this same position, the same highlight. It's like, what company is out here? Who's desperate? So that's one problem I see pretty often is just overhiring the staffing firms thinking, if I get 3, 4, 5 of you guys going at it, whoever gets me the best results, great. You're the winner. Here you go. And all you're really doing is creating a really bad candidate experience and a really bad reputation amongst the candidates.

18:19 People talk to each other. So I run into that a lot. Another thing, and this is probably my number one pet peeve, is you have to give the recruiters feedback in a timely manner. For a number of reasons. Just because I sent an estimator in that they feel like this guy is missing a whole bunch of things. Great. Tell them why. Don't just say this isn't the right fit. Say this isn't the right fit for these reasons. The more you talk to them, the more you work together, the more accurate your submittalists get. I have a client that we've worked together for 6 years. And when I tell you, we send 1 or 2 candidates on any job, and they're hired.

19:00 Now, we don't fill every position for them. But when I do send a resume to them, I know exactly what they want. I know their expectations. I know what fits in their order chart. And it's like, it's money. But it took a long time to get to that point. Another thing that I see a lot of times is knowing when to move on. If you feel like you're not getting the right experience with the agency that you have, don't feel bad about just shutting them down and saying, Hey, guys, this isn't working. We're going to go a different direction in our search. And go talk to another agency. Definitely, you got to pay attention to the guarantee periods. Every agency should give you a guarantee if they don't.

19:43 They're not putting their money where their mouth is. Don't abuse it, but know it's there for a reason and use it when you need to. If you have question marks on the candidate after you've hired them, definitely express that to your agency. And then finally, be careful of engagement fees, retainers, however it's put. I'm sure a lot of recruiters are cringing at this. But we don't like to do it. We don't believe in it. The only time it makes sense in certain areas, the only time we personally do it is when we're in a market that's such a big metropolitan market. I know I can get you some candidates. You have such a high need.

20:24 You need my undivided attention. You can't wait 2 weeks for me to source this job and go in the order. You need to jump the order. So great. We'll take a piece of our fee in the future... But we're going to guarantee you we get you two people with the right skill sets or we give you your money back. But that's our skin in the game to get us going to jump the line and get going right away. It's a non-refundable retainer in this small of an industry. That's not something I would consider or do. A lot of agencies don't love hearing that. But as long as my clients live up to giving timely feedback, keep an open line of communication, interview the first 2 people I send, and then get me that feedback so I can calibrate my results.

21:09 That's all I ask for. What do you think from your perspective, what are the two or three items that you watch though, these receiving firms, these companies that have hired you, you send or put a good candidate or a series of candidates in front of them? What are the top three things that we do wrong in this partnership that ultimately dilute or delete the outcome we could have received from that prospect that you handed over? Sure. Like... Some of the biggest problems we have right now aren't finding candidates with hard skill sets. We've been doing this for a decade. Brandon, you've been on the other side of the table in 2 different spots with us. So you know we know what we're looking at.

21:51 And there's plenty of other agencies out there that specialize in this niche that are as good as us at that. The real challenge becomes interviewing them in a timely manner. How long does it take you to get them to that? Keep in mind, you're courting somebody to come to your company. So if you're making them wait 2-3 weeks to even talk to you, their interest is waning. Be similar to dating. If you go out and you're gonna have a date, Oh, but I'm busy for 3 weeks. You don't think they're out there continuing looking? That's a big, big, big problem. The second biggest problem is just that follow-up. And then having a consistent process.

22:31 I see so many companies out there that don't have an ironed out, consistent interview process. And our intake process takes like an hour to go through. Some of y'all's clients have done it. They're champions. I love the fact that they'll sit there and answer my questions for an hour... But a lot of the questions I ask are really difficult. And a lot of companies don't have the answer for them. Even things as simple as like, how do you grade your hire? When you're done, you've hired them. They pass the guarantee. A year later, how do you grade them? Do you send any feedback to that agency on like, hey, this guy's doing these things really well? I mean, we're all taking an educated guess at the hiring, but you can identify some key factors that pop up amongst estimators or amongst project managers to help you iron out and make sure you're asking the right questions to ensure they have the right hard skillset.

