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Combining Staffing Success with Community Service with Mark Hall | Staffing Series · The Inspired Stories Podcast

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Welcome to another edition of Inspired Stories, where leaders
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share their experiences so we can learn from their successes,
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how they've overcome adversity, and explore current challenges
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they're facing. Welcome to another edition of
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the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their
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experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired
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by how they've overcome adversity.
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My name is Anthony Cotespotti and today's guest is Mark Hall,
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founder and CEO of Talent Logistics, Tech Trades, and
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Pinpoint Resources. Founded in 1993, Talent
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Logistics has been providing over 100,000 hours of workforce
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solutions experience. His companies have employed over
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60 1000 individuals and completed hundreds of thousands
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of engagements. You can find their website at
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tlxcorp.com now. Mark was featured in two
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industry expert films, The Art of Recruiting and Integrity in
0:59
Recruiting, and they are proud to declare that they fix broken
1:03
workforces with over a dozen innovative tools that have
1:06
helped hundreds of employers solve their workforce
1:08
challenges. They specialize in placing
1:11
workers in skilled trades, technology and recruitment,
1:14
manufacturing, security, and through their workforce
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Concierge service, they can handle your entire recruiting
1:20
strategy and process from beginning to end.
1:24
Mark is also currently a Hamilton County Councilman in
1:28
Indiana and over five years ago he Co founded Feeding team.org,
1:33
a charity he runs with his wife Lisa to provide nourishment to
1:36
people with food insecurity. Now before we get into all that
1:39
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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
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founder of Talent Logistics, Mark Hall.
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I appreciate you making the time to Share your story today.
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Oh, Anthony, thank you for having me on the show today.
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I appreciate it. So, Mark, what first got you
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interested in the staffing industry all those years ago?
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OK, so this goes all the way back to let's say it was married
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in 79, so this is the early 80s. I'm working as a programmer for
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a company called Kemper CPA Group in Southern Illinois, and
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somebody was recruiting the other programmer in the office.
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He took their sheet and threw it away and I said, hey, do you
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mind if I take a look at that? It was a recruiting pamphlet
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coming out of Indianapolis and quite literally 3 weeks later I
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was employed in Indianapolis and as a programmer and I realized,
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wait a minute, people get paid for helping people find jobs.
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So I, well, it was always in the back of my mind.
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I went through a nine year technology career before I
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finally figured out this is what got put me on the earth to do.
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It's, it's essentially a matchmaker.
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But the, the idea of finding what people really want and
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their fulfilment in their life, finding what a client needs and
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then trying to make about 80% of it work.
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It, it just clicked. As soon as I started doing that
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work, it clicked for me and I wasn't brave enough to go try it
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on my own. I had to go do all of the part
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time multi level marketing things to prove that wow, can I
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really take this step? Can I really give up my salary?
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Can I really go take this risk? And then it just, it happened
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that I answered a blind ad in The Indianapolis Star and it was
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one of those big box ads. This would have been goodness
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about 198788 and it said, if you have a ten of these 11
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characteristics, we want to talk to you.
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Well, I looked and read that at us.
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Well, sure. I've got, I've got ten of those
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11 characteristics and they, they hired me to come in and be
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an IT recruiter a couple of weeks later and I made my first
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deal in week two, my second deal in week 3 and just never looked
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back. It it clicked, the combination
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of the academics in information technology, the education I had
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that almost 10 years as a programmer and stepped in to be
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able to be credible in talking to people in technology and
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credible and talking to people that were looking for the next
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career move. It just clicked and I knew
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that's what it got put me on the earth to do.
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So how did the MLM factor into this?
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Was that just giving you confidence to do sales or?
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Chops. Absolutely.
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Yeah, they, the ability to feel good enough about the Emigo
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Bacon presentation, recruit people that would then come to
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work for me. So we did the insurance and we
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did the soap and we did the vitamins and actually did very
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well. But it was really a precursor.
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It was I really have the the fortitude, the ability, the
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skills, the patients to go out and do this, to take all the
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notes. And it taught me an awful lot
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about sales and sales one-on-one.
