Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / From Combat to Corporate: Jason Blonstein's Journey to Executive Search | Staffing Series

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From Combat to Corporate: Jason Blonstein's Journey to Executive Search | Staffing Series · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of Inspired Stories, where leaders
0:07
share their experiences so we can learn from their successes,
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how they've overcome adversity, and explore current challenges
0:13
they're facing. Welcome to another edition of
0:18
the Inspired Stories podcast, where leaders share their
0:20
experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired
0:24
by how they've overcome adversity.
0:26
My name is Anthony Kotaspoti and today's guest is Jason
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Blondstein, Managing Director of ECA Partners, an executive
0:33
recruiting firm where they support their clients in two
0:36
main ways. First of all, they place people
0:39
into permanent or long term roles, typically at C-Suite, VP
0:43
and Director levels #2 they place independent consultants
0:47
who were previously at top tier consulting firms into a wide
0:51
variety of freelance projects In interim roles.
0:54
Jason himself works across multiple industries but has
0:58
particular expertise in the automotive and industrial
1:01
industries. His business and engineering
1:03
backgrounds allow him to understand a wide range of
1:06
functions at multiple levels. He works with large public
1:09
companies, private equity, and family owned businesses.
1:12
He is a graduate of both West Point Military Academy and the
1:15
University of Illinois, and he was a captain in the US Army
1:19
where he earned a Bronze Star. But before we get into all that
1:22
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To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at
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Add Back benefitsagency.com. Now back to our guest today, the
1:53
Managing Director of ECA Partners, Jason Blondstein.
1:56
I appreciate you making the time to Share your story today.
1:59
No, thanks for having me. Thanks for having me.
2:01
I appreciate it. Yeah.
2:02
So Jason, you spent several years in the Army.
2:06
First of all, thank you for your service.
2:08
But can you describe your time in the Army?
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Where were you deployed? What did you do?
2:14
Yeah. So after I graduated from
2:17
school, I went into, I went, I joined the Armored Core.
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So I was on tanks. I was stationed in Germany in a
2:30
a small well mid size city called Schweinfurt Pig Town.
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And from there I deployed to Kosovo.
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We were still in Kosovo at the time.
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And then in 2004, I went to Iraq where we, my unit, relieved the
2:52
ground forces that were part of the the ground war there.
2:57
OK, So what lessons did you learn from being in the army
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that you carried with you today? Oh geez, where do I?
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Where would I start? I think there's a lot, I mean,
3:15
the ability to, to, to just handle multiple things at once
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and prioritize and even a very hectic and high stress situation
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like combat to, to be able to, to, to prioritize and, and, and
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knock out one thing at a time. I think realizing very early,
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you know, especially as a young Lieutenant, you're assigned to a
3:42
unit and you have a platoon Sergeant that technically
3:44
reports to you, but that guy probably has a minimum of 10
3:47
years experience, if not a lot more.
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So just realizing that that I'm not the expert on everything and
3:54
I can't be in, in being able to rely on the people around me.
4:00
I, I was always a very collaborative leader.
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I, I still am today and it served me well.
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I mean, my company has a lot of very talented people usually
4:11
that just need a little direction and guidance and then
4:14
they're going to they're going to surprise you with what they
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do. Can you talk about what led to
4:19
the Bronze Star? Yeah, I mean, so, so the Bronze
4:25
star, so there's there's different types of bronze stars.
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So there's there's Bronze Stars for valor, which is usually a
4:33
specific moment in time in combat.
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There's Bronze Stars for service, which basically was
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just for the level of service that I provided for my unit the
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entire time I was in Iraq. It's a little honestly, it's a
4:51
little biased. You know, officers tended to get
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those awards were the enlisted don't always.
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But you know, I wasn't going to turn it down and, and, and it's
5:03
gotten me out of some tickets because I, I put it on my
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license plate. So that's, that's the, that's
5:08
the real bad thing. So Jason, you had a wide range
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of different corporate experiences before you found
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your way to the staffing industry.
5:19
Can you talk about the path that led you to ECA?
5:23
Oh, so when I got out of the Army, I didn't, I did not know
5:27
what I wanted to be when I grew up, you know, So it was, we are
5:33
good at operations. So that's what I did, right.
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I went into operations roles and, and I was very good at
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them. I just, I would get bored and I
5:43
wasn't very motivated and, and nothing really stuck, right.
5:47
And so I, so I bounced around a lot and as a recruiter it would,
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it's probably the amount I bounced around was, was, would
5:55
be a little bit of a yellow flag, if not a red flag.
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But I, I kind of fell into recruiting through a, a friend
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of mine that I used to work with at, at Constellation Energy.
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And he was, he was pretty well connected in the Republican
6:15
Party within, within Illinois. He'd been the head of the
6:19
Commerce Commission. He'd been the head of the
6:21
Department of Insurance. His name is, is Phil O'Connor, a
6:24
great, great man. And he so regardless of where
6:29
your politics lie, Illinois elected a Republican governor
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for the first time in a long time, Bruce Rauner and Governor
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Rauner actually wanted to appoint qualified people to his
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cabinet, which in Illinois, which is the reason why we have
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2 governors that are in jail right now.
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The, this, this was kind of a novelty, right?
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It was, it was, you know, usually these positions were
6:59
given out as a form of patronage or, or nepotism, but he really
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wanted to, to, to put quality people in, in into his, his
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cabinet. And so he stood up.
7:09
He asked Phil to, to help him recruit his staff.
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And Phil knew we needed a good project manager and reached out
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to me and I said, yeah, that, that sounds amazing.
7:22
And and I, I came and I met another one of his friends, a
7:27
gentleman by the name of Brad Holden, who happened to be
7:32
former Corn Fairy and Spencer Stewart and Russell Reynolds.
7:35
And he had his own executive search firm And he saw me
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operating and he said, hey, you're, you're pretty good at
7:41
doing this. Do you want to come work for me?
7:43
You know, by the way, here's how much some of my employees made
7:46
last year. And I was like, oh, that's one,
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I enjoyed this. And two, that's, that's very
7:51
motivating. So, so I joined him and, and,
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and, and I haven't, I haven't looked back.
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I mean, it's great. I, I love the project based
8:00
nature of it. I love the the mixture of of,
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you know, having to deal with people and talk to people.
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And, but also it can be very, it can be very heads down, right?
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It can be very much like, hey, you have to really focus on this
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task that you're doing. And so it, it just, it just
8:17
appealed to me and I've, I've, I've, I've enjoyed it very much.