23:26 Soft skills are so hard to get to figure out if they have those. We're all taking an educated guess there. Yeah, we've been wrestling with that quite a bit ourselves. All right, Head, Heart & Boots listeners. Wanted to stop here just a moment and thank our underwriting sponsor, Bloodlight Consulting Group. As all of you know, right? You know, Brandon and I, this is our passion project, Head Heart and Boots is. But it's also a way more and more that our consulting clients find us. And in effect, they interview us, right? Those of you who've been listening to the show for a while, you get to know who we are, right? What we're about. So if Head Heart and Boots is valuable to you, one of the best things you can do is share it with your friends.

24:06 And it's been incredible to watch just the audience grow. And we still get text messages from many of you about shows that you really like and impacted you. So that's number one. And please keep doing that. Many of you have been huge advocates of the show. We also just want to remind you too, if you're a restoration company owner and you're interested in a partner in your growth, you want some help building out systems, developing your leadership teams, helping set up the infrastructure for you to scale and grow into the company that you're trying to build. That's what we do. That's what we do is we come alongside restoration company leaders and, We help equip them and we help support them in that growth trajectory. So if you're looking for that, go to floodlightgrp.com.

24:48 Potentially, we could be a great match for each other. Another way that we really do serve our client base and our sphere of influence is through our premier partners. We work really hard to vet those folks that we believe bring a level of value to the industry, that it can really be leveraged in a way to have a sincere, positive impact on your business. We take that very seriously. The folks that we create those kind of ongoing partnerships, that's not a check-the-box kind of scenario. It's we really see strategic alignment in the value that they bring. We see value in the way that their leadership teams and their partners are developed. And we've done very sincere work of ensuring that these folks that we introduce our clients and our sphere to can actually create vetted value. So go check out floodlightgrp.com forward slash premier slash partners and see if there's some folks on there that you can connect with and begin developing some other resources to support your growth and your business.

25:42 You know, one of the big topics that you had mentioned or highlighted that I think is really critical for us to take some time to uncover is there's some significant changes coming down the pipeline in regard to non-competes. So I definitely want to jump into that next, mainly because I think it's more of a technical perspective for us to pay attention to that a lot of us aren't probably aware of. Just one couple things I still want to kind of unpack with this initial message. And that is... So what I'm hearing you say is, there's a reality that you're... This is a team sport. So even if we're working with a recruiting team, or even if we're not, there's this idea that we're going to do something. It's going to create a lead or a prospect that we ultimately pull into our system.

26:26 We can't be a victim of circumstance, meaning we can't place the blame of all those friction points in our onboarding and interview process on the candidate or quality of candidate, right? There's this reality that if we're going to partner with a recruiting firm, We have to do what's necessary in our own house to make sure that that money spent in this recruiting relationship is as effective as possible. And we own a fairly significant portion of that, if not the bulk of that experience is what I'm hearing you say. Yeah, yeah. I mean, as a recruiter, I totally understand that my candidate better be worth the fee that you're going to pay out.

27:08 And they're not always worth it. And that's perfectly fine. There's only so many A's and B's in a marketplace. And not all of them are looking to make a move at that given time. Is your need high enough to hire a C and develop them and turn them into an A and B? Is your organization even built to do that? If they're not, be picky. If you can't develop C's and turn them into B's and A's, that's a whole different topic, a whole different conversation, right? Right. I feel like every company should be able to do that. But the reality is sometimes your need is so great, you need a more impact player. But you have to figure out like, is my package, is what I'm offering, is the bait I'm giving them good enough to do that?

27:53 A good agency is going to educate you on that on the front end. If I don't feel like your money is attractive enough, or your package, or your culture, or your reputation, whatever it might be, a good agency is going to tell you up front, look, Brandon, here's the concerns I have. And here's probably the types of candidates you're going to see. Odds are, we're only going to bring average to the table because you're average on your compensation. So let's get the expectations right now on what you're going to see from us and the types of candidates you'll see. Hopefully, I'm wrong. Hopefully, an A responds. But We all know that's not how it works. Nobody makes a move to go backwards.

28:34 They all are looking for something, whether it's career opportunity, culture. But right now, it's money. Inflation is out of control. People are struggling to make ends meet. It's all about money. tell you it's boiling down to money. They answered that job post for one thing, compensation. Yeah. Culture component may be an influencer for certain. But we need people to go backwards for a culture that they don't actually know is going to be what we're selling. Which is very common. I mean, I think your typical entrepreneur, and I've certainly played this game or tried to, where it's like selling people on the, quote, opportunity in lieu of a market-based compensation or, hey, you're going to start here with us.

