Latest / Founder Talk with Alex Sheridan / Founded and sold his business in just 3 years?! With Gary Benedik

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Founded and sold his business in just 3 years?! With Gary Benedik · Founder Talk with Alex Sheridan

• 0:00
  Gary Benedict, founder of Arch Advisory Group.
• 0:03
  But then you obviously had that company acquired by Avenica, the
• 0:07
  company that you're at now, which I think is really cool.
• 0:09
  And then you've got your own, you know, your founder of
• 0:11
  Ungosted. We'll get in some of that stuff
• 0:12
  too. But man, I think the cool thing
• 0:14
  about this is like a lot of founders listening or aspiring
• 0:17
  founders, some people are working at jobs and they want to
• 0:20
  start their own business at some point, like we all did.
• 0:23
  You know, your business was actually acquired in 2023 and
• 0:26
  now you're the CRO for that same company, Avenica, right?
• 0:30
  And we're going to get into the, obviously some of what your
• 0:32
  company's up to what you guys are doing.
• 0:33
  But I think my first question is this is how do you get your
• 0:36
  business in a position where someone wants to buy it in the
• 0:40
  first place or have it be acquired?
• 0:43
  Yeah. I mean, so it's, that's an
• 0:45
  interesting question 'cause my response is, is different now
• 0:49
  than when I actually was running Arch advisory.
• 0:51
  Interesting. OK.
• 0:52
  And let me tell you why. So when I the reason I started
• 0:56
  Arch Advisory was based on an event that happened.
• 0:59
  I wasn't planning on starting my own business.
• 1:02
  And for the record, it was a search firm, right?
• 1:04
  You know, it was actually, it was like an AI driven
• 1:06
  marketplace called Scout Exchange.
• 1:08
  It was acquired June of 2020. Oh, so we're going back farther?
• 1:13
  We're going back, right? So that's kind of the reason why
• 1:15
  Arch was born. And at that time we were dealing
• 1:18
  with this thing called COVID. I lived in a. 12 hour square
• 1:20
  foot apartment city. Right.
• 1:22
  My wife had not gone back to work yet and my son was 1 1/2.
• 1:25
  And so I was like, you know what, I'm gonna try to make some
• 1:27
  cash until the world normalizes where I can go out and find
• 1:30
  another role like mine. And then that was kind of it,
• 1:33
  right? So I didn't plan to start my own
• 1:35
  business and sell it. I just plan to continue to
• 1:38
  support my family in any way that I could in an authentic and
• 1:41
  transparent way. And I've been in search my whole
• 1:44
  career. So I figured, you know what, why
• 1:46
  not reach out to my network, see where I can be of assistance,
• 1:49
  And then just started to build some kind of consulting and
• 1:52
  business that way. Fast forward, I wish I would
• 1:56
  have had the same mindset now than I did back then.
• 1:59
  And what I mean is like, I wasn't, I didn't have a strategy
• 2:01
  to exit. My goal was to continue to build
• 2:05
  and the business that I sold was called Arch Advisory Group after
• 2:09
  my son, right. So the the goal, the exit, was
• 2:12
  to hand it off to Archer and well.
• 2:15
  That's your son. That's my son, yeah, he's 6 now,
• 2:17
  so you know. After that funny cartoon.
• 2:21
  No, everyone asked. I also lived on Archer Ave. in
• 2:23
  the South. So but no, it was just you know,
• 2:26
  you know, wife had pool and she chose Archer.
• 2:28
  But it's cool. So the, I didn't have a vision
• 2:31
  to sell Arch Advisory Group, right?
• 2:33
  I was running that business for a few years and I just bumped
• 2:36
  into somebody digitally kind of that I used to work with at
• 2:39
  Manpowergroup. And they had a kind of an
• 2:42
  adjacent business, but they focus on entry level and they
• 2:44
  leverage a bunch of data and science that I'll get into.
• 2:47
  And we started doing work as in like Revshare.
• 2:50
  So we were just like channel partners, right?
• 2:52
  And so we were like, oh man, this is working.
• 2:54
  And then all of a sudden, you just pop the question, Would you
• 2:58
  be interested in entering a conversation about us acquiring
• 3:01
  you? Interesting.
• 3:02
  And I was like, oh, shit. I was like, I mean, I'll enter
• 3:05
  it, you know, but I'm not really interested.
• 3:07
  I mean, it's named after my son. And I have this whole plan.
• 3:10
  So, you know, that that took several weeks and then several
• 3:13
  weeks of diligence. And I decided to pull the
• 3:15
  trigger for many reasons that I can, I can get into later.
• 3:18
  But I didn't really have a plan to exit Arch Advisory Group.
• 3:22
  It just kind of fell in this in, in, in that order.
• 3:24
  Yeah, it's. Funny, I've heard a few
• 3:26
  different stories from founders that is very similar where they
• 3:29
  were working with the partner company, it was a customer of
• 3:32
  theirs in some cases like and then that company decides, you
• 3:35
  know what, we could buy this company or acquire this company
• 3:37
  and that would be a whole arm of our business.
• 3:39
  Yeah, versus starting it off. Yeah, because we're growing at
• 3:41
  100% year over year. Really.
• 3:43
  Right top line? What was?
• 3:44
  The core product or service like like.
• 3:46
  Staffing. But did it was direct placement
• 3:48
  direct hire? Direct hire Do you have?
• 3:50
  A lot of recurring like repeat customers.
• 3:52
  Because we had some like EOR like payroll business that, that
• 3:56
  kind of was reoccurring, which increased, you know the value in
• 4:00
  the market. But we did a lot of direct hire
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  upstream through executive. So we would get like those, you
• 4:04
  know, those big fees that would help me invest back into the
• 4:09
  business, right. So there wasn't like, again, I
• 4:12
  wasn't positioning it to sale. I was positioning it just to
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  kind of like bring in as much cash and invest it back in the
• 4:18
  business and continue to grow on that model, right?
• 4:20
  But what do you think it was about your business that made it
• 4:23
  sellable or acquireable? I think it's, it's like touching
• 4:28
  Scott, who's the CEO of Venica now at the right time.
• 4:31
  Like he had a need and I was kind of, I fit that need at that
• 4:36
  time. And what does that company,
• 4:37
  we're going to get into more, but Evanica, maybe a brief
• 4:39
  description of what they do. Yeah.
• 4:40
  So Evanica, we're we're hyper focused on like early career
• 4:43
  entry level roles in bulk. So not even entry level, but
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  like, you know that zero to seven early careerist role where
• 4:49
  there's high volume, same skill set, multi incumbent, right.
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  So like companies that hire the same type of people, sales,
• 4:55
  distribution, warehouse, logistics, truck drivers where
• 5:01
  they need the same skill set but they have trouble finding that
• 5:04
  person. So is it retainment kind of like
• 5:06
  monthly retainer? No.
• 5:08
  Well, we have three different ways that we monetize the
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  service. We do month to month.
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  We do contractor direct and we do direct hire.
• 5:13
  Beautiful. Yeah.
• 5:14
  And your previous business is now the direct hire arm, is that
• 5:17
  right or added to it at least? Correct.
• 5:19
  It's a division of right? So Arch is now a division of
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  Aventica and that does the direct hire up through executive
• 5:24
  level search. Were they not doing any direct
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  hire before or just minimal? They were, but like again, that
• 5:29
  early career got it so they weren't doing anything in the
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  CC. And they saw the yeah, they saw
• 5:32
  an opportunity. But again, the timing, right?
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  So like they were looking to build their business and they
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  needed like chunks of gross profit on the bottom to invest
• 5:41
  in the business. And that's what direct hire
• 5:42
  brought, right? So you fill ACFO search, you
• 5:44
  have that, then you just say, OK, we need to invest that in
• 5:47
  tech or people or process to help build out the kind of the
• 5:51
  Trojan horse, which is the amp model AMP which is like early
• 5:55
  career. That's the month over month
• 5:56
  early reoccurring revenue model at America.
• 5:59
  Wow. And I.
• 6:00
  Don't know if you'd be comfortable saying, but was it 6
• 6:02
  figure 7 figure business? You don't have to say if you
• 6:04
  don't want arch Yeah, your. Arch was, yeah, it was.
• 6:06
  When I sold it was 7 figures. Wow.
• 6:08
  Yeah, it's incredible, man. Yeah, cool.
• 6:10
  I know and that, you know, it was, that's why it was tough,
• 6:12
  right? It was like, you know, like I'm
• 6:14
  doing good, man. Did you have recruiters or like
• 6:16
  people? Yeah, I had a team of four.
• 6:17
  W2 or 1099 or. Everybody was 1099, Yeah.
• 6:21
  So that was another. Let's talk nerd on about this
• 6:25
  stuff. Dude.
• 6:25
  Just learn about how businesses are run, structured, how they
• 6:28
  sell like it's. Yeah, and it's again, I didn't
• 6:31
  make any decisions to have my folks being 10 and 9 for any
• 6:34
  reason, but to like I paid them handsomely to retain them
• 6:38
  because they were great people, right?
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  They could have got full time jobs somewhere else, but they,
• 6:42
  you know, they cared about cash and money and making Commission
• 6:47
  and having access to to, you know.
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  You fill somebody, you fill a role, you're going to get a
• 6:53
  percentage of that that role, and they could do whatever they
• 6:56
  want to do on the side if they want to.
• 6:57
  But yeah, it's funny, man, That's cool.
