In Episode 165 of “The Trusted Advisor,” RSPA CEO Jim Roddy talks hiring on an SMB budget with Marc Sennett, the President of RSPA member Nimis Group, a recruiting and staffing firm serving the retail IT channel.
“The Trusted Advisor,” powered by the Retail Solutions Providers Association (RSPA), is an award-winning content series designed specifically for retail IT VARs and software providers. Our goal is to educate you on the topics of leadership, management, hiring, sales, and other small business best practices. For more insights, visit the RSPA blog at www.GoRSPA.org.
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Full episode transcript via Apple Podcasts:
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Roddy: Hi, Jim Roddy here from the RSPA, jumping in before today’s podcast with a question for you.
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Roddy: Have you heard about the Market Connect Retail IT Solutions and Partner Finder powered by the RSPA?
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Roddy: Launching in 2027, Market Connect will be the Retail IT channels number one source for finding partners and creating technology solutions.
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Roddy: It’ll be V1 database, VARs, ISVs, ISOs, MSPs, vendors and distributors seeking partners turn to throughout the year.
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Roddy: To include your company in Market Connect and to access this exclusive list of All-Star Solution Providers and All-Star Software Providers, email us at membership at gorspa.org.
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Roddy: Again, that’s Market Connect and that’s membership at gorspa.org.
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Roddy: If you can’t tell, I’m super fired up about Market Connect.
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Roddy: We think it’s really going to accelerate connections in our industry and save you tons of time and money and some headaches, finding new partners and new solutions.
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Roddy: Enjoy today’s episode.
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Roddy: Welcome to another episode of The Trusted Advisor podcast and video series, powered by the Retail Solutions Providers Association.
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Roddy: Our goal on the pod is to accelerate the success of today’s and tomorrow’s leaders in the retail IT industry.
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Roddy: I’m Jim Roddy back with you again.
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Roddy: Thank you so much for joining us.
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Roddy: As always, we talk with leaders in the Retail IT channel about their leadership journeys and what they’ve learned along the way.
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Roddy: In this episode, we’ll talk hiring on an SMB budget with Marc Sennett.
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Roddy: He’s the president of Nimis Group, a recruiting and staffing firm serving the retail IT channel and related industries like data collection, RFID, and mobility.
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Roddy: Marc has over 25 years of recruiting and staffing experience, sharing his insights as a mentor, a coach, a public speaker, and a writer, and now we can say a podcast guest.
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Roddy: After today, Marc founded Nimis in 2020, and he’s been an RSPA member for several years.
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Roddy: Marc, welcome to The Trusted Advisor.
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Sennett: Hello, Jim.
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Sennett: It’s super great to be here.
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Roddy: Yeah, great to have you live and recording.
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Roddy: You and I have had conversations over the years because we’re both passionate about hiring.
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Roddy: I’m really looking forward to diving into this with you.
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Roddy: So I mentioned recruiting firm earlier, right?
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Roddy: And so I’m guessing everybody in our audience has heard of a recruiting firm, but only a small percent have actually engaged with one.
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Roddy: So can you give us a view from the inside?
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Roddy: What does a recruiting firm do and also what doesn’t a recruiting firm do?
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Roddy: Sure.
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Sennett: And by the way, I’ll be referring down to some notes every now and then, just keep my brain on track because I can ramble from time to time.
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Sennett: But a recruiting firm is an outsourced solution, just like if you can think of an attorney or an accountant or somebody who’s got subject matter expertise that you don’t, and also somebody that can spend the time doing the things that are not part of your day job so that you can focus on your day job.
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Sennett: So that’s the first thing I try to get across is we are an outsourced solution.
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Sennett: And then in terms of like there’s many, many types of us out there, there’s a few things.
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Sennett: Versus, we base our business model after either three things.
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Sennett: We call it in our business a DIG.
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Sennett: Discipline, industry, or geography.
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Sennett: So a discipline focused search firm might be maybe an executive search firm, where they just focus on the executive level.
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Sennett: A discipline can also be, we only do engineering positions, or we only do our accounting positions, like we all know account temps or like Aerotech for engineering.
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Sennett: So you’ve got that.
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Sennett: We are an industry focused solution.
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Sennett: By the way, there are geographically focused recruiting firms as well.
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Sennett: They just do, you’re in Raleigh, right?
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Sennett: There’s probably a certain firm in Raleigh that does, and usually still they’ll hone in on a discipline, like we only play salespeople, but it’s all kinds of salespeople in any industry, but it’s just in Raleigh.
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Sennett: So there’s that.
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Sennett: We are an industry focused search firm.
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Sennett: So our ROI is best utilized when you need somebody with industry expertise.
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Sennett: And obviously, the ROI in that is reduce time educating your search professional about what it is that you actually do and what it is that you’re looking for.
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Sennett: We probably know because we do it all the time.
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Sennett: It’s also a lot less ramp up time and training time for the people that you want on board.
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Sennett: Because I look at it as your investment at us, hopefully part of that is to offset.
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Sennett: There’s a lot of other reasons to invest in us, but one of the returns on investment you should get is that by getting someone in the industry, you don’t have to train them on a whole new industry.
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Sennett: If you want a sales leader, and we’re not going to send you a sales rep that needs to be coached and trained how to become a sales leader, we’re going to send you a sales leader.
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Sennett: That’s one of the benefits of using an industry-focused search firm like us.
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Sennett: Then it even breaks down further in terms of how we get paid.
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Sennett: You’ve got retained search firms, you’ve got contingency search firms, you’ve got temp staffing search firm, you’ve got executive search firms, and there’s probably some other kinds in there too.
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Sennett: Like a retained search firm, if you talk to them, a lot of times they will really market themselves as a boutique white glove approach, which I think we offer as well.
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Sennett: But the way they charge you is they’ll charge you a third of the overall fee to get started, a third once you’ve met some certain benchmarks, and usually that’s like a number of candidates submitted.
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Sennett: And then you bill the rest of the total fee at the end.
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Sennett: So that would be a retained search firm.
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Sennett: Contingency search firms, you just pay them.
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Sennett: Once they fill the role, there’s no upfront investment in that.
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Sennett: And there’s a good and bad to that, which we can get into later.
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Sennett: You got temp staffing, which is like your billing is weekly.
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Sennett: And a lot of you probably know this already, but it’s a markup, right?
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Sennett: We put them on our payroll.
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Sennett: We handle all the insurances and all the taxes and all that stuff.
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Sennett: And all you do is pay us a weekly bill.
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Sennett: All you’ve got to do is sign off on their time cards.
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Sennett: We, or the temp staffing firm, whoever they may be, will take care of the rest.
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Sennett: So you got, and then executive search firms tend to be also retained search firms.
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Sennett: They charge a premium, but they’re dealing with more, they’re dealing with the boards, they’re dealing with the equity partners, they’re dealing with CEOs, and they’re placed in the highest tier of executive people, regardless of their, usually regardless of their industry.
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Sennett: So if that makes sense.
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Roddy: I know that that’s super helpful.
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Roddy: And I don’t know if you and I have talked about this.
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Roddy: I don’t know many of our listeners know this, even though we’re almost like 200 episodes into this.
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Roddy: But anybody who can see is watch on the YouTube channel, you get to see the eerie wave, you know, memorabilia is behind me.
00:07:03.840 –> 00:07:05.680
Roddy: That was a pro basketball team I worked for.
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Roddy: After that whole league collapsed, I went and worked for actually one of the sponsors of that, a temp staffing firm called Career Concepts.
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Roddy: And just as you were talking about that, it was discipline.
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Roddy: And so it was, you know, like it was light labor is essentially what it is, maybe a little bit of secretarial.
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Roddy: Geography was all Northwest Pennsylvania, maybe a little bit, you know, beyond the borders there.
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Roddy: And it was all temp staffing where somebody would come to us looking for a sales rep in the retail industry.
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Roddy: Like, what’s the point, right?
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Roddy: You know, there’d be no help whatsoever.
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Roddy: That’s what you’re talking about.
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Roddy: It’s almost just like you mentioned about an attorney earlier.
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Roddy: Like, we have an attorney, Jill Miller, who’s the RSPA General Counsel, she specializes in our industry.
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Roddy: So she might know about labor law or other things of that nature, but it’s better to go to somebody in her firm who’s focusing on labor.
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Roddy: That’s essentially what you’re saying is, this landscape of what a recruiting firm does, if first is really, you get aligned at the top first or else it’s going to be a mismatch, if I’m understanding.
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Roddy: Right.
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Sennett: It’s good to understand what type of search firm you’re being pitched by or you’re considering working with.
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Sennett: On the candidate side, what we are and what we do is, and it’s important to have this discussion for the candidates as well, for people if you’re considering a job change, what we do and what we don’t do.
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Sennett: I’ll touch briefly on that, which is most search firms, contrary to popular belief, are not Jerry Maguire in terms of they’re not your agent going around.
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Sennett: Now, there’s exceptions and I’ll talk about that.
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Sennett: But for the most part, we spend most agencies spend about 75-90 percent of their time finding people for jobs and then maybe 10-25 percent of their time finding jobs for people.
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Sennett: So when someone calls you up and calls me up as a recruiter, and they’re like, hey, Marc, I’ve been laid off, what do you got for me?
