If you’ve ever felt stuck because your business outgrew your leadership team — or rushed a key hire just to relieve the pressure — this episode is for you.
In this episode of Owned and Operated, John Wilson sits down with Brendan Aronson, Founder of The Military Veteran (TMV), a recruiting firm that places military veterans into executive and operator roles.
They break down what it really takes to hire a GM or operator who can scale a $10M–$25M home service business — and why most hiring failures aren’t talent problems, but clarity and process problems.
The core theme:
Great companies believe people drive value creation. If you get the leadership hire wrong, the cost compounds. If you get it right, everything unlocks.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
- What “operator” actually means in a scaling home service business
- Why hiring becomes the bottleneck as companies grow
- How military leadership experience translates (and where it doesn’t)
- Enlisted vs. officer backgrounds — and what each typically brings
They also cover the difference between hiring for:
- A private equity–backed platform (timeline-driven, playbook-oriented)
- A family-owned business (culture, long-term alignment, succession planning)
🎙️ Hosts
Host: John Wilson — https://x.com/WilsonCompaniesGuest: Brendan Aronson, Founder of The Military Veteran (TMV)
💼 Big Reputation —
Stop chasing reviews and watching competitors outrank you. Big Reputation is the AI-powered review + SEO platform built for home service pros. Automate review generation, respond with AI, track local SEO, and integrate with your CRM. Setup is free, and your first month’s on the house.
💼Shoutout to Avoca AI!
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Shout Out to FieldPulse 🚀
FieldPulse is an incredible Field Service Management platform that helps you save hours each week while keeping your operations running smoothly. If you're looking to streamline your processes, stay competitive, and focus on what truly matters, FieldPulse is a game-changer!
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More Ways To Connect with O&O
John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies
Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC
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Know I'm an Air Force guy, but I gotta say the key to success hiring Marines. So you're gonna talk about hiring leaders who scale. The key feature that all of our clients share in common is that they have a fundamental belief that the people are going to be responsible for the value creation. Is this candidate going to solve exactly the pain point that you have?You know, it can be painful, it can be expensive, but it's more expensive to make a mistake in hiring someone. Placed everyone from former pilots, special operations folks. We do a lot of combat arms folks. Frankly, they're gonna develop like a really strong ability to lead a diverse workforce of folks from, you know, really varying backgrounds.If you're hiring a gm, like what should, what should someone be thinking about a hundred thousand dollars versus this 200,000? Um,welcome back. To owned and operated. I am your host, John Wilson. During the day. I run a 40 ish million dollar company now, which is kind of fun. Uh, we're plumbing HVAC electric, and we are Indiana and Ohio. About to be one more state so that, uh, hang tight. That should be pretty fun. Today we brought on Brendan Aronson, the founder of TMV, the Military Vet, which is a recruiting firm that places operators from military veterans.Stay tuned. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, this will be fun. Uh, I, we were just talking a second ago off camera. How I feel like this has become more and more of a, of a topic of, Hey, there's all these, uh, military veterans out there. I think you said 16 million. Yes. Yeah. And this is becoming a, a hotter and hotter topic of, hey, can we place these, uh, you know, skilled professionals into leadership positions?And they're uniquely qualified. To come in and, and lead. So this will, this will be a ton of fun to dive into. Yeah. I'm fired up to be here. I, uh, drove through the once in a decade blizzard Yes. To get here, uh, because I was excited about the show and excited to meet you and get a chance to learn from you and share, you know, why we think that hiring military veterans can be an incredible part of someone's strategy and something that can differentiate them to have a leader who not only has the private sector experience and understands KPIs mm-hmm.And setting strategy and has spent some time around businesses. But also has this robust leadership capacity that they've developed in some of the most challenging places on the planet. Mm-hmm. And in the nation's Premier Leadership Academy, which is the military, uh, can be just an incredibly valuable thing for a business.Yeah. When you're, um, we have like some really good stuff to cover here. Uh, I'm not a veteran, so I'm coming at this question with like. Know which branch is better? You can ask. I'm happy to tell you. So as you think about like 16 million, that's a lot. Yes. Something that I didn't understand. You know, we've, we've hired a, a tremendous amount of veterans over the years and, uh, as someone, uh, civilian, I guess I, I didn't understand till maybe four or five years ago, my friend was like, describing to me the difference