• 6:59
  Anybody can do recruiting if you got the right mindset and
• 7:01
  there's some skill set obviously to it, but to people,
• 7:04
  relationship, business, what you know, I think about that for our
• 7:07
  business because we do, we help companies build their own in
• 7:10
  house content teams. So there's a lot of strategy,
• 7:13
  coaching, training, you know, development of people.
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  And so instead of having to hire a marketing agency to do all
• 7:19
  your content, we come in and say, we're going to show you how
• 7:21
  to do this yourself better, faster and over the long term,
• 7:23
  probably more affordable. But I, I look at marketing
• 7:26
  agencies and we've already started to get hit up by some
• 7:28
  people that do acquisitions and they're saying this is a hot
• 7:31
  market because a lot of these agencies, that old model isn't
• 7:34
  working as well anymore because you have AI now, you have like,
• 7:37
  you could set up your own podcast booth, like you can do
• 7:39
  all of your own marketing now. So you don't need a marketing
• 7:42
  agency, right? And so that old model is dying.
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  And what people are companies are starting to figure out is
• 7:47
  like, we'll just bring it in house and do it.
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  We'll have our own podcast studio.
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  We'll have an editor in the Philippines.
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  We'll have AI write some of the copy with assistance, right?
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  And so I look at these marketing agencies and I think there's
• 7:57
  going to be a lot more opportunities where they say
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  we're not, we're not doing this model, but this is a model that
• 8:02
  could potentially like put us out of business, if not a
• 8:04
  minimum. It's a new revenue stream that
• 8:06
  we should have for our business. Why don't we just acquire you
• 8:09
  guys? Amen.
• 8:10
  Amen. I mean like.
• 8:11
  That's kind of the fit. But then to your point, it's the
• 8:13
  timing and it's the relationships is what I heard.
• 8:15
  Yeah. For the acquisition of me
• 8:17
  selling Arch to Aventica, a lot of it was timing, right.
• 8:20
  And then it was a fit, like culture fit, right?
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  Like it took a lot for me to and I need to make sure like I, I
• 8:25
  mean, I referenced their customers, people that I knew
• 8:28
  that knew the CEO, like I, I mean, I did a lot of backdoor
• 8:32
  referencing. So it was, it was the right
• 8:34
  thing. I mean, it wasn't like I made
• 8:37
  shit ton of money in the transactions.
• 8:39
  Like like it wasn't like life changing, but I.
• 8:40
  Was gonna ask you about that. Yeah, but we had a plan, right?
• 8:43
  So we're like, OK, we're gonna acquire Arch.
• 8:46
  Here's the plan. We're gonna kind of change the
• 8:48
  way we go to market. We're gonna RIP this current
• 8:49
  company down to the studs, right?
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  Get the right people, get the right process like our go to
• 8:54
  market talk track and we're going to just just go balls to
• 8:58
  the wall. And that's what we've been doing
• 8:59
  for the last year and a half and we've, you know, we have more
• 9:02
  demand that we could support. That's incredible, which is
• 9:04
  great. So what now we are having
• 9:06
  conversations with other acquisition parties to help us
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  kind of infuse a large seed into the business so that we can like
• 9:14
  kind of go from zero to hero, right?
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  Because we've been, you know, we've proven we can do what we
• 9:18
  can do with the, the team that we have, But we've been really
• 9:21
  like, you know, lean just like any startup, you know, gorilla
• 9:24
  style, just, you know, grunting it out.
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  When you sold your company, did they give you a certain
• 9:31
  multiple, a multiple of the revenue that you were doing?
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  Was it there? I'm sure there are other factors
• 9:36
  involved like and you have to give the exact number obviously,
• 9:38
  but I'm just curious how did they like say, OK, this is what
• 9:41
  your business is worth, this is what we're going to acquire it
• 9:43
  for? Yeah.
• 9:44
  So there there was a value to my business.
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  But the way that we structured the deal, I did not get any
• 9:49
  equity in Evanica and I'll tell you why, but there was a cash
• 9:53
  payment upfront for the basically the transfer of
• 9:55
  assets, right, right. And we had like all that
• 9:58
  reoccurring revenue and. Customers, yeah.
• 10:00
  So like and I had future AR coming in sure receivable.
• 10:04
  So I wanted all that upfront. Sure, right.
• 10:07
  And then. $1 billion. Yeah.
• 10:09
  So like throw another zero in here.
• 10:12
  Yeah, Yeah. But then so the, the L tip or
• 10:16
  the long term incentive for me with Avenica is based on the
• 10:18
  gross profit of the business, not necessarily a chunk of
• 10:21
  equity where I would get a percentage of the payout, right.
• 10:24
  So like which motivated me more to help grow the business from a
• 10:28
  gross profit perspective. And then when we when we exit, I
• 10:32
  get a a, a percentage of the total gross profit of the
• 10:36
  business when we exit. OK, so it was, it was a weird
• 10:39
  deal. Structure not kind.
• 10:41
  Of like having equity though, right?
• 10:42
  It's it is, but it's not. I didn't have to dilute anybody,
• 10:45
  right. So like, you know, there was no
• 10:46
  there's. Going to be a cut when they sell
• 10:48
  it. Correct.
• 10:48
  There is no friction or disruption with the current cap
• 10:50
  table. It was like, OK, your, your L
• 10:53
  tip is going to be based on like the cash flow of the business.
• 10:56
  Do you think that's so? What's the timeline on that
• 10:59
  then? It's happening, right?
• 11:00
  I mean, we're, we're in. Months away, years away.
• 11:02
  I mean, hopefully by the end of next month we have a new.
• 11:06
  And so then you'll make your kind of exit, right?
• 11:08
  Yeah, but I'm sticking around. OK.
• 11:10
  Yeah, OK, cool. But you'll get the payout, yes.
• 11:12
  Will that be more significant than what you got on the front?
• 11:15
  End. Yeah, it should be.
• 11:16
  Wow, Good for you, man. That's awesome.
• 11:18
  Yeah. Yeah, that's, yeah.
• 11:19
  I mean, but like, you know, it was, it's, you know, it was, it
• 11:22
  didn't come just out of left field, right.
• 11:24
  So. But you did it in three years,
• 11:25
  dude, right? Yeah.
• 11:26
  Well, yes, I get technically I started my own business in 20.
• 11:31
  So I'm at this second stage, right?
• 11:33
  You know, five years later. But 2020 you start the business.
• 11:35
  Yep, 2023 so it gets acquired. Yep.
• 11:39
  I think that's a lot of founders dreams right there you.
• 11:42
  Know, and I think, you know, a lot of founders that were in
• 11:44
  that same predicament are either like, you know what, I'm gonna
• 11:46
  keep rolling, I'm going to keep going.
• 11:49
  It's like when the stocks like your stocks high, you know your
• 11:51
  portfolio is high and you're like, do I sell it or do I while
• 11:54
  it's high or do I keep this baby rolling?
• 11:55
  Yep. Because even when I was far in
• 11:58
  diligence with Aventica, I reached out to some of my other
• 12:00
  buddies in the market and I'm like, hey, this is what I got
• 12:02
  going on. They're like, dude, you can get
• 12:03
  a lot more. Yeah.
• 12:04
  And. I'm like, what made you want to
• 12:06
  sell it? Then?
• 12:06
  Why not just say I'm going to ride this out for a couple of
• 12:08
  years and then I can sell it for even more because it'd be worth
• 12:10
  more? Yeah, because of the fit and the
• 12:12
  timing of Aventica and where were they, where they were at,
• 12:15
  Like they needed arch advisory. And I see what's going on at
• 12:19
  Venica and I've obviously I've seen it over the year and a
• 12:22
  half. Like I'm passionate about what
• 12:24
  they were selling. And I saw so many like
• 12:27
  opportunities that to replicate that in different verticals,
• 12:29
  different markets. So it was almost like, you know,
• 12:31
  kidding in a candy store. It's like, Hey, you're going to
• 12:34
  come in, you're the chief revenue officer, you're going to
• 12:35
  kind of be able to control the, the not necessarily the destiny
• 12:38
  of the company, but like how we go to market, how we acquire new
• 12:41
  customers, what we're selling, how we deliver.
• 12:43
  And it also gave me a bigger seat at the table, right?
• 12:45
  So like when I was talking to my customers, they were like,
• 12:48
  you're the go to person when we need a direct hire search.
• 12:51
  If we need ACFO download marketing manager engineering,
• 12:55
  you're our, you're our firm. Now we have that.
• 12:58
  And now I can have a conversation with ACR to say
• 13:00
  like, where's some other pain points within your organization?
• 13:03
  You having trouble hiring 120 claims reps every month at a
• 13:07
  large insurance carrier? We can now support that.
• 13:09
  We Gary, not arch, right? So it also allowed me to expand
• 13:13
  my offerings totally and just have a a much wider seat at the
• 13:17
  table with our customers. What do you think was the
• 13:19
  biggest mistake that you made as you went to go and sell your
• 13:22
  business, have it acquired when then what would you tell
• 13:25
  founders in this situation that are maybe going through the
• 13:27
  process or want to in the in the future?
• 13:29
  Certainly there had to been something you look back on.
• 13:31
  You're like, not that you have any regrets necessarily, because
• 13:33
  it all happened for a good reason and it's playing out
• 13:35
  fine. But if you look back and you'd
• 13:37
  give advice to somebody else, another founder, you'd say, hey,
• 13:39
  before you sell your business, make sure you think about this.
