March 26, 2025 • 33 mins
Jeremy Jenson is the visionary Founder and CEO of Encore Search Partners, Houston’s largest privately-held executive search firm. A recognized expert in The Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), Jeremy built Encore on a foundation of seven Core Values: Excellence, Resilience, Gratitude, Professionalism, Coachable, Meticulous, and Competitive. These principles have driven the company’s success and earned it a reputation for delivering unmatched talent acquisition solutions.
Founded in 2013, Encore Search Partners employs a data-driven, industry-focused approach to professional recruiting. By combining deep industry expertise, cutting-edge data analysis, and an aggressive outbound marketing strategy, the firm specializes in connecting clients with niche professional and technical talent. Encore serves industries such as Financial Services, Wealth Management, Law, Manufacturing, Energy, Chemicals, and Technical Sales, helping organizations nationwide secure top-tier professionals.
Jeremy’s commitment to leadership extends beyond Encore. He is an active member of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization, a global network of over 17,000 entrepreneurs, and enjoys mentoring others in the art of scaling businesses. A proud father of three, Jeremy values spending quality time with his sons and friends in his free time. Under his guidance, Encore Search Partners continues to thrive as a minority-owned enterprise headquartered in Houston, Texas, serving clients across the nation.
During the show we discussed:
- We Often Make Poor Hiring Decisions, But We Can Improve.
- Using Data Helps Hire Better And Keep Employees Longer.
- Head Hunters Are Better Than HR At Finding Top Talent.
- HR Should Hire In Some Cases, But Head Hunters Are Better In Others.
- Many Important Factors Are Often Overlooked In Hiring.
- We Focus Too Much On Past Experience When Hiring.
- Job Longevity Doesn’t Always Mean Long-Term Retention With Your Company.
- Common Hiring Mistakes Often Include Ignoring Key Factors.
- Employee Pay Decisions Should Be Based On Data And Strategy.
- Your Team Should Join Co-Ops To Learn From Peers.
- Variable Compensation Helps Attract And Keep Top Talent.
- Joining Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO) Offers Networking And Growth.
- Vistage Can Help Your Team Members Grow Professionally.
- Decide If Your Company Should Operate Like A Family Or A Sports Team.
Resources:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Welcome to the Business Credit and Financing Show.
Each week, we talk about the growth strategies
that matter most to entrepreneurs.
Listen in as we discuss the secrets to
getting credit and money to start and grow
your business.
And enjoy as we talk with seasoned business
owners, coaches, and industry leaders on a variety
(00:22):
of topics from advertising and marketing to the
nuts and bolts of running a highly successful
business.
And now, to introduce the host of our
show, financial expert and award-winning author, Ty
Crandall.
Hello, and thanks for joining us today.
I'm super excited you could be here because
today we're talking about something that's really important.
Look, I read this online that when you
(00:43):
lose an employee, it's the equivalent of like
six to nine months of the cost to
your organization of what their annual salary is.
And this is why it's so important to
make sure that you're getting and recruiting the
right people right from the beginning.
But look, I'll be honest with you.
We screw this up, whether you know it
or not.
We have so many biases built into us
as humans.
(01:04):
And a lot of these biases adversely affect
our hiring decisions.
Even though we think we're making very objective,
smart hiring decisions, we really suck at hiring
the right people.
So we're gonna fix that right now today.
With us is Jeremy Jensen.
Now, Jeremy is a visionary founder and CEO
of Encore Search Partners, Houston's largest privately held
executive search firm.
(01:25):
Now, a recognized expert in the Entrepreneurial Operating
System, or EOS, Jeremy built Encore on a
foundation of seven core principles, excellence, resilience, gratitude,
professionalism, coachable, and meticulous and competitive as well.
Now, these principles have driven the company's success
and earned it a reputation in delivering unmatched
talent acquisition solutions.
(01:45):
Now, founded in 2013, Encore Search Partners employs
a data-driven, industry-focused approach to professional
recruiting.
So by actually combining deep industry expertise, cutting
-edge data analysts, and also an aggressive outbound
marketing strategy, the firm actually specializes in connecting
clients with niche professional and technical talent.
(02:06):
Encore serves industries as financial services, such as
wealth management, law, manufacturing, energy, chemicals, and technical
sales, helping organizations nationwide to secure top-tier
professionals.
Now, Jeremy's commitment to leadership extends beyond Encore.
He's actually an active member of the Entrepreneurs
Organization, a global network of over 17,000
(02:28):
entrepreneurs, and enjoys mentoring others in the art
of scaling businesses.
A proud father of three, Jeremy values spending
quality time with his sons and friends in
his free time.
Under his guidance, Encore Search Partners continues to
thrive as a minority-owned on-enterprise headquartered
in Houston, serving clients around the nation.
Jeremy, what's up, man?
Thanks for joining us today.
(02:49):
Man, you're like the greatest hype man in
the world.
Look at you.
I love the energy and enthusiasm, Ty.
Thank you for the intro.
Well, look, the reality is we make a
lot of mistakes as entrepreneurs.
We spend too much time on getting customers
and not retaining customers.
We make the wrong decisions with employees and
think it's not a big deal and it
cost us, and we don't pay attention to
how much money that actually cost us.
(03:10):
So, as I was pointing out in the
beginning, like, how bad have you found that
we are truly, without what you have data
-wise, in making decisions of who to hire?
Yeah, I mean, there's so many different employers
that do it so incredibly different, right?
And I think that it's important to recognize
that there's different best practices and different phases
(03:31):
for how big you are, right?
Whenever you are making hiring decisions from 1
million to 10 million are probably a lot
different than whenever you're going from 50 million
to 100 million, right?
And it's important to recognize that sometimes you
need people that can wear many hats.
Sometimes you need one person to wear one
hat and to do it very, very, very
(03:52):
well, right?
And so, I think that it's important to
recognize that there's no one-size-fits-all,
and they have to kind of take a
look at every single opportunity you meet in
and of itself.
But with that being said, what we do
as headhunters is we consult with the client,
we figure out what the business problem is,
and then we develop a go-to-market
strategy in order to find a person to
(04:14):
solve that challenge, right?
And sometimes it's a technology integration person, right?
Sometimes it's an individual that can provide world
-class data analytics in order to make smarter,
faster business decisions.
Sometimes it's simply poaching the top-performing salespeople
from our client's competitors.
That way they can grow their revenues, right?
And so, I think it's important to align
(04:35):
with the headhunter that has a pure outbound
headhunting approach as opposed to just someone that's
gonna post the job on job boards and
present you with the best of the best.
What is the difference?
I have an HR team, right?
You work some really big companies.
I mean, like even Raymond James down here
in our house in Tampa, Florida.
So, what's the difference?
Like, if I have an HR team, part
of their purpose to me is to go
(04:56):
out and find the right people.
So, why am I using a headhunter?