between enlisted and officer and like the culture.Uh, of, of a difference, which was, which was kind of interesting. And as you are thinking about recruiting like two questions, is there a branch that tends to produce more? So that could be a dangerous question. And then as we think about. Enlist versus officer, like where are these operators typically coming from?Well, I'll answer the second question first. I mean, the folks that we placed into businesses have a variety of different experiences in the military. If they're on the enlisted side, oftentimes they've had, you know, a stellar career. They've gone on to be what's called a non-commissioned officer. Which is someone that's leading teams of, you know, on the smaller end, maybe four, all the way up through 40 or hundreds of people.And then on the officer side, you know, you commission as a second lieutenant and step into a situation where you don't, you're not necessarily the subject matter expert. Like when I got to my first platoon in the Marine Corps, I was an infantry officer in the Marines. You know, I stepped up in front of folks that ranged in age from 17 who were joining the unit at the same time and had just completed their bootcamp.To man, my, you know, senior enlisted leader was 36 years old. Yeah. And a veteran of multiple combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. And you're, you know, responsible for leading these folks. Yeah. It's a heavy responsibility. But you're not necessarily the subject matter expert you've gone through.Hopefully robust training. The infantry officers course in the Marine Corps is like a crucible and um, it's very technical in nature, but you don't have the experience of having deployed to combat and seeing what is working on the ground and how it differs maybe from the doctrinal stuff that you've learned.So a variety of different kinds of backgrounds. It really depends on some on, on the needs of the client that we work with and the company, what they're hiring for specifically. Mm-hmm. Um, and then what the, the private sector experience that that person brings to the table is as well. And then in terms of branches of service, man, uh, the one thing that we all share in common is we love to chirp one another.Mm-hmm. Uh, so, you know, each branch will kind of give the other ones a hard time. Mm-hmm. Um, I was a Marine. Our team is, has a lot of Marines on it. We've got some Army folks too. Um, we've got some Navy guys that we're bringing on as well. You know, we've placed from across the different branches. I think if you are, if you don't know the military services as well, that's where a firm like ours can really be helpful in distilling, Hey, what did this person says that they were X in the air force, and what does that actually mean?Like, what kind of skill sets would I expect to, you know, this person to have developed over that period of time? Mm-hmm. So having someone to help translate it, I think could be really helpful. In terms of like, where we find folks, I mean, we've placed everyone from former pilots, um, to, you know. We do a lot of combat arms folks, frankly.Um, they're gonna develop like a really strong ability to lead a diverse workforce of. Folks from, you know, really varying backgrounds. Yeah. Um, in, you know, austere and challenging environments, special operations folks, my brothers in the special operations community, he's a senior leader in, uh, the Marine special Operations community.We're very proud of him. Mm-hmm. To submariners. So, like, you know, being on a submarine is an incredibly technical role. You're running a nuclear power plant, hundreds of feet below the surface of the waves, hoping to avoid detection. I mean, it's a high stress job. Yeah. It's extremely technical because you rely on this system to provide your life support, you know, and we place, we've placed Air Force folks in a variety of different roles.We've done some, like, you know, this isn't necessarily as relevant to your audience, but we've done a lot of federal sales roles. And so Air Force acquisitions folks who are on the other side of the table and purchasing that kind of, you know, equipment from folks Yeah. Um, can be a helpful skillset. So again, it just kind of depends on what the client is looking for.Yeah, yeah. Um, but yeah, we're comfortable looking across the different branches. I'll tell you one funny story real quick. 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If you want Google working for you without becoming another job, check out big reputation.ai.So in addition to helping clients hire military veterans, you know, we host, uh, events for military veterans to help them build their private sector network across the country, because that's one of the biggest challenges of transitioning outta the uniform. And one of the events that we host is called The Military Veteran Startup Conference in San Francisco.Okay. Um, we just did it three weeks ago. Um, you know, we host about 400 folks, uh, out there at a, a place in, in San Francisco, and we had Kevin Mania come on and speak one year. Okay. Uh, he founded a company called Mandiant Technologies, which sold to Google for like five and a half billion dollars or something wild like that.It's a cybersecurity business. Mm-hmm. Kevin's an Air Force veteran. And they asked him, what's your key to business success? If you just had to sell it to like