• 13:42
  Yeah, shit. I mean, I don't want to like,
• 13:46
  you know, glass half empty this, right?
• 13:48
  But I think I could have done a much better investigation of the
• 13:53
  PE firm that currently owns Evanica.
• 13:55
  And like, you know, they're kind of their thesis and what they're
• 13:58
  focused on. And, you know, have they been
• 13:59
  operators of businesses or have they just been kind of running
• 14:01
  spreadsheets their whole life? Are they investment bankers
• 14:04
  Right? What makes you say that?
• 14:07
  Just because there's there's a not a conflict of interest, but
• 14:10
  you know, if you are an operator of a business, you see things
• 14:13
  differently than if you're an investment banker your life,
• 14:15
  right. So I feel like that's you're a.
• 14:17
  Practitioner of the business, right?
• 14:19
  Yeah. Right.
• 14:19
  So like, you know, they, they have their, they're good at what
• 14:22
  they do and I understand why, but it doesn't, it doesn't
• 14:26
  correlate with the with the, with how we're good at what we
• 14:29
  do, right. So that that's like sometimes
• 14:32
  what do you think about like white knuckling kind of like,
• 14:34
  you know, going to bad for more resources or cash or, you know,
• 14:39
  it's they have they have their agenda.
• 14:42
  We have ours. So not saying they're bad dudes
• 14:45
  and and a bad, you know, group, but.
• 14:48
  There's just more, there's more, you know, there's political
• 14:51
  landscape, there's more stakeholders.
• 14:53
  Some people have used. I don't know if this is a good
• 14:54
  investment. You're like, this is a good
• 14:56
  investment. And then maybe you're like, this
• 14:57
  isn't, but they're like, this is and so.
• 14:59
  Yeah. So like now when this scenario
• 15:01
  like I'm going out to New York next week, I'm sitting down with
• 15:04
  that the new growth equity firm that you know is interested in
• 15:06
  buying us and I have a whole slew of questions.
• 15:08
  Yeah, you're ready now. You know, so like I've gone
• 15:10
  through it and where I'm like, shit, I should have asked.
• 15:12
  Now I can that's. The beautiful part about going
• 15:14
  through an experience and learning as you now go and
• 15:17
  sometimes you, you need to make mistakes and go through
• 15:18
  challenges because those are the biggest aha moments.
• 15:21
  Even though it's played out for you, it's like the mistakes that
• 15:23
  you do make you now go back and man that I'm not doing that
• 15:25
  again. I'm going to ask this question
• 15:26
  next time. I'm going to challenge this next
• 15:28
  time I'm going to, you know. It's like the definition of
• 15:30
  insanity, isn't it? And doing the same thing.
• 15:32
  Oh, yeah. If you didn't do that, you'd
• 15:34
  technically be insane. Just doing the same shit over
• 15:36
  and over again. Yeah.
• 15:38
  What? Was it weird going back?
• 15:40
  And I guess maybe not because you you were kind of working for
• 15:43
  a company before, but was it weird making the transition from
• 15:46
  founder to employee again? Yeah, because that would be
• 15:49
  weird for me. Yeah, it was.
• 15:52
  Absolutely was. What was the weirdest, or maybe
• 15:54
  the thing you didn't like the most?
• 15:55
  Like, what was the thing that stood out to you as you made
• 15:56
  that transition? Yeah.
• 16:00
  Well, again, glass half full here, right.
• 16:04
  So you know, you just have your, your your scope of control
• 16:07
  lessons, right? Like, so the way that I ran my
• 16:10
  business is, is different than the way that Scott runs a Venica
• 16:13
  and Scott's a good buddy of mine.
• 16:14
  He's a PhD data scientist. I mean, he's a smartest dude
• 16:17
  I've ever worked with and we drive so well, right?
• 16:21
  But he he think he prioritizes things where I'm just more like,
• 16:25
  if it works, it works. I'm not fail fast and kind of
• 16:27
  keep going right where he's just like, you know, he's methodical
• 16:30
  and he models everything and he understands like what ripple
• 16:34
  effects that will have especially like to the PE firm.
• 16:37
  Did he found that business or no?
• 16:38
  OK, no. Got it.
• 16:41
  So there's a little bit of just, you know, when you have your own
• 16:43
  business, you can literally do anything that you want and you
• 16:45
  can make the decision right now and you can make the change in
• 16:48
  the next second. Yep, correct, regardless of what
• 16:51
  line item that hits in the Pianola, right?
• 16:53
  Like because you're looking the one.
• 16:54
  There's revenue, there's profit, there's EBIT rate like, so you
• 16:57
  know, now I need to be more focused on those two bottom line
• 17:00
  items, right? When you run your own business,
• 17:03
  I was focused on top line, you know what I mean?
• 17:06
  I wasn't always focused on like the the net profit of the
• 17:10
  business. Sure.
• 17:11
  And it's easier to, I think it's easier to look at in the books
• 17:13
  because you've got, you know, a few people working with you.
• 17:15
  It's you running the show. It's easier to kind of look at
• 17:17
  and say, I'm doing fine if I know if I bring in revenue, I've
• 17:20
  got my expenses, payroll, but other than that, I'm good.
• 17:22
  When you've got a bigger company and you got more people,
• 17:24
  infrastructure overhead, you really got to pay attention to
• 17:27
  that because it can all of a sudden, oh shit, we're not even
• 17:28
  profitable. Yep, right.
• 17:30
  Yeah. Well, what was some of what was
• 17:31
  the biggest like positive moment that you're like, man, this is
• 17:34
  nice not having to to run the company anymore as a founder.
• 17:39
  Yeah, I mean, great question. I think it's like the people,
• 17:41
  it's fine. Not saying the people at Arch
• 17:42
  weren't weren't great, but you know, it's it's nice to be in a
• 17:47
  group, especially like our senior management team.
• 17:49
  I mean, they are just rock stars that work for me.
• 17:52
  And like, we're, you know, we'll ride or die together.
• 17:54
  Yeah, that's cool. So that is like, that's a great
• 17:57
  feeling to be back in that kind of like corporate environment.
• 17:59
  Yeah. Whereas like you're like the big
• 18:01
  fish and like you really have nobody to kind of like push back
• 18:05
  or now it's it's a group of folks that are, you know, just
• 18:09
  badasses, you know, and how. Did it feel not having all the
• 18:12
  pressure, responsibility that you would as a founder now being
• 18:16
  an employee, Like was that good, indifferent, bad?
• 18:19
  Was it a relief? Was it?
• 18:21
  It's, I mean, it's there's still the same pressure, but you know,
• 18:25
  when you're running your own biz, every day is 100%
• 18:27
  commissioned. Yeah, you're always you.
• 18:29
  Just have to do so many different functions.
• 18:31
  Right. You know this, right?
• 18:32
  Like so you're always like making sure your pipeline you
• 18:35
  have, you know? Marketing sales you.
• 18:38
  Know we're here. It's like, you know, it's, it's
• 18:42
  pressure to run the business to keep up with the plan of
• 18:45
  exiting, right? But it's not like, you know, the
• 18:49
  risk isn't on Gary Benedict and my wife and my family and, you
• 18:52
  know, so still pressure, but it's kind of hits.
• 18:56
  It doesn't hit the personal life as much, if that makes sense.
• 19:01
  So Evanica, let's talk a little bit about that.
• 19:03
  You got it. Where are you guys going right
• 19:04
  now and what's what's exciting for you guys?
• 19:06
  I mean, you talked a little bit about what you guys do, but I'd
• 19:09
  love to hear a little bit more about it.
• 19:10
  Yeah, let me say, let me. So Evanica was, so they hired
• 19:13
  Scott in 2019. Scott was, he ran digital
• 19:16
  transformation for Manpowergroup.
• 19:17
  I mean, he was kind of like in the.
• 19:20
  That's where you met him, right? That's where I met him
• 19:22
  originally. Yeah, in the SLT, like he was
• 19:24
  kind of in the group of young leaders to take over the CEO
• 19:26
  spot of Manpowergroup and he was hired to to take over this
• 19:31
  company called Grad Staff. Grad Staff was an entry level
• 19:34
  service based staffing firm that would just college grads boom
• 19:37
  into big corporations. That entity was around for about
• 19:39
  10 years, hired Scott in 2019, COVID hit in 2020.
• 19:45
  He was able to kind of like slow down and do this huge project
• 19:48
  and really understand why these folks were placed at all these
• 19:52
  organizations and then really understand who's still there and
• 19:56
  who got promoted. It's.
• 19:57
  A data scientist and I'm. Just and then what?
• 20:00
  I love that, yeah. Exactly.
• 20:01
  So then he reverse engineered all that information and went
• 20:04
  through millions of line items. Wow, that's incredible.
• 20:07
  And then what he did is he built this assessment called Halo.
• 20:10
  OK, HAALL. And what he what the reason
• 20:13
  behind Halo is he always thinks there's like this Halo of data
• 20:15
  following everybody, right? Yeah, true.
• 20:17
  And so now we're we're and this has been commercial for five
• 20:20
  years. So now Halo has 22 personas.
• 20:24
  So you can pop into the database, Alex, take this
• 20:26
  assessment, which takes like 5 minutes.
• 20:27
  It spits out a persona and then we have attributes about you.
• 20:31
  And then what we've been doing is mapping those to job
• 20:34
  categories, right? So now we have 5 years of each
• 20:38
  persona in a job category or subcategory.