And this is what I think a lot
of people that watch are always asked about
headhunters.
Why do I use a headhunter?
What do they do so much differently and
better than relying on myself or an HR
team to do it?
Yeah, absolutely.
So, HR teams are incredible.
HR teams do a great job of identifying
and filling 98% of the open roles
(05:19):
that they have in their company, right?
You need a financial analyst, you need an
accounting controller, you need an IT director.
Odds are your HR team can put together
a great job description, put it on Indeed,
LinkedIn, Monster, Career Builder, Jazz HR, you know,
whatever job board resource they can, there's a
high probability they're gonna find great candidates.
(05:40):
But for 2% of the time, whenever
you're looking for something super specialized, right?
Maybe it's someone that's got a very strong
technical skillset, right?
Maybe it's someone that has the ability to
travel 90% of the time.
Maybe it's someone with a certain certification or
accreditation, or maybe it's someone with a really
big book of business.
Odds are the supply is not as great
(06:03):
as the demand for those individuals.
And so in those specific instances, you turn
to a headhunter that's skilled at not only
identifying who are the people that fit this
demographic in the market, but what I can
say, what a great headhunter does is we're
great storytellers, right?
So when we have that 30 seconds where
(06:23):
somebody picks up the phone, when we cold
call them for a CFO role with credit
suite, right?
There's a very finite amount of time where
we can share a story to get that
person who is absolutely not interested and gainfully
employed, for them to tell us, hey, tell
me more, right?
That's what separates a poor recruiter from a
(06:43):
great headhunter.
But don't get me wrong, at the end
of the day, your internal HR team does
a great job of identifying those active candidates,
the people that are looking.
But whenever you need a passive person that's
not looking, that's when you turn to firms
like us.
Makes a lot of sense.
So if I'm hiring a salesperson, probably can
rely on my HR team to do that.
But if I'm trying to bring in a
chief finance officer or a chief operating officer,
(07:06):
not even a C-level, doesn't always have
to be C-level, but if I'm making
that major decision, I might want to consider
headhunting versus HR because I'm looking for a
really high-level position.
I have a lot more invested for that
going well.
And those are the type of scenarios I
really want to rely on experts like headhunters
versus HR.
Absolutely.
I'll give you an analogy, right?
So I've been single for the last six
(07:27):
years and hopefully this year, I feel like
I've met my future wife and I may
put a ring on it this year, but
you kind of got to look at HR
of like maybe like a dating app, right?
You can swipe right, you can find leads
all day of people to go out with.
Those are people to interview, but if you're
looking to put a ring on it and
make one of the most important decisions, maybe
add to your executive team or bring in
(07:49):
a really high powered sales and you're a
rainmaker producer that can bring a big book
of business, you probably don't want to rely
on the swipe right mentality, right?
So that's whenever you have to kind of
build that perfect candidate profile and then aggressively
outbound headhunt and approach those people that are
engaging.
So how are you using data to help
(08:11):
make better decisions and find the right people?
Yeah, my background is actually not in business.
It's actually in mathematics and data science.
That's what I went to university for.
But with that being said, it's just paying
for access to all of the data, right?
If I'm consulting with a registered investment advisor
in Omaha, Nebraska, that's got 2 billion in
assets under management, they say, hey, Jeremy, we
(08:33):
need a chief compliance officer, right?
To come in and help scale up our
compliance because we're looking at doing four acquisitions
next year, right?
They may tell me, yeah, I want a
female, right?
That's got between 10 and 25 years in
the business, right?
And culturally, we want her to have gone
to a public university in the Midwest, right?
(08:54):
Because that's gonna get along culturally with our
executive team.
I think it's important to have a business
partner that can identify who are the 14
people that fit that precise demographic.
And then that way we can be very
acute in our messaging and our targeted marketing
in order to solicit those 14 people, as
(09:14):
opposed to just take a shotgun approach, right?
And so when you talk about data, sure,
there's a data science and a data analysis
component, but more importantly, it's having just access
to who are the people that fit the
client's specific needs.
That's one thing that we invest in and
one of the things that we do really,
really well.
So what factors should we be taking into
(09:35):
consideration with hiring that you see most employers
just don't do or don't take into account?
Yeah, quite often, I think employers, they rely
a little bit too much on experience, right?
And not enough on maybe the soft skills
that are related to what really defines an
A player.
One of the acronyms that I think a
(09:56):
lot of people use in my industry is
looking for individuals that have the gas factor
and gas is the give a shit factor,
right?
Who are the people that really care about
their job, right?
The ones that aren't clocking out at five,
right?
Just because they wanna get home, because they
wanna get to Whole Foods and have a
date night, right?
But the people that leave the office whenever
(10:19):
the job is done, right?
The people that are consistent high performers in
every single thing that they've done in life,
right?
Whether it was athletics as a child, maybe
it was volunteering and participating in extracurricular activities
in college, right?
But the people that are just high achievers,
that's not something that you're gonna see on
(10:39):
a resume, right?
That's why it's important to utilize sophisticated bullying
strings and utilize strategies and identify what those
high achievers are, right?
Maybe it's upward mobility in previous employers, right?
Maybe it's certain awards and credentials that they've
secured in their career, but having a resource
that can go out and identify who are
those achievers and then do a great job
(11:01):
of pulling those individuals into the role.
It might be somebody who's only got five
years of experience, that's a rockstar.
Whenever our clients were putting more weight on
the person that has 20 years of experience,
who's a C player, right?
I think that's a very antiquated way of
thinking.
Retention is important as we kind of started
in the very beginning saying.
So when I'm making a higher decision at
(11:22):
all, which I don't make a lot anymore,
but when I do, how long they've been
at their previous jobs to me is always
a major factor.
I mentioned it from your perspective.
Should it be?
Like, how big of an impact is it?
Like, how does their past and how long
they've been at past jobs really tie in
to how long they may be at the
job that you're putting them into?
I think that it's important to identify the
(11:44):
role and what you need out of the
role, right?
If I'm looking for a salesperson, right?
I probably want somebody that's got some stickiness
with one employer because it means they've survived
a lot of one-on-ones with sales
leadership, right?
Whenever you look at a salesperson that's job
hopping every single year, that's a major red
flag.
They're consistently not hitting quota, right?
(12:07):
They may have consistent disagreements with sales leadership,
right?
And so I think that whenever you're looking
for a high level salesperson, it's important to
put a lot of weight on tenure, right?
If I'm looking for a technology integrator, right?
Maybe an ERP implementation specialist, I might not
necessarily put a lot of weight on their
job tenure, right?
How many ERPs have you implemented in the
(12:30):
last 10 years of your career, right?
I probably want the guy that's worked for
10 different employers that's implemented 10 different ERPs
because he can implement mine in his sleep,
if that makes sense, right?
And so I think it's important to recognize
what are the business challenges that I'm trying
to solve and then go out and find
somebody that has the proven skills and experience
(12:51):
in order to deliver that, right?
