Staffing Simplified: From the Kitchen Table to Inc. 5000 with Jason Bivins

Intro [00:00:00]:
Welcome to the Elite Recruiter podcast with your host Benjamin Mena, where we focus on what it takes to win in the recruiting game. We cover it all from sales, marketing, mindset, money, leadership, and placements.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:20]:
Two quick announcements before we jump into this podcast. If you want to check out the replay plays for the recruiting growth summit, which was fantabulous. The link is in the show notes. Check it out a way to get access to the replays and rewatch every single one of the amazing speakers from last week. So definitely check out the link. Secondly, also join the elite recruiter community. Other high performers, everybody looking at growing so excited about that. Make sure to join Link is also in the show notes.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:49]:
But man, this is going to be an awesome podcast. Enjoy. I'm excited about this episode of the Elite Recruiter podcast. I have my special guest who's going to share some of the ways to get off the revenue roller coaster when it comes to direct hiring. And here's the thing. The staffing side is what I feel is so complex after chatting with Jason, it's not that complex. I think there are many of us on the direct hire side that feel safe on this side, but because it's the reason why is because we just don't understand how easy it can be to create recurring revenue with a staffing business. So I'm excited about my guest, Jason Bivens, who is the president of great hire, who I'll let him tell the story, but he accidentally fell into the recruiting world and has now built an incredible organization.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:39]:
So I'm excited that you're here to share, Jason.

Jason Bivins [00:01:42]:
Thanks for having me, Benjamin. I've had a great time listening to the podcast. I think I've listened for a year, and so anytime I have, I'm driving in between maybe locations or client sites. You're definitely one of my go to podcasts, and I have a huge man crush on Scott Love. I got to see him in person at some kind of a recruiting event, I don't know, maybe five years ago or something. And he was awesome, so it was cool. So you've had a few names on there where I know of these people or met them.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:13]:
Yeah, Scott Love is awesome. I will just say it's a blessing to live about 15 minutes away from him. So we're actually getting together for a happy hour soon. So it's kind of fun to pick his brain when he's on not work mode.

Jason Bivins [00:02:26]:
That's really cool. That's pretty special.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:28]:
Yeah, that's one of the cool things about the podcast is just the relationships that you could build.

Jason Bivins [00:02:32]:
Absolutely. It's a special time to be in it, for sure. So I enjoyed listening to you. So I think you asked me, how did I get started? Is that what you said?

Benjamin Mena [00:02:44]:
Yeah.

Intro [00:02:44]:
No.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:45]:
How'd you even end up in this wonderful world of recruiting?

Jason Bivins [00:02:48]:
Yeah. So I live in Orange County, California, which was kind of the Mecca for the mortgage industry. If you saw the movie the big short, I wasn't one of those sleazy brokers, but I definitely worked for people like that, for sure. So that was in the 2000s, was heavily involved in that industry, in mostly the operations side, wasn't really big into the sales side, didn't love it. And so I ran that course, and then all of a sudden, that whole industry just fell to pieces.

Jason A. Bivins [00:03:25]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:03:25]:
Because that was the only thing that could have happened with the loans sort going out. I personally suffered a huge setback from that time where overnight was making very little money compared to the years prior. And so I did have to go into some kind of a reinvention. Know, I knew that there just would be a lot of out of work mortgage people, and how could I differentiate myself? So I did end up staying with a large bank for a while. So I was with bank of America for a while on their corporate side, on dealing with a lot of the repossessions and the short sales and foreclosures and all that, because I had some knowledge in that when I was at the bank, that was the first time that I had managed a group of people, and I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed just trying to be a good boss. As cheesy and self serving as that sounds. It's actually true.

Jason Bivins [00:04:19]:
Most of the people I managed were far younger than me, but I had a great team. People would work hard for me, and we consistently had good numbers for what we did there. And so that kind of got me going. Okay, I want to go farther along this path, but at the bank, it's very hard to increase your wage there. It's a very slow ladder. It's great business, great company, but it's a slow ladder. So a lot of people would leave and then come back in two years at a much higher pay rate. So that was kind of my plan, but that's where I fell into staffing.