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Sennett: It’s like, well, I wish that it worked that way, but it usually does not work that way.
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Sennett: I don’t have a magic drawer full of jobs.
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Sennett: I’ve seen some movies that make it seem like that people think that’s a thing.
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Sennett: Well, I’ve got this one and this one, and like, no, it’s not like that.
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Sennett: I have to have on my stable of work, which is usually anywhere between like goddess view is three, and is sometimes as many as even 15, 20 opportunities at any given time.
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Sennett: But if you’re not in the right space, if you’re not in the right location, if you don’t have the right very specific, because it’s not like we’re just, hey, find me a retail point of sale person in Chicago.
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Sennett: It’s like, find me a retail point of sale person that knows mid-market hospitality, right?
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Sennett: And knows payments or whatever.
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Sennett: It’s gotta be that.
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Sennett: And they’re like, well, I can do anything.
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Sennett: I’m like, yeah, but that’s not my job.
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Sennett: If you can do anything, you’re gonna still have to be trained to do that anything.
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Sennett: And then my ROI diminishes.
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Sennett: The value of what I provide my clients diminishes.
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Sennett: So yeah, I could put you in front of this client and tell them you can do anything, but you’re gonna be competing with people that do exactly what this client wants to do.
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Sennett: So I’m wasting your time too.
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Sennett: You’re probably, unfortunately, because you’re competing against very specific fits, you may not get that opportunity.
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Sennett: So I try to keep that.
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Sennett: Now, if you have a really, really universally marketable skill set, and you were a proven high performer with a fantastic documented track record of success, and if my workload is light and I need to go out and attack the market and try to find new clients, I will take you.
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Sennett: But there’s a lot of special criteria, I think you got to meet in order for me to take my time to be Jerry McGuire for you, and go out and try to find other clients that are going to show you the money.
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Sennett: So on the candidate side, that is what we are, but also what we’re not.
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Sennett: I have all kinds of notes about what we’re not too, if we want to get right into that, or if you have any other questions for me, Jim.
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Roddy: Well, the big thing is for our, again, most of our members are VARs and ISVs doing the hiring, but they have to understand there’s no magic drawer of candidates, and the candidates need to understand there’s no magic drawer of jobs, because it seems like, and so you can tell me about this, jobs don’t hang out there open for a very long period of time, right?
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Roddy: If you find the right match, it’s going to move quickly.
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Roddy: Yes.
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Sennett: Correct, correct.
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Sennett: But spending the time on what we’re not, I think, is a very important thing with any company, because I think the most common, the way people look at agencies, some of the most common calls I get are when they’re either qualifying me or just curious, right?
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Sennett: They’re like, who do you got that knows this or that?
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Sennett: Who do you got?
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Sennett: I’m like, the second you ask me that question, I’m like, we got to work on your thinking.
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Sennett: Because who do you got?
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Sennett: Again, implies the magic drawer, right?
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Sennett: In an extremely common misperception that comes is like, people want to know, and I understand this, I understand it’s like, it’s a proof of your expertise is like, okay, you say you know retail point of sale or restaurant hospitality.
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Sennett: Who do you know that has contacts in Applebee’s in Minnesota?
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Roddy: Or I don’t know, right?
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Sennett: Sure.
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Sennett: And it’s like, it’s not that because that shows, that’s almost like, hey, you need a body, we got a body, like that’s not what we do.
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Roddy: That’s what I did.
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Roddy: That’s it.
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Roddy: When I was at Career Concepts, that’s what we did.
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Roddy: We had a stable of temps, and if their jobs would last a week, less than a week, more than a week, and that’s what we would do, but that’s radically different from what you’re doing.
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Roddy: You’re talking about a permanent specialized level, but go on.
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Sennett: Yeah, semi-skilled or unskilled labor, that makes sense to do because you’ve got a stable of people that are waiting for you to call them to deploy you on.
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Sennett: You could be a front desk worker this day, and you could be doing filing or mail room the next day.
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Sennett: I get that, but yeah, it’s not what we do.
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Sennett: However, I don’t want to sell short the idea of an industry expert should have a massive network of industry professionals.
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Sennett: When someone says, who do you got?
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Sennett: It’s like, let’s talk about what we do first versus who we got.
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Sennett: But I will tell you that if you do need a payments person in Chicago that has contacts with this kind of retailer, this kind of hospitality franchise, whatever, actually, I probably know who to call to network with.
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Sennett: I probably have lots of people to call to network with.
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Sennett: It’s a fast conversation because I know what I’m talking about.
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Sennett: I probably have a basic semblance of what your company is.
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Sennett: Yes, our massive database full of candidates will save time and money in terms of getting the search filled, of getting somebody on the team that doesn’t need a lot of handholding right away.
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Sennett: So yes, who do I know is important?
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Sennett: I don’t want to say it’s not entirely important, but where the rubber meets the road is the managing the search, interviewing, presentation, interviewing, onboarding and follow-up process that goes into a hire.
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Sennett: That’s again, a thing that people don’t think about a lot of times is, your average hiring manager, and the smaller the business, the more it looks like this is, shoot, I need somebody.
00:14:34.140 –> 00:14:48.040
Sennett: Ask my staff if they know anybody, let’s put it up on the website, maybe someone will apply, and then maybe by some stroke of some miracle, you might get a qualified applicant.
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Sennett: Honestly, when you post jobs, when you put even Indeed, which is a costly solution like Indeed or LinkedIn, if you want to post a job usually, no matter what, if you’re going to get your job out there, it is going to cost you money, but what you’re going to get back when you’re dealing with applicants versus us actively sourcing people that are gainfully employed inside of other companies, what you’re going to get back is usually the best of the unemployed.
00:15:17.240 –> 00:15:23.520
Sennett: It’s a crapshoot if they’re ever going to actually be a fit, because we’ve all seen what we get if you run an ad.
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Sennett: You could say very specifically, if you only have retail point of sales experience in the enterprise, let’s say, only apply then, and you’ll still get somebody that was a parking lot attendant applying to your job.
00:15:35.260 –> 00:15:39.060
Roddy: People just have the box set up and pull it just, yeah.
00:15:39.080 –> 00:15:39.500
Sennett: Yeah.
00:15:42.760 –> 00:15:44.180
Sennett: We take that off your plate.
00:15:44.180 –> 00:15:47.480
Sennett: We’re only approaching industry professionals that are a match for your role.
00:15:47.640 –> 00:15:51.360
Sennett: We are selling your brand in the marketplace.
00:15:51.660 –> 00:15:53.520
Sennett: We’re making you look good too.
00:15:53.520 –> 00:16:03.080
Sennett: Even if someone doesn’t come to the table, someone decides against the job, whatever, they have a favorable impression of your company because we’re out there marketing you in the employment marketplace, which is important.
00:16:03.080 –> 00:16:04.140
Sennett: People don’t think about that.
00:16:04.540 –> 00:16:11.840
Sennett: But the outsourced solutions, the word doing what we do, like our lives dependent on it, like our income depends on it because it does.
00:16:14.860 –> 00:16:20.840
Sennett: We are experts at it and we’re taking that time off your plate, so you can go out and do whatever it is that your day job is.
00:16:21.480 –> 00:16:26.640
Sennett: But we’re handholding these candidates all the way through sourcing and screening.
00:16:26.780 –> 00:16:27.820
Sennett: That takes a lot of work.
00:16:27.820 –> 00:16:31.320
Sennett: Who’s going to research and do the digging about who’s the appropriate candidate for this job?
00:16:31.400 –> 00:16:33.740
Sennett: What’s the outreach going to look like?
00:16:34.980 –> 00:16:37.320
Sennett: I’m saying we, but any good recruiter will do this.
00:16:38.700 –> 00:16:42.580
Sennett: They’re going to have a defined systematic approach for getting a hold of the people.
00:16:42.580 –> 00:16:52.760
Sennett: One, two, three attempts, five attempts by text, by email, by LinkedIn, of course, big tool, by referrals, by whatever.
00:16:53.880 –> 00:16:55.600
Sennett: We have a defined process for that.
00:16:55.760 –> 00:16:58.820
Sennett: Once we get them engaged, we have a defined process for interviewing them.
00:16:58.820 –> 00:17:05.160
Sennett: We have a defined process for presenting them to you and telling you, hey, you can look at the resume, but check this out.
00:17:05.160 –> 00:17:08.580
Sennett: Here’s why we think they’re a fit for your specific job, for your specific company.
00:17:08.900 –> 00:17:16.440
Sennett: Here’s why they’re looking for, which seems to line up with what you told me that you can offer somebody.
00:17:17.600 –> 00:17:20.020
Sennett: They’re motivated to work for a company like yours.
00:17:20.860 –> 00:17:23.600
Roddy: We’ve explained what type of company we are.
00:17:23.880 –> 00:17:27.140
Roddy: You can be really like a clearing house for them.
00:17:27.140 –> 00:17:40.000
Roddy: Because my advice for somebody, not that anybody’s ever not busy, but if you want to take up a lot of time, post a job on one of those job boards, and you will just get an avalanche of things that suddenly have this whole brand new job that overwhelms you.
00:17:40.000 –> 00:17:43.740
Roddy: You’re short-staffed already and you have to really start sorting through them.
00:17:43.740 –> 00:17:49.220
Roddy: So can we talk about the header for this is hiring on an SMB budget.