one quick, you know, clip. Yeah. What would it be? And Kevin said he didn't miss a beat. He turned and said, you know, I'm an Air Force guy, but I gotta say the key to success hiring Marines.So yeah, we thought that was, uh, yeah, that is fun. But, uh, that is, but in reality, like people get different kinds of experiences across the branches across different roles. So again, it just like, really depends on what you're looking for. Alright, well today we're gonna be talking, um. I don't know that we actually talk about this topic on the show very often, uh, which is, I'm, I'm sure we did maybe a few hundred episodes ago, but you know, the, the podcast was sort of launched in these two different camps.So the one camp, uh, is this HoldCo community, right? Uh, so we just hosted HoldCo Comp out in Salt Lake City. It was a ton of fun and, uh, that community is very, like half of the conversations are. How do I hire and find operators? Like, I'm gonna go buy this company. How do, who's gonna run it? Yep. Because this is, uh, they, they tend to not be active CEOs.They're investors. Maybe it's family office, but inside the trades it tends to be the owner, uh, running it. I mean, that's the case with me. That's the case with, uh, most of my friends. Um, but I, I think that, uh. So we're gonna use the word operator, I think is my point. But that's not a term that we really use that often on this show.But the operator, just for the listener as they think about it, is, tends to be a president, the gm, maybe down to like a senior leader. Uh, I think you talked about director level. Yes. Um. But yeah, if, you know, if we, if someone was, I'm trying to, I'm trying to make sure use case hits as we sort of dive into this topic a little bit.'cause we're gonna talk about hiring leaders who scale and hiring operators and hiring operators. Is the guy operating the company or the woman operating the company? And, and where do we find 'em? How do we interview 'em? So a big topic. Yeah. Uh, at, I mean, at HoCo Con, half of the conversations on stage. Yeah.Or how do you hire Yeah. Operators. Um, which is kind of funny, but because in in home service, I feel like it's often just the guy that was already there. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Uh, so let's, yeah, let's dive in. So. Uh, you had a phrase earlier where, um, and I'm gonna botch it, but like, you know, returns are driven by the people basically.Yes. What, what was your version of that? I mean, the key feature that all of our clients mm-hmm. Share in common is that they have a belief, a fundamental belief that the people are going to be responsible for the value creation. Yeah. Right? Like who you have running the business is going to be setting the culture.Right. And this can be either the operator, the gm, the CEO, or it could be the COO, or to your point, it can be a director of ops. Yeah. Each of them has their fingerprints on the business and they are setting the culture, which is going to be vitally important as you scale. I think it's something that people don't talk about as much 'cause it's sort of easier to focus on what are the metrics that you need, what are the KPIs, what do our margins look like, what does revenue look like?What does our bottom line look like? But. They're going to impact the culture. They're gonna hold people accountable to delivering the results, right? And they're gonna make it a place that either people want to come and work at, right? Mm-hmm. Or a place that is going to churn out great teammates. And so having that right person in the right, in in the right seat is absolutely vital for every business.Um. And I think that that's something that, you know, our business exists in order to create pathways for military veterans into leadership and executive roles because we know that the number one predictor of whether a company will hire a veteran is the presence of a veteran on the executive team.Right. Okay. That's why we were started and because we wanted to showcase what veterans are capable of in their private sector careers, because oftentimes the media focuses on those who have been negatively impacted by their service. Sure. Left behind. Right. And we must, we have to take care of those members of our community, for sure.Mm-hmm. We also think, look, the military is this incredible leadership laboratory where people learn a lot and they grow personally and professionally, and it can be a real benefit to the person who comes out the other side. Um, that's why our company exists. And then the how or the what we do is helping people find the best possible person who can fill a specific role.Um, but yeah, I mean, it doesn't surprise me at all that your, your HoldCo conference had half of the sessions about hiring and people, because we are all in the people business. Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah. At the end of the day, you've got the specific trade or craft or what you sell. But then as you grow mm-hmm.The leadership becomes more and more important. And setting a strategic vision for where you're going. Yeah. And then the culture that will reinforce that vision, um, is vitally important. Yeah. Yeah. I think, uh, it, it's a constraint. You know, it's the thing that can hold you back. Yes. Um, that is interesting about the, uh.The highest likelihood is if there's already a, I mean, that makes sense. Sure. I've never thought of it, but that, that makes sense. Um, I don't think we have a military veteran on our leadership team. We're happy to help change that John, if you'd like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That, that is kind of, that is kind of interesting.Um, we have. We, we, a couple years ago we looked, 22% of our workforce was military veteran. That's amazing. Which seems like a lot overrepresented, but none of them were in the senior leadership pool. Yeah. For whatever reason. I mean, what has been your experience with hiring folks that have a military background?It sounds like a positive one. Mostly positive. Yeah. There has been challenges, but I think it's, um. Yeah, mostly positive. That's great. Yeah, 22% is higher than the national average. So kudos, I think. I think it has to be overrepresented in the trades. Yes. Yeah. I mean, you know, plumbing and HVAC and it, it's a nor, you know, how do people transition out of their military life into civilian and the trades for a lot of people seem to be a pretty natural transition.For sure. Alright, let's talk about hiring leaders. I think this will be kind of interesting. So as we talk about hiring leaders, um. Where do you wanna focus? Do you wanna focus like frontline leaders? Do you wanna focus senior leaders? Like where would be? I think maybe senior leaders. Okay. Yeah. I mean, um, happy to opine on hiring and kind of some of the challenges that people face, if that's of interest.I think that would maybe be like, broadly interesting whether or not you're gonna hire a veteran into the role. Yeah. You know, when people go to hire, it's because they have a specific need or problem and their businesses reach some sort of constraint, right? Yeah. It's grown to the capacity that it can have, and then there's something that is specifically holding it back.And when you experience that problem, you know better than most. It's acute and it's painful. Mm-hmm. Right. It's a bummer. 'cause you're like, man, if we just had this person in this seat who could execute this function really well, yeah. The rest of the business would be unlocked to grow. And because that pain point is so acute, I think people are, when they need to do it, they need to do it quickly.And that can lead to some challenges. So we've worked with, you know, at this point, hundreds of companies. Mm-hmm. Um, hiring across a variety of roles. And you get to see this glimpse into a company's life cycle, into how it approaches this question of hiring. And I think that where people go awry is they've got this problem, they've gotta solve it immediately.They're in a rush. And what we encourage our clients to think about is like, hey, let, let's just take a minute to really block out what is going, what is success gonna look like. Mm-hmm. What is. The person who is successful in this role, what kind of characteristics do they have? Right? What experiences do they have that's gonna make them successful?Um, like we preach the value of hiring veterans all day. I don't think that I can just take anyone out of the military, plug 'em in to run, you know, a $40 million a year business and they're gonna figure it out. Like you don't have the time for them to figure that out. You need someone that maybe has, that has that private sector experience who can help you along the way, right?Or who has built that private sector skill set as well. Yeah. Take a minute, figure out what are the skill sets that are gonna be required, and then what is the culture of the business? So when we plug in with a client, we like to think of ourselves as an extension of a client's hiring team. Yeah. We wanna be dug in like a tick.Yeah. Um, and know what their culture is like, because if we place someone that's got all the experience and you have these great skill sets, but they're the wrong culture fit, it's just, it's not the right combination. Right. Um, so take a minute, document that process so that you can then te you know, test as well as you are able to, against.Both the skill sets and the culture and that will, I think the issue that I'm, I'm imagining like someone hiring, like we're senior leaders, right? Yes. So we're Hi. So a gm Sure. Or a president or, um, and if this is the first time that you're placing that hire, you know, you're saying, Hey, let's document the process.They don't know what they need in the first place, for sure, right? Like they're overwhelmed. So is there a way to sort of like unpack. I, I agree totally. Starting with, um, the, the phrase I liked for it is, uh. Is this candidate going to solve exactly the pain point that you have? Right. And I think it's the same problem where you have to diagnose what your actual pain point is.Totally. Yeah. It can be tricky, which is again, why working with a firm like ours can be really helpful. Someone that's seen this hundreds of times, uh, can help you through, you know, Sherpa you through the process. But yeah, I mean, ultimately what you want is a firm understanding of what you actually need and then a process that's going to be, you know, as firm as possible that you can then run through like.So, so that's, that's number one is getting that process correct? Yeah. And then number two is like a weak pipeline, right? You wouldn't accept a weak pipeline on your sales side. Yeah. And you shouldn't accept it for on the hiring side either. Um, and you know, we've had clients who