Jason Bivins [00:04:55]:
So I had a friend who ran a staffing agency and needed a manager in one of his kind of geographical areas. And so I said, sure, I don't know anything about staffing, but I've done some hiring. When I was at the bank, they obviously have in house recruiters, but you do play a part in the hiring role, et cetera. So I said, yeah, if you're willing to let me try it, I'll do it. I was there for about two years, and about a year into it was really bored. I didn't have a lot to do. They had me working at a location that was very. It was just set up.

Jason Bivins [00:05:33]:
It made a great amount of revenue. They just needed somebody to babysit it. But me being kind of younger in my career, that wasn't good enough for me. And I had two young kids, right? I needed to go past what they were willing to do for me. So a good friend of mine, we had always wanted to do something together. If we had the chance, we were going to do it. And we knew each other from the mortgage days. And so I called him, said, I've learned how to do this business.

Jason Bivins [00:06:03]:
I feel like there's a niche for how you and I run things. And so we did it. We jumped into it. My partner is still my partner to this day. He kind of made sure that I didn't starve for the first year. So that was a bit of a luxury that some people don't have where they're starting to have a little bit of a safety net. We really did start from zero. I mean, we had one customer and one warehouse person when I left.

Jason Bivins [00:06:35]:
And it's very similar to the direct hire side. It's very hard to take your customers. If you're with a big firm or something, you're going to get some nasty attorney letters. And I think I did as well. But then you go out there and you're pouting the pavement and trying to get things going. Fortunate at that time. This is 2011. It was doable.

Jason Bivins [00:06:59]:
Some of the old methods of sales were working. It was doable. I really played every role in the business because I was employee one, right? Now, I'm not going to give you the whole gap every year of business, but we've now been in business 13 years and we were on the Ink 5000 list twice before the pandemic. We had our best week in sales, I think a week before they shut everything down when it was that official kind of, I don't know what was that March or something? I don't want to relive those days at all, but we were on this amazing track and then we've had to rebuild a little bit. Fortunately, most of our customers stayed working during that time. But the saying goes, it's an overnight success. In ten years, that's really true for our case. It's about what it takes to see a good amount of success.

Jason Bivins [00:08:03]:
There's definitely early success. Ten years is now. It goes by really fast, but it's a pretty good benchmark for any business, I think.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:12]:
I think that's incredible. And I want to go back on this partnership. So you guys knew each other back in the mortgage days, and you mentioned that he helped you not starve the first year. Can you talk about that real quick?

Jason Bivins [00:08:25]:
Sure.

Jason A. Bivins [00:08:26]:
Yeah.

Jason Bivins [00:08:29]:
He did not take any money out for himself during that first year and made sure that I had just a small base.

Jason A. Bivins [00:08:39]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:08:39]:
So it's not expensive to start an agency. There's no special licenses or not much special that you need. I mean, I think started with a laptop, and I was working out of my kitchen, and I remember working at Starbucks for a long time. Right, where I would just pick one and I'd be there and working and then obviously trying to get in front of people, too. Again, it was a little easier to get to doorknock and get in front of people, I think 13 years than it is now. It does require more sophisticated networking than that. But back then, it was still working. He kind of unselfishly made sure he had built some other businesses already.

Jason Bivins [00:09:28]:
Right. And that saved us so much between now and then and just having gone through some of the negatives, and I think that's. You alluded it in the beginning, some of the fear that people have is they just don't really know what the pitfalls are.

Jason A. Bivins [00:09:44]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:09:44]:
Like, what could I be getting myself into? So again, I was able to have a big leg up that not everybody has. But since helped, I've helped several people start agencies, actually, that wanted to do it. And there is a lot of competition in California. I don't love it, but still, there's plenty of business, and I would still rather kind of know my competitors a little bit. I'm much rather be friendly with them than be antagonistic or. Yeah, I have helped. And that's kind of why I wanted to chat with you today, too, is maybe people, maybe not in Orange County, California.

Jason A. Bivins [00:10:25]:
Right?

Jason Bivins [00:10:25]:
Anywhere else, I'll help you, but no, it's all good.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:31]:
I think that's funny because every time I talk to Scott Love, he's like, we both moved down to Richmond from northern Virginia. He's like, Richmond's closed, nobody else. So I want to jump in, and I want to start talking about the staffing side of the house. So when it comes to staffing, it's complex and I know I started my career at a large, huge agency that does billions of dollars. So you saw the complex machine behind the house there. And then I think one of the easiest ways to start a recruiting business is the direct hire model. I think the biggest reason is because you look at the staffing, it's like, who's going to pay for it? Who's going to front this money? Who's going to pay for this contractor? Because I'm sitting there looking at this engineer salary, I'm looking at the bill rate is, and it's a net 30 or a net like 15 or in the government space could be like a net 90. How the hell am I going to pay for this person? And you brought up that it's really not that hard to set up.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:25]:
Can you talk about that?