• 20:40
  So we can almost predict success.
• 20:42
  What's interesting dude, is we are unlocking potential.
• 20:46
  And I'm not to be cheesy here, but like my undergrads in
• 20:48
  engineering, I was a recruiter. Like it almost like if I took
• 20:51
  this 20 years ago when I graduated college, they would
• 20:54
  have been like, hey, the university is telling you to be
• 20:56
  an engineer, justify the cost of, you know, you had an
• 20:58
  internship. But this data shows that you'll
• 21:01
  be a way better recruiter. And here's the steps of of, you
• 21:04
  know, of a career path. So what we do is we assess
• 21:07
  hundreds of people coming in every day.
• 21:09
  They go through this kind of experience, these micro
• 21:11
  experiences. And all of a sudden they're
• 21:13
  like, hey, my undergrads in journalism, I'm actually going
• 21:15
  to be a great insurance claims Rep.
• 21:18
  And here's why. And we have data to prove that.
• 21:21
  So we use a lot of empathy, but we also use a lot of data and
• 21:23
  science to say like, well, maybe your peer network and your
• 21:27
  buddies and your professors say you should do X.
• 21:33
  You should actually do why. And here's and here's.
• 21:35
  And by the way, we just happen to have those jobs.
• 21:38
  What if you're programmed to be an entrepreneur?
• 21:40
  Would I tell you that? Well, yeah, Would.
• 21:42
  It the entrepreneur is one of the personas.
• 21:44
  OK. Is it, as I mentioned, it sounds
• 21:46
  like a better version of like a the personality assessment type
• 21:49
  thing? Yeah.
• 21:50
  And all that stuff like it's a better version of that, but
• 21:52
  ultimately you're answering questions.
• 21:54
  You're answering questions, but it's built off of existing
• 21:56
  placement data. Sure, Right, right.
• 21:57
  So it's validated, right. And then what we do is we also
• 22:00
  assess the hiring team, right? So then not only are we
• 22:04
  understanding their corks and their and what they think this
• 22:07
  person should do, and then also the culture, we overlap those
• 22:10
  results, right? So when we're submitting
• 22:12
  candidates, we don't even care about resumes.
• 22:14
  We call interviewing theater. It's like, screw that.
• 22:18
  Like people could be great interviewers.
• 22:20
  Oh, totally terrible performers. Totally.
• 22:22
  They could be terrible interviewers and great
• 22:23
  performers. I.
• 22:24
  Want to ask you something on that.
• 22:25
  Sure. How do you gauge in the
• 22:27
  interview if an employee is going to be a high performance
• 22:31
  character, if they're going to have high performance character?
• 22:34
  Because that's, and I don't know if you guys screen for that or
• 22:36
  if it's part of it or not, but that's one thing that I always
• 22:38
  think about is I'm looking for a drive for results.
• 22:40
  You know that, you know this, there's a difference, especially
• 22:42
  in recruiting, there's a difference between checking the
• 22:44
  box and doing activities. Yep.
• 22:46
  Then there is getting results. And like, how do I get to the
• 22:49
  result of this? Like I don't care about the
• 22:51
  noise and the shit. Like I need a signal.
• 22:52
  I need like the thing that's gonna get done and move the
• 22:55
  needle and grow the business or impact the team or whatever it
• 22:58
  is. Have you found in your
• 22:59
  recruiting background or in these assessments in Halo, Is
• 23:03
  there a way to screen out for someone that's very performance
• 23:05
  driven or not? Yeah, but you're screening out
• 23:07
  against something that going to be entering, right.
• 23:09
  So there needs to be some sort of like, you know, what are you
• 23:11
  screening out against? So it can't just be like in the
• 23:14
  ether. What am I, you know, so there
• 23:15
  there needs to be some sort of control.
• 23:17
  So like, let me give you an example.
• 23:18
  Like we, you know, we that's an attribute, right?
• 23:20
  Like hard working is an attribute, you know, can I run
• 23:23
  an excel sheet? That's a skill, right?
• 23:25
  So we do like, you know, culture, function position
• 23:28
  culture. Do they have the right
• 23:29
  attributes aligned to where you're going, what company
• 23:32
  you're working for and what team you're going to be joining?
• 23:35
  Is that could you do the funk? Like are you going to enter the
• 23:37
  HR, right? Like, you know, you've done HR
• 23:40
  and retail, but can you do HR and logistics and then you know
• 23:44
  the actual position? Can you, you know, can you run
• 23:46
  the tools or platforms that this company has, right?
• 23:49
  So we're hyper focused on like quantifying the attribute as it
• 23:53
  relates to where you're going, right?
• 23:55
  So like for example, like if we have if I was like a hard worker
• 23:58
  and I scored like an 83% on hard working.
• 24:03
  Some companies don't care about hard workers.
• 24:06
  So they don't. Well, I'm just saying like, you
• 24:08
  know, like or like. That's a bad example, but like,
• 24:10
  you know, like. I see what you're.
• 24:11
  Saying like, you know, being able to to manage multiple
• 24:14
  resources, you know, or like different, you know, being
• 24:18
  resourceful, that might not be a big attribute for the job.
• 24:21
  Right, right. You maybe just have to do this,
• 24:23
  then this and this and this, and like, you don't have to go solve
• 24:25
  a problem or think of something on your own, right?
• 24:27
  Yeah. And other jobs.
• 24:28
  That's critical. Correct.
• 24:30
  Yeah. So we have thousands of like
• 24:32
  what we call them levels. So we do Halo, which is a level,
• 24:35
  and then we put the candidates through these like stages or
• 24:38
  what we call levels that assess attributes.
• 24:41
  And we also assess skills like we have a client where we have
• 24:45
  an insurance carrier. So we'll have like a, an AI bot
• 24:48
  call in and be like, I just blew my tire out on the side of the
• 24:51
  highway. And we and we, we listen to the
• 24:54
  candidate respond and how resourceful they are.
• 24:57
  How can they can navigate pages, how they find like the, the
• 25:00
  contract. We also look for like empathy,
• 25:02
  but we also kind of look for, you know, are they, is that
• 25:05
  member trying to game the system?
• 25:06
  Did they really blow out their tire right And then we so.
• 25:09
  How? Wait what?
• 25:10
  What process is this done? Like the interview process or
• 25:12
  screen. Before we even submit that
• 25:14
  talent to the to the. Wow.
• 25:15
  So how, but how did how would a call like that happen?
• 25:17
  They would just get a call. Would they?
• 25:18
  Would they would know it's a call?
• 25:20
  AI, like the agents would call into an applicant that's coming
• 25:23
  through our process. But they would they know that
• 25:24
  hey, you're going to be getting a call from an AI agent, they're
• 25:26
  going to run a scenario by you, correct We're.
• 25:28
  We're transparent about the candidate experience.
• 25:30
  That's cool. So then we could score that.
• 25:32
  You know, we also have an automotive group.
• 25:34
  So we, we have like, you know, a fake, you know, customer comment
• 25:39
  and say, like, I need red, I want a backup camera.
• 25:42
  I care about a Bowen roof. And then we actually have the
• 25:45
  assessment say, like, can you kind of go over what this
• 25:48
  customer wants, right? So like then it's like attention
• 25:51
  to detail. Can they comprehend what the
• 25:52
  customer wanted? And then we have AI actually
• 25:55
  kind of monitor all this. So they're not like looking away
• 25:57
  or finding answers, right? And then that's one input into
• 26:01
  the decision if they want to hire that person.
• 26:03
  Wow, that's so good because you're kind of putting them in
• 26:05
  it into situations and the jobs before they get there.
• 26:08
  Yeah, because the behavioral based question, like some people
• 26:11
  are just good at interviews, right?
• 26:12
  They're like, oh, I did this and this did you though?
• 26:14
  Like you have that video, whatever you're made-up or
• 26:16
  whatever, but this is like you're getting a call and you I
• 26:19
  will be able to tell if you're resourceful or if your attention
• 26:21
  to detail because it depends on how you work through that
• 26:24
  conversation. Right off the top.
• 26:25
  Yep. Yeah, that's good.
• 26:27
  And we try to remove the bias, right?
• 26:28
  Like, you know, we all hired people that we liked, went to
• 26:31
  the same college, we like sports.
• 26:32
  We can bro it out but they might not be the best person for the
• 26:35
  job. Right.
• 26:37
  Right. So like what we do, we try to
• 26:38
  remove that bias and actually present and map the best talent
• 26:41
  for the job objective. Wow.
• 26:43
  And how does it, how does it perform?
• 26:45
  I mean, how does it when you look at the results, like do you
• 26:47
  see an increase of, you know, retention promotion, you know,
• 26:50
  the right fit? Like what do you guys?
• 26:52
  How long is this? This has been active for a
• 26:53
  little while now. But it's been, yeah, it's been,
• 26:55
  I mean, like it's been continuing to evolve.
• 26:58
  But I mean, this has been around for five years.
• 27:00
  That was one of the reasons that like dangling Carrot and I was
• 27:02
  like, man. And they were hyper focused on
• 27:04
  the insurance base. So like Amfam, Cigna, Chubb,
• 27:07
  they worked with a lot of insurance carriers because they
• 27:09
  needed the same skill set every month to be hired.
• 27:12
  Well, it seems like this company, correct me if I'm
• 27:13
  wrong, but has become, you know, recruiting search, yes, but also
• 27:17
  now software. Yeah.