00:17:49.540 –> 00:17:50.900
Roddy: So can we get to the heart of that?
00:17:51.500 –> 00:17:58.160
Roddy: What would you say are the best way for our audience to get an ROI when they’re working with recruiting firm?
00:17:58.160 –> 00:17:59.860
Roddy: What’s the best way for them to go about that?
00:18:00.760 –> 00:18:16.460
Sennett: Well, I think number one is I’m describing what our process is, and it goes further in terms of the candidate management process through the interviews, checking in and debriefing with them to make sure they have a wandering eye for some other company, or they’re not going to get a counter offer, or they’re not going to get a promotion.
00:18:16.700 –> 00:18:21.340
Sennett: They’re not waiting for a $50,000 commission check that keeps them starting to work for your company for a year.
00:18:21.480 –> 00:18:22.980
Sennett: So we have to manage all that stuff.
00:18:22.980 –> 00:18:35.780
Sennett: I’m sorry that I’m getting into our process, but my point would be on that is that if you start getting involved in all of that stuff too, you’re watering down your investment in us or another agency.
00:18:35.900 –> 00:18:59.020
Sennett: The other thing is, if you want to get the most ROI from, you’re using us as your third-party search firm, but I can’t tell you the amount of our clients that go out and they still go do their own recruiting too and I’m like, well, okay, if you found somebody, toss them over to us, because we’ll engage them in our process and we’ll make sure that they’ve got everything they need, that we know everything there is to know about them as they’re making this big life decision for themself.
00:18:59.600 –> 00:19:08.160
Sennett: And it’s surprising how many people like they’re working with us, they’re investing in us, and yet they go off and try to do it on the side anyway so they can get out of paying the fee.
00:19:08.160 –> 00:19:16.340
Sennett: And I’m like, okay, if you look at what a fee structure is, it’s like how much does it cost you to have this roll open six months longer than it would be if we were working on it?
00:19:16.340 –> 00:19:17.840
Sennett: What’s that really costing you?
00:19:18.120 –> 00:19:20.700
Sennett: What is it costing you to field all these applicants?
00:19:20.740 –> 00:19:32.120
Sennett: What is it costing you to work someone through your interview process and do what most companies do, which is you don’t know how the candidate is really feeling, but you know they’re qualified and interested.
00:19:32.120 –> 00:19:33.780
Sennett: So you make an offer and then you pray.
00:19:34.360 –> 00:19:38.080
Sennett: And then they don’t accept your offer and then you’ve got to start the whole process over again.
00:19:38.960 –> 00:19:41.620
Sennett: How much does that cost you versus what our fee is?
00:19:41.940 –> 00:19:49.120
Sennett: And if you start thinking about it that way, you’re saying ROI, we’re talking investment, but that’s where I want people’s heads to be.
00:19:49.120 –> 00:19:50.360
Sennett: It’s like we’re not talking.
00:19:50.680 –> 00:19:52.680
Sennett: It’s not a fee for a body.
00:19:52.980 –> 00:19:56.320
Sennett: You know, we are not a manufacturer or a distributor or candidates.
00:19:56.700 –> 00:20:01.820
Sennett: We’re a service provider and we save you an awful lot of time and money.
00:20:01.960 –> 00:20:07.720
Sennett: And I think a lot of people sometimes don’t think of all that goes into actually interviewing and onboarding a candidate.
00:20:07.720 –> 00:20:11.500
Sennett: So if you want your ROI, let us do our jobs for number one.
00:20:14.320 –> 00:20:19.640
Sennett: Number two, have a well-defined and reasonably timed interview process.
00:20:21.380 –> 00:20:33.220
Sennett: Because if we’re engaged in doing it and your interview process goes for months and months and you keep adding steps to it, for example, this happens all the time, you might as well not do the search.
00:20:33.220 –> 00:20:42.860
Sennett: Because if you have, say, a six-month interview process, the candidate that you identified that was great and interested and available and everything was right, by the six-month, they’re going to be gone.
00:20:44.500 –> 00:20:46.120
Sennett: So that’s number one.
00:20:46.180 –> 00:20:49.980
Sennett: Don’t make great the enemy of good.
00:20:50.680 –> 00:20:51.640
Sennett: Is that the right phrase?
00:20:52.920 –> 00:20:54.140
Roddy: Good is the enemy of great.
00:20:54.220 –> 00:20:55.180
Sennett: Good is the enemy of great.
00:20:55.180 –> 00:20:55.660
Sennett: Sorry.
00:20:55.860 –> 00:20:56.320
Sennett: Yes.
00:20:57.480 –> 00:21:01.800
Sennett: A lot of times, hiring can be a scary prospect for small business.
00:21:02.480 –> 00:21:03.220
Sennett: I know that.
00:21:03.220 –> 00:21:04.280
Sennett: I’m a small business.
00:21:05.420 –> 00:21:11.320
Sennett: So it’s a big investment and it’s not like if you’re working at NCR, you’re hiring people every day.
00:21:13.900 –> 00:21:15.000
Sennett: You want to get it right.
00:21:15.000 –> 00:21:16.280
Sennett: You really want to get it right.
00:21:16.840 –> 00:21:22.520
Sennett: But if you can afford to wait for the absolute perfect candidate, there is no perfect candidate for any job.
00:21:23.020 –> 00:21:27.680
Sennett: If you’re willing to wait for the absolute perfect candidate to come along, that’s not a search, that’s a wish.
00:21:29.520 –> 00:21:31.080
Sennett: There has to be a need behind it.
00:21:31.080 –> 00:21:39.220
Sennett: If you know what your need is, you have to have, and my suggestion on having a well-defined interview process and the reason we’ll do the time frame one is, it’s got to be under six weeks.
00:21:39.640 –> 00:21:42.860
Sennett: It’s got to be five steps or less.
00:21:44.300 –> 00:21:46.820
Sennett: You can’t get too many cooks in the decision-making kitchen.
00:21:47.080 –> 00:21:48.940
Sennett: You can’t get analysis paralysis.
00:21:51.760 –> 00:21:57.800
Sennett: You have to be willing to consider someone’s ability to learn certain things.
00:21:58.080 –> 00:22:00.200
Sennett: We’re going to bring in candidates that know your market.
00:22:00.200 –> 00:22:18.540
Sennett: We’re going to bring in candidates that are going to acquire substantially less handholding, but there’s no bigger waste of an ROI in hiring an employee or using a search firm, then hiring somebody expecting them to be perfect and know everything on their own, and then not managing them.
00:22:18.800 –> 00:22:19.100
Roddy: Right.
00:22:19.100 –> 00:22:22.720
Sennett: That’s an instant way to get no ROI whatsoever.
00:22:22.960 –> 00:22:23.440
Roddy: Yes.
00:22:24.200 –> 00:22:28.680
Sennett: So yeah, those are some ways to get an ROI out of the search firm.
00:22:28.780 –> 00:22:34.040
Sennett: Then in terms of, I’m sure everyone’s going to be very eager to talk about rates and pricing and things like that.
00:22:34.760 –> 00:22:36.940
Sennett: So in terms of ROI, we can get into that as well.
00:22:36.940 –> 00:22:37.540
Roddy: Yeah, sure.
00:22:37.540 –> 00:22:38.340
Roddy: That’s my next question.
00:22:38.340 –> 00:22:48.100
Roddy: But before that, it almost makes me think the folks who are listening to this, a lot of them are the trusted advisor for technology solutions for their clients, and you’re almost saying the same thing.
00:22:48.100 –> 00:23:16.420
Roddy: If somebody hires you as a service provider for hiring for this position, it’s really important that you get to know them, in terms of exactly what you’re looking for, but then they’ve got to let you really run with that, because then you don’t want to have somebody who really, a lot of people think they know about hiring because they know people, I read people really well, I’ve done hiring before, but it is a real specialized skill, just like again, with a technology analogy, people use technology every day.
00:23:16.420 –> 00:23:21.760
Roddy: That doesn’t mean they know how to install, run, select, and manage a point of sale system.
00:23:21.760 –> 00:23:24.740
Roddy: So you’re talking about an apples to apples comparison there.
00:23:24.800 –> 00:23:31.700
Sennett: Yeah, there’s two parts to your ROI, getting someone that’s a technical fit, and that’s where a lot of people think, well, I can do that myself.
00:23:33.400 –> 00:23:34.660
Sennett: Yeah, you probably can.
00:23:34.980 –> 00:23:39.140
Sennett: But I think sometimes people think we’re joking.
00:23:39.140 –> 00:23:43.080
Sennett: We talk about keeping a hiring process on the rails and keeping the candidate engaged.
00:23:43.080 –> 00:23:51.820
Sennett: And one of the most common cause I get is from an HR professional or even just a leader in a company who tried to go out on their own.
00:23:51.820 –> 00:23:54.080
Sennett: They said, we thought we had someone, but we don’t.
00:23:56.240 –> 00:23:59.060
Sennett: And the real cost of that is incredible.
00:23:59.420 –> 00:24:04.440
Sennett: You just did a three month search, maybe six months of time and effort.
00:24:04.440 –> 00:24:11.200
Sennett: You thought you had your person, you ruled out all the other people, and they backed off or they backed out.
00:24:11.200 –> 00:24:15.420
Sennett: And now you’re back to square one, and that role is still open at what cost to you.