29:25 But, oh, my gosh, this is the opportunity in front of you. And every single time I've played that game, it's bit me. And it's bit the other person too, right? Because then you're starting from behind. Now, I as the employer, I've got to prove that out in terms of the opportunity I'm presenting to them, which often is going to include really hands-on mentoring and guidance and all that stuff. And it's like many of us who are playing the whole, can I get them in cheap and they can grow with me game, we're not prepared to give them the hands-on stewarding and coaching and mentoring to create that opportunity for them. And so it's a big old bait and switch is what it ends up being.

30:06 For a lot of us that have tried to play that game maybe early on in our business, or we're trying to grow maybe in front of our cash flow. And so we're trying to buy people cheap and stoke the fire that way. But in the end, we get bitten because they're stressed over the money. They're not as tuned in and focused on the role, right? Because now they have a financial strain that they're having to explain to their spouse. But the opportunity, but the opportunity, you know, and it tends to create the wrong dynamic. You highlighted this, Mitchell. You highlighted this concern around negotiating an offer. Talk to us about that. Yeah. I think it really lines up with what we're...

30:47 The kind of this vein we're in. I was just about to say that. Yeah. So it's a really profound thought. There's kind of two schools to... You get to the point you're ready to make an offer, right? You know you can give project manager $80,000. So let's start the offer at $70,000, hoping we settle at $75,000. If we have to go to $80,000, it's in our budget. Great. We make the offer, we negotiate, we meet in the middle, everyone gets happy. Everyone's like, Yay, we made our hire. That's certainly one route you can go. I would strongly recommend not to. The second route is you come in with your strongest offer out the gate.

31:29 You let your candidate know this isn't the top end of our comp. But this is the top end of where we bring somebody in at. For two... You don't tell them this, but it's for two reasons. One, you're putting a good taste in their mouth. You're putting your best foot forward. That's the obvious one everybody thinks about. But secondly, when you're negotiating with a candidate, You are changing the power dynamic in your relationship forever. You've told that candidate that when in the future, when you want to negotiate, I'm already negotiable and I've already let you win. So subconsciously, they think they're going to win the next time. When they come for a raise, they expect it.

32:09 And when they don't get it, they're like, whoa, totally set back. So it's a huge power dynamic shift that a lot of hiring managers stumble into. There are going to be exceptions to that. If you didn't properly convey your bonus program to it, and you're hiring a salesperson, and they sit down and they compare your bonus plan to theirs, and they realize, holy moly, I'm going to make $20,000 less or $10,000 less. I need to build this in somewhere else. Okay, great. We just didn't cover this enough up front. Or vacation, little what I like to call just the tiny hurdles that are easy ones. But the big one is the base salary that I see a lot of companies do.

32:53 It's like, let's start here and negotiate up rather than just put our best foot forward. And it's all to save what $5,000? It's just not worth it to 1. put a bad taste in their mouth and 2. change your power dynamic forever with that employee. It's interesting. We actually, not that long ago as a team, had a similar experience. And I'm not going to go into a lot of detail. But the point was, we didn't quite make it. We couldn't meet on that number. And Chris and I had a real clear stance and why. It was supported internally. As it relates to our strategy, we know we're not in a position right now to negotiate on top-end spend for some of these salaries.

33:33 This is what we have. Yeah. And what's interesting is that when you set that tone, I actually believe there's some interesting respect dynamics that come into place. And you don't do it in a dirty way. It's kind of like what you said is you were honest about, hey, this is not the top for the position, but this is the top for when we onboard somebody. And trailing that are these things that you can do that you have full control over that as those metric are met, you automatically then become viable for this increase or this pay window. And we teach that a lot with teams of create career paths that have pay windows based on certifications or training, right?

34:16 Under that whatever, that title, that working title, whatever. But in this particular event, You know, it was unfortunate. We were disappointed that we couldn't come to an agreement. But I think there's some interesting respect dynamics now between that party and us because we're just speaking in the truth. It wasn't a right or wrong. It wasn't a value statement. It wasn't a tactic. Yeah, it wasn't a tactic. That's it. And I think that's what you're saying is, let's not play a game because everybody knows we're playing a game and they go into that relationship now mistrusting from the very onset. It's not even the power dynamic or it's and.