Jason Bivins [00:11:27]:
Yeah, absolutely. I think even from day one that we reached out to a receivables financing partner or the financial term is a factor.

Jason A. Bivins [00:11:41]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:11:41]:
And they kind of are everywhere, and a lot of them specialize in staffing. So they will take your invoice from you.

Jason A. Bivins [00:11:50]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:11:50]:
So if I build $1,000 that week, and they're usually going to advance you 90% to 95% of that that week.

Jason A. Bivins [00:12:03]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:12:03]:
And they're basing it. Here's what I think a lot of people don't realize. They're basing it on the credit worthiness of that customer, not on your personal credit. Because I want to say even my personal credit probably wasn't that great when we started. I said it was still digging out from a hole and that was not a stumbling block. So they're looking at, they're going to want to see that there's some kind of good payment history from that client. If they've used staffing before, they're pretty much a known entity. I don't know how much they share information, but it's pretty known.

Jason Bivins [00:12:38]:
Like if they're a bad payer, they'll know and they'll let you know you probably shouldn't contract with this person or they won't give you the credit for it. Large companies, obviously, that's easy. Sometimes large companies can be slopping, too, as you mentioned. But that is one of the biggest stumbling blocks. And some of the people I know that have started it, they have preferred to just put together a pile of money and do it. But then that does have a limit, too, and becomes stressful. I think the people that are a little scared of the receivables financing method, you still are signing in most cases, especially in the beginning, you probably are signing a personal guarantee, which is scary.

Jason A. Bivins [00:13:23]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:13:23]:
But again, you're jumping into this business because you don't want to go work for somebody else. You don't want to go work for the bank.

Jason A. Bivins [00:13:32]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:13:33]:
There's risk in everything we do. But I will tell you that that level of responsibility has not ever bitten us. And we've actually been with the same. He's moved companies once or twice, but we've been with the same guy, the same receivables financing person from day one, and he's the nicest, nicest gentleman, and it's always taken care of us. And what people don't realize is that because there will be situations where somebody doesn't pay you, that's a given. So that is going in with eyes wide open. That's important to know. You can impact that a lot.

Jason A. Bivins [00:14:14]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:14:14]:
So it's letting people not get way past their terms. And the way you manage that is, unfortunately, it's a little bit antagonistic, but it is effective. Is that, well, my guy can't show up to your job site tomorrow. So you do have a measure of control over that in terms of having kind of the safety switch.

Jason A. Bivins [00:14:36]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:14:36]:
So where you get in trouble is if you have a large amount of people and then you're letting them roll 60 days out. Right now we're talking a lot of money. So I understand why people are scared about it. But I'll share this because I think a lot of people don't talk about the negative side of it. When we've had some cases where a large amount of money was just overnight this clients, I'm not paying you for no good reason, too sometimes here, being with the receivables firm versus using our own cash pile, we've been able to work with them to then, okay, we're not out of business because of this. We still have money coming in from 30 other clients. And so the receivables partner, they know, like, okay, I'm still going to get some payment from Jason every single week. I see what their cash flow is.

Jason Bivins [00:15:35]:
And so we've had, I think, a couple situations where they have restructured what was owed.

Jason A. Bivins [00:15:42]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:15:42]:
We're still trying to collect, and we generally will. Like, if that company is still in existence, the only time it doesn't happen is if they literally go BK and there's just no money. That is a risk. But in most of the cases where somebody's owed us money, we've gotten the money at the end of the day, and so by working with the factor, the receivables partner, they kind of just turn that into a loan now, right, where if it was $100,000, we didn't have to go empty our bank account of everything. We had to stay operating. They said, okay, you can pay us $1,000 a week, whatever it is, and then we're still trying to collect. Right? And then when we collect, we're all good. We probably get attorneys fees as well.

Jason Bivins [00:16:27]:
So this is scary. I get it. It's scary, but it is just how business is done. And then having a good partner on the aging side, your receivable side is really important. Keeping tight track of who owes you what is huge. To this day, that's kind of our division of labor. In my business, I'm very much the sales guy, the customer service guy, and then my partner, he is the hardcore CFO, making sure that every dollar is counted. Good for making sure that people are paying on a good schedule, right? So he's been able to build those systems.