00:24:15.420 –> 00:24:18.220
Sennett: And now you got to go and play recruiter at what cost to you.
00:24:20.000 –> 00:24:23.600
Sennett: People don’t think about that, but it’s so, so cost.
00:24:23.600 –> 00:24:30.840
Sennett: And if it’s not costly, if you didn’t think that that was a waste of time, you got to look at, well, was it really a priority to fill this role to begin with?
00:24:32.460 –> 00:24:32.920
Roddy: Yes.
00:24:33.340 –> 00:24:40.680
Roddy: I just actually gave a talk at a conference about hiring best practices and the different steps for doing that in some of the audience.
00:24:40.680 –> 00:24:43.940
Roddy: Because I preach like you did, you’d mentioned about five steps.
00:24:44.140 –> 00:24:46.260
Roddy: Some people are like, I can only think of two.
00:24:46.320 –> 00:24:50.360
Roddy: What would even be three additional steps in terms of talking to somebody?
00:24:50.580 –> 00:24:54.120
Roddy: This person was like, hey, I have to hire and I get a lot of turnover.
00:24:54.120 –> 00:24:55.700
Roddy: I cannot invest the time in that.
00:24:55.740 –> 00:25:02.020
Roddy: It was like, well, you can invest the time in the hiring the right people, or you can invest the time in re-training over and over.
00:25:02.420 –> 00:25:03.560
Roddy: That’s your choice.
00:25:03.560 –> 00:25:06.780
Roddy: As John Wooden said, former UCLA coach, right?
00:25:06.780 –> 00:25:11.080
Roddy: If you don’t have time to do it right the first time, when will you have time to do it again?
00:25:11.120 –> 00:25:12.980
Roddy: That sounds like what you’re saying as well.
00:25:12.980 –> 00:25:13.400
Sennett: Yeah.
00:25:13.560 –> 00:25:20.300
Sennett: Speaking of which, at the initial beginning of the search process, another part of what we do is a detailed intake hall.
00:25:20.840 –> 00:25:22.600
Sennett: That’s not just up to us though.
00:25:23.180 –> 00:25:28.500
Sennett: You’ve got to be willing to spend the time with your search professional to educate them.
00:25:28.500 –> 00:25:29.920
Sennett: It’s garbage in, garbage out.
00:25:33.100 –> 00:25:45.300
Sennett: You got to make sure that they are completely in line and they have all the questions answered and they really know how to go out and represent your company not only in the best light, but the most accurate light when they’re speaking with candidates.
00:25:45.580 –> 00:25:50.860
Sennett: A lot of small business owners are so busy and they’ve got, like me, ADHD, they’re just all over the place.
00:25:52.080 –> 00:26:03.680
Sennett: But you need to really hone in and make sure you’re giving your search professional or whoever, everything they need to bring you the right candidate.
00:26:03.680 –> 00:26:10.300
Sennett: Because if you spend 20 minutes on an intake call, an intake call is you probably can guess, it’s just like, what do you need?
00:26:11.400 –> 00:26:14.220
Sennett: But if you spend like 10 minutes on it, you’re like, I got to go.
00:26:14.880 –> 00:26:16.500
Sennett: I think you know what you need, go out and get it.
00:26:16.680 –> 00:26:19.240
Sennett: It’s like, okay, we could do that.
00:26:19.240 –> 00:26:21.940
Roddy: We don’t want to force ourselves on you.
00:26:21.940 –> 00:26:23.180
Roddy: Go find me a superstar.
00:26:23.760 –> 00:26:24.500
Sennett: Yeah.
00:26:24.500 –> 00:26:28.280
Sennett: But the more we know what good looks like, the more you’re going to get good early.
00:26:29.340 –> 00:26:32.000
Sennett: But I keep going back to it like, yeah, we know what good looks like.
00:26:32.000 –> 00:26:33.340
Sennett: Yeah, we have access to good.
00:26:33.580 –> 00:26:34.620
Sennett: All that is great.
00:26:34.920 –> 00:26:46.300
Sennett: But I get back to the candidate management process and preventing costly counteroffers, fall-offs, interviewing unqualified candidates, uninterested candidates, tire kickers, right?
00:26:46.560 –> 00:26:46.900
Roddy: Yeah.
00:26:48.200 –> 00:26:51.400
Sennett: If you’re interviewing somebody, for example, you’re like, why are you looking?
00:26:51.880 –> 00:26:52.960
Sennett: Well, money.
00:26:53.480 –> 00:26:53.740
Roddy: Yeah.
00:26:53.740 –> 00:26:58.820
Sennett: The first thing I do is I’m like, have you talked to your boss about getting a raise first before you talk to me?
00:26:58.820 –> 00:27:09.580
Sennett: Because if there’s no headache where you are, you’re probably going to back out of this interview process if the money isn’t miraculously more than what you’re making now, and it probably isn’t.
00:27:10.500 –> 00:27:21.400
Sennett: Fifty percent of the roles I place, we’re getting people taking pay cuts because they wanted a better cultural fit, or the solution wasn’t working, or they were selling vaporware, whatever.
00:27:21.400 –> 00:27:22.100
Sennett: You know what I mean?
00:27:24.840 –> 00:27:31.780
Sennett: It’s not just about who can you find, it’s really knowing these candidates to know if they’re going to waste your time or not.
00:27:33.620 –> 00:27:35.700
Sennett: Then gently moving them out of the process.
00:27:35.840 –> 00:27:37.940
Sennett: We’re not rude about it.
00:27:39.240 –> 00:27:42.960
Sennett: Then honestly communicating with you guys about what we’re seeing and hearing from these candidates.
00:27:44.060 –> 00:27:47.520
Roddy: It sounds like what you’re saying is what we say at the beginning of our interview process.
00:27:47.540 –> 00:27:49.400
Roddy: Hey, we’re looking for a match.
00:27:49.780 –> 00:27:52.320
Roddy: You’re looking for the right match, we’re looking for the right match.
00:27:52.320 –> 00:27:53.620
Roddy: If it’s not a match, that’s fine.
00:27:53.620 –> 00:27:56.600
Roddy: It doesn’t mean you’re bad or we’re bad or anything of that nature.
00:27:57.080 –> 00:27:58.000
Roddy: It’s match-related.
00:27:58.340 –> 00:28:01.240
Roddy: You mentioned, Marc, fee structure earlier.
00:28:01.360 –> 00:28:04.300
Roddy: If all of this was free, everybody would be signing up for it.
00:28:04.300 –> 00:28:05.900
Roddy: Like, sure, go ahead and do the work for me.
00:28:06.360 –> 00:28:15.920
Roddy: Can you talk about what is the appropriate fee structure that works for both the hiring company, the SMB that we’re talking about, who needs to do this on a budget, and also the recruiting firm?
00:28:15.920 –> 00:28:17.460
Roddy: What works for them, for both of them?
00:28:17.820 –> 00:28:21.840
Sennett: Well, starting at a high level, I’ll talk about how recruiting firms charge.
00:28:23.360 –> 00:28:25.620
Sennett: I’ll stay focused more on us, like what we do.
00:28:29.920 –> 00:28:37.120
Sennett: When we take on a search, there are hard and soft cost to that we incur, to go out and represent your company.
00:28:37.160 –> 00:28:48.140
Sennett: The hard costs include like we may run ads, where I am paying people to do the research, I am paying people to do the actual recruiting and the list building, if I’m not doing it myself.
00:28:48.180 –> 00:28:50.840
Sennett: We’re still small enough where I still do a lot of that myself.
00:28:51.900 –> 00:29:02.940
Sennett: That’s when you get into the soft cost is like, if I’ve got 3-12 searches in my stable that I could be working on, but I’m working on yours, that’s lost opportunity cost.
00:29:05.560 –> 00:29:28.300
Sennett: We build that into our fee structure, and that’s why there are minimums like I can tell you, and it varies from search to search, but every search firm has a minimum where they know that just by starting this search, I’m going to be spending this much money and because of the nature of the search, maybe if it’s super specific and very particular, I’m going to be spending even more.
00:29:30.060 –> 00:29:34.640
Sennett: I can’t take on searches where I know I’m going to lose money or just break even.
00:29:34.640 –> 00:29:38.280
Sennett: I can’t do that, and nobody can.
00:29:38.300 –> 00:29:39.500
Sennett: There are certain minimums.
00:29:40.500 –> 00:29:46.180
Sennett: Usually the way search firms and we’re no different, they charge a few different types of ways.
00:29:47.880 –> 00:29:53.160
Sennett: If we go contingency, which you don’t put down any money upfront, now we’re happy to work with you.
00:29:53.160 –> 00:29:55.260
Sennett: We take on all kinds of contingency searches.
00:29:56.820 –> 00:30:06.580
Sennett: But sometimes when we’ve got a heavy workload, we can’t help but look at how do we prioritize what to do, what we’re going to do this week or today.
00:30:08.420 –> 00:30:17.800
Sennett: If we’ve got some money down upfront, and I can talk about why we would do that, that has to factor into how we’re going to decide how much time and effort to give your search that day or that week.
00:30:17.800 –> 00:30:22.700
Sennett: It’s not like we’re not going to do it, but it’s like when we get around to it can vary from that.