34:57 There's this power dynamic. And then I think there's this respect trust dynamic that people are screwing with and we don't really know it. We're not cognizant to it. Yeah. Yeah. You know that point you just touched on, on like a path for compensation advancement, like hit these windows and we'll set that up. That's so rare in this industry. It's not in others. Like one of my dear friend is a graphic designer. And he's set up that way. Here's how you move up to the next level, a senior, an executive. It's set up that way in the recruiting world. I don't ever hear that about estimators, project managers, mitigation managers.

35:40 What do you need to do this? Not totally across the board. There's definitely companies out there that do that, that have that... estimator, project director, then there's the senior, then there's the next level, etc, etc. And here's your goals and how you move up. And here's the basis in those goals. And I think it makes their organizations infinitely more attractive. And then take that down to the technician level. We talked about this for a long time, which is a whole other topic. How do you keep them? How do you retain them?

36:21 It's all about money for hourly employees and they're struggling to make ends meet if they're in that range. Yeah, inflation has just smashed, I think, our concept of what reasonable pay is. And when... I know that this is such a common pain point. When McDonald's is paying $15 an hour and we're going to ask somebody to crawl through sewage and crawl spaces for that $15 an hour, Like it ain't going to happen. It's not a culture thing. It's that whole, what is it? Yeah, Maslow's hierarchy needs. Like if they can't make it to Friday, there's no headspace for them to think about legacy and culture. Like we got to meet some basic metric before they can give a crap about some of these other elements, right?

37:06 Well, I think in that tech space, but really across the board too, here's the other factor, kind of the other side of the coin, right? is could you afford to pay people more if their overall work product was significantly better? Right? Well, the answer is, of course, almost always yes. Like, okay, and then you start to ask yourself the question, okay, if I'm paying somebody this, what do I need to get from that individual for this? I think the problem that we find is not that we can't pay techs enough or PMs enough or anybody else enough, is that we're not disciplined enough to get rid of people when they don't meet the standard. So then you end up with a whole bunch of overpaid roles that aren't meeting standard and aren't producing the EBITDA that you need them to in order to have a growing, thriving business.

37:55 You have bloated, overcompensated people that aren't delivering the goods. But if you're disciplined in getting rid of those people that don't show up, don't meet the standard, well, then you can continue to compensate at that level if you're getting the work product properly. out of that. And we were talking about just this reality. And I think it's related enough that oftentimes we call it desperation brain. And I think it permeates everything we're talking about. We have butts we need to have in seats. And so we allow toxic people, underproducing people, to not meeting the standard to stay online because we can't find somebody to replace them. But what we've seen over and over and over again, you got a team of five techs and two of them are toxic.

38:39 They're not meeting standard. Their work product is terrible. And they're causing strife and anxiety and frustration across the team. We've seen it over and over again. You get rid of those two and that remaining team of three can easily cover the work product of those missing roles. Oftentimes, you don't even need to replace them, you know, because the esprit de corps, the shared values, they relate to one another, the work ethic, everything else. That team of three can do more than the team of five that was underperforming in their seat. You know what I mean? But it's so hard. It is so hard. Like Brandon and I felt it and we see it in the eyes of our clients. It's so hard to maintain that discipline in today's environment where it feels like if we get rid of these people, we won't have enough people on the bus to do the work that's coming in.

39:28 And that's scary. And how's that going to affect our business and all the things, you know? Yeah, it's terrifying. You know, fun fact five, there's a study that there's four or five of most anxiety ridden things, things that cause people the most anxiety. One is a job change. Two is marriage, divorce, and children. So going back to the process and why it's hard to get passive, really good candidates, it's terrifying for people to change jobs. And if you're a hiring manager or your recruiter, like me, you kind of become like callous to that. And it's really important that you think about that and treat those people with respect.

40:10 And we all give them the feedback and the time of day that they deserve because they took time out of their day to talk to me, time out of the day to potentially talk to my partner or our other recruiter before they even took the time out of their day to meet with you. And then when they get ghosted, it's like, such a bombshell for them. And we're really diligent about making sure we tell our candidates something. And that something might be as simple as, I'm really sorry, but our client hasn't gotten back to us. I'll keep following up with them every week. But at the end of the day, I might not ever get anything.

40:51 And I see that happen with about 50% of the candidates that I send in. So when companies and hiring managers are like, why can't I get people to come talk to me? We've created this horrible cycle. Somebody in the three, whether it's hiring manager, recruiter, candidate, is ghosting each other and not treating each other in their time with respect. Even if they were a terrible interview, you can still send them a note that says, thanks for your time. This isn't the right fit. We're going to go in another direction. You don't have to tell them why. You should absolutely tell your recruiter. They should keep it confidential and know not to say that.