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And so how did ECA partners come about?
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ECA Partners so they initially wanted to recruit me.
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When I was still at Holden Richardson.
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They reached out to me to be a head of talent at APE backed
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portfolio company. But by the time I was going to
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jump on to my second interview, which was with the the the CEO
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and founder Atatarki, he said, hey, they've got an offer out,
8:59
but I really like your background and want to stay in
9:02
touch. You know, we might be hiring at
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ECA. I'm like, OK, that's, that's
9:06
great. Let's let's stay in touch.
9:09
Then in the interim I went, I was recruited to Korn Ferry,
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who's the largest executive search firm.
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You know, part of the reason was that there were four partners
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at, at the boutique firm I was working on.
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All of them had been at what we what we call a Shrek, which is
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Spencer Stewart Hydrich struggles, Russell Reynolds,
9:30
Egon Zehnder and Korn Ferry. Those are those are the big
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search firms, even though there's a couple that are
9:35
knocking on the door right now. But they said, hey, if you want
9:39
to be serious in this industry, you got to get some experience
9:42
there. Now that I know more, I wouldn't
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say I agree with that assessment, but that's what I
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did. So I had a chance to get a corn
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fair and I jumped ship and was not there long.
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It just was not a great cultural fit.
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Good company, just just wasn't, wasn't the fit for me.
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And fortunately ECA had come calling again to ask if I wanted
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to join them and just everything.
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I just really like their approach to search.
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You know, I, I was pretty new to the industry, but there were
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some things that I, that I didn't necessarily agree with.
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And you know, I thought their approach was, was very different
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in the process was different and, and it's been a great fit.
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It's just been, it's just been a wonderful company.
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And so I, I joined there initially in a search execution
10:32
role and then was promoted into promoted twice and now I'm
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basically a managing director of partner at the firm.
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So I want to hear more about what makes ECA partners
10:43
different than some of the other ones out there.
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But before we do that, you know, I gave an intro of kind of, you
10:49
know, what the services are that you provide, but I'd like to
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hear it in simpler language from you.
10:55
Tell us what it is that you guys do and do well.
10:58
Yeah, yeah. And, and so, so we used to be ex
11:02
consultants agency. That's what my company's name
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was when we were founded about 15 years ago by out of Turkey,
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who I, I had mentioned and, and he kind of had really seen the
11:11
need in the market for someone that was focused on management
11:15
consultants that were transitioning into industry,
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right? And he, he, we always did that
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in, in both the permanent capacity as well as project
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baser internals, right? We grew and, and, and started
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actually serving a lot of private equity clients and, and
11:31
within their portfolio companies as well.
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And, and, and we weren't exclusively focused on
11:37
management consulting profiles anymore.
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So we rebranded to, to ECA. So in general, I would, if I had
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to say like what we do, what we specialize in in, in a few
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buckets. You know, one is for private
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equity at the the firm level we'll place a lot of operating
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roles, operating partners, value creation type roles and usually
12:00
those are current or former management consultants.
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And then within the portfolio companies themselves, we do a
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lot of CEOA lot of CFO roles and those may or may not be
12:12
consultants. And then on the project side
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generally we are doing a lot of things that support transactions
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for private equity. That could be either a market
12:23
assessment or due diligence support upfront or that could be
12:27
post acquisition doing a a, a post merger integration pricing
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projects are another thing that we do fairly, fairly regular
12:37
transformation, but those those are the big ones that we do.
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So what is it that you guys do differently?
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Like, why were you so attracted to what ECA was doing versus
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some of the other places that you had been?
12:51
Yeah. So you'd have to take a little
12:54
bit of a step back and take a look at, I think the executive
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search industry as a whole, right.
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And to to be frank, there hasn't been a ton of innovation since
13:05
LinkedIn, right? You know, so LinkedIn huge tool
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really changed the game, really changed the the nature of the
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job, right? And I, I've been fortunate that
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I've, I've been able to recruit. I mean, my, my mentors are the
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people that taught me they were, they were the smile and dial,
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you know, they just, they were just all they were doing was
13:26
calling people and trying to build out their networks and
13:28
things like that, whereas LinkedIn is the network, right.
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So they really operated on like a, a mentorship type model where
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like you had to kind of earn your stripes.
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The lower people were really underworked and, and you you got
13:47
the right to be caught, brought into deals and to start building
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out your own network. And, and it could take a long
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time, right? They also would have someone at
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my level that was a search execution person that would
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normally do, you'll be working on like 10 searches at a time,
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right? And doing, and that, that would
14:07
be doing all the sourcing of the candidates that'd be doing all
14:10
the first level interviews. So it was, it was very time
14:13
consuming and, and, and very, very stressful to be, to be
14:17
frank. We took a look at that process
14:22
and we really divided up the labor because sourcing
14:27
candidates is a very, very time consuming, but not necessarily
14:33
like a high level activity. Whereas interviewing is very
14:36
different, right? Interviewing, you have to be,
14:38
you have to have a system, you have to really be able to dig
14:42
into to what candidates are telling you, etcetera, right?
14:45
So we, we divided those two tasks that are very different,
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right? And we're not the first person
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to do that, right? I mean, a lot of a lot of
14:52
companies have what they call researchers.
14:54
But you know, corn at Corn Ferry, we had researchers, but
14:58
they were, they were, they sat in India and it was very much a
15:02
throw the ball over the fence and you weren't sure what you're
15:04
wearing it back, right. Whereas our approach with having
15:08
a large team in the Philippines and Manila has been that they're
15:12
very much integrated into our team.
15:14
You know, we meet with them all the time.
15:15
We're talking with them, they're they're chatting with us on on
15:18
teams. And what you get is there have
15:23
this ability to really build you a good pipeline of candidates.
15:28
Whereas then the interviewer who happens to sit, usually sits in
15:32
Santa Monica in California can then focus their time on
15:35
interviewing candidates as opposed to sourcing them.
15:38
So it shrinks your close time because I always say executive
15:44
search isn't rocket science, right?
15:46
But it's time consuming, right? And that's why you outsource it.
15:49
It's very time consuming and, and we've been very effective at
15:56
reducing the amount of time it takes to find someone.
15:58
And part and part of that is, is yeah, we've got tools and
16:01
processes, but it's more just because we throw more people at
16:04
it more often than not and and it gets results, right.
16:07
Our average search time last year was 83 days, I think you
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know, and and most of the Shreks were were probably double that.