00:30:23.500 –> 00:30:26.860
Sennett: But it’s usually 20-25 percent, maybe 30 percent.
00:30:26.860 –> 00:30:32.480
Sennett: Honestly, it’s 20-30 percent most search firms charge of first year either earnings or salary.
00:30:32.480 –> 00:30:33.420
Sennett: We do salary.
00:30:34.440 –> 00:30:35.440
Sennett: We’re not here to get rich.
00:30:36.800 –> 00:30:39.200
Sennett: There’s other firms that are around us in our orbit.
00:30:39.200 –> 00:30:40.720
Sennett: We all have fairly standard.
00:30:41.060 –> 00:30:43.240
Sennett: We’re all within a few percentage points of one another.
00:30:43.340 –> 00:30:47.340
Sennett: So it’s usually 20-25 percent of first year salary for us.
00:30:49.400 –> 00:30:55.160
Sennett: Then where the minimums kick in is a lot of small business owners can’t pay exorbitant salaries, especially for salespeople.
00:30:55.360 –> 00:30:57.520
Sennett: So we have one client that’s commission only right now.
00:30:58.620 –> 00:31:00.140
Sennett: That’s the first time I’ve ever done that though.
00:31:00.300 –> 00:31:02.040
Sennett: I’m a little leery of those types of people.
00:31:02.040 –> 00:31:02.500
Roddy: Sure.
00:31:03.640 –> 00:31:09.140
Sennett: But lower salary, you got a sales rep, you pay him 50 grand and plus commission, you can make all the money in the world.
00:31:09.680 –> 00:31:14.280
Sennett: But our percentages of a $50,000 salary are below our minimums, so we do flat fee.
00:31:14.280 –> 00:31:15.620
Sennett: We can do flat fee for that.
00:31:15.980 –> 00:31:28.240
Sennett: Benefit to flat fee too is there’s no perceived motivation that your recruiter is trying to inflate the candidate salary or earnings so that they make it better.
00:31:28.240 –> 00:31:30.120
Sennett: Not that I just don’t do that.
00:31:30.340 –> 00:31:34.640
Sennett: If you work with me, we’re so honest, we’re probably honest to a fault.
00:31:34.880 –> 00:31:37.200
Sennett: But there are agencies that would do that.
00:31:37.800 –> 00:31:45.480
Roddy: There are some agencies that will coach people on the process of what to say and then coach them on inflating it.
00:31:45.480 –> 00:31:56.660
Roddy: But to your point, you’re in this, and this is the thing about hiring somebody with vertical expertise in this space, I always say in the retail IT channel, everybody’s connected by bridges and all the bridges are made out of wood.
00:31:56.980 –> 00:32:06.940
Roddy: So if you’re gonna napalm one bridge, boom, like you’re gonna have the whole thing go up in smoke where somebody doesn’t play in this industry, that’s not gonna be as vital to them.
00:32:06.940 –> 00:32:13.060
Roddy: So this is again, getting back to that choosing, again, I almost feel like I’m talking to merchants about choosing their technology solution provider.
00:32:13.320 –> 00:32:19.420
Roddy: If you have somebody who’s local in your community, they’re not gonna burn you because that’s their whole territory.
00:32:19.420 –> 00:32:23.560
Roddy: But if you have somebody who doesn’t care, they could work anywhere, what do they care about you?
00:32:23.560 –> 00:32:27.100
Roddy: So, okay, sorry, it’s hard to interrupt, but I just want you to say it out loud.
00:32:27.440 –> 00:32:33.880
Sennett: We don’t play games with fees, and we’re nothing but truthful with earnings and things like that.
00:32:35.080 –> 00:32:40.420
Sennett: But yeah, so 20-25 percent of first-year salaries is industry standard for recruiter.
00:32:42.520 –> 00:32:47.520
Sennett: That’s assuming the salary is maybe something over 65,000, to hit our minimums.
00:32:48.540 –> 00:32:52.700
Sennett: Some people will say, well, that’s just too much, I’m a small business owner.
00:32:54.780 –> 00:33:08.320
Sennett: For me, my response to that is, step A is remind them of what they would be doing, and how much is that going to cost, and what’s the cost of it.
00:33:08.480 –> 00:33:14.480
Sennett: But step two of that is, maybe we can work out different arranges.
00:33:14.480 –> 00:33:22.580
Sennett: For example, standard, and any of your members that have used me will know this, I usually offer two options.
00:33:25.140 –> 00:33:29.720
Sennett: Pay me a little bit more on the back end, and sure, we’ll take on contingency.
00:33:29.720 –> 00:33:35.820
Sennett: Don’t give us anything upfront, we’ll do the work for you, we’ll fill that role, and you pay a larger bill at the end.
00:33:36.440 –> 00:33:39.760
Sennett: Or give us a little money down, we call this an engagement fee.
00:33:40.780 –> 00:33:44.020
Sennett: Give us a little bit of money down, and sometimes that could be a negotiable amount.
00:33:44.940 –> 00:33:47.980
Sennett: Usually we try to do 5K, but we’ll talk.
00:33:49.800 –> 00:33:52.100
Sennett: And then we’ll reduce that fee at the end.
00:33:52.500 –> 00:34:00.820
Sennett: So the example would be, if you have a $100,000 person you want to hire, if you don’t want to pay us upfront, you’re going to pay us 25 at the end.
00:34:01.400 –> 00:34:11.160
Sennett: If you want to hire a $100,000 person, but not spend that much, you’re only going to spend $20,000 on us, because you gave us $5,000 upfront.
00:34:11.160 –> 00:34:12.780
Sennett: And that was helpful and we’re grateful for that.
00:34:12.780 –> 00:34:14.560
Sennett: And so here’s a discount.
00:34:16.320 –> 00:34:25.720
Sennett: Another way to kind of look at that, that we haven’t, we’ve done versions of this, but I want to tag that on to part of what we don’t do too.
00:34:26.960 –> 00:34:36.460
Sennett: Staggered payments is something a search firm could be open to, to work with that small business owner, so you’re just little bits at a time, so you’re never like wincing while you’re writing the check.
00:34:38.180 –> 00:34:41.760
Sennett: But I do want to get to a point, it’s kind of unrelated, is that okay with you about?
00:34:42.280 –> 00:34:42.860
Roddy: Yeah, go ahead.
00:34:42.860 –> 00:34:46.800
Roddy: Yeah, if you can make that point, then we’ve got a commercial and then we’ve got about 15 minutes left.
00:34:47.220 –> 00:34:47.560
Roddy: Great.
00:34:47.840 –> 00:34:49.160
Roddy: Yeah, I don’t even know if I’ll.
00:34:49.820 –> 00:35:08.680
Sennett: But another part of the misperception, when you think of recruiters as a body shop versus a value added service, is the guarantee period on a candidate, or what is a recruiter responsible for and what are they not responsible for?
00:35:11.140 –> 00:35:14.380
Sennett: Just like when at the beginning of the conversation, we’re like, who do you got?
00:35:14.380 –> 00:35:16.380
Sennett: I’m like, okay, let’s talk about your thinking.
00:35:16.680 –> 00:35:21.020
Sennett: When someone’s like, yeah, can you give me a one-year guarantee on that candidate?
00:35:21.020 –> 00:35:36.960
Sennett: Because any search firm was going to give you a replacement guarantee, meaning if this guy or gal flames out at you for a reason in a limited period of time frame, we will replace that candidate for free for you, which is a great cost to us because it costs a lot of money.
00:35:37.140 –> 00:35:39.520
Roddy: Sure, you do it twice.
00:35:39.760 –> 00:35:42.300
Sennett: Those searches become huge priorities for us too.
00:35:43.080 –> 00:35:49.240
Sennett: Even though they’re free, they’re bumped to the front of the line because it’s a replacement search and we want to do right by you.
00:35:49.700 –> 00:36:01.420
Sennett: However, this idea that if you can’t evaluate whether or not a candidate, or now a new hire, is working out.
00:36:01.420 –> 00:36:04.400
Sennett: Beyond 90 days, maybe, that’s how I look at it, 90.
00:36:04.400 –> 00:36:07.600
Sennett: But I’ve done 120-day guarantees.
00:36:07.600 –> 00:36:09.620
Sennett: I don’t like it, but I’ll do it to get the business.
00:36:12.200 –> 00:36:15.760
Sennett: That’s putting a lot of load on recruiter in terms of what’s their responsibility.
00:36:15.940 –> 00:36:24.240
Sennett: Because we can’t control the business climate, we can’t control the relationship with the hiring manager, with the employees, who’s buying, who’s not, economic conditions, all this.
00:36:24.600 –> 00:36:33.240
Sennett: So 120 days in, you made the decision to hire this candidate and you probably chose them from among three to five folks that we put in front of you.
00:36:33.240 –> 00:36:34.960
Sennett: But the hiring decision was yours.
00:36:34.960 –> 00:36:36.580
Sennett: You did all your due diligence.
00:36:36.580 –> 00:36:37.540
Sennett: We did all ours.
00:36:38.280 –> 00:36:39.480
Sennett: And then you bring them on.
00:36:39.480 –> 00:36:42.180
Sennett: And for some reason or another, they leave your company.
00:36:44.360 –> 00:36:54.300
Sennett: If they flame out within 90 days, to me, and I think common sense would say, that could have been because something we missed and we should have caught.