Jason Bivins [00:17:11]:
So that's all important. But when, just to start something like this, you don't need to be that sophisticated.

Jason A. Bivins [00:17:18]:
Right?

Jason Bivins [00:17:18]:
But you can start even, like I said, with just the one customer. If you have one temp worker that you needed funding for their invoice, they're going to do it for you because they know that's how they have to start. You don't have to be bringing in some big book of business for these funding partners to work with you. So I'm all for it. And I think some of that answered question.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:42]:
No, I think they answered the question. But when it comes to your agreement, is it like a three way agreement between all three parties, or is it like you send the agreement back to them, how does that work out?

Jason Bivins [00:17:52]:
Yeah, that's a great question. So we're letting the client know from day one, and they get a letter from the receivables partner as well. And that's showing that all our invoices are assigned to that funding partner. So on our invoice, it shows payment is going directly to them. So it doesn't even pass through our account. The receivables partner wires the money and then that's how they guarantee their fee too. Right, which is a couple of percentage points depending where the market is at, et cetera. But it's super expensive.

Jason Bivins [00:18:28]:
And again, not based on your personal credit, but yeah, it's totally open and known that your payment is going to XYZ funding company. And here's the payment instructions. So it's very simple. In any, most business, they understand it.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:47]:
Okay. Because I know that this conversation I've had a few times, at least in the Govcon space, is like, all right, so who's going to be paying for this person? Well, now I need a master service agreement with that company. And they're like, it's always, at least in the Govcon space, I feel a little more difficult than it should be.

Jason Bivins [00:19:04]:
Yeah. On the government side. And I've had to work through some of those vendor management systems as well. And it's definitely more steps, but still, generally they're going to accept, okay, these are the payment instructions.

Jason A. Bivins [00:19:18]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:19:18]:
It's just what it is. But, yeah, I understand there can be a few more hoops on the government.

Benjamin Mena [00:19:23]:
Side, but the one thing I love about this is you're telling me that I and probably many other listeners have overcomplicated this entire staffing side.

Jason Bivins [00:19:37]:
I think so, because there are just so many. The barrier to entry is very low. So I think it's just a case of you don't know what you don't know. Right. And until you really dive in or sit down and see how somebody runs one of these businesses. Yeah, it's very simple. The other piece to it would be using. So we've pretty much always gone the peo model.

Jason Bivins [00:20:07]:
So professional employer organization. So the biggest PEO is adp.

Jason A. Bivins [00:20:12]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:20:12]:
So a lot of people will use adp for their internal payroll. Right. Depending what state you're in, you have to have workers compensation insurance. That's a huge one for us. So there are many peos that exist specifically for staffing. So, like ADP, they won't give us a policy because I have an employee working at an aerospace firm. I have an employee working at a bakery.

Jason A. Bivins [00:20:36]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:20:37]:
So that's not where you go for it. Flesh are very expensive, but there are these specialty groups. That's all they do really, is staffing agencies. And so again, this would be the other piece, I think that scares people. Well, do I have to go spend a lot of money to get insurance policies in place?

Jason A. Bivins [00:20:55]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:20:56]:
Do I need down payment money for that? No, you don't. It's literally, it's pay as you go. So I'll give you the quick cycle.

Jason A. Bivins [00:21:03]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:21:03]:
Because I think we'll take some of the fear out of it for you. The quick cycle is. We'll use last week as an example.

Jason A. Bivins [00:21:09]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:21:09]:
So the first week of February, I had five employees, and their total payroll came to $5,000 that week.

Jason A. Bivins [00:21:18]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:21:19]:
So always a week in arrear. So this week, I'm going to give my invoice to that client. By Tuesday or Wednesday of this current week, we're in for that $5,000. I'm going to send that to the receivables financing partner.

Jason A. Bivins [00:21:37]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:21:37]:
And again, we've approved that client already.

Jason A. Bivins [00:21:41]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:21:42]:
So they know they're not being surprised of this. Ask for the money, and then they're going to send that money to my bank account, generally Wednesday or Thursday. And then I'm forwarding to the peo company the money that it costs to pay for that person. And then they're going to handle the direct deposit even too. I don't have to go do that.