were like, man, we hired for this role.We had to let someone go after six months. It wasn't the right fit. And it's like, well, how many people did you talk to? It's like, well, I really needed the person in the seat. And I talked to like three or four people. And it's like, okay, well, I mean. Like, I understand it's an acute pain point, which is why a, again, like a firm like ours can be really helpful for creating a robust pipeline.We'll, we'll look at hundreds and hundreds of profiles before, you know, for our clients. When we get a search, we'll talk to dozens of people, and we're screening and then presenting to our clients, Hey, here's, here's four to six people that we think you should talk to. For the first set of folks that we present to a a client, we typically have a, we call it a calibration set, so we'll have a variety of different backgrounds and we can see what a client is then gravitating towards so that we can continue to build pipeline with folks that are more similar kind of experience level as that person.We can also help advise clients of like, Hey, you know what, there are realistic constraints on what you wanna pay this person, what the comp level's gonna be, here's what you might be able to get at various types of comp levels. Yeah. But yeah, having a a deep pipeline of like, you know, we've talked to dozens and dozens of people, you just can't replicate that.You have to have that. Um, 'cause otherwise, you know, you're gonna make a decision based on a small sample size. Yeah. And then finally, we really encourage folks to do reference checks because one of the greatest indicators of someone's success in a role is their success in previous roles. Mm-hmm. And we've got some specific ways that we help clients figure out how to kind of unlock a reference check so that it's not just someone trying to, you know, do a good do right by their buddy and say, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it's great, it's great, it's great.It's like, well, what specifically? Right? So, so those are some of the challenges I think that people face when they, you know, go to hire someone and ultimately. You know, it can be painful, it can be expensive, but it's more expensive to make a mistake in hiring someone than to spend the time to get it right the first time.Yeah. And it's not to say that you're gonna get it right a hundred percent of the time. If it increases your likelihood by, you know, 20%, 25%, it's like that's, that's a great investment. Like you, you gotta take that, that, that. Mm-hmm. I talk to a lot of home service business owners and if you are anything like the many shops that I know, you're getting flooded with AI pitches right now.Most of 'em sound great, but then they fall apart. The second they hit the real world. The one that I've kept coming back to is Avoca. What impressed me is they actually get how contracting businesses run. And it's not just some AI answering service. 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What are, um, as we're sort of diagnosing pain point, diagnosing what we're looking for, like, uh, you wanna pick a role in particular like gm?Sure. What, what's a normal size company that, uh, that you're hiring GMs for? Um, typically we're working with companies that are either, uh, like high seven figures or somewhere in the eight figures. Um, so like 10 to 25 million. That's, that's sweet spot. Yeah. Sure. Okay, great. All right, so we're hiring a GM for a 10 to $25 million company.Sometimes a family owned business, sometimes a sort of a private equity backed branch. Is that Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. What, what's the difference? Like what, what do they each look for? Uh, well, they're different, right? So a private equity backed, like a sponsor backed deal. They are on a specific timeline.Mm-hmm. So it's important for us to understand where the, uh, you know, investor is in the hold period for building out the vertical. Is this the third business that they've acquired in this specific space or is this the 300th business that they've acquired in a specific space? The person that we put into a role for the third acquisition is someone that is going to figure it out.Right. Yeah. Um, they're dealing with ambiguity. Yeah. They're used to creating processes. Um. And they're more comfortable in that kind of environment as opposed to someone that's like, Hey, at this point we have a, we have a playbook. This is the right way to do things. This is the way that all of our businesses work.These are, this is the tech stack. This is, uh, you know, you need a scorecard for hiring anyone from the ground up. We got that scorecard for you. We're ready to rock and roll. Um, and you're getting more support from the HoldCo level, right? That's a different profile person that you can plug into that seat and, and be successful.Um, so those are some of the varieties that we see on the, uh, sponsor backed side. And then is compensation higher for the one that has to be more Yes. Scrappy, I would imagine. Yeah. Yes, that's right. Um, and then, you know, for family owned business, it's different. Like what are the priorities of the owner?Mm-hmm. Um, is it, are they trying to get the business prepared for a sale and they're proving that the business can be run without. A member of the family in the seat, um, is it something that they wanna hold forever and they