And so tenure is gonna be super important
if I'm looking for an executive leader, right?
Or if I'm looking for a high level
revenue producer.
If I'm looking for someone to clean up
my books, right?
That's a strong finance manager, I might be
looking for someone with an entirely different type
of resume than just eight years working in
(13:14):
Microsoft grade planes at one company, right?
And so I think it's important to understand
what are the business challenges that you're trying
to solve.
So I love that you start with the
end in mind because I think so many
entrepreneurs make that mistake in almost everything we
do.
So if I come to you and I'm
looking to hire you and you're gonna ask
me, hey, what's your goal?
What are you trying to accomplish?
What's the end result?
(13:34):
And I tell you that, how much do
you dig in asking me what other factors
are important and how much do you take
those into consideration?
Because like I just said, I may say,
look, I need somebody to benefit from a
last job because that's important to me, but
then you might look at it and go,
that's not really important to getting the same
result.
So how much are you asking, how much
are you caring and how much are you
taking into account from my perspective of the
(13:57):
things I think that are important?
Yeah, that's a great question.
So to answer your question, I would say
100% of the discovery process is me
asking questions, right?
And I may not say, what are your
goals?
I may say, why is the position being
created, right?
And then you may tell me the answer
to that and I would say, well, why
is somebody that's currently on the team today
(14:19):
not capable of stepping into this role, right?
And so it's question after question after question
after question.
And I think that it's important for the
client to have their own light bulb go
off where they go, oh, wow, maybe what
I've been looking for is entirely different than
what I actually need in order to solve
the business problem.
(14:39):
Because if I just tell you what you
need, guess what, I don't even work there.
It's more important for me to have the
skills and ability to probe in order for
you to connect the dots on your own
with that single light bulb moment.
And what you might find out is, hey,
I may not actually need an executive assistant.
(14:59):
What I might need is just some little
sidekick that's gonna do whatever the hell I
say, whether it's pick up my dry cleaning
or working this Excel spreadsheet for the next
14 hours, the things I'm God's greatest gift
to commercial real estate, and then I could
develop them into my right-hand person protege,
right?
And so it's important to understand what is
(15:19):
the reason why this position is available?
Why can't anybody else step into this role?
And then, of course, you've got to match.
What are the compensation expectations, right?
What is the one year, three year, and
five year path for this person, hopefully, right?
If there's not a clear path for upper
mobility or income increase trajectory, a lot of
(15:39):
times maybe you don't want a high-flying
rockstar A player because that person's gonna get
bored and feel like they're entitled to something
entirely more after four months of employment.
So I think that it's important to be
skilled and inquisitive in asking your client questions.
And now a quick break to hear from
our sponsor.
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(15:59):
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(16:21):
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That way everybody can rent a plane after
that one hour.
Yeah, and by the way, if you're watching
this, what Jeremy just told you is well
beyond just being able to hiring.
I mean, this is the key.
Jeremy, I can't stand it when I'm talking
to somebody and selling me something, and they
just start selling me something without asking any
questions, because it's like, what the heck?
(16:42):
You don't even know what my needs are,
what my problems are, and you're trying to
sell me this as the solution, but you
don't understand the problem.
So I just think it's an uber sign
of professionalism to somebody that really is an
expert on what they do when they focus
on what you just said in asking questions,
because you're trying to really figure out what
the root is versus just sell whatever it
is that you're offering.
I love what you said.
There's so much brilliance to that.
(17:03):
Absolutely.
Thank you, man.
You might find out that, like I said,
you just need an executive assistant whenever maybe
you thought you needed a VP of operations,
right?
And then now we turn it into a
fillable role with a very manageable compensation requirement
than if you were looking for something that
was completely different than what you had initially
(17:24):
thought.
What are some of the common mistakes that
you see companies make when it comes to
hiring, where they're failing, and then you come
in and quickly succeed?
Well, the biggest mistake that I see companies
make is they try to replace the predecessor
with how much the person was making, okay?
So I'll give you an example, right?
(17:45):
Let's say that you've got a principal engineer
and your company manufactures straws, right?
And that principal engineer had 14 years of
experience, a mechanical engineering degree, and they led
a team of four engineers.
And that person left and he was making
$140,000 a year.
So then you call us and you say,
(18:06):
hey, Jeremy, I need to replace Joe Smith,
right?
The guy's gotta have experience managing a team
of four engineers.
He's gotta have 11 years of experience, so
we wanna pay him 140, right?
Well, what's the mistake there, Ty?
Jeff did not leave your company to go
make 140.
He's now the director of engineering making 185.
(18:29):
Do you follow what I'm saying?
And so they're trying to pay the predecessor
who vacated the role the same, right?
Well, guess what?
If that person had that skills and experience,
he would go be the director.
He would have secured the job that the
person vacated for.
So I think it's important to recognize if
I'm trying to replace Joe, maybe I need
(18:50):
to replace who Joe was whenever he took
that role four years ago, right?
And so you're always constantly trying to replace
the predecessor with very unrealistic skills, experience, and
compensation expectation requirements.
And it takes a lot of expertise and
confidence from a headhunter standpoint to tell the
(19:11):
client, hey, look, your expectations are entirely unreasonable,
right?
I just talked to the CEO of an
80-person oil and gas law firm here
in Houston, Texas yesterday, as a matter of
fact, who said, I wanna pay X to
go hire a president.
And he's at 20 million in revenue, but
he wants to grow from 20 million to
(19:31):
50 million.
And he says, I want the guy that's
already grown from 20 to 50 because he's
gonna help us do that, right?
Well, what I told him is I said,
hey, look, you're paying 20 million salary because
you are a 20 million company.
And based on your market research, your compensation
is in line.
But if you want the 50 million guy
(19:51):
that's done it before, you gotta pay the
50 million.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, and so it's like, we have these
unrealistic expectations of what we're gonna get and
how much we're gonna get it for.
But we gotta remember that if you want
the guy that's gonna help you grow from
20 to 50 that's never done it before,
then you can get him for 20.
(20:12):
You gotta give him the right systems, tools,
resources, freedom, and autonomy in order to do
it.
But if you want the guy that's already
done it before, if you're not willing to
offer equity or skin in the game, guess
what?
You gotta pony up 50 million money, baby.
You want the chief technology officer from Google
and you're a startup tech company?
Well, guess what?
There's a lot of zeros that you gotta
(20:34):
compete with over at Google.
So here's my question.
And I love what you're saying.
I absolutely love it.
And by the way, I think this is
one of the big mistakes that we make
as entrepreneurs, right?
Because when I look at Elon Musk, mad
man crush on that guy.
That guy's freaking awesome, right?
But he can't do what he does if
he's micromanaging each one of these major organizations.
(20:54):
The guy is a pro at putting aces
in there to run those companies and then
coming in and solving one major problem a
week.