Jason A. Bivins [00:22:04]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:22:05]:
So it's really a full service. And again, you are going to pay a little bit more to have this type of a back office. So some people would much rather just cut checks directly from their bank account, which you can do.

Jason A. Bivins [00:22:18]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:22:18]:
It's going to save you on some administration fees, but it's also just opening you up to other things. Because we've had check fraud, we've had these things. People are extremely creative. So we've found that just using these partners that are big, massive, 600 pound gorilla in those spaces, they know how to deal with just all of these things that if you're just the one guy with one little business checking account, you're going to be setting yourself up for some pain. So that's the simple part. So they're billing you weekly for that worker's compensation insurance, and they're making sure that your payroll taxes are being submitted so you don't have to go carve out.

Jason A. Bivins [00:23:00]:
Okay.

Jason Bivins [00:23:00]:
If I have these five contractors and I owe the federal government x amount for that week, you don't have to do any of those calculations. So you just get one invoice from them and you're wiring that money and you're done. And then there's a little bit left over in there somewhere for profit. So that's obviously keeping track of that is very important. And you do need that to get, if you can't be the good accountant person, you do need somebody to kind of separate.

Jason A. Bivins [00:23:26]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:23:27]:
But that gross number is pretty easy to find.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:30]:
Okay. Yeah, I think you'd definitely simplify it, at least in my head, personally. It's one of those things in that space. It just feels like I remember when I first jumped out of my own. Someone just came to me. I was like, hey, we'd love to give you a contract. And I was just like, I looked at the numbers. And I'm like, these are five engineers making one hundred and fifty K a year.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:50]:
I have like XYZ in my bank account, which comes nothing close to being able to pay that payroll. And they wanted to do like a net. It's in the gov gun space. They were thinking they were trying to push for a net 45 because they're waiting on the government to pay them.

Jason A. Bivins [00:24:04]:
Right.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:04]:
And I was like, I can't do that. It's kind of funny, just me not knowing how simple it is or how I could just hook up with a factoring company and that could have had those people put on contract and would have been rocketing and rolling.

Jason Bivins [00:24:24]:
Yeah, exactly. That's the real beauty of the staffing side, is it's just this flat curve of income.

Jason A. Bivins [00:24:34]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:24:34]:
And then as you add headcount and you naturally get some headcount that goes off because maybe they convert that person. And for us, the conversion side of it's never been a negative because I'm now able to kind of stand on what my sales pitch is. I'm bringing you good people worthy of conversion at some point, right. So if they go ahead and make them permanent employee, great. It just kind of solidifies me as a partner that I did what I said it was going to do. Right. And then they're going to use you for new positions.

Jason A. Bivins [00:25:06]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:25:06]:
If they're hopefully a growing company or what have you. It's very rare that they convert everybody and you never hear from them again. That's pretty rare. Usually there would be some kind of a service issue or a relationship issue there if they didn't call you again. But yeah, we love it for that reason.

Jason A. Bivins [00:25:24]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:25:24]:
Because the direct hire space, you're as good as your last month. It's very similar to mortgage and real estate.

Jason A. Bivins [00:25:30]:
Right. Where.

Jason Bivins [00:25:32]:
You'Re looking for that next hit. And they're great paychecks. Right. And we've seen in our organization, too, we do have a small team that does direct hire, and those are awesome success moments.

Jason A. Bivins [00:25:45]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:25:46]:
But then you're okay. But I got to go back to the grind on it.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:51]:
You're starting at zero at the beginning of the next month.

Jason Bivins [00:25:53]:
Yeah. So that scares me more than the figuring out the other stuff. Figured out the logistics of how to keep recurring.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:01]:
Yeah, this has been awesome.

Jason A. Bivins [00:26:04]:
Jason.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:04]:
Jason, before we jump to the second part of the podcast, is there anything else that you would love to share about the contracting side of the house?

Jason Bivins [00:26:10]:
It's a great question. You made me get up early California time, so I'm not as sharp. I've gotten through my coffee about halfway through the coffee. So, yeah, it's not as scary as it seems, is what I would say. And I love to talk about it. Everybody likes to talk about what they know or do. And I'd be happy to answer questions for people offline. And I'm not selling anything.