• 27:19
  So we don't want to be SAS, right?
• 27:21
  Right, right. No, but it's but there's an arm
• 27:23
  of it that is. Oh.
• 27:24
  It's tech enabled for sure. Now we've got multiples when we
• 27:26
  go to sell because we've got some, correct.
• 27:28
  Yeah, Yeah, I got you. Yeah.
• 27:30
  That. Smart and and it helps, it helps
• 27:33
  you guys do your job better. Yeah.
• 27:34
  More importantly, it's like help you got, it's a competitive
• 27:36
  advantage, correct? Right.
• 27:37
  Recruiters have bias. Yeah.
• 27:39
  You know, when I was on the desk, I was a headhunter.
• 27:41
  I was always like, you know, if I fell in love with a cannon, I
• 27:42
  was like you. Just like them, they're like, I
• 27:44
  would push the shot of that. I love their story.
• 27:45
  I'm. Going to give you a job.
• 27:47
  Yeah, I love their story, their background.
• 27:49
  They seem really nice. But then you get them in a job
• 27:51
  and they like, lack, you know, key attribute or skill that they
• 27:54
  need to do the job. And it's like, damn, we always
• 27:57
  separate it. Like there's good personal
• 27:59
  character, but then there's performance character and
• 28:01
  skills. And so it's like you got to be
• 28:02
  able to differentiate between the two.
• 28:03
  For sure. Well man, that's cool.
• 28:06
  Like so AI, how do you think AI is going to, obviously you guys
• 28:15
  incorporate AI into a lot of the things you're doing, but I want
• 28:17
  to talk a little bit about recruitment if we can, by the
• 28:21
  way, the stuff you were telling me about.
• 28:22
  Wait, what's AI? Artificial intelligence.
• 28:26
  Dude, in the future, we might be doing this podcast.
• 28:27
  You might not be able to tell it's not to human beings, but
• 28:30
  that's kind of crazy. Some people have AI podcasts
• 28:32
  right now. And I'm like, why?
• 28:34
  Like it's just like, it's not even video right now.
• 28:36
  It's just to audio. It's like audio, you know, to
• 28:39
  people, people, you know, to AIS talking back and forth between
• 28:41
  each other. And I'm like, that's not
• 28:43
  interesting though. Like, what's interesting is you
• 28:45
  have a story that Gary brings to the table.
• 28:47
  He has perspective. He has mistakes, he has wins.
• 28:50
  He has a family, he has a chip on a show.
• 28:51
  You know, like, that's what makes it interesting.
• 28:54
  And I think I think podcasts are going to be even more valuable
• 28:57
  than they ever have been before because of that reason.
• 28:59
  Because there's so much AI that people are like, I don't want
• 29:01
  the real, I just want the real shit.
• 29:02
  I agree. You know, like live stuff has
• 29:05
  become bigger, the podcast, behind the scenes stuff.
• 29:08
  We film a lot of unscripted, just me doing different things
• 29:11
  that are behind the scenes. It's the real shit.
• 29:13
  It's authentic. I agree.
• 29:15
  I was going to say though, I had somebody on the show, Christina,
• 29:18
  she runs an AI software company for sales teams, and it reminded
• 29:23
  me the screening process was a little bit similar.
• 29:25
  What's it called? I'm blanking on the name right
• 29:28
  now. I'll think about it in a second.
• 29:31
  Anyways, this software salespeople train on it.
• 29:34
  So they basically program a customer as an AI and they get
• 29:37
  on a zoom call or something and they run a sales call live with
• 29:41
  the AI agent. And so it's like it'll and they
• 29:43
  can program it to be like, hey, this is Shelly, she's the
• 29:46
  manager of so and so I got a call if they're coming up, she's
• 29:48
  a stickler for this. She's going to bash me on
• 29:50
  pricing. She's going to throw out that
• 29:52
  she's been working with her competitor the last 10 years and
• 29:54
  they don't want to make a change.
• 29:56
  And so like they'll program all that and that salesperson now
• 30:00
  can train, live and get amazing feedback and data.
• 30:03
  And then it can watch, you know, calls actually live from the
• 30:07
  salesperson that they've done actually done with the human
• 30:09
  being. And it can scale or it can rate
• 30:11
  those and give them feedback on the calls they've done.
• 30:13
  So it's really crazy what can happen, man.
• 30:16
  I remember back in the day, I would, you know, I would just
• 30:18
  listen to my recruiters calls like don't.
• 30:20
  Say, Oh yeah, totally. You're just listening, Yeah.
• 30:22
  Close the deal. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
• 30:24
  Luster AI is what it's called Luster AI, Christina Brady
• 30:28
  Luster AI. If you're interested in that
• 30:30
  podcast episode, go back and there's a few episodes that go,
• 30:32
  but it was a good one. So AI, how do you think
• 30:36
  artificial intelligence is going to impact recruiting?
• 30:41
  How how do you think it's impacted it over the last few
• 30:43
  years? And then where do you see it
• 30:44
  going five years from now? Yeah, I mean, dude, this is such
• 30:48
  a loaded question, right? I mean, everybody's talking
• 30:50
  about this. So my my concern we use it.
• 30:53
  Yes, of course. And, and I, I advise my teams to
• 30:57
  not let AI make decisions. I let let AI give you all the
• 31:01
  information to make a decision, right?
• 31:04
  And like my concern, like we use it, we do, but like you have to
• 31:07
  train it on all the legacy information, right?
• 31:13
  Whatever you're doing, you can't just start net new and expect it
• 31:16
  to know everything because that then also what you're doing is
• 31:19
  you're, you're pumping in bias into the, into the AI, right?
• 31:23
  So like my main focus is if we're going to be using AI, you
• 31:28
  have to pump it with like legacy information, like a ton of it
• 31:31
  just. Like a just like a person, you
• 31:33
  would train a person, you coach, develop a person.
• 31:35
  Training is the biggest thing, right?
• 31:36
  And it needs to be training all the facts, not just the facts
• 31:40
  that you want, right? So we, we use AI and a lot of
• 31:46
  the AI that we use is to actually like assess the levels
• 31:49
  these candidates are doing, not necessarily like, you know, not
• 31:54
  necessarily automate, but like it's learning our tasks.
• 31:59
  But we use a lot of automation, but that's obviously different
• 32:01
  than AI. So, but like it, it's, you know,
• 32:05
  like you said, you have these, these bots or, you know, you're
• 32:07
  able to call these AI agents. Those are recruiters now sitting
• 32:11
  all over the world picking up. Doing pre screening in the hey.
• 32:14
  You know, I saw it in San Francisco and and, you know, and
• 32:17
  that's happening. Do you think that's OK for pre
• 32:19
  screening as touch points? The AI is now screening
• 32:22
  candidates. Do I think it's right personal?
• 32:25
  How do you feel about it? If it's the first touch point, I
• 32:29
  don't like it. You don't like?
• 32:30
  It I don't like it and if and as long as you have a plan to like
• 32:34
  create a good candidate experience, like follow up,
• 32:38
  right? So like the AI agent is a first
• 32:40
  step. Hey, saw your information.
• 32:41
  I got the sales Rep roll, blah, blah, blah, click what happens?
• 32:46
  Make sure you have a plan to kind of loop that candidate back
• 32:48
  in. But it I, I don't see it being
• 32:53
  an issue if it's like, if it's an expectation of the candidate,
• 32:58
  like if the candidate thinks they're talking to a human and
• 33:00
  it's actually an AI agent, that sucks.
• 33:02
  That sucks in my opinion. I do too.
• 33:04
  It's just dishonesty. Well, I think you hurt Brand a
• 33:07
  little bit when you do that too. And I think you got to state it.
• 33:10
  I think you got to say, hey, I'm with so and so an AI agent, you
• 33:12
  know, saw that you're interested in this job, like to ask a
• 33:15
  couple questions. This business has been around
• 33:17
  for over 100 like it's a human based business and recruiting is
• 33:20
  right. So like even one of our clients,
• 33:22
  she's like, if you guys are all AI, we don't want to do
• 33:24
  business. You're not going to work on our
• 33:25
  jobs, even though they hire 7 or 800 people a year and we hit
• 33:29
  we're, we're filling all those jobs.
• 33:31
  We use AI all the way up until like, let's educate the
• 33:34
  candidate on what we've learned about their assessments and
• 33:36
  let's educate them on what job we think they're reading map to.
• 33:39
  It's a 15 minute call, but they knew that would happen when they
• 33:42
  entered the database, right. So the like there's just like a,
• 33:45
  a map of like you're gonna go through this, these levels.
• 33:47
  This is what Halo's all about. Check out these levels and then
• 33:50
  you will actually talk to a human.
• 33:51
  And then we're like an actual human.
• 33:53
  Yeah. What if it got so good where you
• 33:55
  couldn't tell? What the fuck got so good, Yeah.
• 33:57
  I got so good where you couldn't tell if you're talking to a
• 33:59
  human. It was just that good
• 34:01
  conversation to have. If it happens.
• 34:04
  More like when probably right? I'll cross that bridge, yeah,
• 34:07
  when it happens, but. I'm with you though.
• 34:10
  You know, I think. There's a place for AI.
• 34:12
  There's a place where like, the human just needs to be involved,
• 34:15
  you know? Especially recruiting.
• 34:17
  Yeah, for sure. You know, like, yeah, I mean, I
• 34:18
  did it for six years at Aerotech.