16:16
Really. Oh yeah.
16:18
Yeah, that's a substantial difference.
16:21
It is, but in, in fairness, we're also not playing at the
16:24
same level a lot of times, right?
16:26
I'm not doing a search for the CEO of, you know, a Fortune 50
16:31
company, right? I'm, I'm not going to get that
16:33
call right. And so that process can probably
16:36
stretch out a little bit. But even their lower level
16:40
searches, I find that they take, they take a long time and, and
16:43
part of it is, is going back to that process that we talked
16:46
about, you know, where as they have built a system that really
16:50
relies on their, their network and who they know and not as
16:54
much they're, they're not as good as at building a bespoke
16:58
list and building up a candidate list that way, which is what we
17:03
primarily do. That's not to say we don't use
17:06
our network, but everyone's network's the same right now.
17:12
You know, LinkedIn is the network, you know, that's very
17:17
few people, especially executives are not on LinkedIn,
17:20
right. And, and so, so everyone has
17:22
access to the same network right now.
17:25
But the older companies really have not changed a lot of how
17:29
they do do business and how they they they go to market, whereas
17:33
our business model has been been very different.
17:37
So there are other firms that are sort of using some overseas
17:42
labor to help with part of that research process.
17:47
You guys are doing a little bit differently because this isn't
17:50
really outsourcing for you. These folks are part of your
17:52
team. They're integrated into your
17:54
team. You're going to visit them, I
17:55
think you said next week. And so they're more a part of
18:00
your process. It's not sort of lobbying over
18:02
the fence and seeing what you get.
18:04
It's this is our process and we're working together to
18:07
develop it and refine it, so we know we have a sense of the
18:11
quality of the work that we're going to get because you are US,
18:14
you are part of our team. And it's, it's great that you
18:19
use that word quality because that is, that is probably I
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think one of the biggest factors of why we've had success, right.
18:28
We have a, an internal quality team, right?
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They're, they're monitoring, they, they go through the
18:35
emails, they go through how they set up the calendar invites or
18:38
standards that they have to add hold to.
18:41
If there's, there's too many errors, they get dinged.
18:43
You know, what can it affect? Their pay, right?
18:45
Their bonuses, not their take money away from, but, but
18:48
that's, that's how we incentivize that team.
18:51
And it's, it's, it works, right? And it helps that ECA was
18:55
founded by management consultants, right?
18:58
And management consultants are very good at establishing
19:02
process, right? So, and that's, that's been, I
19:06
think a key to our success because we've had people try to
19:09
replicate what we've done there. And it's just that they're
19:12
missing that piece, right? That's kind of the secret sauce.
19:15
And and you got to go there, right?
19:17
I mean, this isn't my first time in Manila.
19:18
My CEO goes there every year, you know, so it's, they're very
19:23
much like a part of the company. They are the company.
19:27
And at the same time, being able to use that part of your team
19:32
and be able to, you know, cost effectively throw more labor at
19:36
the task of the research process is also a big part of what
19:40
allows you to turn things around a lot faster than your
19:43
competitors, right? Correct.
19:45
Yeah, 100%. And, and, you know, literally we
19:50
dedicate a minimum of one recruiter to your search, you
19:57
know, and that just, I mean, and they're probably reaching out to
20:00
30 to 40 qualified candidates a day, you know, and over the
20:04
course of a search, probably over 1000, I can tell you I
20:08
never reached out to that many people at Korn Ferry, right.
20:11
And, and it, and it, it works, right?
20:15
It it definitely it it works, it produces results.
20:18
Because you're going out and you're recruiting folks who
20:20
aren't necessarily actively looking for jobs.
20:22
It's not like you're finding somebody just by posting on
20:26
Indeed and seeing what comes back.
20:28
Yeah, Yeah, we call, I refer to that as passive recruiting.
20:33
When you post on job boards and then you're just getting inbound
20:36
resumes, I find generally that the quality of the candidates
20:41
that you get from there isn't as high.
20:43
That's not to say that we never get inbound candidates that are
20:46
good, but you know, most people that are the people that you
20:50
want to hire, especially for your key executive roles are
20:54
people that are currently employed and probably not
20:57
looking, right? So you need to engage them and
21:01
get them interested, right? And, and I'll tell you, I was
21:05
initially a little skeptical, you know, 'cause when, when we
21:10
reach out to someone on LinkedIn, they can see that that
21:13
this person is sitting in Manila, right?
21:15
And to me, I was like, oh, and am I going to be like, is this a
21:19
scam? Da da, da da.
21:20
But you know, there our interest rate but probably wasn't quite
21:26
as high as mine was at Korn Ferry.
21:28
But I mean, people aren't going to usually turn down a call from
21:32
Korn Ferry. But the IT was higher than when
21:37
I was at the boutique, right. And part of that was because we
21:41
are very evidence based. We actually have we constantly
21:45
AB test our messaging to see which one gets better results
21:49
and take those learnings and incorporate them into future
21:52
messaging. So we are, we're pretty good at
21:56
at getting people on the phone. And plus they can just click and
21:59
see like check out ECA and see, Oh yeah, this is this is AUS
22:03
space legit company. So.
22:06
And so most of your outreach in these cases is done through the
22:09
LinkedIn platform or through a third party tool that'll sort of
22:13
helps to expedite that outreach on.
22:19
LinkedIn, We'll start a lot of our sourcing through LinkedIn,
22:23
but a lot of times we have their emails and so it's easier to
22:27
e-mail someone, but at the same time, a lot of times people were
22:30
more responsive via LinkedIn. I mean, we all get bombarded
22:33
with emails every day that are usually just like view delete.
22:39
So we, we, we rely on a lot of different channels is always the
22:45
best way to get interest. But yeah, LinkedIn is is is just
22:50
such a powerful tool. Are you using their work emails
22:53
or are you finding personal emails to communicate with them?
22:59
Both it just depends it it depends.
23:02
I mean, if we, we're, we can normally figure out a lot of
23:08
time. Well, either either they might
23:09
already be in our system, you know, especially if these are,
23:13
but, but if we're reaching out to someone at McKinsey, you
23:15
know, I can pretty much tell you what their e-mail is going to
23:18
be, right? So at least they're working.
23:21
And then a lot of them went to like, you know, if they went to
23:24
Harvard Business School or Wharton or something, they
23:27
probably still have that e-mail address.
23:28
And that's, that's, that's easy enough to guess, right?
23:31
So we'll, we'll try different ways to, to get get in touch
23:35
with people. Is AI factoring into your
23:38
process at all? Not yet.