Jason Bivins [00:26:39]:
I don't get a referral from many of these people that I'm talking about as well. And just like to help. I love working for myself and that's always been super happy place for me. So, like, helping other like minded people do phenomenal.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:00]:
Going over to the next part of the podcast at Quickfire questions, and this is where the fun is. What advice would you give to a brand new recruiter that's just getting started off in this industry?

Jason Bivins [00:27:13]:
I would tell them to soul search a bit. Are you truly entrepreneurial? Because even if you're working for somebody, especially on a direct hire desk or staffing, even if you're working for somebody, you still have to be entrepreneurial. That word is thrown about a lot today, right? Is social media everything, right? But the magic in this business, a lot of it happens outside of nine to five, right. Because you're good candidates, they're working, right? And everybody, especially after pandemic, wants the dream of working from home. And you can, with staffing or direct hire, you could kill it working from home, but you still have to be a special animal and work outside of those times. Or even if you're sitting there on the couch at night, you should be sourcing, you should be doing something, especially while you're in the beginning.

Jason A. Bivins [00:28:17]:
Right?

Jason Bivins [00:28:17]:
Some of these people with a built up book, it's a little bit different, but you can't be too easy on yourself in the beginning. And it's not for everybody. Right? I know. Heard that theme, I think, from a lot of your other guests, right. It's not for everybody. It's okay to go work for somebody and have a job, right? Entrepreneurial pursuits is very glamorized, but not everybody has that. I'll get up and go kick ass in the morning.

Jason A. Bivins [00:28:42]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:28:42]:
Not everybody has. Or at night. Right. Some people, that's their special time is at night, right. That's okay too, as long as it's more than just. I can only do this during business hours, right. So really just knowing yourself is super important. That's what I would tell somebody starting.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:01]:
Off, man, I remember when I first got started, they're like, you got to look at this as your own business. This is a staffing firm way back when, beyond twenty four seven. And I do appreciate what they gave me and the drive and everything, but when you do make that jump for your own business, it really is the safety of that internal corporate recruiting job. You're like, wait, you just worked 40 hours and that was it.

Jason Bivins [00:29:27]:
Right?

Benjamin Mena [00:29:29]:
Same question for people that have been in this space for 10, 15, 20 years. What advice would you give to them to see success or be successful?

Jason Bivins [00:29:36]:
Yeah, I would keep learning, keep listening to good podcasts that are relevant to what you do. It just, you kind of need a little bit of a constant kind of enthusiasm. I think Zig Ziglar is one of my favorite motivationals ever.

Jason A. Bivins [00:29:54]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:29:55]:
A lot of people probably don't know who Zig Ziglar is, probably of the younger generation for sure, but he said, believe his motivation is all like bathing. It doesn't last.

Jason A. Bivins [00:30:05]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:30:06]:
So you got to keep doing it. I think I probably butchered the quote, but you think you get it, right? There's nothing wrong with continuing to stoke that fire. So, yeah, I would be trying to learn, taking information either to podcasts or reading, and then also just to evaluate your peer group. That's a big one for me that I'm kind of always constantly doing. I have a lot of friends that are a lot of fun. They're not necessarily pushing me to be better at what I do or to kind of get to hit some of the goals that I want. So if you're that kind of comfortable level business owner recruiter, that might be a good one. Is who are you hanging out with? Who's influencing you?

Benjamin Mena [00:30:48]:
I think that's a zig ziglar quote, too. Like, the five closest people you hang out with. That's your.

Jason Bivins [00:30:57]:
Absolutely. All right.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:59]:
Has there been a book that has had a huge impact on your own personal career?

Jason Bivins [00:31:02]:
So I have a really bad memory. So there's not one that stands out as like, oh, this one book changed my life. So I'm always trying to try to read often, and so there will be one for that year. Maybe that impacted me, but I don't remember what I read ten years ago. So one I read recently, though, that was good, was Jeb Blunt, who's big in the sales training world, and it was meant to write it down. It's relentless prospecting something. Prospecting is in the title, but it's a killer book, because no matter what, if you own a business, large or small, you're the best salesperson for that business, always. And so I'm always trying to get better at that part of it.

Jason Bivins [00:31:54]:
It's a part that I just know I'm just going to always need to work on the sales side of it. There was a quote from there that I love, though. He's like, if you're in the business development side, right? So this could apply to just about anybody that's going to do business development, whether you're a recruiter or business owner. He said, if that's your job, then there's only two things you should be doing. It's identifying. I'm killing this quote, too. Hold on. I have it written down.