41:32 and just give them a professional letdown response. But it's really important that we all work together to make sure those candidates are given a great experience. You'll get more people to talk if we all start working together and do that. It's interesting that reference, because I think it reminds me, Chris, of what sales element of that similar theory. But it really is interesting how... Just like in a sales mechanism, somebody is not going to switch vendors unless there's the paint. Right. Chris really hammers on that. Like they need a reason internally that's shinier and brighter than your toolkit to make this change. They're running from something.

42:13 Well, and I think our employees or our prospects, we're not hiring people that are unemployed. We already know that. It doesn't even need to be said. If the people we want are actually employed, they may not be happily employed, but they're probably so busy because that team's understaffed and we're over-leveraging the existing team that we have. And that's part of the reason that potentially is their pain, right? Yeah. But that's the world they live in. And literally, Monday happens. The next thing they know, it's Friday. They're going to try to have a couple IPAs to close out the week and get a grip on life. And then Monday is going to hit them in the face again. And the whole cycle is going to start over.

42:53 And somewhere in there, you're trying to get this message that says, Give me five minutes. Give me five minutes. Come talk to me. And then you sit on that prospect for three, four, five days. what do we expect to happen? The only people that have time to hang out with us are not the employees we're looking for. So I think it's interesting what you're highlighting is we need to learn the pain of our prospects. So if we identify in this vetting process that there are people... then we need to be able to provide a solution to their known pain. What is that? The hours, the inconsistency, the pay rates, the career pathing, whatever.

43:35 But we can't sell to that if we don't know what their pain point is. Yeah. It's the agency's job to identify that. You're absolutely right. So... A candidate, there's something making them look. There's something they don't like where they're at. Your compensation package is what makes them say, Hmm, interesting. But then if your organization isn't prepared to fix the problems they're experiencing where they're at, you're not closing the deal. You didn't fix their pain points. So your culture, your processes and systems, your career advancement opportunities, those are all great. Those aren't going to get them to say, Yeah, I want to talk to you. But those same things are what get them to be open to an opportunity later or where they're experiencing from the company they're at.

44:24 It's probably one of those 3 things that made them say, Hmm, this message for $5,000 or $10,000 more sounds pretty interesting. Let me go talk to Mitchell. and see what this is all about. Yeah. You're spot on. It's still sales, even though it's people, your commercial sales sounds like it translates exactly to recruiting. Love that. Okay, dude. I want to make sure that we have time to get into this more tactical subject matter. What is going on with this non-compete scenario? What have you learned? What are you hearing? How does it affect us as restorers? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I love this topic. So the FTC, if nobody's aware, is going to be voting if they're going to make non-compete.

45:13 what everything I've read and all the rumors I've heard in podcasts I've listened to. Because as a recruiter, I hate non-competes. As your employers, you probably love them. I think they're just not fair. I think non-solicitations should hold up, but that's just my 10 cents. So in January, they're going to vote. Will you explain the difference between the non-solicitation and the non-compete? What's happening there? Great question. So non-solicitation protects the employee who's leaving the firm. It protects your clients and your proprietary information, your systems, your softwares, things like that.

45:53 They are not allowed to take any of that with them. Most non-competes have that baked in as well as you just can't go work for my competitor in X radius for X amount of time. That's a whole non-compete. And then there's non-solicitations as well, which is you can't go after my clients, my employees, or take any of our trademarked or proprietary information with you. It's only the non-compete aspect that's expected to get made illegal. So you can leave your company and go work for a competitor, and the non-compete portion is expected to not hold up. Now it's not going to get voted on until January of 2024.

46:35 Just kind of a weird timing, right around election time. Might all be total fluff, might not happen. But if it does pass, all non-competes go out the window in March of 2024. Interesting, because this has been a scenario where I think some employers, it's all been a state driven perspective, right? What's happening in that state? Are there precedents that have been set that that state tends to lean harder into protecting those, those states, you know, lean harder into not whatever the case may be? So what I'm hearing you say is, is that any existing non-compete that we may or may not be leveraging on, those might become completely irrelevant, but we still have this opportunity to legitimize or maximize what's happening from a non-solicitation, right?