But then from our perspective, those people cost
a lot of freaking money.
Let's be honest, right?
That $20 million company you're talking about to
hire somebody that's 50 million when they're only
at 20, that is a major strain on
their bank account because it could take time
(21:15):
to get from the 20 to 50.
So I think this is an objection that
mentally we all have.
So how do we overcome that?
Like how do we get the person that
we want that we know we possibly cannot
afford to pay for right now, but we
know those are the people that we need
to get to the next level?
Variable compensation, man.
You know, compensation tied to getting the milestones
(21:38):
that you want to achieve, right?
So if I am looking for that president
and I wanna pay him $250,000 a
year, well, hey, guess what?
Whenever our trailing revenue hits 25 million, you
can automatically get a salary increase to 300.
When we get to 35 million, you automatically
get a salary increase, right?
(21:59):
To 400.
When we hit 50 million in trailing 12
months revenue, I'm gonna give you a $500
,000 bonus.
I can put that in an offer letter
on day one.
And if that individual can lead me to
the promised land and where I want them
to go, they already have structure that's gonna
show them the return on their investment, right?
(22:22):
But if I just say, hey, set up
250K with a 20% bonus with nothing
guaranteed in the employment contract, then guess what?
I'm already at 375, bro.
I'm not taking that job.
And so I think it's important to actually
like put in a variable compensation component tied
to hitting the achievements that you want.
And guess what?
(22:42):
If it takes them longer to get there,
you're not out.
You didn't tie it to a definitive timeframe,
you tied it to a milestone, right?
And we've seen this with our manufacturing calls.
Once we have these three pieces of equipment
mission, I'll give you a $50,000 bonus,
right?
You'd be surprised at a project that you
(23:04):
thought would take that person 12 months, now
they get it done in seven months because
they've got that carrot dangling, right?
On time and on budget, right?
So I think it's important for entrepreneurs to
reward the right milestones for business impact and
put less on time and tenure, man.
I think that's a very flawed way of
(23:25):
thinking the whole time and tenure.
And I think it's brilliant.
I think a lot of people are watching
not even familiar with variable compensation, which brings
me to another point.
How do you figure this out?
Like there's so many different ways to pay
somebody, base bonuses, incentives.
I mean, there's just so many different ways.
So how does somebody figure out the best
kind of comp plan?
How do we even know the best way
(23:47):
to hire somebody and pay them in a
way where it's beneficial for us, but most
importantly, beneficial for them, but most importantly, beneficial
for us as the entrepreneur or the owner?
Man, great question.
And it's a segue into you have to
join these co-ops of other like-minded
executives in the same evolution of where they're
at in their own business, right?
And so our company Encore Search Partners has
(24:10):
five members of our leadership team in a
group called Vistage Worldwide.
It's a peer-to-peer advisory group, right?
Where I know that Jacob has 20 other
directors of operations in his group where he
can process issues.
He can bring ideas.
He can say, hey, we're restructuring our mid
-level manager compensation plans.
(24:30):
What did you guys do?
What are your best practices?
What have you seen work?
What has failed, right?
And so these peer-to-peer advisory groups
are so important.
I, for the last seven and a half
years, have been in a group called EO,
the Entrepreneurs Organization.
And actually yesterday, I was in my small
group forum with 11 other CEO founders to
where we're processing complex issues.
(24:52):
And I'm not limited to my own 20
years of experience in business.
I have access to the aggregate of all
12 people in that group.
So they're saying, hey, you're getting sued right
now.
Here's a best practice or resource.
Hey, you're thinking of promoting your vice president
to president.
Here's some things that you may need to
look out for.
Hey, you're upgrading your employee handbook in order
(25:14):
to make sure that this challenge doesn't happen
again.
Here's some things to look out for and
to safeguard yourself with.
So it's important to recognize that it's not
all on you, that you can get coaches.
You can get advisory teams.
You can surround yourself with individuals that have
no ulterior motive other than you guys just
elevating or co-elevating with one another.
(25:35):
I know entrepreneurs organization.
What was the other one that you just
mentioned?
I didn't get that.
Vistage.
Vistage, okay.
Yeah, so you recommend Vistage possibly for team
members and the entrepreneurial organization for you?
Absolutely, yep, yep.
So that being said, and that makes a
lot of sense.
When you're raising, we get a lot of
(25:56):
solicitations to raise people's pay, right?
Employees come and say, hey, should I raise
pay?
HR comes to me and says, should I
raise pay?
How should I raise pay?
So do you have a system that you
think organizations should follow to make sure that
they're maintaining people's pay where it should be?
And it's basically, because I would think you'd
wanna keep it consistent based on something.
I think we've used pay scale before, for
(26:17):
example.
So what is your recommendation there where we
really know what our employees should be paid,
not just high level, like we're talking here,
but regular employees and then how to adjust
their pay through time?
Yeah, I mean, obviously it's gonna differ based
on the department, right?
Does the position account for revenue?
Is it just overhead?
Is it R&D, right?
(26:37):
There's so many variables that contribute to what
the person should be paid.
But the one thing that I tell my
40 person team is we pay you guys
on cost of replacement.
That's what you get paid, right?
So if you want a salary increase or
you want a variable compensation increase, you need
to continue to develop your skills and be
more valuable to the organization.
(26:59):
There's another thing that we rolled out to
the team several company town halls ago, but
a friend of mine had gone to a
Harvard Executive Summit and he took a screenshot
of a PowerPoint presentation that said there's two
types of companies.
There's companies that run it like a family,
right?
And then there's companies that run it like
a sports team.
(27:19):
And we were not shy about informing our
employees that we run it like a sports
team.
What I mean by that is it doesn't
matter if you've been starting running back for
the last five years.
If I've got this running back that's faster,
stronger, I'm gonna hand the ball off to
them, right?
And so when you have this culture of
(27:40):
performance excellence that helps police people themselves on
their work ethic, their productivity, their profitability.
And the way that we pay them is
there's three levers that contribute to what is
your compensation, right?
And so what we do is recruiting, right?
(28:01):
And so there's three variables that we pay
on.
Did you find a candidate?
Did you manage a client relationship?
And did you originate their account, right?
And so it doesn't matter if you've been
here five years or five months, everybody's on
the exact same pay plan.
Now, Jimmy might do a million dollars in
billables, but he may only find candidates on
(28:21):
that million.
Well, he's gonna get paid X.
Joey might do all three, might originate the
account, manage the client relationship and find the
candidates on 500,000.
And he might make just as much as
Jimmy, right?
And so then hopefully Joey looks at Jimmy
and go, holy shit, maybe I need to
develop my skills in order to manage client
relationships.
(28:41):
Maybe I'm gonna be proactive at going out
there and originating problems, right?
Because everybody's on the exact same comp plan,
whether you're brand new or whether you've been
here five years.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, I love it.
Yeah.