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And frankly, getting my butt kicked a few times better
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prepared me for stepping into a world where you're living
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depends on being able to close the deal.
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So what are some of the biggest things that you learn from your
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time in the MLM? Industry integrity matters, and
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you'll hear more of that. That's going to be a theme.
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So my wife and I played an awful lot of ball when we were in our
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twenties, 30s, and I think we hung it up at 39 and 40.
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I'm playing in a doubleheader. I had an up line.
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I had about 100 people selling insurance for me, had an up
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line. I slid the brake up, double play
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and broke my leg. Not normally, not a big deal,
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but it took me out of the MLM world for about a month while I
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healed. And during that time, my up line
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reassigned everybody to him and started taking my Commission
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checks. And I've come to find out that's
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not really all that unusual. He just decided to pay his own
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income. And when I confronted him about
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that, it wasn't a pleasant conversation and it was a
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complete lack of integrity on his part that he knew what
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happened. He saw me in a cast.
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Why would you take the next step and take all of my group and
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then take all of my own rides and my commissions?
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The only reason I was able to come up with it was he needed
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the income worse than I did. This was his full time gig.
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This was how he fed his family. Doesn't make it right.
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But that was one of the biggest things I took away from is the
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integrity matters. I was raised that way in a small
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Baptist Church, but I never thought people would treat other
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people that way until it happened to me.
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You'll see that as a theme before I open my business too.
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OK, so let's talk about that. What led to the opening of
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Talent Logistics in 1993? I got fired.
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From your recruiting job, the tech recruiting job you were
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doing. So from I went from a company
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called Source CDP to a competitor.
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So I got hired by a local competitor who had an
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information technology staff augmentation firm and they did
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recruitment Their sister firm was doing healthcare staffing
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PTOT speech. So by by hiring me, he took out
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a #1 competitor in the marketplace on his IT side and
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moved him over to his team and I ran his speech, his speech, and
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PTOT and speech practice. All contract labor outsourced
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primarily in those days to hospitals and rehab facilities.
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Was there for three years. Met with this man for every
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Monday for three years. Was promised in 1990, three,
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1992 and 1991 was promised. 1/3 of the province still have the
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OR have had the document. I burned it at F&G after this
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happened. I can see where this is going.
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Oh, yeah, He sent me heal from the from the leg.
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I played racquetball and I wrenched my shoulder.
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I had it in a sling. I looked, you know, it's men.
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We tend to feel really sorry for ourselves.
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So I was in one of those real pouty.
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I don't like my arm hurts. And the lawyer who was his chief
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operations officer, Bill, called me.
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And Bill was a great guy, a Vietnam pilot, and said, we're
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going to let you go. Wouldn't even let me go back
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into my office to get my things, my personal belongings, just
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summarily walked me to the door because I went and asked Mike.
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Mike was the guy that I worked for.
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Where are we going to do the, the profit distribution?
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We made $1.3 million this year. And I got three small kids and I
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got to do some college planning and I didn't be able to put the
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money away. And you promised that I'd get a
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third. And he looked me in the eye and
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he said, my this is Bill. You know, our lawyers are better
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than your lawyers. If you think you're going to see
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a penny of this money, you're crazy.
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I will tie you up in court. You're not going to get a dime
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instead of by the way, you're fired.
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They fired you specifically so they didn't have to pay you.
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Clumsy years later I burned the contract in effigy, but but now
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here's the blessing. Had that never happened, I'd
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probably still be AVP of sales for him somewhere and and would
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never have experienced all the things, the ups and downs.
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All of the things I've experienced in my life have
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become quite a story. If he had just had integrity, if
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he just done what he said he was going to do now karma, you know,
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karma has circled back. Mike the the one that I'm
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talking about daughter got kicked out of IU for cheating,
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divorced twice, alcohol rhythm that just all those problems
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that go along with people that don't live a life of integrity.
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And this has nothing to do with my faith.
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This is just being a good person.
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Just do what you say you're going to do and so many people
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don't care for that. They won't.