47:21 Like, give me your perspective on those two. Why do you favor one over the other? What is it specifically that kind of rubs you wrong with the non-compete? Of course, of course. Like, I'm paying you to work for me. You have developed this awesome skill in Xactimate that you can only use if you like the contractor side with a competing contractor. But my non-compete is going to prevent you from going to earn a living wage, provide for your family and another competitor, even if whatever I'm doing in my house is making you unhappy.

48:02 That shouldn't... I also think it's ethically wrong for that person leaving to be like, Hey, Johnny, I found this new spot over here. Want to come with me? Or, Hey Susie, I know you're our biggest client, but I'm going to this great new company. Want to come with me? That's the non-solicitation portion. The non-compete is just preventing an employee from going to work for another employer. Just because you have a piece of paper fair to people that are just trying to find a better opportunity for them and their family.

48:44 It's interesting because I feel like my working experience with these two things is it's posturing. Not so much with a non-compete. I think a legitimate non-compete that's enforceable by law, it really can be a pretty debilitating scenario. But in regard to soliciting fellow team members and soliciting clients, at the end of the day, my experience has been it's happening anyways. They just use some less obvious ways or language to get her done. The reality of it is if I go to another organization and I tell the owner there, Hey...

49:25 I've talked to Jacob a couple times and Jacob's ready to make the move, but I'm not going to send him a text on my own cell phone. Well, then new owner reaches out to Jacob where he just happened to get his phone number and he's able to make that connection, blah, blah, blah. So I think I'm not necessarily arguing against what you're saying. I think what I'm more keyed in on is that we tend to leverage tools and resources to protect us from our own failure to be a good, responsible employer. I was just going to say that. It's like if people are leaving you and we're wrestling with non-solicitations and non-competes, it tends to be more of a byproduct of something being broken in the system or the culture or the way we hired, the way we onboarded, the way we trained.

50:14 more so than anything. I feel like at times we wreck our ships on the wrong shoreline. And I almost wonder if something like this is just one more movement towards, look, we have to be responsible for our own house and control the things that we can control. And it's just one more opportunity for a systematic thing to no longer be leveraged in our favor in terms of how we are responsible for our own house. I don't know how you take that when I say that, Mitchell. I don't know what your two cents on that is, but... Yeah, I think you're spot on. My opinion of any recruiter that worked for us or sourcer, if you're not happy and want to go to another firm, by all means, go to another firm.

51:02 It's my job as their boss to be constantly pursuing them. You pursued them to get them to come work for you. Why did it stop there? Just like in a marriage or any other relationship, a friendship, if you don't put any effort in constantly to make them happy, make them want to stay, understand why they might not be happy or what's making them tick, then it's going to fail. Right? It's no different. Marriage and work is a terrible analogy, but it's still a relationship. And relationships are relationships. Right? And they take work from both parties. So if you stop doing that and ignore them, of course they're going to be able to look other places.

51:44 I think it's a great relationship. We're spending as much or more time with these people as they are with their spouses or significant others or children, right? I mean, that's just a fact of the schedule, you know? So I think it's a great analogy, man. If you don't steward the relationships around you well, well, how can you blame them for wanting to go elsewhere where they're going to receive more attention, more care, more consideration? Well, it's kind of funny too, if we think about that whole pain point piece that you brought up, Mitchell, is, okay, so if we're not necessarily recognizing why somebody left for $1.50, like when I legitimately have someone cross the street for $1.50, I need to go back to the fact that, look, people do not make a change unless the pain that they're exiting is more profound than the thing they're taking a chance on.

52:36 Which then comes back again, like, is $1.50 enough to make someone jump ship? Potentially. But my gut says there's more pain in the system that made that $1.50 attractive enough for someone to jump on. It could be the pain was just the $1.50. But my gut says that normally there's something a bit more comprehensive under the surface that drove them or made them willing to jump for that exchange. I don't know what you see. What do you see on your end? Yeah. Like... I think you have to separate hourly employees from salaried. Isn't it something like now it's close to $70,000 is what your household income needs to be to buy a home in America.

53:19 So if somebody is struggling to rent, pay bills, feed their kids, and they're an hourly employee, they're absolutely jumping for $1 more because every other pain in their life it pales in comparison to what they're struggling with on their budget. Now, when you jump up over that threshold, if I'm the primary breadwinner in my house, I make over $70,000. I live in an area, I can buy a house. I'm happy and living this great American dream. For me, then it's like all of those pains might be different. Now, all of a sudden, career, culture, all the other things matter.