23:42
We have tried some AI tools in the past for well, yes and no.
23:51
We've tried AI tools for sourcing and those we haven't
23:55
found one successfully that works.
23:57
All I really found was I was kind of reskinning what I could
24:01
just do in a search query from LinkedIn and I still had to go
24:06
through and check the validity of every profile.
24:10
And it wasn't, it was actually probably taking more time.
24:13
The, the, the hit rate was, was pretty low.
24:17
Now we are using AI to do a few things.
24:20
One is we'll record meetings and interviews using AI tools.
24:25
We will write, we'll, we'll do a lot of our writing with AI too.
24:32
It's great for coming up with the first draft of things,
24:35
whether that's going to be a white paper, whether that is
24:38
your, your, you need to write a, an e-mail or a presentation and
24:43
you want it and you're worried about the tone or, or something
24:46
like that. AAI can be a pretty effective
24:48
tool for that. A lot of my colleagues use it
24:50
use it pretty pretty effectively for those things.
24:54
How do you find new clients? How do we find new clients I.
25:02
Mean you talked about like white papers.
25:03
I didn't know if maybe. Contact.
25:05
Generation was part of your process.
25:07
It is, it is. And, and you know, so, you know,
25:10
when, when I first got here, you know, we had kind of had a
25:14
philosophy of take calls, make money, right?
25:20
And, and it was all a matter of like how many, how, what, what
25:23
was your volume of calls that you could get?
25:25
And a lot of it was strictly through e-mail campaigns.
25:30
And they were, but they were effective, right?
25:33
I mean, I think my first year in sales, I probably talked to 1000
25:35
people over the course of a year.
25:40
So it was, it was it, it, it worked.
25:42
Now I think e-mail marketing is, is much, much less effective
25:46
because so many people are doing it.
25:49
And so one of the things that I always tell my team is that
25:52
like, if you're going to e-mail someone, you need to have a
25:54
reason to be in their inbox, right?
25:57
And, and, and you should be providing them something of
26:00
value other than trying to convince them that our company's
26:06
better and we should, you should use us, you know, so we do, we
26:10
have started to do more content compensation studies.
26:14
I think it's a very good one because one, we have that data,
26:19
I think a lot of our clients are very interested in it.
26:22
It's, it's something worthwhile for us too, because it's a
26:25
recruiter. We're, we're always in, we're
26:28
always advising our clients on what they should be paying
26:30
someone. So that's one thing.
26:34
But we make those compensation studies read more like a white
26:37
paper. So yeah, it's going to have that
26:39
data. I think white paper is a little
26:42
bit of a bad word as a marketing tool now.
26:45
So we'll, but we'll, we'll embed the So what into the cop studies
26:51
and, and, and send that to our clients.
26:54
Another tool that I'll, I'll plug one of our vendors here is
26:59
called Ren Ren. It is, if I had to describe it
27:05
shortly, I would call it like Google alerts on steroids,
27:10
right. So what it does is you put in
27:12
your network to it and you can either download your LinkedIn
27:16
contacts from Salesforce, whatever, and it will curate
27:20
news articles about those people, those companies, those
27:24
industries for you and you can and it and it is AI back.
27:29
So the more you use it and say, Yep, this is the type of article
27:32
I want or no, it starts to to learn and it gets it gets even
27:36
more relevant. But it will constantly, every
27:39
morning I get an e-mail about like, Hey, here's the rent
27:41
alerts, you know, for all my, for all my contacts.
27:45
And it could be telling me that, hey, this private equity firm
27:47
had a transaction, this person, you know, moved to this company,
27:51
whatever. But it lets me to really have
27:55
timely and accurate messaging to to potential clients.
28:02
And that that's very effective, right?
28:05
And it's it and more so it also lets me know what's going on in
28:09
the industry and with my clients too, right?
28:11
I mean if if they had a major transaction I should know that.
28:16
So this, as you put it before, gives you a reason to be in that
28:22
inbox. There's some news around them.
28:25
Hey, congratulations on this. Hey, I saw something about you.
28:29
This is great. And that helps them remember
28:31
you. Oh, hey, Jason.
28:33
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And, and a lot of times, you
28:37
know, especially for us dealing a lot with private equity
28:40
transactions begat needs, right? Because a lot of times either
28:47
they'll be, they'll, they'll be understaffed or they need to top
28:50
grade. And, and that's when we, we can
28:54
get involved. Or if it's an acquisition, they
28:57
might need help on the integration, which is another
28:59
thing that we do a lot of post merger integration activities.
29:01
So so either way it's it helps me be top of mind and contacting
29:08
them when there might be an actual need.
29:12
That post merger integration that is more handled from your
29:17
own bench, your own team or are you helping to find some folks,
29:22
some you know, some outside folks to to temporarily help
29:26
with that? Yeah, we, we'll find independent
29:28
consultants to help with it. Now we have a that is 1 area
29:33
that we do rely on our network. You know, we could be, we have a
29:37
pretty developed network of consultants that especially for,
29:43
for kind of our high need activities.
29:47
And So what we can usually go to them first and, and if there's
29:51
availability. But I mean, we've, we've also
29:54
found pretty niche stuff. My team's pretty good at at
29:57
finding, you know, some, some pretty weird asks for our
30:03
clients. We've we've found in the past
30:05
that that, that, you know, and that we don't have a network for
30:09
right. And, and so we've had to just go
30:11
find those people. Now when you say pretty good at
30:14
finding a weird ask, that makes me want to see if there's an
30:17
interesting story there. Or is it just weird because it's
30:21
so like hyper focused? It's more because it's hyper
30:24
focused or, or, or sometimes it'll be like, I didn't even
30:28
know that was a job. Like what, what, what, what,
30:31
what, what does this person do again?
30:32
And then they'll, they'll have to explain it and be like, OK,
30:34
we'll, we'll see if we can find it.
30:36
And, and a lot of times we do right.
30:38
I mean it. Like an under Otter basket
30:41
Weaver like. If you ever met, yeah, yeah,
30:44
there was one that that there's one in particular that was
30:48
dealing with like intellectual property, right, with patents,
30:57
but it wasn't a patent attorney they need.
30:59
It was Yeah, it was, it was, it was very, very specific.
31:03
But we were able to find someone for them and, and, and I think
31:07
just two weeks so. Oh wow.
31:10
That's even faster than your super fast average time.
31:13
Well, we, we built the process to support private equity with
31:18
their commercial due diligence, right.