Jeremy, great conversation today.
I think the law firms do that well.
Yeah.
Go ahead.
No, I was gonna say, I think the
law firms do that incredibly well, right?
(29:03):
You know, the associates get paid a very
competitive salary based on how much work they
do.
But when they can develop the skills to
go out and originate their own clients, man,
that's next level compensation.
When you're on that partner comp and you've
got associates doing the work for you and
you were the one that managed the relationship
(29:24):
and brought in that logo, but you're on
the golf course every day at 3 p
.m. entertaining prospects and clients and you're still
making seven figures, oh, that's magical.
Jeremy, great stuff today.
For those that are interested in learning more,
so we just really scratched the surface on
what's involved with making the right hiring decisions
and especially those people that are interested in
working with you, learning more about you and
(29:44):
how you can help them fill those key
positions, what actions should they take?
Where should they be able to go to
be able to learn more?
Yeah, direct message me on LinkedIn.
That's the best place.
If you go to my profile, it's Jeremy
Jensen, J-E-M-S-O-N.
I've got a little goat emoji.
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Welcome to the Business Credit and Financing Show.
Each week, we talk about the growth strategies
that matter most to entrepreneurs.
Listen in as we discuss the secrets to
getting credit and money to start and grow
your business.
And enjoy as we talk with seasoned business
owners, coaches, and industry leaders on a variety
(00:22):
of topics from advertising and marketing to the
nuts and bolts of running a highly successful
business.
And now, to introduce the host of our
show, financial expert and award-winning author, Ty
Crandall.
Hello, and thanks for joining us today.
I'm super excited you could be here because
today we're talking about something that's really important.
Look, I read this online that when you
(00:43):
lose an employee, it's the equivalent of like
six to nine months of the cost to
your organization of what their annual salary is.
And this is why it's so important to
make sure that you're getting and recruiting the
right people right from the beginning.
But look, I'll be honest with you.
We screw this up, whether you know it
or not.
We have so many biases built into us
as humans.
(01:04):
And a lot of these biases adversely affect
our hiring decisions.
Even though we think we're making very objective,
smart hiring decisions, we really suck at hiring
the right people.
So we're gonna fix that right now today.
With us is Jeremy Jensen.
Now, Jeremy is a visionary founder and CEO
of Encore Search Partners, Houston's largest privately held
executive search firm.
(01:25):
Now, a recognized expert in the Entrepreneurial Operating
System, or EOS, Jeremy built Encore on a
foundation of seven core principles, excellence, resilience, gratitude,
professionalism, coachable, and meticulous and competitive as well.
Now, these principles have driven the company's success
and earned it a reputation in delivering unmatched
talent acquisition solutions.
(01:45):
Now, founded in 2013, Encore Search Partners employs
a data-driven, industry-focused approach to professional
recruiting.
So by actually combining deep industry expertise, cutting
-edge data analysts, and also an aggressive outbound
marketing strategy, the firm actually specializes in connecting
clients with niche professional and technical talent.
(02:06):
Encore serves industries as financial services, such as
wealth management, law, manufacturing, energy, chemicals, and technical
sales, helping organizations nationwide to secure top-tier
professionals.
Now, Jeremy's commitment to leadership extends beyond Encore.
He's actually an active member of the Entrepreneurs
Organization, a global network of over 17,000
(02:28):
entrepreneurs, and enjoys mentoring others in the art
of scaling businesses.
A proud father of three, Jeremy values spending
quality time with his sons and friends in
his free time.
Under his guidance, Encore Search Partners continues to
thrive as a minority-owned on-enterprise headquartered
in Houston, serving clients around the nation.
Jeremy, what's up, man?
Thanks for joining us today.
(02:49):
Man, you're like the greatest hype man in
the world.
Look at you.
I love the energy and enthusiasm, Ty.
Thank you for the intro.
Well, look, the reality is we make a
lot of mistakes as entrepreneurs.
We spend too much time on getting customers
and not retaining customers.
We make the wrong decisions with employees and
think it's not a big deal and it
cost us, and we don't pay attention to
how much money that actually cost us.
(03:10):
So, as I was pointing out in the
beginning, like, how bad have you found that
we are truly, without what you have data
-wise, in making decisions of who to hire?
Yeah, I mean, there's so many different employers
that do it so incredibly different, right?
And I think that it's important to recognize
that there's different best practices and different phases
(03:31):
for how big you are, right?
Whenever you are making hiring decisions from 1
million to 10 million are probably a lot
different than whenever you're going from 50 million
to 100 million, right?
And it's important to recognize that sometimes you
need people that can wear many hats.
Sometimes you need one person to wear one
hat and to do it very, very, very
(03:52):
well, right?
And so, I think that it's important to
recognize that there's no one-size-fits-all,
and they have to kind of take a
look at every single opportunity you meet in
and of itself.
But with that being said, what we do
as headhunters is we consult with the client,
we figure out what the business problem is,
and then we develop a go-to-market
strategy in order to find a person to
(04:14):
solve that challenge, right?
And sometimes it's a technology integration person, right?
Sometimes it's an individual that can provide world
-class data analytics in order to make smarter,
faster business decisions.
Sometimes it's simply poaching the top-performing salespeople
from our client's competitors.
That way they can grow their revenues, right?
And so, I think it's important to align
(04:35):
with the headhunter that has a pure outbound
headhunting approach as opposed to just someone that's
gonna post the job on job boards and
present you with the best of the best.
What is the difference?
I have an HR team, right?
You work some really big companies.
I mean, like even Raymond James down here
in our house in Tampa, Florida.
So, what's the difference?
Like, if I have an HR team, part
of their purpose to me is to go
(04:56):
out and find the right people.
So, why am I using a headhunter?
And this is what I think a lot
of people that watch are always asked about
headhunters.
Why do I use a headhunter?
What do they do so much differently and
better than relying on myself or an HR
team to do it?
Yeah, absolutely.
So, HR teams are incredible.
HR teams do a great job of identifying
and filling 98% of the open roles
(05:19):
that they have in their company, right?
You need a financial analyst, you need an
accounting controller, you need an IT director.
Odds are your HR team can put together
a great job description, put it on Indeed,
LinkedIn, Monster, Career Builder, Jazz HR, you know,
whatever job board resource they can, there's a
high probability they're gonna find great candidates.
(05:40):
But for 2% of the time, whenever
you're looking for something super specialized, right?
Maybe it's someone that's got a very strong
technical skillset, right?
Maybe it's someone that has the ability to
travel 90% of the time.
Maybe it's someone with a certain certification or
accreditation, or maybe it's someone with a really
big book of business.
Odds are the supply is not as great
(06:03):
as the demand for those individuals.
And so in those specific instances, you turn
to a headhunter that's skilled at not only
identifying who are the people that fit this
demographic in the market, but what I can
say, what a great headhunter does is we're
great storytellers, right?