Jason Bivins [00:32:25]:
I had two sets of notes when I wanted to talk to you, and then I'm really bad with it. I don't want to mess this one up. It is identify opportunity and pursue opportunity. So that's pretty powerful if you're in that business development role. Or even, I would say if you are a headhunter or recruiter, that's it. You shouldn't be splitting your attention or, yes, we got to build our lists or what have you. But no, at the end of the day, I'm looking for opportunity, and I'm pursuing that opportunity. I'm not sitting here creating this beautiful CRM build out and spending a week on that.

Jason Bivins [00:33:07]:
No. The only way you're going to really hit those consistent financial goals is to just super simplify it.

Jason A. Bivins [00:33:14]:
Right?

Jason Bivins [00:33:15]:
Look for it. Go pursue it. That's it.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:18]:
I love that piece of advice because that's definitely a thing that I see with a lot of new recruiters. They're thinking about, well, let me fix my website up. Let me do this, let me do that. And at the end of the day, nobody gives a shit about a website. It looks cool, but they're talking to you.

Jason Bivins [00:33:34]:
Yeah, you have to have one. So if somebody looks you up, but it doesn't matter as long as you have something there that's a placeholder and it's got your phone number on it, they don't care how many hours they have to do it for sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:49]:
Do you have a favorite rectech tool that you love at the.

Jason Bivins [00:33:54]:
Really? So I'm not the tech person in our whole organization, so I'm on the lower side with that. That's also something I'm trying to work on. So for me recently, though, just trying to do more with just the whole Google suite. And for me, it's always around organization. Just making sure my priorities for the week are set. That's a moving goalpost for me all the time, right. Is just to make sure that I'm keeping myself on task, so just using some of the basic tools to do that. But I am really excited to try to dive into Bard.

Jason Bivins [00:34:34]:
So after listening to your Donnie Gupton interview, my mind was blown, too. I think I've listened to that episode like three times already. So you're doing the Lord's work, Benjamin, so I appreciate it.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:46]:
You kind of mentioned a few things earlier, how business development has changed from back when you guys first started your company to now. Is there any BD tactics that are working right now that you recommend?

Jason Bivins [00:35:00]:
Man, for me, again, this is old school, but it's my personal networking. That's the number one thing. Every meaningful client I have is a result of personal networking. We do a lot of Google Adwords and we advertise quite a bit online, and we'll get customers that add. Those things still have to be part of your approach, for sure. And you don't have to spend a lot on that. Like, you can figure out what kind of works in your market, but the personal networking is just huge. Reaching out to people.

Jason Bivins [00:35:38]:
A lot of times, maybe they're not going to talk back to you, but even I think I reached out to you through Instagram, I think, and we have some similar interests and that sort of thing, but the world is smaller in that case, right, where you can get in front of these people. I don't like most traditional chamber of commerce functions. A lot of those, you're in a room with salespeople, but there are some that are better, right? So you can find. So don't keep going to the same networking event that's not producing anything, but try other ones, right. And see if they're what's out there. And, yeah, you just got to put yourself out there. It can be very uncomfortable. I feel like I'm by nature shy, but I have to be in those circumstances.

Jason Bivins [00:36:25]:
I have to be. I already did. It's the challenge, but it works. People have asked me many times, why do customers choose you? I'm like, honestly, this sounds silly, but they like me and they want to do business with me. It sounds really silly, but it is. Like, there's not. I don't really have a better answer for it than that. You want to do business with people that you like, that's the end of the day.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:51]:
And I think that's one of the cool things that in our space is we always see the slick salesperson or we always hear about the hard charger. But this is also a business where I don't want to say like type B shyer people. But there's still a lot of ways that you can succeed. And what I've seen over the years is people that say that they're shy are also a lot more authentic, and people are looking for that authenticity when it comes to a business partnership.

Jason Bivins [00:37:23]:
Absolutely. I think it's been part of our secret sauce, for sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:29]:
Well, when it comes down to how you guys have grown the business, is there something that you believe has been a huge part of your own personal success?

Jason Bivins [00:37:38]:
Yeah, I've always wanted this opportunity.