31:20
And usually after they, they, they send an LOI, they have like
31:23
3-4 weeks to, to review things. So like they can't wait three
31:28
weeks for you to find someone because the process is over by
31:32
then, you know, So normally with, with things like that, if
31:35
it, we try to get people to them in a couple days, right, right.
31:40
I mean, usually, usually, yeah, yeah, we want to get them in a
31:43
few days and then have them interview them and like, and so
31:45
we want someone, by the time they kick off with us, we want
31:48
that person starting like five days later, so.
31:52
How would you describe your ideal client?
31:55
I think of things in terms of like geography, size, industry.
31:59
How do you think about it? Yeah.
32:01
I, I this is actually something we're going to be talking with
32:06
our team in, in Manila, Our our ideal client profile.
32:11
I would, I would probably put them into two main buckets.
32:15
One would be on the corporate side, we tend to focus on chief
32:21
strategy officers, chief data analytics officers, heads of
32:28
corporate development, those types of really, really those
32:32
transformation. So those types of strategic
32:36
transformation, corporate development type roles that,
32:39
that, that's where we tend to focus with corporations with
32:43
private equity. And, and that doesn't really
32:47
matter the size. I mean, I've worked with, you
32:50
know, some of the biggest social media companies I've worked
32:52
with, you know, some huge healthcare payers, you know, we,
32:55
we, we're, we're, you know, strategy is strategy and, and
32:59
we're very good at finding those, those people for them.
33:05
The other profile would be middle market private equity
33:10
firms. You know, we've definitely
33:12
worked with some of the big players, KKRTPG Vista, but we're
33:18
we're, we're, we're more focused on private equity that's in the
33:26
middle market, which generally we define as as investing in
33:29
companies that are under a billion dollars in revenue.
33:32
And even then we'll even focus on the lower middle market,
33:36
which would be like under $100 million in revenue.
33:40
So that that tends to be, you know, we're, we're well, we'll
33:43
focus. So we'll look for operating
33:46
partners or just partners at those firms.
33:50
This tend to tend to be who we who we target we for both of
33:56
these roles. We tend to be national just
33:58
focused in the US in terms of our geography.
34:01
Sometimes we'll do Canada, but we don't do a lot in in overseas
34:05
or other places. And when you say those are the
34:08
like the folks at the PE firms that you target, you're
34:11
targeting them as a customer, as a client, not as somebody you
34:16
would place. Correct.
34:17
Yeah, They're, they're who we're targeting as a client.
34:20
They tend to be the decision makers.
34:23
They tend to be the ones that you want to develop the
34:25
relationship with. Not a lot of times they will
34:28
pass us off to, to some of the more junior members like AVP or
34:31
a principal, but, but it's, it's really every PE firm does it a
34:36
little differently and how they tackle talent, you know, and,
34:40
and, and so you just have to kind of find who the person is
34:43
at that firm that you need to, to talk to and, and then build
34:47
that relationship. And the corporations you
34:50
mentioned, one of the roles that you target as a chief strategy
34:53
officer, I know what the word strategy means.
34:57
I understand sort of the C-Suite level, but that's sort of a
35:01
newer role for my brain. Kind of helped me wrap my head
35:04
around what that is. Yeah.
35:06
And you know, it can mean a lot of different things, but
35:09
generally when I, when I the simplest way, especially in
35:14
consulting to, to segregate strategy versus operations, I
35:22
look at strategy more as top line growth, you know, things
35:26
that are going to grow revenues. And that's why a lot of times
35:31
corporate development can fall under there because acquiring a
35:34
business is, is a great way to, to inorganically grow your
35:37
revenue. Whereas operations, I tend to
35:41
look at more cost cutting or operational efficiencies and
35:45
things that are more impacting your bottom line.
35:48
Now that that's not, they're not mutually exclusive that that's,
35:52
that's a pretty simple tide explanation.
35:56
But, but what I find in general is that chief strategy officers
36:01
are responsible for growth. Business development.
36:05
Business development, market entry, product, you know all
36:12
things that are that are, you know, looking to grow the top
36:15
line to grow revenues within a within a business.
36:19
Gotcha. You mentioned earlier on in the
36:22
interview that when you first started you, you were really of
36:25
the mind that you needed to work for one of these big boys in
36:29
order to establish yourself, get some St. cred.
36:32
You no longer think that's the case.
36:34
Why is that? You know, I, I guess when I
36:41
having been inside there and, and, and been outside, I, I
36:44
don't, I don't really know if they do great search work
36:47
anymore, right? I, I think a lot of their, they,
36:50
they rely on their brand now. Like, look, if you need a place,
36:54
a board member or you need to place a, a CEO at a Fortune 10
37:02
company, yeah, you're probably going to want to go to one of
37:04
the, the big boys, right? Because they, they, they have
37:07
that kind of knowledge, but most roles aren't like that, right?
37:10
And, and you know, I, I, I don't think they've adapted
37:14
effectively to the times. I think they're a little bit
37:19
beholden to their partner structure who they don't want to
37:24
change because they're making a lot of money, right?
37:28
And it's just it, you know, they, if you look at how they
37:32
did bit, how they've changed the way they do business.
37:34
And since LinkedIn was hit the market, it's probably not very
37:39
different. You know, their, their business
37:41
model has not changed, right? So it's kind of hard to to, to,
37:49
to continue to retain market share And they and they have
37:52
been losing market share. There's been a few private
37:55
equity back players that have grown pretty significantly, you
37:59
know, true search ZRG that are, that are literally knocking on
38:05
the door of Egonzander in terms of revenues.
38:07
And these companies were, you know, 10 years ago, they were my
38:12
company size, right? I mean, these these weren't big
38:15
companies. And now these they're they're
38:17
they're five hundred $600 million companies.
38:20
So. Does ECA have intent or vision
38:24
or hope to have a similar growth trajectory?
38:26
Do you guys kind of feel comfortable?
38:28
Where you are, Yeah, we're we definitely are.
38:31
We want to grow right, Whether we're going to try to sell the
38:37
business eventually or or whatnot.
38:39
I mean that's, that's, that's the long term.
38:41
I mean, we're, we're, I don't think we're necessarily very
38:44
attractive at the size we are yet, but we're, you know, we've,
38:48
we've grown pretty significantly just this year, which honestly
38:52
it's been a bit of a down market and, and we've, we've hired and
38:57
grown revenues, right. So we're doing something right,
39:01
you know, and, and you know, there, I'm going to be talking
39:04
with my CEO next week about, you know, what our, our growth plan
39:08
is in terms, in terms of hiring and how we're going to support
39:11
that. I mean, it, it's, I, I think
39:13
we've cracked the code to a degree on, on what can make
39:16
someone successful in this industry.