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Mark, I'm curious, is there a small part of you that has a
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little bit of gratitude for that experience?
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There is. Oh absolutely.
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I've learned so much more from my losses and getting my butt
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kicked than I ever did from the success side.
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It's it's tougher to learn from successes.
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It's easier to learn and grow from the failures.
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And this was a doozy. You just can't, you just can't
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imagine how crushed I was. But from those ashes, I'm
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sitting at home. This was back in the day where
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they had those big 18 foot satellite dishes.
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Do you remember the big ones? We can actually get live feeds
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that weren't filtered like you get on Dish Network and all that
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stuff. Now I'm sitting at home.
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I've got about a week's worth of growth.
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I'm lying on the sofa. Lisa and I will, we'll be
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married 45 years here in a couple weeks.
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She's like, you know, I love you, but you need to get out.
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It's time to go get another job. Just you need to get out.
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It wasn't two hours after she had that conversation with me
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that my phone rang and it was a guy named Jerry Smith using his
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name purposely. So I think he's passed now.
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Jerry was a prior client, a director at Roche Diagnostics,
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big client here in Indianapolis. He says, are you the Mark Hall
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that does staffing and recruiting?
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Yes I am because I went through every Mark Hall in the phone
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book until I found. You.
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Oh my goodness. I'm the new director of
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Information Technology at Purdue University.
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Would you help me? And you can just feel the
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chills. Lisa and I both look at each
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other. We look up.
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Good, OK, God, we get. That's amazing.
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It was, it was incredible. I mean, just think about the
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odds of something like that happening.
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So we put in three, three phone lines, a fax line.
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And it's hilarious because I have 0 mechanical skills.
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But we built this temporary with old God awful wood panelling.
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We'd convert a bedroom into this soundproof of room as we could
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and went to work. And I'd get up on the phones
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7:00 in the morning. I'd work until about 7:00 or
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8:00 at night, have dinner with the kids.
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And then on at least two nights a week I would recruit, sell
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during the day, recruit at night.
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And then if I missed my numbers, I'd have it at a third day.
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And if I missed my number, they'd had a fourth day and at
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least it would come up into the office.
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We couldn't. She couldn't talk because I was
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on the phone all the time and I have this Tony the Tiger
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baseball and she would sit about 5 feet for me and we, she and I
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played a ton of softball together and we would toss this
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ball back and forth for hours and hours.
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The kids were asleep and she felt like she needed, she wanted
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to support me and she knew I was struggling and she knew this was
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a tough thing, but she also knew that this was my destiny.
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We would sit and throw this Tony the Tiger baseball, which I keep
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right here on my desk for hours back and forth and back and
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forth and back and forth. She's heard me do more sales
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pitches, more recruiting preps, more closes, more pre closes
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than anyone else on God's screen.
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Everything. So why 3 phone lines if it's
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just you? So this was back in the day
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where you'd have to put one on hold to get to the other.
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There weren't things like call forwarding.
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So I had a A3 set phone, one I could transfer to an answering
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service and I could have one on hold and I could I could do 2
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active at the same time. So I could merge 3 calls if I
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needed to. And then the fax line, of
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course, 4 ended today. That's how we did business back
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then. It wasn't even really heavy
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e-mail. It was, you know, resume prep
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and I'd fax it to a client. So you think about.
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It we're talking about 93. Nobody knew what your e-mail was
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then. And I'm, I'm looking out.
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I've had a window looking out in our backyard and a room about 10
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by 10 with this God awful palingly stuffed Styrofoam down
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to try to make it soundproof. Clients could hear her vacuuming
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in the in the downstairs, or they could hear the birds
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chirping or they could hear the dogs barking.
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And she tried to keep the kids the kids quiet.
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But those clients that knew me, you know, the running joke was
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that my office was next to a pet store, so.
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So at what point did you realize that talent logistics was going
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to work? Well, the day's not over yet, so
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I'm still not sure. When did you make your first
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hire? I'm not sure I ever realized it.
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You know, my very first client was Purdue.