want someone that they're basically bringing into their family? Right. Um, and if so, what does the compensation look like for that person?How do we incentivize them to stick around in the long term? Mm-hmm. Um, so yeah, I guess there's just different considerations based on what the goals of the business are ultimately. Yeah. What is compensation for a gm? It, it depends. I'm sure. It depends. Yeah. It's like most frustrating. Gimme some ballparks.I mean, in the Marine Corps it's so frustrating because they would, if you're hiring a gm, like what should, what should someone be thinking about? Like, Hey, is this like a hundred thousand dollars or is this $200,000? Is equity a piece of the pie? Is it not? I mean, how does bonus tie as a percentage to base comp?We, we have worked with clients who are, who are hiring folks at the GM level. Typically it's like one 50 to, I mean, as high as 300 K. Mm-hmm. We help a company hire a CEO for dependent on like revenue being the biggest qualifier here. It depends on the revenue. Yeah. Um, it depends on the complexity, it depends on the location.You know, if you're hiring someone in New York City, it's different than if you're hiring someone. You know, in, in Lincoln, Nebraska or wherever else in the country. And then, yeah, so, you know, one 50 to 300 we have, we've placed, we placed a CEO into a large roll up. This was the CEO at the HoldCo level. This person has seven figure package.A lot of that driven by equity and an exit, you know, a hopeful exit. So it does depend. We have seen on the low end, like 1 25 as long as there's a bonus. Um, but. Uh, yeah, I would say that that range is probably appropriate. And then in, in terms of the bonuses, I mean, we've seen everything typically. Um, I would say like, you know, 25% of base up through 75% of base.I know that's a big range, but, um, you know, we've seen all of those. And then, I mean, we love it when a firm will offers someone equity. You know, it's not, uh. It is going to help you have, get someone into the seat that has buy-in, um, and like a belief in the long-term vision. So I think it's like one of the nicest ways to incentivize alignment.Yeah. Um, but it's not always the case, right? Yeah. So, and yeah, the bonuses can be based on a variety of things, right? It's typically KPI driven. Um, there can be kicker bonuses for like, Hey. You know, we're bringing someone in so that they can professionalize the business over the course of like, you know, two to four years and then they're gonna get paid out on an exit.Um, so it just depends on what you wanna do. Yeah. What, what is usually the metric for a bonus? Um, oftentimes ebitda. So like, whether it's, uh, we've, we've had clients do based on top line, we've had clients do based on EBITDA growth. Um, so it's like, you know, Hey, we've got a sheet that's like. If the EBITDA comes in at the end of the year here, and if it comes in here, this is the range of bonuses that are associated with those different kind of blocks.Yeah. Um, that's typically what people are looking at. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so we're a $10 million business. We wanna hire a gm. I'm trying to think of a scenario of why, but we don't need to, uh, maybe sell tire. Well, you guys are buying a new business. Yeah, we're buying a new business. We, we, we've never been in this market before.So some of the, you brought up, um, earlier and it was kind of interesting 'cause I don't do this, so it was like, okay, that's a good challenge. Uh. Having a plan. You call, you said a process, but having a process around what questions are being asked, who, like in what order? Right. Uh, what person is walking into the room, like interviewer, uh, in what order?I thought that was kind of interesting. So like, let's walk through that. For this gm, for this hypothetical $10 million business, um, for us, it would start, obviously our team is like screening folks. We typically are interviewing people twice before a client is ever speaking to them. Um, you know, we present a slate, like both phone or, uh, yeah, we usually do zoom, but, uh, and, you know, we build pipeline through a variety of means.Typically, you know, we, we rely on both inbound and outbound. Like any good sales process, we produce content for veterans at various points in their careers, which I think attracts people to our brand and what we're doing, we try and reinvest in the community for obvious reasons. It's like why we exist.Um, so we get inbound, uh, we have big distribution channels on LinkedIn primarily, and then we've got a podcast with like, you know, passing 150 episodes, uh, where we interview veteran leaders. It's really fun. Okay, so we get inbound and then we go out outbounds, we go hunting, right? So we know what a client is looking for.We'll be actively reaching out to folks on behalf of that client. Yeah, um, getting 'em on the phone. We interview 'em twice for us. We're trying to assess their background, how strongly of a fit we think they are on both in terms of culture and skill set. Okay. Okay. Once we've paired down that list, um, we will present that to the client.The we'll go through basically each of these folks with a client describing their backgrounds, telling them about why we think they might be a great fit, the client approves, and then we set up interviews. The interviews on the client side, um, oftentimes the