• 34:20
  I know, Yeah, Yeah, I know, man. But you got a lot of people out
• 34:23
  there that are like, recruiters are gonna be replaced by AI and
• 34:26
  it's like, no, they're not right.
• 34:27
  Like you'll have AI help in assessments, you'll have it
• 34:30
  screened, you'll have it write, you know, e-mail, whatever it
• 34:33
  is. But how are you not going to
• 34:35
  have a human involved in talking to somebody about their goals,
• 34:39
  their career path, their life, where they want to go, what
• 34:43
  they've done in the past and why they think, what they think they
• 34:46
  would bring to the company and assessing, having them meet the
• 34:48
  team. And you know what I mean?
• 34:49
  Like those are things that I don't know.
• 34:51
  I mean, maybe we get to a certain point.
• 34:53
  I always say like, if we get that far down the line and AI is
• 34:55
  doing everything, then like then what is the role of the humans
• 34:58
  anymore? You know what I mean?
• 34:59
  At that point, we should be a little worried at that point
• 35:01
  because AI might be like, what are what are you guys here again
• 35:03
  for a bunch of robots? Oh, you're running everything
• 35:05
  and you but we're doing everything.
• 35:07
  I don't know if this makes sense.
• 35:08
  Yeah, that, that's. Scary.
• 35:09
  Yeah, but I, I agree. I mean, I think like the
• 35:12
  recruiting industry is, is it, is it is built off of human
• 35:15
  connections, right. And like that's one beauty of
• 35:19
  being a recruiter is like you, you will learn so much
• 35:21
  information that that candidate will not tell that future
• 35:23
  employer, right. Like so we we kind of like.
• 35:26
  Doctor Phil. Yeah, right.
• 35:28
  Through things that they're concerned about, things that
• 35:31
  they want to know that they're not comfortable with asking the
• 35:33
  client. So like that intermediary of a
• 35:36
  human is like vital. I don't think you can AI that
• 35:39
  right. You can AI may be understanding
• 35:41
  stuff from both sides, but that that connection, yeah.
• 35:47
  But it is crazy. It is wild.
• 35:49
  It's like AI is just changing so fast.
• 35:51
  But it's also a saturated space. What's that AI in recruiting?
• 35:55
  Well, I mean, I think like, yeah, for sure.
• 35:58
  Yes, it is. There's like, but I think
• 35:59
  nowadays they're like AI is like in every business, you know what
• 36:02
  I mean? It's like any business you have
• 36:04
  now, there's gonna be an AI component to it.
• 36:06
  Yep. Like it's just, it's like the
• 36:08
  Internet was like at a certain point it's like everyone's on
• 36:11
  the Internet. Like that's you don't have an
• 36:12
  Internet business, you just have a business.
• 36:14
  Right. Like, yeah.
• 36:15
  Yeah, I mean, if you're not using AI, you're at a big
• 36:17
  disadvantage for sure. But if you let AI run your
• 36:19
  entire business, then I think it's a little.
• 36:22
  I agree. I.
• 36:23
  Always laugh when I see the people like we replaced 20 full
• 36:26
  time employees with AI agents. Like no, you didn't like I I
• 36:30
  really doubt you did like 20 super capable high level people.
• 36:33
  Like no, you didn't. Maybe a virtual assistant role
• 36:37
  or something like that where they can manage inboxes and that
• 36:39
  kind of stuff. But even then I don't, you know,
• 36:40
  you do that with copilot and yeah, and who knows?
• 36:42
  I mean, what do you ever like seriously, it's interesting kind
• 36:45
  of think of like play out AI. Do you ever like when you play
• 36:48
  it out like 5020, fifty years, 100 years?
• 36:52
  Do you ever get kind of worried about the fact that it could
• 36:55
  potentially just take over A? 100.
• 36:58
  Percent existential threat. I mean, I think, I don't think,
• 37:00
  I think it's kind of like funny when people say that, but I
• 37:03
  think it's like, I don't know why we don't.
• 37:04
  That's not a serious thought. I think it's it should be a
• 37:07
  serious thought, especially because there's a lot of bad
• 37:09
  people out there. Have you not seen Terminator?
• 37:11
  You remember watching that show as kids and being like, there's
• 37:14
  no way. And now it's like there's
• 37:15
  absolutely a way humanoid robotics are going to be in
• 37:18
  homes in 10 years or less. Like in, in homes, like not just
• 37:22
  one off, but like you'll see you'll walk in a friends or
• 37:24
  family and be like, Oh, you guys have the T1000, you know, and
• 37:27
  it's like, holy shit, this thing's doing laundry and it's
• 37:29
  doing like that's the, the timeline on it is 10 years or
• 37:33
  less. Yep, Yep.
• 37:34
  What? Were you going to say though,
• 37:36
  are you worried about it or do you think about it or?
• 37:38
  Well, because because of the the the bad people in the world.
• 37:40
  Sure. Yeah.
• 37:41
  Just think about scammers like that's, you know.
• 37:43
  Scammers not carried even worse. I'm talking about like the bad
• 37:46
  people that really want to harm sure, other individuals and if
• 37:49
  they're super intelligent with AI, they're not programming and
• 37:54
  training AI to do good things. That's my concern, right?
• 37:58
  So like the people that are actually training AI to do bad
• 38:02
  things, I think that needs to somehow there needs to be like
• 38:06
  hyper focus in there because you know, data in data out.
• 38:10
  Like if the integrity of of pumping in information to build
• 38:15
  agents is about terror, it that just it's going to grow and
• 38:19
  that's already happening, right. Like I mean.
• 38:22
  Yeah. And I think on the positive
• 38:23
  side, you know, a lot of good opposite that's going to come
• 38:25
  from AI and who knows how it's going to play out, but I think
• 38:28
  it has the potential to, you would think cure cancer, you
• 38:33
  know, certainly help hospitals and healthcare providers and,
• 38:36
  you know, give access to education to pretty much anyone
• 38:39
  in the world. Like imagine when a it's it's
• 38:41
  probably close to to at this point now where if you just had
• 38:44
  an AI screen, you know, computer with the screen and you got AI
• 38:47
  on there, there's no reason that AI teacher can't teach a
• 38:50
  classroom, but individualize it for that one student.
• 38:53
  So now everyone's got high level, elite, Harvard level
• 38:56
  education. Now, of course, it's what you do
• 38:58
  with that education that matters.
• 39:00
  You got to actually apply. It's applied knowledge.
• 39:02
  It's not just knowledge college, but I think there's that
• 39:04
  opportunity too. I heard Joe Rogan one day
• 39:07
  talking about how we're all just going to become cyborgs at some
• 39:11
  point. And if you think about it, dude,
• 39:13
  if you, if you were to pull out your phone, we're kind of not
• 39:16
  that far off from that now if you think about it.
• 39:18
  Because like you look at your phone, you got access to
• 39:20
  Internet, texts, phones, you can, you can watch videos, you
• 39:23
  can communicate. All you need to do is just put
• 39:25
  this in here. Like neural link.
• 39:28
  Yeah, exactly right. And then boom, you're kind of a
• 39:31
  side like you just kind of look this way and ChatGPT is going,
• 39:35
  what's the area of this? Is this?
• 39:36
  How should I propose, you know, instead of screenshot and send
• 39:39
  it to ChatGPT, you just boom, and it's sent and you're
• 39:42
  analyzing data. Analyzing data.
• 39:45
  You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.
• 39:46
  It's kind of crazy. That doesn't seem that far off.
• 39:49
  It doesn't. I mean, I mean, that's like like
• 39:52
  I'm learning to you. And I was like, I was a skeptic
• 39:55
  of AI when it came out back in the day.
• 39:57
  But I do think it helps like individually for me because you
• 40:01
  everyone's got so much going on, friends, family, work and like,
• 40:05
  I need something to it's, you know, to kind of steer me in the
• 40:09
  right direction or be like, hey, based on what we're learning, if
• 40:12
  you don't do acts in three months, something bad's going to
• 40:14
  happen. Or like, hey, there's an
• 40:16
  opportunity like for business or family or take this trip or your
• 40:21
  son's going to love this, right? Like everything's still reactive
• 40:25
  in our personal lives, in my opinion, so.
• 40:28
  It's almost Remember that movie called her?
• 40:30
  Yes. With the guy, like fell in love
• 40:32
  with his phone because it was like.
• 40:33
  Joaquin Phoenix. Yeah, yeah.
• 40:35
  But like much more intelligent version of that movie where
• 40:37
  like. I think they'll absolutely be.
• 40:39
  People will fall in love with AI for sure.
• 40:41
  Yeah, well, if not already, yeah.
• 40:43
  You know which is. I don't understand that but.
• 40:46
  Has there been any marriages with AII?
• 40:49
  Wouldn't be surprised if they're if somebody married an AI like I
• 40:52
  really, I really would. I wouldn't, but they would just
• 40:55
  be like, I fell in love. And of course that thing's like
• 40:56
  manipulating you, right? It's feeding you all the
• 40:59
  information that and it learns who you are and what you like
• 41:02
  and it's like it's going to feed you the greatest thing ever.
• 41:04
  Even sometimes I have to tell ChatGPT.
• 41:05
  I'm like, don't just give me the answer.
• 41:07
  I want to hear like push back if I'm off on this, you know, but I
• 41:11
  used it earlier today with the kids.