00:36:54.440 –> 00:36:56.180
Sennett: And that’s my bad.
00:36:56.180 –> 00:36:56.880
Sennett: That’s on me.
00:36:57.040 –> 00:36:59.100
Sennett: Let’s go find you someone that’s a better fit.
00:36:59.660 –> 00:37:00.700
Sennett: Sorry that happened.
00:37:00.700 –> 00:37:04.780
Sennett: Or it could be they, gosh, they showed up and a week later, they went and took another job.
00:37:04.960 –> 00:37:08.480
Sennett: Shame on me for not knowing that they could potentially take another job on you.
00:37:08.480 –> 00:37:11.860
Sennett: Because if I knew that, which I should have, right?
00:37:12.120 –> 00:37:15.880
Sennett: Then I wouldn’t have let you make them an offer and let them accept it.
00:37:15.880 –> 00:37:17.180
Sennett: I would have said, hey, let’s hold off.
00:37:17.180 –> 00:37:19.840
Sennett: Let’s see what this other company does with you.
00:37:20.440 –> 00:37:23.420
Sennett: I’ll tell my client, they don’t hire this guy yet, right?
00:37:23.840 –> 00:37:26.320
Sennett: But if I did that, shame on me, I’ll replace them.
00:37:26.560 –> 00:37:29.720
Sennett: But I don’t manage candidates.
00:37:30.500 –> 00:37:39.000
Sennett: The idea that I would replace a candidate the year in because you couldn’t successfully retain them, and that sounds accusatory.
00:37:39.000 –> 00:37:39.780
Sennett: I don’t mean it that way.
00:37:39.780 –> 00:37:42.120
Sennett: But for one reason or another, they’re your employee.
00:37:42.120 –> 00:37:43.900
Sennett: They are your responsibility at that point.
00:37:43.900 –> 00:37:45.680
Sennett: They are not my responsibility.
00:37:46.900 –> 00:37:56.480
Sennett: When people want a long guarantee, just remember, we are not a manufacturer or distributor of candidates with a warranty attached.
00:37:56.660 –> 00:37:58.820
Sennett: These are human beings.
00:37:59.200 –> 00:37:59.540
Sennett: Yeah.
00:38:00.840 –> 00:38:03.520
Sennett: Guarantee periods and what you pay for, right?
00:38:04.220 –> 00:38:04.900
Roddy: Yeah, exactly.
00:38:05.240 –> 00:38:12.200
Roddy: If somebody doesn’t work out, but you find that six, nine, 12 months in, that’s simply not something that was so obvious.
00:38:12.860 –> 00:38:16.700
Roddy: I’m in the recruiting process and so you can’t blame the recruiter.
00:38:16.700 –> 00:38:22.300
Roddy: So Marc, we’re going to pause here to let our listeners and viewers know about the Retail Solutions Providers Association.
00:38:22.480 –> 00:38:31.180
Roddy: RSPA is North America’s largest community of retail technology, VARs, software providers, vendors, and distributors in the retail, restaurant, and grocery verticals.
00:38:31.260 –> 00:38:37.320
Roddy: To accelerate your success with an RSPA membership, email membership at gorspa.org.
00:38:37.400 –> 00:38:45.620
Roddy: Also, we want to say big thanks to these channel-focused companies who support the RSPA and make the community and this podcast and video series possible.
00:38:45.860 –> 00:38:52.380
Roddy: Our gold sponsors are Bluestar, CoCard, Epson, Global Payments, and ScanSource.
00:38:52.420 –> 00:39:00.640
Roddy: Then finally, I want to make sure everybody knows, Registration is now open for Inspire 2027, the Retail IT channel’s premier leadership conference.
00:39:00.800 –> 00:39:04.740
Roddy: RSPA Inspire is set for January 24th through 27th in Puerto Rico.
00:39:04.960 –> 00:39:12.920
Roddy: For more information, visit gorspa.org/inspire so you can experience networking nirvana.
00:39:13.240 –> 00:39:19.380
Roddy: All right, so Marc, in the time we have left them open, we can compare some notes like on how to hire, right?
00:39:19.380 –> 00:39:22.540
Roddy: You’ve alluded to it earlier in terms of having a really good process.
00:39:22.540 –> 00:39:24.940
Roddy: And you and I both have strong opinions on that.
00:39:24.940 –> 00:39:28.300
Roddy: We both have over 25 years of recruiting experience.
00:39:28.400 –> 00:39:34.880
Roddy: Can you spell out for our audience what you see as a best practice hiring process?
00:39:34.880 –> 00:39:36.200
Roddy: What are the key elements of it?
00:39:38.020 –> 00:39:50.860
Sennett: Yeah, and kind of going back to, we discussed this a little bit earlier on, but I think number one is make sure that your opening is actually critical and not a wish list.
00:39:53.140 –> 00:40:02.620
Sennett: If there’s not some pain associated with that position not being filled, you have to really do a gut check and be like, does it make sense to invest the time and effort to recruit for somebody?
00:40:03.840 –> 00:40:08.680
Sennett: I count on small business owners like myself to probably not do that anyway.
00:40:09.840 –> 00:40:12.260
Sennett: I’m only going to hire someone if I’m feeling real pain.
00:40:12.760 –> 00:40:13.160
Roddy: Yeah.
00:40:13.220 –> 00:40:19.580
Roddy: Just to clarify, but sometimes people will throw a job out there just to see who applies for it and then they’ll be like reel it back in.
00:40:19.580 –> 00:40:21.300
Roddy: That is, I’ve seen people do that before.
00:40:21.300 –> 00:40:29.660
Roddy: That’s a terrible practice because then a candidate presents themselves and they’re like, oh, I wasn’t really ready to hire and that again, burning bridges, that’s one of them.
00:40:29.660 –> 00:40:31.000
Roddy: Is that what you’re referencing, Marc?
00:40:31.140 –> 00:40:32.100
Sennett: Correct, correct.
00:40:32.760 –> 00:40:41.920
Sennett: Know what you really want at a granular level because it’s hiring malpractice again, to go and recruit and fill a role.
00:40:43.420 –> 00:40:46.840
Sennett: Not really know how you’re going to hold someone to account.
00:40:46.900 –> 00:40:50.640
Sennett: If expectations aren’t set up front, nobody’s going to know if they’re being met.
00:40:53.240 –> 00:40:59.880
Sennett: Hiring malpractice to me is hiring somebody expecting it to be perfect and to know everything and to just not pay any attention to them at all.
00:41:02.380 –> 00:41:10.160
Sennett: Spend the time up front, like I said, educating whether you’re doing a search on your own, maybe you have an HR person or an admin, you just decide you don’t want to use third party.
00:41:10.280 –> 00:41:18.340
Sennett: That’s fine, but make sure they know if they’re going to do your recruiting for you, whoever’s doing your recruiting for you, make sure they know exactly what you want.
00:41:19.420 –> 00:41:21.220
Sennett: Because then they’re just swinging in the dark.
00:41:21.620 –> 00:41:23.040
Sennett: What a waste of time that is.
00:41:25.300 –> 00:41:29.180
Sennett: One of the things, back to another best practices.
00:41:30.040 –> 00:41:32.960
Sennett: Making, great the enemy of good.
00:41:34.740 –> 00:41:35.940
Roddy: Good is the enemy of great.
00:41:35.940 –> 00:41:36.480
Roddy: I’m sorry, great.
00:41:36.480 –> 00:41:37.240
Sennett: I did it twice.
00:41:37.240 –> 00:41:37.860
Sennett: I did it twice.
00:41:37.860 –> 00:41:38.320
Roddy: Good to great.
00:41:38.320 –> 00:41:39.860
Roddy: Yeah, good is the enemy of great.
00:41:41.780 –> 00:42:02.060
Sennett: If you have a wish list of skills and you can’t live without any one of them, you might want to rethink that because there’s no perfect candidate in the world and you’re going to have, what’s the cost of keeping that position open while you keep interviewing folks that check nine out of 10 boxes, eight out of 10 boxes, and all of a sudden, six months in, you haven’t found what you need yet.
00:42:03.140 –> 00:42:24.680
Sennett: What I would say is if you find yourself with a lot of boxes to check on your wish list, prioritize them, give them a number waiting or something like that, and know what you need the most and what you need the least, and then boxes seven through 10 on your wish list, if they’re low priority, be like, okay, I could teach someone this stuff.
00:42:26.080 –> 00:42:29.320
Sennett: So when you’re hiring, make sure that you remember people can learn.
00:42:30.900 –> 00:42:40.700
Roddy: Like if I’m understanding what you’re saying, there’s some things that are required for the job, but then there’s some things that are just preferred for the job and make sure upfront, you know what’s truly required and what’s preferred.
00:42:40.700 –> 00:42:48.520
Roddy: Because if you combine both lists, you’re going to hold out for somebody who hits, they hit 46 out of the 47, sorry, that’s not a bet.
00:42:49.720 –> 00:42:52.460
Sennett: Yeah, and I wrote some things down, I’m just kind of making sure I hit them.
00:42:52.460 –> 00:42:57.720
Sennett: But yeah, perfect never exists was kind of the getting hung up on checking all the boxes.
00:42:57.740 –> 00:43:01.460
Sennett: There’s no shortcut to securing long-term successful employees.