So when we have that 30 seconds where
(06:23):
somebody picks up the phone, when we cold
call them for a CFO role with credit
suite, right?
There's a very finite amount of time where
we can share a story to get that
person who is absolutely not interested and gainfully
employed, for them to tell us, hey, tell
me more, right?
That's what separates a poor recruiter from a
(06:43):
great headhunter.
But don't get me wrong, at the end
of the day, your internal HR team does
a great job of identifying those active candidates,
the people that are looking.
But whenever you need a passive person that's
not looking, that's when you turn to firms
like us.
Makes a lot of sense.
So if I'm hiring a salesperson, probably can
rely on my HR team to do that.
But if I'm trying to bring in a
chief finance officer or a chief operating officer,
(07:06):
not even a C-level, doesn't always have
to be C-level, but if I'm making
that major decision, I might want to consider
headhunting versus HR because I'm looking for a
really high-level position.
I have a lot more invested for that
going well.
And those are the type of scenarios I
really want to rely on experts like headhunters
versus HR.
Absolutely.
I'll give you an analogy, right?
So I've been single for the last six
(07:27):
years and hopefully this year, I feel like
I've met my future wife and I may
put a ring on it this year, but
you kind of got to look at HR
of like maybe like a dating app, right?
You can swipe right, you can find leads
all day of people to go out with.
Those are people to interview, but if you're
looking to put a ring on it and
make one of the most important decisions, maybe
add to your executive team or bring in
(07:49):
a really high powered sales and you're a
rainmaker producer that can bring a big book
of business, you probably don't want to rely
on the swipe right mentality, right?
So that's whenever you have to kind of
build that perfect candidate profile and then aggressively
outbound headhunt and approach those people that are
engaging.
So how are you using data to help
(08:11):
make better decisions and find the right people?
Yeah, my background is actually not in business.
It's actually in mathematics and data science.
That's what I went to university for.
But with that being said, it's just paying
for access to all of the data, right?
If I'm consulting with a registered investment advisor
in Omaha, Nebraska, that's got 2 billion in
assets under management, they say, hey, Jeremy, we
(08:33):
need a chief compliance officer, right?
To come in and help scale up our
compliance because we're looking at doing four acquisitions
next year, right?
They may tell me, yeah, I want a
female, right?
That's got between 10 and 25 years in
the business, right?
And culturally, we want her to have gone
to a public university in the Midwest, right?
(08:54):
Because that's gonna get along culturally with our
executive team.
I think it's important to have a business
partner that can identify who are the 14
people that fit that precise demographic.
And then that way we can be very
acute in our messaging and our targeted marketing
in order to solicit those 14 people, as
(09:14):
opposed to just take a shotgun approach, right?
And so when you talk about data, sure,
there's a data science and a data analysis
component, but more importantly, it's having just access
to who are the people that fit the
client's specific needs.
That's one thing that we invest in and
one of the things that we do really,
really well.
So what factors should we be taking into
(09:35):
consideration with hiring that you see most employers
just don't do or don't take into account?
Yeah, quite often, I think employers, they rely
a little bit too much on experience, right?
And not enough on maybe the soft skills
that are related to what really defines an
A player.
One of the acronyms that I think a
(09:56):
lot of people use in my industry is
looking for individuals that have the gas factor
and gas is the give a shit factor,
right?
Who are the people that really care about
their job, right?
The ones that aren't clocking out at five,
right?
Just because they wanna get home, because they
wanna get to Whole Foods and have a
date night, right?
But the people that leave the office whenever
(10:19):
the job is done, right?
The people that are consistent high performers in
every single thing that they've done in life,
right?
Whether it was athletics as a child, maybe
it was volunteering and participating in extracurricular activities
in college, right?
But the people that are just high achievers,
that's not something that you're gonna see on
(10:39):
a resume, right?
That's why it's important to utilize sophisticated bullying
strings and utilize strategies and identify what those
high achievers are, right?
Maybe it's upward mobility in previous employers, right?
Maybe it's certain awards and credentials that they've
secured in their career, but having a resource
that can go out and identify who are
those achievers and then do a great job
(11:01):
of pulling those individuals into the role.
It might be somebody who's only got five
years of experience, that's a rockstar.
Whenever our clients were putting more weight on
the person that has 20 years of experience,
who's a C player, right?
I think that's a very antiquated way of
thinking.
Retention is important as we kind of started
in the very beginning saying.
So when I'm making a higher decision at
(11:22):
all, which I don't make a lot anymore,
but when I do, how long they've been
at their previous jobs to me is always
a major factor.
I mentioned it from your perspective.
Should it be?
Like, how big of an impact is it?
Like, how does their past and how long
they've been at past jobs really tie in
to how long they may be at the
job that you're putting them into?
I think that it's important to identify the
(11:44):
role and what you need out of the
role, right?
If I'm looking for a salesperson, right?
I probably want somebody that's got some stickiness
with one employer because it means they've survived
a lot of one-on-ones with sales
leadership, right?
Whenever you look at a salesperson that's job
hopping every single year, that's a major red
flag.
They're consistently not hitting quota, right?
(12:07):
They may have consistent disagreements with sales leadership,
right?
And so I think that whenever you're looking
for a high level salesperson, it's important to
put a lot of weight on tenure, right?
If I'm looking for a technology integrator, right?
Maybe an ERP implementation specialist, I might not
necessarily put a lot of weight on their
job tenure, right?
How many ERPs have you implemented in the
(12:30):
last 10 years of your career, right?
I probably want the guy that's worked for
10 different employers that's implemented 10 different ERPs
because he can implement mine in his sleep,
if that makes sense, right?
And so I think it's important to recognize
what are the business challenges that I'm trying
to solve and then go out and find
somebody that has the proven skills and experience
(12:51):
in order to deliver that, right?
And so tenure is gonna be super important
if I'm looking for an executive leader, right?
Or if I'm looking for a high level
revenue producer.
If I'm looking for someone to clean up
my books, right?
That's a strong finance manager, I might be
looking for someone with an entirely different type
of resume than just eight years working in
(13:14):
Microsoft grade planes at one company, right?
And so I think it's important to understand
what are the business challenges that you're trying
to solve.
So I love that you start with the
end in mind because I think so many
entrepreneurs make that mistake in almost everything we
do.
So if I come to you and I'm
looking to hire you and you're gonna ask
me, hey, what's your goal?
What are you trying to accomplish?
What's the end result?
(13:34):
And I tell you that, how much do
you dig in asking me what other factors
are important and how much do you take
those into consideration?
Because like I just said, I may say,
look, I need somebody to benefit from a
last job because that's important to me, but
then you might look at it and go,
that's not really important to getting the same
result.
So how much are you asking, how much
are you caring and how much are you
taking into account from my perspective of the
(13:57):
things I think that are important?
Yeah, that's a great question.