39:18
And I'll tell you, it's not necessarily hiring someone that
39:22
has a background in search, right?
39:25
It's, it's, that's, that's not to say that we don't certainly
39:30
some of our recent new hires that are, have been very
39:33
successful to have a background in search, but it, it's almost
39:39
unrelated, which sounds weird, but, but there's, there's,
39:43
there's a lot of other factors. I think you need some, you know,
39:48
probably one of the biggest thing you weren't, we're not a
39:50
big company that supports like personality tests or things like
39:56
that. But one of the things that we
39:57
really like to do is, is, is look for people that feel more
40:02
in charge of their destiny versus fatalistic.
40:06
And, and, you know, those people also tend to be a little more
40:08
entrepreneurial as well. We, we tend to have more success
40:13
with someone that is scrappy, that has, that has failed even
40:20
even like failed entrepreneurs, you know, those, those can be
40:23
really, really great people that we target and, and, and then
40:29
like, it's, it takes time, right?
40:34
So I don't care how good of a salesperson you are, no one's
40:38
going to come and just like say, Oh yeah, here's 10 CEO searches,
40:42
right? You have to build relationships.
40:45
You have in a Tate, It takes time, years, right?
40:50
I tell people a minimum 2-3 years before you're going to be
40:53
making the, the, the, you know, you're going to be making the
40:56
money that you really want to, right?
40:58
But you got to put your head down.
40:59
You got to do it. And you got to take the calls
41:01
and you got to, you got to learn our processes.
41:04
I mean, there's certainly different ways that that's
41:06
probably another thing that I would mention is, is people that
41:09
are, are open to feedback. You know, we, that's one of our
41:16
values is we, we are a culture of feedback and, and you know,
41:22
we have a way of doing things. We know that there are other
41:25
ways to do it, but this is the way we do it and it's been
41:28
successful for us. And, and, and we expect people
41:31
to kind of embrace that and learn those those methods.
41:35
Let me shift gears on you, Jason.
41:36
I wouldn't be curious to hear about a particular challenge
41:40
that you have overcome either, personal and professional.
41:44
I don't know what it was, how you worked.
41:46
Yeah. Some of the lessons coming out
41:48
the other side. Yeah, probably the biggest
41:50
thing, personal thing that I've dealt with and it will
41:53
personally and professional thing that I've I've I've dealt
41:55
with is, is coming out of the military.
42:00
I had had fairly bad PTSD, right.
42:08
I'd been to combat, I'd lost friends.
42:10
I had, I had seen death and it wasn't.
42:17
And even though I think even back then there was a lot of
42:19
talk about it, it was still a little bit taboo to ask for
42:25
help. It was a little bit like, hey, I
42:30
should be tough enough to deal with this.
42:33
And it, it, it ate at me for a while.
42:36
And, and I, I, I still think there's a bit of a taboo against
42:43
mental health. I mean, you see a lot of the,
42:45
the kickback that happened when Simone Biles dropped out for
42:50
mental health reasons, right? And, and like, so learning to
42:57
accept that, learning to get help, to get counseling, to get
43:01
on medication, to do those things has, has made me just
43:07
like such a better person and, and, and happy and content.
43:15
But it wasn't, you know, because, because now when I have
43:19
that combined with my experiences, you know, I'm a
43:23
very patient leader. Not a lot rattles me.
43:27
It, it, it takes, it takes a lot to, to get me upset.
43:33
And, and that's qualities that I think you want an an executive,
43:39
right? I mean, yeah, a lot of times the
43:42
hot head, you know, makes the Jack Welch type, makes the the
43:46
headlines or whatever. But but you know, if you've read
43:50
good to great, you know, you know that most successful
43:54
executives are not that person, right?
43:58
So, so yeah, that's that's probably the biggest thing that
44:02
I've I've struggled with with PTSD and, you know, I've had a
44:05
lot of soldiers that struggle with it too.
44:07
And, and, and you don't have to see combat to, to deal with it,
44:12
you know, to have PTSD. But I, I, I, I think what you,
44:15
you need to acknowledge it and you need to seek out help
44:19
because it's not something that you're going to be able to, to
44:22
do on your own most likely. Do you feel like you were this
44:27
calm, level headed person before the military experience and then
44:31
you went through the trauma and you had to get back to where you
44:35
were? Or do you think where you are
44:38
now would not have been attainable if you hadn't gone
44:41
through the hardships and had to work your way through them?
44:46
I don't think the hardships really had to do with my ability
44:53
to to deal with stress. And I think I think I kind of
44:56
had that. I certainly think the military
45:01
help me to develop that muscle more to an extent, but I do
45:06
think that the trauma and the depression that came with it
45:12
made me a very angry person and very combative.
45:17
And I lost, I lost friends. I, you know, I pushed people
45:24
away and it wasn't, I was just in a bad place.
45:31
Yeah. So sitting answer your question.
45:35
I, I, I don't necessarily think the two are connected, but
45:41
certainly if you didn't have those skills of being able to
45:44
deal with pressure, being able to deal with like you're
45:47
probably leave the military with them because the military is
45:50
very good at forcing you into those situations for sure.
45:56
Did you find yourself in sort of this dark, depressed state as
46:02
soon as you left the military, or was there some gap before
46:07
things started to kind of turn for you?
46:10
It was when I came back from Iraq.
46:12
So I was still in the military and, and I was still in the
46:16
military when I started to have these issues.
46:20
You know, there was, you know, I was prone to getting into
46:24
fights. I was prone to, you know,
46:27
probably, you know, I was young at the time.
46:30
So a lot of times we would go out drinking, but I I was
46:33
probably drinking too much, you know, and not I mean, you know,
46:37
but was also, I was living in Germany and the beer was really
46:40
good. So hard to but but but yeah,
46:45
that, that happened before I got out of the military.
46:48
But then when I got out of the military, you know, probably a
46:52
lot of the warning signs and stuff weren't people weren't as
46:58
familiar with them, you know, because I wasn't with I, I
47:03
brothers and sisters in arms anymore who probably would have
47:06
recognized some of the signs earlier.
47:09
People probably were just like wise.