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We brought in a programmer from Texas to go on contract with
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Purdue. They gave us 7 or 10 openings,
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so I immediately started working on that.
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We bring the guy up, he brings his girlfriend, he brings his
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girlfriend's dog. We put him in a hotel right up
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there next to the Purdue University campus.
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He starts to work. He made it 3 days and went back
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to Texas. So that was the that was the
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first experience on our own. I did a lot of contract
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recruitment work for companies like USA funds for Roche or
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Purdue University. And I ran scared for the first
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year. Plus you got, you have to and
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there have been years, years where we couldn't take a salary.
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We're going to pay the bills, but that was it.
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When you when you don't run scared, is it's time to walk
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away. It's.
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Interesting. Talk a little bit more about
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that. There is a there's a hunger
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that's inside of people. And when you lose, I'm 64, I
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just turned 64 over the weekend. When you lose the hunger, you
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have to go in and help the next person.
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It's really time. It's really time for you to
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think about doing something else.
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It's too hard. The business that I've chosen is
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the only business that I know that has a double sale.
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You know, if I'm going to sell you this pen, I don't have to go
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back to this pen and say, hey, is it OK if I sell you to
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Anthony? Can I have your permission to
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sell you to Anthony? Working with people, we work
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with an imperfect product that thinks and acts and makes stupid
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decisions on their own. And you have a client that
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changes requirements and their business changes and interest
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rates and projects change. So it's the fluidity of both
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sides will drive you crazy. If you lose the burn, you don't
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have the killer instinct. If you don't have the passion
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for it, that hunger, you're never going to make it.
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It's you're just floating in water.
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I sense that it's a lot like other businesses that I've been
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involved with. You have to have somebody that's
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the visionary, that's going to be that passionate person going
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Mach 5 with their hair on fire. Then you have to have somebody
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that could be the integrator that can actually lead it and
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operationally bring it to fruition.
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I'm not the latter, I am the former.
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Lots of ideas and can come up with them and craft them and
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even get them started. Had to start it for myself and
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we did deal after deal after deal and we never looked back.
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We were there at home for almost 8 months and then we went into
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our first office. I wasn't even smart enough to
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ask if it was a non-smoking office.
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So we were there six weeks. Most people have no idea we were
18:23
there. Then I found my real office
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office that was non-smoking and we were there for three years
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and then on. So that the lessons that you
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learn are incredible. Yeah.
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So let's talk about talent logistics today.
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What are the services that you guys specialize in?
18:41
So TLX Talent Logistics was born from pinpoint resources and tech
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trades. So Pit Point Resources was the
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original brand in 1993 that came up with that name.
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Just driving in the middle of nowhere and it seemed to fit.
18:57
Ironically, listening to a chicken commercial on the radio,
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that's another story for another day.
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Pit Point Resources, the white collar side, information
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technology, these are the men and women that take showers in
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the morning before they go to work.
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It's a great way to characterize white collar, white collar, but
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you have you have some field professionals in crossover.
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I bought that business over 20 years ago.
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That's the antithesis. So that would be taking your
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showers when you get home from work or both electricians,
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millwrecks, carpenters, welders, crane operators.
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And we try to focus on the, the white collar and the blue collar
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within the same client, large construction company, large
19:38
manufacturing company, large new age manufacturing, whether
19:41
they're doing, you know, laser work I could get from Purdue.
19:46
So that you have both, you have the people that need to work
19:48
with your hands and you have the people that need to work with
19:50
their brains. So those were both staffing
19:53
brands. Put people out for six weeks,
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put people out for six months, whatever the client would need.
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And there's a, a nice financial justification for how you do
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that instead of having the cost per hire.
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They're on my book, my work comp, my unemployment, etcetera.
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But we really felt like there was a bigger play.
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And so the bigger play was talent logistics.
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Talent logistics was born from the bigger play, the integration
20:18
of the two. We've employed over 65,000 now
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trades professionals, over 7000 white collar professionals.
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But many of the clients that we talked to have a bigger, a more
20:30
holistic need. They don't have a good strategy
20:33
for how they're going to deploy talent, how they're going to
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acquire it, how they're going to keep it.