00:43:01.460 –> 00:43:05.740
Sennett: You really, like I said, you can’t get away with hiring somebody and not managing them.
00:43:06.040 –> 00:43:07.740
Sennett: That’s the worst thing you can do.
00:43:09.240 –> 00:43:20.400
Sennett: If your need is critical, my suggestion would be, this is how I run my business, is I focus on kind of the candidates.
00:43:20.480 –> 00:43:25.100
Sennett: First of all, their overall like, what are you really looking for?
00:43:28.100 –> 00:43:29.700
Sennett: Can I give you what you’re looking for?
00:43:29.700 –> 00:43:37.660
Sennett: If you hire somebody that has all the skills, they know how to sell these terminals or this payments, or they know this market or this other thing.
00:43:37.800 –> 00:43:41.180
Sennett: But when you interview up front and they said, what are you looking for?
00:43:41.180 –> 00:43:52.300
Sennett: They’re like, well, I’m 30 years old, I’m looking to become a manager, and then a regional manager, and then a director, and so I can have a VP title when I’m 40.
00:43:53.580 –> 00:43:58.100
Sennett: You’re a small business owner and you ignored that, you’re not going to keep that employee very low.
00:43:58.960 –> 00:44:06.800
Sennett: So focus first, beyond the skill that you’re interviewing, you’re screening and everything, focus on what that person wants if you happen to be talking to them.
00:44:07.000 –> 00:44:11.720
Sennett: But if you’re screening, also focus on indicators of success.
00:44:14.020 –> 00:44:21.460
Sennett: To me, the number one thing is tenure, and I know your listeners understand what I’m talking about here.
00:44:21.780 –> 00:44:25.120
Sennett: It takes two years to get found out in most organizations.
00:44:25.120 –> 00:44:40.580
Sennett: So if you’re looking at a profile where they’ve never had, or very rarely have had, a stint at an employer over two years, I’m not saying just throw the baby in the bathwater, but there’s a real red flag there to me.
00:44:41.040 –> 00:44:42.220
Sennett: And they better have…
00:44:42.220 –> 00:44:45.500
Sennett: If every single one of these companies shut down, okay.
00:44:46.280 –> 00:44:48.760
Sennett: You’re still a good egg, and let’s keep moving forward with you.
00:44:48.860 –> 00:44:52.320
Sennett: But then still, even that, I’m looking like, but maybe there’s a judgment issue.
00:44:52.600 –> 00:44:55.660
Sennett: Why does this person keep chasing high-risk companies?
00:44:57.920 –> 00:45:06.100
Sennett: So look at tenure as a tracker at your success, because usually if someone’s been someplace five years or more, now, okay, there’s another thing.
00:45:06.220 –> 00:45:07.800
Sennett: Don’t get so hung up on tenure.
00:45:08.600 –> 00:45:13.280
Sennett: There’s almost a generational way of looking at that, at tenure.
00:45:13.900 –> 00:45:20.560
Sennett: I’m still working with Boomer hiring managers, and I work with now almost Gen Z hiring managers.
00:45:20.560 –> 00:45:22.260
Sennett: They’re so much younger than me.
00:45:22.680 –> 00:45:23.400
Sennett: It seems weird.
00:45:23.680 –> 00:45:33.980
Sennett: But the Boomer hiring managers, they’ll see someone like three job hops, but they’ll ignore the fact that they just spent 15 years at a company before that.
00:45:34.540 –> 00:45:43.780
Sennett: It is very common for someone to do great at a company for a long time, and then they got laid off or something, and now they’re just trying to find their home again.
00:45:43.780 –> 00:45:44.960
Sennett: This doesn’t feel like home.
00:45:44.960 –> 00:45:45.720
Sennett: That’s okay.
00:45:46.920 –> 00:45:50.000
Sennett: Don’t get hung up on that so much.
00:45:51.180 –> 00:46:00.260
Roddy: To your point, if somebody has no history over 20 years of being anywhere more than 18 months, the likelihood they’re going to be with you for more than 18 months is slim to none.
00:46:00.260 –> 00:46:01.560
Roddy: Why should the trends start now?
00:46:01.780 –> 00:46:08.660
Roddy: But to your point, just because somebody has had short 10 years, you shouldn’t fill in the blank to say, that’s a problem on their part.
00:46:08.720 –> 00:46:13.500
Roddy: You ask them, or you have your recruiting firm, dig into that a little bit more, correct?
00:46:13.500 –> 00:46:14.800
Roddy: I mean, that’s part of what you do, right?
00:46:14.800 –> 00:46:22.700
Roddy: When you’re assessing people is you’re not just looking at their technical skills, you’re finding out what all happened to them and what was their journey and then what does that journey mean?
00:46:22.700 –> 00:46:23.900
Roddy: Am I understanding that correctly, Marc?
00:46:23.900 –> 00:46:24.240
Roddy: Yeah.
00:46:24.240 –> 00:46:31.620
Sennett: And keep in mind, they’re all going to think that every explanation for every job change they made was reasonable and fair and it would have happened to anybody else.
00:46:31.960 –> 00:46:38.760
Sennett: It’s going to be your job at the tail end to digest that information and be like, yeah, but there’s a judgment issue here or whatever.
00:46:38.860 –> 00:46:43.280
Sennett: So that’s, you know, I like it.
00:46:43.740 –> 00:46:49.660
Sennett: A tenure aside, once you’re digging in, people use me to recruit a lot of salespeople.
00:46:49.660 –> 00:46:51.780
Sennett: So sometimes my language is a little bit sales centric.
00:46:51.800 –> 00:47:04.380
Sennett: But sales performance is really easy to spot if someone’s half decent at putting it out there on a resume, which is I look for percent signs, hash marks, which is your number, your ranking, right?
00:47:04.380 –> 00:47:06.440
Sennett: Percent sign is what percentage of your quota.
00:47:06.560 –> 00:47:07.900
Sennett: And then I look for dollar signs.
00:47:08.220 –> 00:47:10.000
Sennett: How much money did you bring in?
00:47:10.000 –> 00:47:19.580
Sennett: Sales is pretty simple, but it usually, whether it’s an operations position or anything, there’s, these candidates are being measured somehow.
00:47:20.060 –> 00:47:21.200
Sennett: These employees are being.
00:47:21.200 –> 00:47:25.540
Sennett: So how are you measured and how did you perform against those measurements?
00:47:26.160 –> 00:47:31.100
Sennett: Now, you can look for evidence of that on paper, but if you don’t see it, you got to ask that question in the interview process.
00:47:31.100 –> 00:47:31.520
Roddy: Yes.
00:47:31.520 –> 00:47:33.480
Sennett: How did you perform against your measurements?
00:47:33.880 –> 00:47:42.280
Sennett: And another red flag to me is, if a candidate can answer that quickly and articulately, I know I got a winner.
00:47:42.740 –> 00:47:43.160
Roddy: Right.
00:47:43.160 –> 00:47:50.580
Sennett: If a candidate goes into storytelling about how they built, they built, let’s say in sales again, I built the biggest pipeline ever for this company.
00:47:51.660 –> 00:47:53.520
Roddy: What happened to it?
00:47:53.980 –> 00:48:02.080
Sennett: Or I’m walking around the warehouse and he shows me this thing, but that won’t work and all of a sudden, it’s like you’re like 20 minutes into these stories.
00:48:02.080 –> 00:48:05.840
Sennett: You get these, beware the storyteller, I guess is what I’m saying.
00:48:06.000 –> 00:48:16.160
Sennett: If you ask somebody what time it is, and they start telling you how the watch is built, they might be avoiding telling you that they have not been super successful.
00:48:16.820 –> 00:48:18.940
Sennett: So they fill that airtime with stories.
00:48:19.000 –> 00:48:20.780
Sennett: So just beware of the storyteller.
00:48:21.380 –> 00:48:24.180
Roddy: I remember the old joke, this is before everybody had GPS.
00:48:24.180 –> 00:48:29.580
Roddy: If you pull up to somebody and ask for directions and their answer is er, just pull off like they’re not.
00:48:29.860 –> 00:48:31.280
Roddy: They don’t know what they’re doing.
00:48:31.460 –> 00:48:32.640
Roddy: We’ve only got a couple of minutes left.
00:48:32.640 –> 00:48:40.540
Roddy: I have time for one more question, and I want to talk about because the last part about hiring on an SMB budget is about fair market value.
00:48:40.540 –> 00:48:46.540
Roddy: I still remember talking to a reseller, this was many years ago, but not so long ago, and we’re talking about what they wanted.
00:48:46.540 –> 00:48:48.540
Roddy: I was like, how much are you going to pay for this position?
00:48:48.540 –> 00:48:50.420
Roddy: They’re like, $20,000.
00:48:50.820 –> 00:48:53.480
Roddy: I’m like, then what’s the commission on top of that?
00:48:53.480 –> 00:48:55.360
Roddy: No, that’s all in $20,000.
00:48:55.440 –> 00:49:00.500
Roddy: I’m like, you are not going to be able to hire any decent salesperson at that rate.
00:49:00.500 –> 00:49:02.900
Roddy: You can’t hire almost anybody at that rate.
00:49:03.060 –> 00:49:07.400
Roddy: But again, we’re talking about SMBs, they don’t have million to dollars to throw around.