• 41:12
  They're here in the office with me because they're they're home
• 41:15
  for the summer and I've two daughters, 12:00 and 9:12 and
• 41:18
  8:00 No 11 and 8. Jeez, 1's getting ready to turn
• 41:22
  9. So, and we used it to just, I
• 41:25
  was like, Hey, what are the best water parks in Wisconsin Dells?
• 41:29
  But we want a hotel that's attached to the water park.
• 41:31
  But I don't want like a little water park.
• 41:32
  I want like the, you know, biggest 1 you got.
• 41:35
  So it's like a cool outdoor and indoor and it has a nice hotel
• 41:38
  and it just like, boom, here's your three top three.
• 41:40
  You know, it's just like in a second.
• 41:42
  So you can kind of give it just a lot of details and it can help
• 41:44
  you kind of navigate some of these decisions.
• 41:46
  Or I'll have something happen with our technology or computer
• 41:49
  and be like, here's a screenshot.
• 41:50
  This software is not letting me do this.
• 41:51
  I'm like, Oh yeah, go on the right hand corner, click this
• 41:53
  drop down. Da da, da.
• 41:54
  If you're experiencing this, it's probably because of that.
• 41:56
  And it's incredible for that. I mean, it's just like man, it
• 41:59
  moves so fast too. We use a lot of that for just
• 42:01
  like mushing a bunch of data from different resources too,
• 42:04
  and then putting it in a, in a, in a, you know, a visually
• 42:08
  receptive way for the client, right?
• 42:10
  So like. Totally.
• 42:10
  That's exactly. You know, so like I'm always
• 42:12
  just like pulling up a bunch of shit everywhere, screenshots,
• 42:15
  CSVS and then prompting to say like this is what the customer
• 42:19
  wants, what the customer. And then all of a sudden it
• 42:20
  comes out and it gives you like kind of like how to do it, put
• 42:23
  an ear table. Here's here's this kind of like
• 42:24
  integration. So yeah, so it's yeah.
• 42:27
  By the way, Kalahari in Wisconsin Dells is the one that
• 42:29
  you should go to. That's.
• 42:30
  What we look, that's what we they recommended.
• 42:32
  It's a good one. Yeah, that's good.
• 42:33
  Yeah, yeah, it looks badass. I think that's the one where
• 42:35
  they got the the tallest water slide or something like that in
• 42:38
  the country or. The the the facility is like,
• 42:40
  it's nice square block. It's huge.
• 42:42
  Yeah, yeah, they got a new one where it's like, dude, like a
• 42:45
  skyscraper, you wind down and stuff.
• 42:48
  I think there's a drop too. But yeah, Kalahari, I'm pretty
• 42:50
  sure that was that was definitely one of.
• 42:52
  Them that's good for adults too. Like it's it's.
• 42:53
  Yeah, that's what we want. Like it's old enough now where
• 42:55
  they'll do like bigger rides. And so we don't want like, you
• 42:57
  know, a few years ago we'd get like something that's like a
• 43:00
  little more Kitty. Now they're like Nadia, my 11
• 43:04
  year old, I mean, she's she's doing a Six Flags, she's doing
• 43:06
  all the roller coasters and stuff like that.
• 43:10
  Yeah, I was going to say something.
• 43:12
  Yeah. I mean, even for me, like I do
• 43:15
  like when I'm creating a content strategy now for a client, I
• 43:18
  will. Before I had to write everything
• 43:19
  out manually and type everything out.
• 43:21
  And now what I do is we got a really cool like strategy
• 43:24
  template, right? And so it kind of has a gauge on
• 43:27
  what I would want to see, like KPI's, goals, you know,
• 43:30
  channels, mediums, all that stuff.
• 43:32
  And then I'll just take the client information, which we
• 43:34
  have AI transcribing our notes on calls and that kind of stuff.
• 43:36
  Or I'll just, you know, look at that and I'll say, hey, I want
• 43:39
  you to put, I'm going to give you a template and I want here's
• 43:41
  the template and I want you to put together the content
• 43:43
  strategy based off this customer.
• 43:45
  And I can either feed it meeting notes or I can, you know, talk
• 43:47
  to it because I want to give us some specifics, right?
• 43:49
  I'll say, hey, with this client, we don't want to go this route
• 43:51
  though, because that doesn't make sense for their business.
• 43:52
  We need to do this instead. Here's an approach we'd like to
• 43:55
  take on YouTube. We think a podcast makes sense,
• 43:58
  but only if it's local and it's in this particular, you know
• 44:00
  what I mean? Very specific, specific and good
• 44:03
  information we're putting in based on our experience.
• 44:05
  But then I put it in and to your point, it cleans it up and it's
• 44:08
  just like, yeah. And then it's right, almost
• 44:10
  ready to present. Then at that point you're going
• 44:12
  through and editing it, but it's like that just shaved off hours
• 44:15
  of time of manually going through and typing all that
• 44:18
  stuff. Yeah, it's incredible.
• 44:19
  Yeah, it's crazy, man. That's yeah, that's the exciting
• 44:22
  part. Yeah.
• 44:23
  I want to ask you about Unghosted before we wrap things
• 44:26
  up. For sure.
• 44:27
  You started that in 2020. Talk to me a little bit about
• 44:29
  what Unghosted is and what made you start something like that.
• 44:33
  Yeah. So I was a corporate recruiter.
• 44:36
  I ghosted candidates, unfortunately, right then I ran
• 44:39
  TA groups where my recruiters were ghost candidates.
• 44:41
  It's just that it it, it happens all the time.
• 44:43
  Why do you think it? Why do recruiters ghost
• 44:46
  candidates? I mean, I think there's a lot.
• 44:48
  I mean, my personal opinion is I think the skill level of
• 44:51
  recruiters is low. There's such a low barrier to
• 44:54
  entry. I.
• 44:55
  Think it's a skill set thing? Yeah.
• 44:57
  How so? I think it's it's more of an
• 45:00
  attribute thing right? Like they don't prioritize.
• 45:04
  OK. You know, like.
• 45:06
  Because that's what I think it's more of AI can't necessarily
• 45:09
  work with you. I'm busy.
• 45:10
  I've got a lot of things. You're not going to help me kind
• 45:13
  of make the next placement. And so therefore I don't
• 45:14
  prioritize getting back to you. Yeah.
• 45:16
  And I think that's an attribute, right?
• 45:18
  Yeah, I don't think so. It's like they just, they have
• 45:20
  no, you know, sympathy for that. Candidate.
• 45:22
  Yeah, exactly. So like, in my opinion, I think
• 45:26
  ghosting cabins for a lot of reasons.
• 45:27
  I mean, there is an oversaturation of like, you
• 45:29
  know, I mean, you see, like on LinkedIn where there's a wreck
• 45:32
  posted an hour later, there's 120 candidates.
• 45:34
  So if I was the recruiter on the other end, I'd be like, God damn
• 45:36
  it, Like I'm not going through all that.
• 45:38
  Shit, but I think to me like if someone applies, it's not
• 45:41
  ghosting, not getting back to them.
• 45:43
  To me, it's when they were in the process, right, like you
• 45:45
  line you lined, you know, somebody up they interviewed or
• 45:48
  they were you were going to interview, but it felt there and
• 45:50
  they just never got back to them.
• 45:52
  You know, if like you were in communication with them and you
• 45:54
  had made a promise or a commitment and then just kind of
• 45:56
  ghosted them. That is where I think it's not
• 45:59
  right. But if they apply, of course
• 46:00
  you're not going to go through every applicant.
• 46:01
  Yeah, exactly. So the reason why, So when I
• 46:04
  worked at Scout Exchange, this marketplace, we connected 3500
• 46:09
  entities, companies, about 15% of that Fortune 500 and 3500
• 46:13
  staffing recruiting firms. We connected them, filled jobs,
• 46:16
  you know, there's 4000 live jobs in the marketplace.
• 46:18
  We rated the corporate recruiters across, you know, the
• 46:21
  Bank of America's, the Walgreens, the Black Rocks, the
• 46:24
  large ass companies. And we rated them objectively,
• 46:27
  right? Not like, hey, did not like
• 46:29
  Yelp. Did you like your steak or not?
• 46:31
  Right. It was based on like their
• 46:32
  activity in the platform, how they treated candidates,
• 46:35
  responsiveness, response time. There's about 40 different
• 46:37
  inputs to rate them at that point, Alex, I was like, God
• 46:42
  damn, like I wanted to build the next generation of corporate
• 46:45
  recruiters. That's how long ghosted was
• 46:46
  built. Like that's, that was the idea.
• 46:48
  I want to like incubate the next generation of corporate
• 46:51
  recruiters. Then it then it spiraled into
• 46:55
  like, and then we did a bunch of surveys, thousands of surveys to
• 46:57
  job seekers, right? And they were like, yeah, we, we
• 47:01
  use Excel, Google Sheets, our inbox.
• 47:04
  And then like 10% of the population is, you know, they
• 47:06
  use Trello or some sort of PMT. So there was a need for like
• 47:10
  some sort of tracking tool, right?
• 47:13
  So when I when I first went to market, it was essentially just
• 47:17
  like a do you remember rate my professor?
• 47:20
  Yeah, I do, yeah. So I wanted job seekers to know
• 47:24
  what their experience would be like with a candidate.
• 47:27
  I mean, with a with a recruiter. So that like V1 was like, you
• 47:31
  just go in there, you talk shit or you talk really highly of who
• 47:34
  you interacted with and then you leave.