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So when I talk and write about this, I talk about every
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organization has what I refer to as a natural line.
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Above this natural line, they have tribal knowledge.
20:50
They have specific intellectual property that's so important to
20:55
the business that the business would be irreparably harmed if
20:59
those people left. Now, if by definition you have
21:02
people above the line, then you are going to have people below
21:05
the line. This is not a comment on their
21:09
value as a person, but the the lady who just lend you the new
21:13
$6 million contract and the the guy who goes out and mows the
21:18
yard and takes care of the grounds do not have the same
21:21
intrinsic value to the business. They can be one for people and
21:25
have the same value as people, but they don't have the same
21:28
value to the business. The mathematical model proves
21:32
that those below the line, when you have a turnover percentage
21:35
like we have in today's market and lends itself to a variable
21:39
model, all those that are above the line need to be your
21:42
employees and you need to take money and pour back into them to
21:45
keep them, retain them, make them happy.
21:48
We have employers here that offer on site daycare and
21:53
massages and concierge services. A company my size can't compete
21:59
with that. So when I go talk to an average
22:02
$50 million manufacturer or $100 million construction company and
22:05
I can show them that I can save them for maybe as much as 7%.
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By converting these people that are below the line into a
22:13
variable model, I can deliver you those savings for you to
22:16
pour back into those people that you must keep.
22:20
You can pour that 4 to 7% back into above the line people that
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you have to keep happy because if they leave, your business is
22:28
really, really hurt. Let me see if I understand what
22:30
you're saying, Mark. You're saying that the folks
22:32
that are below the line, if you think about switching them from
22:37
full time role to a variable role where you're only
22:42
maintaining that staff when you actually need that help and when
22:45
things slow down, then they can roll off.
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And by following that model, you can save them 4 to 7% in labor
22:53
costs that can then be reinvested into those people who
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are above the line, the people who are going to bring in those
22:59
$6 million contracts for the company.
23:01
Correct. And and you can you, you hit on
23:03
one point there, Anthony, you can expand and contract it.
23:05
So it can become a variable model or you let you let my team
23:10
manage the churn, the turnover that's going to happen.
23:12
So the Bureau of Labor Statistics, just a generalized
23:15
manufacturing company will lose about 80%, so 80% turnover in
23:20
some places. It's much more than that.
23:22
And your beautiful state of Ohio average turnover in
23:25
manufacturing is well beyond 80%.
23:27
No kidding. So when you look at a cost per
23:30
hire of $13,000 on the low side to $22,000 on the high side,
23:36
blue collar versus white collar, and now you're turning those
23:39
over a couple of times a year, you're investing 20 to $30,000
23:44
just in that, that turn, plus the opportunity cost of not
23:48
having somebody in that, in that position, plus the cost of
23:52
overtime for the other people. It's a pretty compelling math
23:55
model. When you look at the it's just
23:58
purely data-driven. You're the one that spends the
24:01
money, you run the ads on it. You're the one that recruits the
24:04
100 people and have fifty of them leave in six months.
24:07
I'm just spitting the data back out to you and I'm giving you a
24:10
better solution for it. It's very well received.
24:14
That's where talent logistics was born.
24:17
So behind the scenes I can supply you white collar people
24:20
or white collar talent pinpoint. Behind the scenes I can supply
24:24
you skilled trades talent from tech.
24:26
Trades but I can. Do this all under one holistic
24:29
brand and can be your workforce partner providing them.
24:34
I I call it, I used to call it workforce insurance, but the
24:39
lawyers told me to call it insurance.
24:41
Now I, now I talk about workforce assurance.
24:45
So it puts us in a position because we don't have a problem
24:48
finding the tradespeople. It makes us extremely unique.
24:52
It's that's, that's an often, often is the entry point for us.
24:56
You can bring me electricians. Sure.
24:59
Then we need to have a conversation.
25:01
They, they go out and sign some subcontractor and the
25:04
subcontractor brings their A-Team and their A team is there
25:08
for four or five weeks and then they go and start another job.