47:11
Why is Jason so irritable? You know, why is he, why is he
47:14
so grumpy? You know, I remember we were
47:19
doing a. A recreational league, like
47:28
through work, I had signed us up, I think it was football or
47:31
something, flag football and like about but I got a bunch of
47:33
colleagues from work to do it. And I remember like a bunch of
47:37
them showed up late or something or whatever.
47:38
And I just, I like just blew up on them, right.
47:41
And these are just these are my Co workers.
47:43
These are the people that are out there having fun.
47:44
And I'm sitting there like lecturing them and like, like
47:47
looking back, you know, I, I think, you know, I, I, I kind of
47:54
wish one of them had, had pulled me aside and said, hey, what's
47:56
what's going on? But they probably didn't, you
47:59
know, they weren't familiar with it either.
48:00
They weren't, they weren't sure what was going on.
48:02
So, so, so yeah, it was, it was, it is something that I think is
48:11
still under appreciated, is obviously something that the
48:15
people in the military are still very much struggling with.
48:18
You know, suicides are still a huge issue with, with both in
48:24
the military and with veterans. So, you know, if I'm, if I'm
48:29
given a platform, I'm happy to happy to kind of talk about it
48:32
and, and, and urge people to, to get professional help and.
48:37
For somebody who's listening and thinking, that's me, I don't
48:41
know what to do. I don't know what the first step
48:43
to take. What would you tell them?
48:46
Well, if you're in the, if you're in the military, you're a
48:48
veteran there, there are a lot of resources through the VA and,
48:51
and, and I think, you know, the VA gets a bad rap a lot of times
48:55
and deservingly so. I mean, there were, but, but I,
48:59
I, I think they've done a lot to improve it.
49:02
And I also think that that there's a lot of nonprofits and,
49:06
and hotlines and whatnot that, that can, that can help you talk
49:10
or, or get you in into the right, the right steps.
49:13
But you know, the, the first thing I would say is go to a
49:16
therapist, right? I mean, whether you have health
49:21
insurance or not, you know, there's, there's, there's now
49:24
there's, there's apps like better help that make that make
49:29
it very accessible. You don't even have to leave
49:31
your home. You can do it on on your
49:32
computer, but that, but that would be the first thing.
49:36
Go seek professional help through a therapist.
49:40
Start talking through some of your problems.
49:42
They're going to help to to one, help you with frameworks to deal
49:46
with things, but they're also going to be able to say, Hey, I
49:48
think you need to go talk to a psychiatrist because because you
49:51
might need some medication, right?
49:54
And I think there's a bit of a taboo against that too.
49:58
I mean, admittedly, I kind of have that too, like still right,
50:03
that I wish I wasn't on medication and I wish, you know,
50:06
and my my son, we were talking that he might have ADHD and
50:10
we're very hesitant to medicate him as well.
50:12
So there's, there's even stigmas that that meet with someone that
50:15
has been diagnosed with depression that that still has
50:18
against that. So I know it's not easy, but we
50:22
only got this one life, right? So.
50:24
Let's make the most of it, yeah. Was there a particular moment in
50:28
time that something happened? Was a trigger that said OK I
50:33
finally need to get help with this?
50:37
Was it more of a gradual? Awareness, I think it was more
50:39
of a gradual awareness and just realized that like, I was not
50:43
dealing with things well and, and, and, and that I was
50:47
unhappy. And then I, I actually reached
50:51
out to a friend of mine who was a, who, who is a therapist and
50:57
she was the one that I recommended that I, that I talk
51:00
to someone and get help. And, and I did.
51:02
And I found a great therapist to help me immensely.
51:07
And we couldn't have been more different people, but, but he
51:14
was, he was amazing. He was amazing.
51:16
And, and then, yeah, he sent me to a psychiatrist and, and, and
51:20
so on. So it was, it was beneficial.
51:23
Yeah, I'm really glad that we spent a few minutes to give
51:26
voice to this because I, I think your story is even if you cut
51:31
out the military, part of it is a lot more common than some
51:34
people realize. You know, you, you struggled
51:37
with some really serious things. And as you, you know, pointed
51:41
out, you certainly don't have to have a military background to
51:43
have, you know, some trauma or some things to work through.
51:46
And here you are. You're a person that you work
51:49
through those things. You've got some medication,
51:52
you've got some professional help.
51:54
Wow, what a difference it's made.
51:55
And even still in your mind that there's still that stigma cloud
52:00
that sort of that sort of sits there.
52:01
And for somebody who maybe hasn't made that decision yet
52:05
to, to seek some professional help, imagine how much bigger
52:08
and heavier that stigma cloud is for them.
52:11
Yeah, yeah. I, I, I think a lot of times
52:15
and, and not to generalize, but, but I, in our culture, I think a
52:19
lot of times it can be worse for men, right?
52:21
Because because you're seeing, you know, our culture is 1,
52:27
where you're, you're supposed to be strong, you're supposed to
52:30
be, you know, and this is, this is you admitting that you have
52:33
weaknesses, that you have things that need to be worked on, that,
52:37
that you need help, right? So part of that I think is
52:41
cultural, which I think at least in my lifetime, I've seen a
52:44
shift. I mean, I don't think we're,
52:46
we're there yet, but you've certainly seen a shift where it,
52:48
where it's been more accepted. It's where, where men are
52:51
allowed to be vulnerable, you know, more so than they were.
52:55
I, I still remember when my grandmother passed away and my
53:00
dad had us leave the room because he didn't want us to see
53:03
him cry, right? You know and you know.
53:07
So it's just. When when Now you know if I
53:13
would hope you know some a father of today would be like
53:15
that's actually a really helpful.
53:17
Thing for my son to yeah he he needs to see.
53:20
That that's OK, Yeah. That it's healthy.
53:23
I would. Agree.
53:24
I would agree. How about would he give any call
53:27
outs to maybe some mentors or books or other professional
53:32
experiences that have been helpful in your career or your
53:35
personal growth? Yeah, I mean, I mean, first and
53:42
foremost, ATA Tarki, who's who's the founder of my my VCA, very,
53:50
very smart guy. You know, sometimes you just
53:52
meet people and you're just like, man, that guy's really
53:56
smart. He he's one of those people,
53:59
right? But, but he is, has always
54:02
pushed me, has always given me the, the, the rope to hang
54:07
myself with, so to speak, you know, and, and been supportive
54:11
when I've, when I have made mistakes and, and helped to, to
54:15
kind of coach and mentor me. I've, I've, I've always really
54:17
appreciated, appreciated his, his support.