00:49:07.500 –> 00:49:16.140
Roddy: Can you talk about how SMB, VARs, and ISV should thread the needle about being able to afford a good candidate, but then also paying them fair market value, balancing that?
00:49:16.440 –> 00:49:16.880
Sennett: Yeah.
00:49:17.000 –> 00:49:23.660
Sennett: Well, for one thing, I find a lot of the smaller business owners within RSPA don’t know fair market value because they don’t talk to each other.
00:49:24.420 –> 00:49:38.440
Sennett: When you and I started this and it became me doing a podcast with you, but I almost suggested like let’s set up some groups, some forums where like-minded small business owners can get together and talk about how they’re compensating their employees.
00:49:39.800 –> 00:49:42.640
Sennett: Because even if you come to me, it’s like, well, what’s everybody paying?
00:49:42.640 –> 00:49:48.660
Sennett: I can tell you what NCR pays and Toshiba pays, and I can tell you what your competitor over in the Midwest pays or in the South.
00:49:48.800 –> 00:49:53.200
Sennett: I can tell you what all kinds of companies pay, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what you should pay.
00:49:53.700 –> 00:49:56.000
Sennett: However, there is fair market value out there.
00:49:58.720 –> 00:50:10.520
Sennett: If you’re an SMB and you want to hire, and again, I’m going back to sales language because it’s such a high percentage of what we do, and you want to hire a superstar salesperson, and you can’t pay him a hefty salary.
00:50:11.920 –> 00:50:18.780
Sennett: I can tell you this, most of your competitors and partners out there pay something in terms of a salary.
00:50:19.220 –> 00:50:20.460
Sennett: You got to consider that.
00:50:20.740 –> 00:50:31.360
Sennett: But if you can’t pay a salary or a decent salary, you got to go back to the drawing board and think about, well, why would somebody come and work for you?
00:50:31.360 –> 00:50:32.920
Sennett: You have to think about yourself.
00:50:33.740 –> 00:50:34.460
Sennett: I do it too.
00:50:34.540 –> 00:50:44.120
Sennett: A SMB owner is getting our own little brain bubble, and we forget that there’s a lot of people out there doing what we do, that we could get advice from, or even just compare.
00:50:44.320 –> 00:50:53.300
Sennett: But that candidate, why would they come to work for you for a tiny little salary when they could go work for, let’s say, NCR for $120,000 salary?
00:50:53.760 –> 00:50:58.180
Sennett: In all the stability, which is not true, that’s a myth.
00:50:58.180 –> 00:51:02.520
Sennett: But the stability that a big company offers, and you know what you’re getting there, right?
00:51:02.520 –> 00:51:07.840
Sennett: You’re going to get a 401K, you’re going to get leave, you’re going to get all the stuff.
00:51:09.160 –> 00:51:11.100
Sennett: Why should you come and work for my little shop?
00:51:11.260 –> 00:51:26.740
Sennett: Well, if you can really sit down and articulate what a great employment experience it would be to work with me or for my company, and you lead with that when you’re starting these conversations, and that’s your brand and the employment marketplace, you’re going to have a lot more success.
00:51:27.080 –> 00:51:33.720
Sennett: So you got to think about why would somebody come work for me as opposed to anybody else for more of a salary.
00:51:35.040 –> 00:51:35.380
Sennett: Yeah.
00:51:35.500 –> 00:51:36.660
Roddy: I think that’s.
00:51:37.100 –> 00:51:37.540
Sennett: Yeah.
00:51:37.880 –> 00:51:51.080
Roddy: At the same point, then they can be, but you can’t say to people, and you’re going to love working here, but you won’t be able to afford to buy groceries for the first few months because until you build up your territory, that’s not going to work even if I’m understanding that correctly.
00:51:51.080 –> 00:51:53.700
Roddy: That’s what you’re saying is balancing that appropriately.
00:51:53.700 –> 00:51:54.080
Roddy: Yeah.
00:51:54.340 –> 00:51:54.780
Sennett: You do.
00:51:54.940 –> 00:52:00.160
Sennett: If you have the person on the hook that you want, it’s more sales language, but it could be anything really.
00:52:00.160 –> 00:52:02.200
Sennett: It’s like, what are their real total earnings?
00:52:02.240 –> 00:52:03.620
Sennett: That’s the bills that they’re paying.
00:52:03.640 –> 00:52:04.940
Sennett: People spend what they make.
00:52:06.100 –> 00:52:18.940
Sennett: If you want someone to come and work for your company on a commission only or low salary, but their run rate is 10 grand a month back home, what are you asking of this employee?
00:52:21.260 –> 00:52:22.580
Sennett: Why do they have to assume all the risk?
00:52:22.580 –> 00:52:24.080
Sennett: Why are they making the investment?
00:52:24.240 –> 00:52:32.060
Sennett: Why are they figuring out how to put all their bills on a credit card or draining their savings or their previous 401K for the privilege of coming to work for you?
00:52:32.240 –> 00:52:32.460
Roddy: Yeah.
00:52:32.460 –> 00:52:32.900
Roddy: Right?
00:52:33.140 –> 00:52:40.120
Sennett: So either you better have a really darn good compelling employee value proposition or number two, you’ve got to come up with the money.
00:52:40.180 –> 00:52:44.280
Sennett: You got to pay them a draw, pay them guaranteed commissions on run rate business.
00:52:45.760 –> 00:52:51.400
Sennett: Give them some bridge where they can make their bills and they are not working scared or in debt.
00:52:51.500 –> 00:52:53.960
Sennett: Because you’re not going to keep an employee very long.
00:52:54.280 –> 00:52:58.620
Sennett: If every night when they go home, they’re sweating how to put groceries on the table.
00:52:59.360 –> 00:53:05.860
Sennett: If you can’t offer them that, okay, then hire junior, hire young, hire someone right out of college.
00:53:05.860 –> 00:53:06.520
Sennett: That’s great.
00:53:06.720 –> 00:53:09.480
Sennett: But again, don’t commit malpractice and then not manage them.
00:53:09.520 –> 00:53:26.660
Sennett: Because that’s another way you’re just going to, maybe you’re going to only pay somebody 20 grand, but you’re just tossing 20 grand away if you’re going to hire somebody, not give them a great employee experience, not manage them, and then expect them to kick butt and take names and stay with you forever.
00:53:26.660 –> 00:53:28.100
Sennett: That is not going to happen.
00:53:29.040 –> 00:53:33.560
Roddy: I remember hearing some feedback from some SMB folks, nobody wants to work anymore.
00:53:33.620 –> 00:53:35.780
Roddy: Then it was like, well, other people are hiring.
00:53:35.800 –> 00:53:45.060
Roddy: Maybe it’s because your salary isn’t great, your benefits aren’t great, your atmosphere isn’t great, or the way that you treat your salespeople isn’t great.
00:53:45.340 –> 00:53:51.640
Roddy: Maybe there are times where the first thing you have to do is look in the mirror and say, what am I doing to cause this behavior?
00:53:51.640 –> 00:53:53.500
Roddy: That’s kind of what it’s, yeah, exactly right.
00:53:53.500 –> 00:53:55.660
Sennett: Small business owners are like, we’re great, we’re great, we’re great.
00:53:55.660 –> 00:53:57.500
Sennett: I’m like, compared to whom and compared to what?
00:53:57.820 –> 00:53:58.300
Roddy: Yes.
00:54:00.340 –> 00:54:07.840
Sennett: So yeah, network with your fellow RSPA members about hiring and what to pay and how to pay.
00:54:08.660 –> 00:54:09.980
Sennett: Yes, talk to me too.
00:54:09.980 –> 00:54:10.580
Sennett: Let’s talk.
00:54:11.700 –> 00:54:14.340
Sennett: Let’s have a conversation, but you can’t do it in a bubble.
00:54:14.760 –> 00:54:15.200
Roddy: Yes.
00:54:15.400 –> 00:54:16.980
Roddy: Yeah, don’t be staring at the ceiling tiles.
00:54:16.980 –> 00:54:18.060
Roddy: It’s not going to come to you yet.
00:54:18.060 –> 00:54:20.840
Roddy: Talk to folks who have some experience with this.
00:54:21.400 –> 00:54:27.300
Sennett: You have to be aware of market conditions and you have to be aware of the person you’re interviewing and their own personal conditions too.
00:54:28.220 –> 00:54:28.940
Roddy: Well said.
00:54:28.940 –> 00:54:31.420
Roddy: Well, that does it for this episode of The Trusted Advisor.
00:54:31.420 –> 00:54:38.500
Roddy: If you enjoyed our discussion, be sure to subscribe to the RSPA YouTube channel and The Trusted Advisor podcast so you never miss an episode.
00:54:38.540 –> 00:54:42.560
Roddy: Before we go, big thanks again to Marc Sennett for sharing his wisdom with us today.
00:54:42.740 –> 00:54:50.860
Roddy: Thanks also to RSPA Marketing Director, Chris Arnold for his production work, Joseph McDade for our music, and last but not least, thanks so much to you for listening.
00:54:51.000 –> 00:54:58.180
Roddy: Our goal at the RSPA is to accelerate the success of our members in the retail technology ecosystem by providing knowledge and connections.
00:54:58.200 –> 00:55:02.500
Roddy: For more information, please visit our website at gorspa.org.