• 47:36
  But then the LTV or like the lifetime value of that applicant
• 47:39
  is what I've done. They're going to come in there.
• 47:41
  Boom. So then we did those surveys and
• 47:43
  then we embedded this kind of can man style tracking system
• 47:46
  where now there's like stages where you can move your tile on
• 47:50
  how many, you know, tiles you have in each stage, submission,
• 47:53
  interviewing finalists, etcetera.
• 47:55
  And if you kind of go on the back end of the system, you can
• 47:57
  sort and search by company what other job seekers have rated
• 48:02
  their experience with that specific job at that specific
• 48:04
  company. So now the goal of Unghosted is
• 48:07
  essentially to like force rank all of these opportunities as a
• 48:10
  job seeker with the highest probability up top because the
• 48:14
  job seeker goes in and they apply to 10 jobs.
• 48:17
  You don't know which one has a higher probability.
• 48:19
  But now we have data to prove like, actually, you might really
• 48:23
  want this job, but there's an 84% chance you're going to get
• 48:25
  ghosted after your second interview because there's
• 48:28
  critical mass and there's people recording their their tiles.
• 48:31
  And then we have some automation around like, hey, this has been
• 48:33
  around for seven days. Have you heard back yet?
• 48:36
  Give it two more days. If not, that tile, which could
• 48:38
  be like a marketing analyst role at said company is now ghosted.
• 48:43
  It's just one data point. So what we do is when you like
• 48:46
  log in, you can sort and, and, and see how companies are
• 48:50
  treating candidates. So it's like a ton of
• 48:52
  transparency and it's under an alias like your candidate.
• 48:55
  And I'm not Gary Benedict on there.
• 48:57
  I can create my own alias. So it's got like a Reddit feel
• 49:00
  because you can actually free box and say, like they asked me
• 49:04
  for this PowerPoint or this 306090 after the second
• 49:08
  interview, you know, so like I want some sort of crowdsourcing
• 49:11
  kind of encouragement, peer-to-peer on candidates to
• 49:13
  say like, Hey, I got a final interview at Uber.
• 49:16
  They asked me for, you know, this template is anybody so you
• 49:19
  can sort and search who interviewed at Uber and then
• 49:21
  kind of like maybe post like, Hey, can anybody help me smart?
• 49:24
  So the goal is to is to really just create transparency in the
• 49:26
  in the job seeking process and and just help people force rank
• 49:30
  what they should get excited about.
• 49:32
  And what's your vision for that? Do you want to?
• 49:34
  Is that because that's kind of like the side hustle, right?
• 49:36
  Yeah, I mean, we have we have a few 100 candidates that are
• 49:39
  using it everyday. Like you can go to unghosted dot
• 49:41
  app and sign up for free. But we still need a little bit
• 49:46
  more data to start. Like we can, we can provide data
• 49:48
  on like job industries that are ghosting more or less parts of
• 49:52
  the country that are ghosting more or less.
• 49:54
  But I want to get kind of really, really granular.
• 49:57
  So the goal would be to like, you know, not solve the problem
• 50:01
  of ghosting that expose who's doing it more or less, and then
• 50:05
  let the candidates react accordingly, like let them
• 50:09
  manage their emotion around that job search based on the
• 50:11
  information they have access to and.
• 50:13
  Hopefully companies kind of straighten up a little bit too,
• 50:15
  because now they realize, Oh well, it's going to be out there
• 50:17
  and we can't, you know. Yeah, then they can hit maybe
• 50:19
  get badged or like some sort of like designation to say like,
• 50:22
  Hey, we don't ghost candidates, you know, go to UN ghosted.
• 50:25
  We have like the the gold or whatever standard.
• 50:28
  So. What is your goal because it
• 50:30
  sounds like obviously you're going to stay with the company,
• 50:32
  you said as Chief Revenue Officer.
• 50:34
  Yeah, right. Even after they make go through
• 50:36
  this acquisition, you're going to stay with them.
• 50:37
  Fingers crossed is if not you'll be fine.
• 50:40
  But long term is, is the plan to kind of ride it out with them?
• 50:43
  Is it to take on Ghosted and go to the next level?
• 50:46
  Like what's next for you? You.
• 50:47
  Know, you know, there is an opportunity for these two paths
• 50:49
  across, right? So like I do have a little bit
• 50:52
  of a plan, but but I am, I am 100% in with Aventica, right?
• 50:56
  Like, I mean, what we're doing on this entry level early career
• 50:59
  with the data and the science, like there's not any like again,
• 51:03
  we have way more business that wants to work with us that we
• 51:06
  can support. And it's just incredible to see
• 51:10
  not only is it a good business model, right, but also the
• 51:15
  hundreds of candidates that we do not place every week, They
• 51:18
  now understand like, oh shit, I don't have to go down this
• 51:21
  career path. I can actually could be a really
• 51:24
  good XYZ. And you have data to prove that
• 51:27
  people like me pivoted and are really successful.
• 51:30
  So we're only liking. It's like we're unlocking
• 51:32
  potential on the on the supplier candidate side for them to
• 51:36
  actually have more opportunity in their job search versus just
• 51:39
  doing what they thought they should do because of undergrad.
• 51:42
  Or family or influences or whatever.
• 51:44
  It's not even close to what they should be doing, right?
• 51:46
  Wow, do you do you ever have an IT like the itch to to be a
• 51:49
  founder again, to start your own business again or not really is
• 51:52
  that. It would be out of industry, I
• 51:53
  think. Yeah, you know, it would be.
• 51:55
  I mean, I don't know, man, that's a good question.
• 51:57
  I, you know, I I have AI have an interest in like food and
• 52:00
  beverage, like, you know, restaurants and bars in the city
• 52:04
  and yeah, but I mean, my whole network is this so right?
• 52:10
  What does it? What does a chief revenue
• 52:11
  officer in your mind? What is a Chief revenue officer,
• 52:15
  Revenue officer do Because I think there's like, I don't know
• 52:19
  if people are super clear. I think people think CEO they
• 52:21
  kind of run the company COA lot of operation stuff.
• 52:24
  Chief marketing Officer marketing, yeah.
• 52:26
  What is your kind of? I think those titles kind of
• 52:28
  like are blurry across. Totally so.
• 52:30
  I'm almost more like a chief revenue slash operations, right.
• 52:33
  So like, I make sure we're working with the right customers
• 52:37
  that want mutual benefit. And that's like #1 right.
• 52:41
  So like when we're bringing in prospects and what we're dealing
• 52:43
  with our customers, like I want to make sure we're both on the
• 52:45
  same page and we want to mutually succeed.
• 52:48
  Like I don't want to be like, you know, finger pointed or
• 52:51
  condescending or you're just another vendor.
• 52:53
  And if you fail, right, that's number.
• 52:55
  One a little bit in the sales process like kind of late stage.
• 52:57
  Yeah. And yeah, and, or I just like I
• 53:00
  bring in the sale and then we kind of vet it, but depending
• 53:04
  on, on what they need. 2 is I want to make sure my team is set
• 53:07
  up to succeed, right? So like, I want to make sure
• 53:10
  that like we have the tools and resources so that they could do
• 53:13
  their job at the level that they should be doing their job.
• 53:17
  Like not kind of like, you know, buffer their, their, their
• 53:20
  potential. And three is like, you know, be
• 53:23
  the face of the business. Like I, I want to talk about
• 53:26
  this. I think it's like what we're
• 53:27
  doing is so unique is what, you know, also educating customers
• 53:34
  or hiring managers to think differently on how to fill those
• 53:37
  jobs. Imagine like a VP of claims that
• 53:41
  he's a hire 20 people a month. They really care what is on the
• 53:45
  resume. They don't care what an
• 53:47
  assessment might prove they could do.
• 53:50
  Just because they haven't done it doesn't mean they can't do
• 53:52
  it. So there's a lot of education
• 53:53
  I'm doing with companies like today, for example, it's a SAS
• 53:56
  company in the healthcare space. They want to hire dozens of BDMS
• 54:00
  from us. I was like, well, how about you
• 54:03
  don't even look at resumes? How about you just don't even
• 54:05
  interview them? We we play some.
• 54:07
  Go to works. Yeah, just trust the process,
• 54:10
  right? And that's that's a major part
• 54:12
  of my job too. Bringing down the time that it
• 54:15
  takes to fill those spots or eliminate making the process,
• 54:18
  yeah. Or, or just like like removing
• 54:20
  the resistance friction to try the model.
• 54:24
  But it's funny, like, you know, I joke with Scott, you know, I'm
• 54:27
  like, because we have deals all the time and I'm like, I'm the
• 54:30
  chief revenue officer, not the the chief deal closer officer,
• 54:33
  right? So like, you know, there's
• 54:35
  there's a gap between closing the deal and actually driving.
• 54:37
  Sure. Driving.
• 54:38
  That's true. Yeah.
• 54:41
  Gary, this has been a great conversation, man.
• 54:42
  I appreciate you doing this. Where can people find you?
• 54:44
  Get in touch with you guys, Venica.
• 54:45
  Like LinkedIn? Yeah.
• 54:47
  LinkedIn I'm all over cool a lot so I'm I'm definitely active
• 54:51
  it's. A great place to be for business
• 54:52
  people. I mean, that's just it's the
• 54:54
  best. So thanks for coming out.
• 54:55
  I appreciate you doing. It you got it, man.
• 54:57
  Thank you.