25:12
And then you see the job begin to trick off.
25:14
Well, if you manage your own labor, you need a labor partner
25:17
that can deliver you the labor you need when and where you need
25:20
it. Too many people are dependent
25:23
upon this 80 percent, 100% churn.
25:26
And that's it's made a lot of businesses struggle because they
25:31
can't find or keep the people that they need.
25:33
I'm curious, Mark, if you can answer this question without
25:35
giving away your secret sauce, because I don't want your secret
25:39
sauce out there. But what makes you so much
25:41
better at being able to find, you know, these, these laborers,
25:46
the, and the electricians where other people can't find them?
25:51
Great question. When I bought the business, I
25:53
didn't, I didn't realize how smart the the move was, just the
25:59
unintended consequences. There's nothing, there's no
26:01
divine Providence in this whatsoever.
26:04
None. It came with about 50,000
26:07
tradespeople in it. When we bought the business, it
26:10
had it. Now back in those days, it
26:12
wasn't an issue. You were still at the early side
26:15
of the boomers beginning to walk away.
26:18
So we were very blessed to have that many people that that
26:22
business is W2. Now we're at 6568 thousand.
26:26
So the first place I go to when I need tradespeople is my own
26:29
backyard. These are people that have
26:31
worked for me now. So many of them now have moved
26:35
on, retired. The boomers are my age or older,
26:37
so it's their kids, and a lot of them travel together.
26:42
We effectively operate as if we were a competitor to the union.
26:47
I can bring you the labor you need and the hall is out of
26:50
people. I'm consistently 25% less in
26:53
terms of expense than if you went to the union hall.
26:56
So I've become a supplier that works on the merit side.
27:01
Very little of what we do is on union jobs.
27:04
But the real secret sauce is I've got people and you don't.
27:07
And it's not really through anything magical that Mark did.
27:11
About eight years ago, I did buy a proprietary database of 50
27:16
million candidates. 50 million what?
27:19
50 million candidates, OK, but that's set for another business
27:24
that we're in pre launch a tech play called Avalar and it's not
27:29
up on any of the of the socials yet, but Avalar is the world's
27:33
first crowdsourcing candidate sourcing web enabled app.
27:41
What does that mean? It means you can curate your own
27:45
private network and be paid for it.
27:50
How many times does someone ever come and ask you, Hey Anthony,
27:53
who do you know that's the best doctor, lawyer, plumber, garbage
27:58
man, Pick 1 mechanic if you like.
28:02
In my life, I get those questions all the time.
28:05
I presume that you as a professional, you get those same
28:08
questions all the time as well. How?
28:11
How often does someone offered to pay you for the value of your
28:14
network? Not very often.
28:19
Might get a dinner or lunch, but what I've created is a a way for
28:25
you to curate your network. And there's some secret sauce
28:29
inside of it that I'm not going to talk about, but a way for you
28:32
to curate your network that can create a passive income of a
28:35
couple grand a month just for you creating your own network
28:39
and curating it. When will this be available?
28:46
I pushed it back until the first of the year.
28:48
That's the last meeting. The tech stuff, the the guts are
28:52
developed. The tech stuff is not where I
28:56
want it yet. I have a a buddy of mine that's
28:59
doing all the app dev. We hired a graphic UI person to
29:02
do all the screens. That's done the direct answer to
29:06
questions. I don't expect it to go until Q1
29:08
of next year. That could be January, that
29:11
could be March. And our first place we're going
29:14
to those 50 million candidates and we'll invite them to come in
29:17
and become part of it and create their own network.
29:20
It's it's a multi level marketing style approach.
29:23
If indeed and Uber and Amway all had a baby, that's Abel.
29:32
OK, so that's coming. But because we have those kinds
29:36
of tools and that kind of forward thinking, we get access
29:39
to people that no one else does. I can start by searching a 50
29:43
million candidate database for the talent that you need.
29:46
No one has that. Then we move to the 66,000
29:50
people that have worked for us on the trade side.
29:53
No one has that. Then we move to the 7000 of the
29:56
workforce on the white collar side.