structure that we'll see is a screening interview, which is a little bit shorter, so it's probably about 30 to 45 minutes, and that is, it's an initial screen, right?Mm-hmm. You're trying to get a feel for where has this person been, what have they done, and then does it seem as though those skill sets align against what we think that we're looking for? Right? That's really important because you don't wanna be spending two to three hours with every single candidate you want to.Be able to see a variety of folks and then pair that down for the next step, which is oftentimes a deep or a, uh, a case interview. So a case interview will have, um, a scenario that we'll present, um, or, you know, the client will present. We just did this in our own business for a sales role where, where it's like, okay, like.The person that we need is going to not only be able to build pipeline, but build process. So describe for me times that you've done each of these things and then you know, we're gonna do a 30 minute role play of like, Hey, try and sell me why I should hire a veteran. Right. And we just wanna see how someone reacts.We know they don't have all the information, but. You know, you can suss out a little bit of how do they approach a client call? Is it collaborative? Are they listening more than they're speaking? Right. Um, are they able to respond to objections? Yeah. Right. So we'll design a case study around the role. Um, that'll be the second interview.And then finally, you know, we oftentimes will see clients do a deep dive interview. A lot of this is also using a framework from the book who mm-hmm. Which we strongly recommend to folks. Yep. Love that book. Uh, we think it's been really helpful. It's actually a military veteran that runs that company. You know, the deep dive will be, will go basically year by year through your last decade of experience, you know?Okay. Tell me about this experience. Uh, who did you work for? What's their name, and then, how do I spell that right? I'm writing down their name. What will they say when I talk to 'em in a, uh, reference call? Mm-hmm. About what their re, about, what your strengths and weaknesses are. Right. People will be, you know, they'll tell you what that person will say and then you kind of go through that year by year and you can get a feel for why someone has made the decisions that they've made in their career through that interview, which is really helpful.There was a on stage this book came up, it, it's written by the son of top grading, right? Yes, that's right. Yeah. Randy Street and Jeffrey Smart. Yeah. It came up and what was kind of funny. Was, uh, the, the topic that we were on stage talking about, I was like, moderating the discussion was hiring GMs and CEOs.Hmm. And, uh, so there was like 10 hot takes and it's like, okay, here's our 10 hot takes. Um, but, but this book came up and what was funny about it was, um. The, one of the other people on the panel was saying, yeah, we, we wanna talk to 'em about their high school experience. Hmm. And I was like, why? But, and, uh, and he was like, yeah.So we ask him like, Hey, what was high school like for you? Wow. And they just sort of walk through like, what was high school like for you. And, um, you know, o often this is, uh, sort of early career, so like, you know, 25 to 35 there. Sure. And, um, so like that timeframe is still kind of relevant. And how did you handle disappointment?Like what were you, like, what were your peers like? And it, it, it was interesting and I, I hadn't really thought about like, hey, what, you know, what was high school like for you when, when hiring a, a gm? But it was, it was a funny, it was a funny way to frame it. That is funny. Yeah, I'm, uh, I'm, I'm kind of, I'm thinking about my own high school experience.I'm glad people aren't going. Oh yeah, no, totally, totally. 'cause when he said that, I was like, for most people it probably gives you a pretty good idea. Yeah. Maybe, um. I mean, look like ultimately you're trying to drill down into who is this person? Yeah. Who are you? Yeah. Like what makes you tick? What gets you fired up in the day?Are you the kind of person that's gonna be coming in here and changing a million things? Day one? Are you gonna get to like, learn about organization before you try and make any changes? Yeah. Um, and then what's gonna cause you to like stick around? Is it the growth? Is it the money? Is it, uh, the people, right?Like. What is it that makes you tick? It's tough. I mean, um, there's a saying that business would be easy if it weren't for the people. Yeah. You know, and we're in the, we are in the people business mm-hmm. In all aspects of it. The client, the candidate, our own team. Um, so we feel this, you know, for sure. Um, but ultimately you really just want us surround yourself with people that you like working with who are similarly aligned in terms of values and who are excited to go to work every day.Yeah. You know, you want people that are hungry. Yeah. Alright, so we're, we're in this process. We've got a process. Yes, we've documented it. And part of that process is here's our phone screenings, here's what we want to ask on those phone screens. Yes, we want to go year by year. We maybe talk about their high school maybe.Yeah. Maybe, uh, we're gonna, we want to manage our pipeline, uh, maybe internally and externally. And then, um, the reference