54:03 But when you're talking about hourly employees, if they're $20 to $25 an hour, and they're the primary breadwinner and the only one going to work, could you live off of that? And how? That's such a real concept. What can you do to ease their burdens? They have an emergency... Have an emergency fund for them. Take care of your people. Go the extra mile and you'll stop losing hourly employees. That's probably their biggest pain point in their life, more than likely, is money. So of course, they leave for $1.50. Now, in a different compensation range, all of a sudden, your pain points are totally different.

54:47 Money might not be as big of a pain for you because you're fine day to day, but they might not be. That's an interesting checkpoint, that 70K. I like the fact... I think that's what it is. Somebody's going to back check me. I want to say it's right around there now. It's a big figure. It's like, whoa, that's how much it takes? That's awesome. And you consider some of the more metropolitan or affluent communities that many of us are operating in, we still need the same frontline... team members in those ranges. And so to buy a house in Corvallis, where we're hailing from right now, it's probably closer to $100,000 to buy a home, at least today, certainly.

55:28 Man, that is a really important perspective. Because you do the math and it's like, okay, somebody 40-hour work week, a dollar increase in pay, extra $160 a month. That's like back to school close. In August, September. And there are people, I think we can become numb to this as you get into higher income levels beyond that, like you say, where we can start worrying about bigger things in life. But boy, when you're in that 50, 60, 70,000 household income range, 160 bucks? Yeah. Like it matters. I can remember that. I can remember that stage of our life. And it was like, yeah, it was a real thing worth moving for, you know, I think to a lot of people.

56:11 So one of the things that brings up in my mind, Mitchell, is just kind of this idea then of... You know, tactically, okay, we do need to be considering a split brain here of, okay, when we're talking about salaried positions and those roles that tend to fall in the salary kind of scale, they're probably breaking or getting pretty darn close to that 70k level. And so it's appropriate for us to really double down or spend time and energy developing those secondary things that are important to them, the culture, right, the career pathing, all the things. And then indexing a little bit harder on the perceived benefits that are available for our hourly personnel. So we've talked about other things like breakfasts being available.

56:55 Well, let's say you spend $400 a week on making a good viable breakfast available to all your techs. How much less expensive is that than another $3, $4 an hour per person? Now, granted, I'd rather give my employee more. I'm not saying either or. But if we're scaling the business and we're just looking at what we actually have available to us, we can fill some of these gaps in the early phases by providing some of the things that would normally take from our employee's check to cover some basics. Anyway, so there's something to consider there. But here's where I wanted to go with this. I think the reality of it is that we also can't have techs, entry-level technicians, probably making $70K a year.

57:38 I don't know that reasonably we could do that in our business. So from your perspective, how do we create a path? What do we do so that someone coming in at that entry level understands that This is an entry level. What are we going to do to make sure that they can progress as quickly as possible into that space where we can actually pay them more and it become closer to a living wage? Let's take the MIT side, for instance, right? We kind of touched on this before. $4 million MIT department. You've got 20 techs, give or take. Maybe one MIT manager. Maybe he's not good enough. You need two to manage that. There's a huge gap from your lead tech who's at $25 an hour and jumps up to the MIT manager role.

58:25 How do you create something in your org chart in between those two that gives them another step, right? That gives them a higher level of compensation. They're not ready. Maybe they don't ever want to even be a manager, right? But is there a way to create a role where that person can still get out, work with their hands, because that's what they like to do, and can make closer to that living wage? and still have a huge impact in your organization. And you stop losing people when they hit that lead technician wall that you know, this guy or gal can never move into being a mid-manager, production manager, project management.

59:05 So they're then just going to start bouncing because they want to do that. They think they want to do that. But it's important to be able to evaluate and explain to them like, maybe managing people is not your best job. let's do this and you're going to be an excellent drawing expert project manager. You're going to train all our techs and you're going to be this next rung up that's going to get you more money. I think that's a nice middle ground to help get people there. without just losing somebody when they hit that lead technician wall. Yeah, that paywall. Yeah. Yeah. I think it goes back to that whole career pathing kind of scenario, but it's this idea of what I'm hearing you say is wrestle a little bit.