29:58
A lot of people have that. Then we start where the other
30:02
people start. My competition starts on that
30:04
third level. They go to Indeed or Court
30:06
Builder and they post and they pray that someone's going to
30:09
answer their ads and then they can go and put them in the job.
30:12
I don't have to do that. I start 3 levels higher.
30:15
So it truly is a unique value proposition.
30:18
It's faster and it's more cost effective.
30:21
You're not having to pay to post on indeed.
30:24
You've already got, depending on, you know, where you have
30:28
accessed these people's information.
30:30
A lot of these folks you've already got a relationship with,
30:33
they know who you are. They're they're happy to hear
30:35
from you. And so you can get that talent
30:37
to your clients faster and more cost effectively than what your
30:42
competitors could do. That's correct.
30:44
Yeah, that's pretty slick. What else should we say about
30:50
all your staffing companies before we get into a little bit
30:54
about your personal journey being a Councilman, the the the
30:58
nonprofit? Let's touch on on the the 10 or
31:02
12 tools because what I've found is that that most especially the
31:06
older I get, can I give you a body to solve an intern problem?
31:10
Sure. But most of the time there's a
31:14
systemic problem that needs to be addressed, whether it's a
31:17
supply of people, the above the line, below the line, whether
31:20
they need someone to manage vendors.
31:23
So I want to touch on a couple of the 12.
31:26
One of the things that we're seeing more and more traction
31:29
with is the MSP market or the managed services professional
31:33
market. And this would be where talent
31:36
logistics hovers over all of the other contract labor providers.
31:42
So we go into a client and we have a tech stack that will be
31:45
put in place. So think of the Ms. type of the
31:48
tool for people. And then we're the MSP that sits
31:52
on the top doing all the accountability checks and
31:55
balances on the firms that deliver because so many times
32:00
you have an unwieldy number. The vendor, sorry, the company
32:04
we're working with today has over 300 vendors in their plants
32:09
across Asia and North America. They don't have any consistency.
32:14
It's a cowboy world where each of them are all able to go and
32:18
buy labor as they need different prices, different markups,
32:22
different insurance. Some don't have insurance, some
32:25
don't comply with EEOC requirements.
32:28
So we're in a position where we're going to bring all that
32:31
together in one easy stack. We'll whittle down the number of
32:36
vendors they need less. We'll put in a reverse auction
32:39
component so it makes it competitive, and we believe
32:42
we'll save them close to 10% on their contract labor spent.
32:46
Huge number. You've got people in Iowa that
32:50
are paying a 2.0 markup when they should be paying a 1.5
32:53
markup. That's what the market is, but
32:56
whoever bought in Iowa didn't know that.
32:58
They don't have an expertise. They can sit across the top of
33:01
it and manage the contract labor.
33:04
There are more opportunities for things like that.
33:07
Sure, Somebody calls us and says I need 6 electricians for six
33:10
months. Yes, we take it.
33:12
We do that work. But there are bigger
33:15
opportunities to have bigger impact on the businesses and
33:18
help more people by being able to offer some of the larger
33:22
solutions. A big Korean company has bought
33:26
a plant just north of of here. We're having the same
33:29
conversations with them. They know they need hundreds of
33:31
people beginning in Q1 of next year.
33:34
They don't know what to do. They don't have any
33:35
relationships. They just came and bought the
33:37
plant. There's two people that are that
33:39
are involved. So far, we're at the table
33:41
having the exact same conversation.
33:43
Let us manage the continuity for you.
33:45
We'll bring vendors if you want. You want to pick the vendors,
33:48
you pick them. When you say vendors, are you
33:51
talking about staffing vendors? Vendors absolutely.
33:54
Are you talking you're not talking about like raw material
33:57
vendors? No, people got it the the labor
34:00
side. So there are vendor management
34:03
tools for raw materials. There are also vendor management
34:05
tools for people. And you push those requirements
34:08
out and it offers continuity and it offers consistency.