check, which I think we only talked about briefly. Yes. But walk me through a good reference check. I agree. Most people ignore this. Uh. So, yeah, walk me through the reference. It can be quick.It doesn't have to be, you're not sitting down for a deep dive, you know, three hours on the phone with the CEO of a company. Um, but, um, you can, you can get some helpful information about how someone has behaved in a past role. Yeah, I mean, like, if you are using that same kind of methodology, um, from the book, who you would use, you would, once you've done that deep dive, you have, you know, the names of folks that they've worked for.You have, uh, someone's strengths and weaknesses, you can ask. You can then ask a reference like, Hey, like, you know, when Steve worked for you, he told me that you might say that some of his weaknesses were, um, like attention to detail. Is there anything that you can expound on, you know, that pertains to that particular weakness?And then for a reference, it's like, well, Steve's already told him about it, you know? So now I don't have to necessarily like cover it up. I, I think that that's like helpful. Um, yeah, because you've always almost got the buy-in of the candidate for saying like, Hey, this is, you know, what that person might say is a weakness of mine.Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. We've done, uh, we started pushing harder on reference checks a couple years ago. I, I think is a, uh, from top grading. Sure. And, um, it was helpful. I, I. I don't know that it, uh, I don't know that it disqualify like the ones that I personally did. I don't think anything on there was like disqualifying.But what it did help do was I felt like I knew that person way better. That's awesome. Uh, and even if it was like 15 minutes, 'cause I felt like when I first started getting into the reference check, sort of like, uh, process, it was, hey, just. Did they work for you? Was it good, bad? You know, it, it was only like a few minutes, but if you can get past those, like first minute or two of defensiveness from whoever you're talking to, right.Um, it ended up being really good conversation. Yeah. I mean it's, that's great. And like, um, you know, good connectivity, especially if it's someone that's in a similar industry for you. Um, the question I would ask is, did you do, were your references like the folks that had been provided by the candidate or were they off book references?Both. So I was. I, I'm sure, who is similar to top grading, where it's like, what? Yeah. Walk me through who was, who do I talk to over here? So it was sort of, that was the process. So. I think we got two or three. Here's on my resume and then a two or three, like who can I talk to? Sure, yeah. Yeah. And I think that's again, where like, you know, the veteran ecosystem, at least like in our space is tight knit.People know one another. Um, and so I think that's where a firm like ours can also help with like, hey, like. I know a guy that served with them, you know? Yeah. Um, but yeah, it's great that you did both, you know, call the people that they put on the list, but also, you know, asked around. Yeah. Who else? Yeah.Have you ever bought enterprise level software and realized that managing it really just became a full-time job? Well, that's pretty much exactly why my restoration business switched over to Field Pulse. We were tired of software that promised efficiency, but came with endless training sessions, onboarding and frustrated techs, and using it began to feel like it was a job all on its own field.Pulse was built for owner operators who don't want more dashboards. They need scheduling. Invoicing and job tracking, and they needed all to live in one place without the chaos or the learning curve. Field Pulse is simple to roll out. It's easy for your team to actually use, and it was 75% cheaper than the other titans of software we were using right now.If you book a demo with Field Pulse, you'll get an exclusive partner offer. It's 20% off an eligible annual subscription and 50% off. Premium support for your first year. If your software upgrade has turned into a time suck, it might be time to make the move. Book a demo with Field Pulse and see if it's a better fit.Well, thanks for coming on today. This was a ton of fun. I feel like we had a good, uh, I feel like we had a good discussion here and hiring leaders what to look for, how to do it. This was really fun. Yeah. I appreciate you having us all on. Um, you know, if we can be helpful in thinking about people's talent strategies, uh, you can to us.Yeah. How can they get a hold? Yeah. At the mill of that.org. Okay. And then, um. You know, we've got like an intake form there. People can actually select that they heard about us through. Oh, nice. Your show. Yeah. Great. Um, and then, um, other than that, if you're a veteran, we have events for military veterans to help build their private sector network across the country.Yeah. We've got podcasts, newsletter, you know, go on our website, check out those resources. Um. And, um, you know, good luck to people that are scaling and building their businesses. Um, and then for you personally, like if, if 22% of your workforce is veterans grateful for your, uh, you know, support for our community.It's been a lot, man. It's really cool. So thanks. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, thanks for coming on.