So to answer your question, I would say
100% of the discovery process is me
asking questions, right?
And I may not say, what are your
goals?
I may say, why is the position being
created, right?
And then you may tell me the answer
to that and I would say, well, why
is somebody that's currently on the team today
(14:19):
not capable of stepping into this role, right?
And so it's question after question after question
after question.
And I think that it's important for the
client to have their own light bulb go
off where they go, oh, wow, maybe what
I've been looking for is entirely different than
what I actually need in order to solve
the business problem.
(14:39):
Because if I just tell you what you
need, guess what, I don't even work there.
It's more important for me to have the
skills and ability to probe in order for
you to connect the dots on your own
with that single light bulb moment.
And what you might find out is, hey,
I may not actually need an executive assistant.
(14:59):
What I might need is just some little
sidekick that's gonna do whatever the hell I
say, whether it's pick up my dry cleaning
or working this Excel spreadsheet for the next
14 hours, the things I'm God's greatest gift
to commercial real estate, and then I could
develop them into my right-hand person protege,
right?
And so it's important to understand what is
(15:19):
the reason why this position is available?
Why can't anybody else step into this role?
And then, of course, you've got to match.
What are the compensation expectations, right?
What is the one year, three year, and
five year path for this person, hopefully, right?
If there's not a clear path for upper
mobility or income increase trajectory, a lot of
(15:39):
times maybe you don't want a high-flying
rockstar A player because that person's gonna get
bored and feel like they're entitled to something
entirely more after four months of employment.
So I think that it's important to be
skilled and inquisitive in asking your client questions.
And now a quick break to hear from
our sponsor.
Hey, it's Ty Crandall with CreditSuite.
(15:59):
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(16:21):
consultation online to talk more at creditsuite.com
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That way everybody can rent a plane after
that one hour.
Yeah, and by the way, if you're watching
this, what Jeremy just told you is well
beyond just being able to hiring.
I mean, this is the key.
Jeremy, I can't stand it when I'm talking
to somebody and selling me something, and they
just start selling me something without asking any
questions, because it's like, what the heck?
(16:42):
You don't even know what my needs are,
what my problems are, and you're trying to
sell me this as the solution, but you
don't understand the problem.
So I just think it's an uber sign
of professionalism to somebody that really is an
expert on what they do when they focus
on what you just said in asking questions,
because you're trying to really figure out what
the root is versus just sell whatever it
is that you're offering.
I love what you said.
There's so much brilliance to that.
(17:03):
Absolutely.
Thank you, man.
You might find out that, like I said,
you just need an executive assistant whenever maybe
you thought you needed a VP of operations,
right?
And then now we turn it into a
fillable role with a very manageable compensation requirement
than if you were looking for something that
was completely different than what you had initially
(17:24):
thought.
What are some of the common mistakes that
you see companies make when it comes to
hiring, where they're failing, and then you come
in and quickly succeed?
Well, the biggest mistake that I see companies
make is they try to replace the predecessor
with how much the person was making, okay?
So I'll give you an example, right?
(17:45):
Let's say that you've got a principal engineer
and your company manufactures straws, right?
And that principal engineer had 14 years of
experience, a mechanical engineering degree, and they led
a team of four engineers.
And that person left and he was making
$140,000 a year.
So then you call us and you say,
(18:06):
hey, Jeremy, I need to replace Joe Smith,
right?
The guy's gotta have experience managing a team
of four engineers.
He's gotta have 11 years of experience, so
we wanna pay him 140, right?
Well, what's the mistake there, Ty?
Jeff did not leave your company to go
make 140.
He's now the director of engineering making 185.
(18:29):
Do you follow what I'm saying?
And so they're trying to pay the predecessor
who vacated the role the same, right?
Well, guess what?
If that person had that skills and experience,
he would go be the director.
He would have secured the job that the
person vacated for.
So I think it's important to recognize if
I'm trying to replace Joe, maybe I need
(18:50):
to replace who Joe was whenever he took
that role four years ago, right?
And so you're always constantly trying to replace
the predecessor with very unrealistic skills, experience, and
compensation expectation requirements.
And it takes a lot of expertise and
confidence from a headhunter standpoint to tell the
(19:11):
client, hey, look, your expectations are entirely unreasonable,
right?
I just talked to the CEO of an
80-person oil and gas law firm here
in Houston, Texas yesterday, as a matter of
fact, who said, I wanna pay X to
go hire a president.
And he's at 20 million in revenue, but
he wants to grow from 20 million to
(19:31):
50 million.
And he says, I want the guy that's
already grown from 20 to 50 because he's
gonna help us do that, right?
Well, what I told him is I said,
hey, look, you're paying 20 million salary because
you are a 20 million company.
And based on your market research, your compensation
is in line.
But if you want the 50 million guy
(19:51):
that's done it before, you gotta pay the
50 million.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, and so it's like, we have these
unrealistic expectations of what we're gonna get and
how much we're gonna get it for.
But we gotta remember that if you want
the guy that's gonna help you grow from
20 to 50 that's never done it before,
then you can get him for 20.
(20:12):
You gotta give him the right systems, tools,
resources, freedom, and autonomy in order to do
it.
But if you want the guy that's already
done it before, if you're not willing to
offer equity or skin in the game, guess
what?
You gotta pony up 50 million money, baby.
You want the chief technology officer from Google
and you're a startup tech company?
Well, guess what?
There's a lot of zeros that you gotta
(20:34):
compete with over at Google.
So here's my question.
And I love what you're saying.
I absolutely love it.
And by the way, I think this is
one of the big mistakes that we make
as entrepreneurs, right?
Because when I look at Elon Musk, mad
man crush on that guy.
That guy's freaking awesome, right?
But he can't do what he does if
he's micromanaging each one of these major organizations.
(20:54):
The guy is a pro at putting aces
in there to run those companies and then
coming in and solving one major problem a
week.
But then from our perspective, those people cost
a lot of freaking money.
Let's be honest, right?
That $20 million company you're talking about to
hire somebody that's 50 million when they're only
at 20, that is a major strain on
their bank account because it could take time
(21:15):
to get from the 20 to 50.
So I think this is an objection that
mentally we all have.
So how do we overcome that?
Like how do we get the person that
we want that we know we possibly cannot
afford to pay for right now, but we
know those are the people that we need
to get to the next level?
Variable compensation, man.
You know, compensation tied to getting the milestones
(21:38):
that you want to achieve, right?
So if I am looking for that president
and I wanna pay him $250,000 a
year, well, hey, guess what?
Whenever our trailing revenue hits 25 million, you
can automatically get a salary increase to 300.
When we get to 35 million, you automatically
get a salary increase, right?
(21:59):
To 400.
When we hit 50 million in trailing 12
months revenue, I'm gonna give you a $500
,000 bonus.
I can put that in an offer letter
on day one.
And if that individual can lead me to
the promised land and where I want them
to go, they already have structure that's gonna
show them the return on their investment, right?