54:21
Earlier on in my career, I had, I worked at a company called
54:26
Constellation Energy, which I think I mentioned earlier with,
54:28
with, with Phil O'Connor. But my boss there was, was a
54:31
woman by the name of Julie Hextel.
54:34
She was such a great mentor for someone to, to teach people
54:40
business, right? Because like you come out of the
54:43
Army and you know, you're, you're probably way ahead of
54:46
your peers in terms of leadership and, and project
54:51
management and dealing with, you know, competing priorities and
54:56
the, the things that we've touched on, but you're way
54:59
behind and things like sales, customer service, finance,
55:05
right? Just stuff that like you're not
55:07
familiar with. And I had not gotten my MBA yet
55:09
at the time. And she was very, very helpful
55:14
in, in mentoring me and teaching me that.
55:16
And, and, and just, and she was a very good leader, right?
55:20
I mean, I, I was fortunate that I served with some great leaders
55:23
in the military, But you know, she put a lot of them.
55:25
She was, she was up there, you know, she was, she was very
55:29
compassionate. She was very good at reading
55:31
people. She was very good.
55:32
I mean, she was, she's a trained attorney, so that probably
55:34
helped. But but yeah, she was, she was
55:38
great. And if I had to plug a book, my,
55:44
one of my favorites is still, it's an oldie but goodie.
55:49
How to Win Friends and influence people, which I still think is
55:53
one of the best books on leadership out there.
55:56
And I, I take a lot of those lessons with me to, to heart.
56:01
And I actually actively teach it to my children too.
56:04
I remember telling my son the other day, which is, which is
56:07
one of his, his parables from the book with like, Hey, the
56:11
fastest way to get someone to tell it to, to be against you is
56:15
to tell them that they're wrong. Right?
56:18
That that is, that is, that is one of the fastest because he
56:20
was, he was doing that with one of his friends.
56:22
And I'm like, that's not how you're going to convince him to
56:24
come to your side. I'm telling you right now, bud.
56:27
So write that one down. It's a good one.
56:30
Yeah, one more question for you. But before I ask it, what's the
56:34
best way for people to get in touch with you, Jason?
56:37
I mean, I'm obviously very active on LinkedIn, so you can
56:41
just, there's only one other Jason Blondstein that I know of.
56:44
He's a professor at NYU. He's a lot smarter than me.
56:48
So he's, I'm not that guy, but, but yeah, you can, you can find
56:54
me on LinkedIn, Jason Blondstein or my, my e-mail at ECA Partners
56:59
is, is Jay Blondstein at eca-partners.com.
57:05
That's, that's another great way to, to, to get in touch with me.
57:08
I'm I'm fairly responsive. Terrific.
57:10
Last question for you, Jason. Yeah.
57:12
What do you see the changes that are coming to your industry in
57:16
the next couple of years? How do you see things unfolding
57:19
here? That's a great question and I
57:25
don't know if I have a great answer for that right now.
57:28
I think if you would have asked me a year ago, I would have had
57:30
a different answer. I mean, I would have, I
57:32
definitely have seen the, the consolidation that's happening.
57:36
I'm definitely seeing, you know, the trend of these smaller
57:39
companies becoming bigger and bigger.
57:41
I think AI is going to have to become a part of it.
57:44
I just, I just haven't seen a tool yet that's done it
57:47
effectively. But to me that, that could be a
57:51
huge, I mean, if, if you can use AI to source candidate lists,
57:56
like, and something about like even with us, like with someone
57:59
from the Philippines doing it, they spent all day doing that.
58:03
Like if you could, if you could have train AI to do that,
58:07
that's, that's going to be a huge leg up.
58:10
And I, I have not seen a tool like I said, that has done it
58:13
effectively. If anyone knows.
58:15
What you've looked at, you've looked at some and they just
58:17
aren't doing what they. Yeah, they're just, they're just
58:20
not there yet. And, and, but I think it's
58:23
coming. I think it's coming.
58:26
I also think that the industry is going to be, I think similar
58:32
to what you're going to see with private equity.
58:37
You know, we, we had, we had a boom period, right?
58:40
You know, in the during the pandemic and well, the first few
58:42
months of the pandemic, it was everyone thought the world was
58:45
ending, right? But after that, it rebounded
58:48
very fast. And, and especially 2021 was a
58:51
gangbuster year from for a lot of executive search firms,
58:55
right? And you could if if you weren't
58:57
making money then, you know, I'm sorry, you're in the wrong
59:00
industry, you know, but I think the bar to become an executive
59:06
recruiter is pretty low. Yeah.
59:08
You need really a phone and Internet access, right?
59:12
And but I think a lot of those companies that that that were
59:17
growing just because the economy was, I think they're going to go
59:20
by the wayside. And I think there might be a
59:21
little less competition. But I also think we're going to
59:24
still probably be heading into into a period of consolidation.
59:29
So we'll see. We'll see.
59:31
Any chance that ECA Partners looks to do acquisitions on
59:35
their side? We've talked about it.
59:38
I don't think we're at the size that it would make sense yet.
59:41
I mean we've we've talked about possibly getting getting maybe
59:45
two to three times bigger than we are now and looking to do
59:48
that. But, you know, I still remember
59:57
my CFO put up a slide and we were talking about our hiring
1:00:00
and, and, and how, you know, like here's a list of all the
1:00:03
initials of people that we hired from within the industry and
1:00:06
only one of them has worked out and it was JB.
1:00:09
And I'm like, yeah, everyone knows who that is Brad.
1:00:11
Like, like, you know, so we we just don't have as much success
1:00:17
because our, because our process is different, you know, and, and
1:00:20
people have kind of done it the same way.
1:00:22
And and so and so they we don't necessarily have like the same.
1:00:26
The same success it is and so and I, I don't know if that
1:00:29
would change if we acquire a business that does things very
1:00:33
differently right. So it's.
1:00:37
TBD TBD internal growth might be the best way for you guys to go.
1:00:42
Yes, yeah. And and that that's been, that's
1:00:44
been the, that's our plan for now for sure, for sure.
1:00:50
That, that, that'll be 2025 for sure.
1:00:53
OK. For sharing both your time and
1:00:54
your story with us today, I really appreciate it.
1:00:56
No thank you. I I enjoyed the conversation.
1:00:59
Enjoyed. Being on and and thank you for
1:01:00
your time and you know, looking forward to continue the
1:01:05
relationship here likewise, folks.
1:01:08
That's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
1:01:11
Thanks for learning with us today.