59:48 Is it all starvation and then we hyper-index on this one titled role to keep all the cats corralled? Or is there a way for us to create these kind of keystone positions where there are force multipliers Not to the same extent that a manager might be, but they really are doing things to increase efficiency, consistency, productivity, and we can pay those individuals more. And what I'm hearing you say is that's a nice mid-step. It's that I jump on this rock and now I can see the shoreline and I know I can make that jump at some point when necessary to get to the other side. Yeah, I think that's a great way to put it. I think that's a nice way to create a path so there's not such a gap in an org chart on the mid-side.

1:00:32 Because technicians are our biggest pain point if you're looking from a management or business owners. How do I find them? How do I keep them? How do I train them? There's so many strategies out there. There's not really good solutions. But if you compare our trade to the plumbing world, the HVAC world, They come in as an apprentice. They're making that $18 to $25 an hour. But an HVAC company or plumbing company doesn't have that person showing up at your house first. They have this person coming with a journeyman. Journeyman's making around $60, $65 at the end of the year, close to that $30 mark.

1:01:15 And that journeyman can estimate. They can deal with the client. They still do the work hands on. But they add all these other little layers. And how much does that take off your management team's responsibilities in play? And what type of customer experience does that deliver? We're one of the few industries... And I think Xactimate, you can't bill them as skilled trade. Why is that? Technicians aren't really a skilled trade, even though they have a great skill. But... If they can estimate and do the rest of it, now all of a sudden, they're just as skilled as a plumber, an electrician, an HVAC, a journeyman. So why is our industry not set up like theirs?

1:01:55 Well, that's a whole other podcast episode. It is, right? Well, I think this has been great, Mitchell. I appreciate you hanging with us. And I think just as we land the plane, kind of the summary that's coming to my mind of the ground we covered today is... First of all, for those people that are getting ready to engage a recruiting partner, or maybe they're already engaged with another recruiting partner and they're not seeing the success, it's not been a good partnership for them thus far. One of the things that I feel like you highlighted, which is a great takeaway, is that it's a collaboration. If you're engaged with a recruiting partner and it's a good, healthy relationship and they have the juice to source candidates for you, it's also important for you to give feedback.

1:02:39 And the other piece of that I heard too, in terms of this relationship with the recruiter is promptness, like making sure we're giving quick feedback after candidates so that the agency can kind of modulate and find more appropriate candidates for that role is really critical. Whereas I think a lot of people listening to this, and we've certainly made this mistake, it's like, that's your job. Just put candidates in front of me. The only way it's ultimately successful is... is when it's a partnership. And we're not just waiting for them to tee up magically candidates that are a perfect fit for organizations. So that's one of the first themes I heard. We also talked to you about some of the seismic shifts that are happening in the industry right now with regard to compensations going crazy.

1:03:24 And I appreciate what you said about make your best offer first, don't play games. It sets the wrong tone when we bring people in. It changes the power dynamic when we start low and negotiate up. And then obviously, the non-compete versus do not solicit. I think there's something in there for both job seekers and for us as employers to think about. If we don't have any of that protection, if all that ends Q1 of next year, there's some people listening to this that they need to really take a fresh look at what kind of environment am I creating? What kind of culture are we creating? Right? We don't have any control over that anymore.

1:04:06 And I think that should get people thinking about the way they're treating their employees and the kind of culture they're creating. Anything else? Any other key hits that I left out there? Well, I do have one key thing I want to make sure we cover before we let you go, Mitchell. And that is if someone is looking for a new partner or a fresh spin on staffing solutions, where are they going so that we can get them connected with you and OPS Staffing? First, our website is opsstaffing.net. I answer my phone within 24 hours. So you can call me anytime, any day, any night, 832-477-2011. It's my number one rule. It's something I tell all my recruiters, answer your phone.

1:04:48 I will always answer my phone if you just have questions like where do I need to be comp wise? I've had companies call me just trying to pick my brain on that. I am an open book. Call me anytime. I love that. Yeah. And we've experienced that. I would encourage folks like it doesn't have to be an all or nothing. You guys like us and many other resources in our industry are willing to share best practices to just prep us. Right. And for all intents and purposes, you're prepping them to be a better client. I think there's a lot of opportunity there. Brother, thanks again, man, for hanging out with us. I'm sure that we will have some ongoing conversations in the near future as we continue to center some eyeballs on this idea of employee retention and recruitment support.

1:05:31 Yeah, thank you guys. This All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart, and Boots. And if you're enjoying the show, but you love this episode, please hit follow. Formerly known as subscribe, write us a review, or share this episode with a friend. Share it on LinkedIn, share it via text, whatever. It all helps. Thanks for listening.