Jason A. Bivins [00:37:43]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:37:43]:
Even when I was, I mean, I can go back as far as, I think, third grade when I knew that adults get to do all the cool stuff. And I remember there was like a stock picking contest or something, and I think it was like third or fourth grade. And so this will age me. But there used to be something called newspapers, and the stock quotes were actually in the newspaper. I think this was one of the business journals or something. And so the teachers were like, yeah, each person was, pick some stocks and we would follow it for a month or something. And I just thought that was the coolest. And so I've always just had that within me that I knew at some point I wanted to work for myself.

Jason Bivins [00:38:29]:
And it took a while to get that real opportunity. And when I did, I will never go on a job interview again. We interview in front of customers, that sort of thing. Right. That's still not the same thing because you can still be talking from an area of authority versus a job interview where you're just groveling. Because I think that was during that time period after the GFC, right. The great financial crisis. I went on a lot of job interviews, and I was looking at changing industries and was even looking in getting in public service law enforcement.

Jason Bivins [00:39:07]:
I finished my degree in criminal justice, and I remember going on an interview, a panel interview, and just leaving there feeling just 2ft tall, just really beat up by these. That's what they're trying to do, or they're trying to get inside your brain. And I said, I don't want to do this again. So I've never had a plan B. We're going to make this business work no matter what. And there's definitely peaks and valleys of motivation, but I've never questioned, am I doing the right thing? That's been awesome. I've had the opportunity, just have stayed with it.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:46]:
Awesome. If you could go back with everything that you would now learn in the staffing business, if you can go back and have a cup of coffee with yourself, literally the first week of you guys starting, great hire, or you at that, being a branch manager, what advice.

Jason Bivins [00:40:02]:
Would you give yourself? Yeah, I would have tried to put more work in the first, I don't know, five to ten years for sure. There are times, well, especially after we acquired some bigger customers and then money was back to making a good living again. You tend to get comfortable, and I know people are listening, like, well, it's a nice problem to have, right? But it's true. You get comfortable and then you work on the business less. And I don't know if my partner will listen to this or not, but he knows how I am. You get comfortable, but you lose out on that time and that kind of compounding of business.

Jason A. Bivins [00:40:55]:
Right.

Jason Bivins [00:40:55]:
So same thing with finances, you lose out on that compounding of, well, I could have more customers now or what have you. That's what I would tell myself is delay some of the fun because it's going to be even better if you can kind of delay it a little bit. If you're winning, you should still definitely celebrate those wins. But when you're at a young stage still, man, you're going to thank yourself for putting in a little bit of RF, another 10%, another 20% during those years. So that's what I would tell myself.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:33]:
Awesome. Well, Jason, I just want to say thank you much for coming on and demystifying how complex the contracting and the staffing side of the house is. Like I said, I think one of the biggest barriers to entry when it comes to that is just that you're sitting there looking at these accounts and like, okay, what if I get these five engineers? I got to pay for these people out of pocket. How the hell am I going to pay for these people when I only have, like, XYZ amount in my account? But taking a step back where you can partner up with all these organizations where they take a lot of the risk, even though you are still personally responsible, I think that really just opens doors, and I think a few people listening to this podcast is going to raise their hand, like, jump into the contracting and the staffing side of the house. So thank you for changing the game, Jason, and having this conversation.

Jason Bivins [00:42:20]:
I'm happy to. I love talking about staffing and it's fun for me. I appreciate you having me on before.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:29]:
Two things before I let you go. How can people get a hold of you?

Jason Bivins [00:42:32]:
Yeah, I mean, LinkedIn's good. Just Jasonabivins at LinkedIn. That would be probably the best way to get a hold of me. Or, I mean, I'll give out my email to, it's jasonb@greathirehr.com so either way, either way, I'm happy to chat with people. Don't try to sell me anything right now. I get enough LinkedIn messages selling stuff. But questions, sure. But they'll try to sell me your new ATs.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:59]:
And before I let you go, is there anything else that you would love to share with the listeners?

Jason Bivins [00:43:05]:
Man, I'm tapped out. I'm sorry? I'm created a lead, tapped out today. Next.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:13]:
Awesome.

Jason Bivins [00:43:14]:
We'll do part two next.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:16]:
Sounds good. Well, listeners, I'm excited for you guys to grow in 2024. And why not add staffing and a contracting side of your business? Get off the revenue roller coaster. So, Jason, thank you so much. And for the listeners, keep crushing it, guys.

Jason Bivins [00:43:29]:
Thank you.

Intro [00:43:29]:
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