(22:22):
But if I just say, hey, set up
250K with a 20% bonus with nothing
guaranteed in the employment contract, then guess what?
I'm already at 375, bro.
I'm not taking that job.
And so I think it's important to actually
like put in a variable compensation component tied
to hitting the achievements that you want.
And guess what?
(22:42):
If it takes them longer to get there,
you're not out.
You didn't tie it to a definitive timeframe,
you tied it to a milestone, right?
And we've seen this with our manufacturing calls.
Once we have these three pieces of equipment
mission, I'll give you a $50,000 bonus,
right?
You'd be surprised at a project that you
(23:04):
thought would take that person 12 months, now
they get it done in seven months because
they've got that carrot dangling, right?
On time and on budget, right?
So I think it's important for entrepreneurs to
reward the right milestones for business impact and
put less on time and tenure, man.
I think that's a very flawed way of
(23:25):
thinking the whole time and tenure.
And I think it's brilliant.
I think a lot of people are watching
not even familiar with variable compensation, which brings
me to another point.
How do you figure this out?
Like there's so many different ways to pay
somebody, base bonuses, incentives.
I mean, there's just so many different ways.
So how does somebody figure out the best
kind of comp plan?
How do we even know the best way
(23:47):
to hire somebody and pay them in a
way where it's beneficial for us, but most
importantly, beneficial for them, but most importantly, beneficial
for us as the entrepreneur or the owner?
Man, great question.
And it's a segue into you have to
join these co-ops of other like-minded
executives in the same evolution of where they're
at in their own business, right?
And so our company Encore Search Partners has
(24:10):
five members of our leadership team in a
group called Vistage Worldwide.
It's a peer-to-peer advisory group, right?
Where I know that Jacob has 20 other
directors of operations in his group where he
can process issues.
He can bring ideas.
He can say, hey, we're restructuring our mid
-level manager compensation plans.
(24:30):
What did you guys do?
What are your best practices?
What have you seen work?
What has failed, right?
And so these peer-to-peer advisory groups
are so important.
I, for the last seven and a half
years, have been in a group called EO,
the Entrepreneurs Organization.
And actually yesterday, I was in my small
group forum with 11 other CEO founders to
where we're processing complex issues.
(24:52):
And I'm not limited to my own 20
years of experience in business.
I have access to the aggregate of all
12 people in that group.
So they're saying, hey, you're getting sued right
now.
Here's a best practice or resource.
Hey, you're thinking of promoting your vice president
to president.
Here's some things that you may need to
look out for.
Hey, you're upgrading your employee handbook in order
(25:14):
to make sure that this challenge doesn't happen
again.
Here's some things to look out for and
to safeguard yourself with.
So it's important to recognize that it's not
all on you, that you can get coaches.
You can get advisory teams.
You can surround yourself with individuals that have
no ulterior motive other than you guys just
elevating or co-elevating with one another.
(25:35):
I know entrepreneurs organization.
What was the other one that you just
mentioned?
I didn't get that.
Vistage.
Vistage, okay.
Yeah, so you recommend Vistage possibly for team
members and the entrepreneurial organization for you?
Absolutely, yep, yep.
So that being said, and that makes a
lot of sense.
When you're raising, we get a lot of
(25:56):
solicitations to raise people's pay, right?
Employees come and say, hey, should I raise
pay?
HR comes to me and says, should I
raise pay?
How should I raise pay?
So do you have a system that you
think organizations should follow to make sure that
they're maintaining people's pay where it should be?
And it's basically, because I would think you'd
wanna keep it consistent based on something.
I think we've used pay scale before, for
(26:17):
example.
So what is your recommendation there where we
really know what our employees should be paid,
not just high level, like we're talking here,
but regular employees and then how to adjust
their pay through time?
Yeah, I mean, obviously it's gonna differ based
on the department, right?
Does the position account for revenue?
Is it just overhead?
Is it R&D, right?
(26:37):
There's so many variables that contribute to what
the person should be paid.
But the one thing that I tell my
40 person team is we pay you guys
on cost of replacement.
That's what you get paid, right?
So if you want a salary increase or
you want a variable compensation increase, you need
to continue to develop your skills and be
more valuable to the organization.
(26:59):
There's another thing that we rolled out to
the team several company town halls ago, but
a friend of mine had gone to a
Harvard Executive Summit and he took a screenshot
of a PowerPoint presentation that said there's two
types of companies.
There's companies that run it like a family,
right?
And then there's companies that run it like
a sports team.
(27:19):
And we were not shy about informing our
employees that we run it like a sports
team.
What I mean by that is it doesn't
matter if you've been starting running back for
the last five years.
If I've got this running back that's faster,
stronger, I'm gonna hand the ball off to
them, right?
And so when you have this culture of
(27:40):
performance excellence that helps police people themselves on
their work ethic, their productivity, their profitability.
And the way that we pay them is
there's three levers that contribute to what is
your compensation, right?
And so what we do is recruiting, right?
(28:01):
And so there's three variables that we pay
on.
Did you find a candidate?
Did you manage a client relationship?
And did you originate their account, right?
And so it doesn't matter if you've been
here five years or five months, everybody's on
the exact same pay plan.
Now, Jimmy might do a million dollars in
billables, but he may only find candidates on
(28:21):
that million.
Well, he's gonna get paid X.
Joey might do all three, might originate the
account, manage the client relationship and find the
candidates on 500,000.
And he might make just as much as
Jimmy, right?
And so then hopefully Joey looks at Jimmy
and go, holy shit, maybe I need to
develop my skills in order to manage client
relationships.
(28:41):
Maybe I'm gonna be proactive at going out
there and originating problems, right?
Because everybody's on the exact same comp plan,
whether you're brand new or whether you've been
here five years.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, I love it.
Yeah.
Jeremy, great conversation today.
I think the law firms do that well.
Yeah.
Go ahead.
No, I was gonna say, I think the
law firms do that incredibly well, right?
(29:03):
You know, the associates get paid a very
competitive salary based on how much work they
do.
But when they can develop the skills to
go out and originate their own clients, man,
that's next level compensation.
When you're on that partner comp and you've
got associates doing the work for you and
you were the one that managed the relationship
(29:24):
and brought in that logo, but you're on
the golf course every day at 3 p
.m. entertaining prospects and clients and you're still
making seven figures, oh, that's magical.
Jeremy, great stuff today.
For those that are interested in learning more,
so we just really scratched the surface on
what's involved with making the right hiring decisions
and especially those people that are interested in
working with you, learning more about you and
(29:44):
how you can help them fill those key
positions, what actions should they take?
Where should they be able to go to
be able to learn more?
Yeah, direct message me on LinkedIn.
That's the best place.
If you go to my profile, it's Jeremy
Jensen, J-E-M-S-O-N.
I've got a little goat emoji.
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