34:12
And frankly, then you can have regulatory compliance when you
34:15
don't have it before today. The first one I mentioned is in
34:19
a Cowboy State. It's a it's a tough spot.
34:21
When you talk about regulatory compliance, are you talking
34:24
about things like making sure that they have the right
34:26
insurance, that the workers comp and unemployment is is all set
34:30
up correctly? Is that what you're talking
34:32
about from a? Compliance or at a very high
34:34
level, yes, but these clients also have governmental
34:39
regulatory compliance. So they have to take just for
34:44
example OSHA logs, it just has one example.
34:46
So if you're in a manufacturing plant, they have they whoever
34:49
owns that plant owns that OSHA log.
34:51
So there are requirements for safety and safety protocols I
34:54
know should report it. For some of these clients that
34:58
are in manufacturing, they take dollars from the federal
35:01
government. So there are employment
35:03
statistics that have to be reported back into the federal
35:06
government. So compliance is an issue we
35:10
have, we've discovered over the years, suppliers, competitors of
35:14
ours that carry no insurance that are in the middle of three
35:18
pieces of litigation that their owners are being are going to
35:21
lose the company through a divorce.
35:24
And, and my clients are sitting there, their business is
35:27
dependent upon what happens in that divorce proceeding.
35:30
Come on, you know, we, we, we bring a certain assurance to the
35:37
table. If those guys fail, we'll go
35:39
find another one or we'll do it ourselves as a backup.
35:43
So there are lots of other service offerings.
35:45
It's people as a solution. Think talent solution.
35:49
Don't think just staff augmentation.
35:52
If I can think differently about my business, So if it really
35:55
costs me $20,000 to hire somebody in it, I'm turning it
35:58
over twice a year. I get 40 grand into it.
36:01
You know I can you can get a lot of contract labor to put out
36:05
more product with that 40 grand we have a.
36:09
Because it's cheaper for you to manage that turnover than it is
36:12
for your clients to do it internally.
36:14
And when you craft a solution, so we had a client that we, we
36:18
did this a couple years ago, they were hiring large volumes
36:21
of 15 to $16.00 our people. And this was a, an OEM
36:26
automotive aftermarket. And we, we did the, the study to
36:31
show them that if you replaced twenty of those $1516.00 an hour
36:36
people with $624.00 an hour people, you'll get more
36:41
productivity. And they didn't believe you.
36:45
So we put our money where our mouth was and we brought in
36:47
those six and they killed it. It was an order of magnitude of
36:51
four O 1 and it saved. These guys are, are
36:55
professionals, they're more skilled.
36:58
They didn't have the turnover. They're at work, they work 65
37:00
hours a week and they just killed it.
37:03
And after we proved it, it saved them much, much more than 10%
37:08
because they're you're putting 20 or 30, fifteen, $16.00 an
37:11
hour. People want all this with
37:12
overtime and cost of higher. And we put 6 some days, they
37:18
went off with five and we just killed it.
37:20
An order of magnitude of productivity of four to one.
37:24
That's not a staffing solution, that's a business.
37:28
That's solving a business problem with people.
37:32
And in today's market, if you can get it done with six people,
37:34
that's a much higher probability for success than doing it with
37:38
15 or 4. So that kind of gives you an
37:41
idea, think, solve your labor problem.
37:44
If I need more people, I need less people, or I need different
37:48
people, there's where we have a solution we can play in all of
37:52
those. Sure.
37:53
Staff augmentation is one of 12 tools.
37:56
It's just one of 12 tools. So if I go into a situation and
38:01
all I have is a hammer, every problem is a nail.
38:03
Well, I can't go into the situation thinking, look,
38:06
staffing's the right solution. I have a dozen different
38:09
solutions I can bring to you that will impact your business.
38:12
Staffing's just one of them. Mark, I want to transition into
38:17
either talking about the nonprofit or the health issues
38:22
that you went through. And I want to make sure that we
38:25
do it in the chronology that makes the most sense.
38:28
So you tell me which one to go to 1st?
38:31
So let me jump on on feedingteam.org and we have the
38:37
Feeding team.org ties to the business.
38:39
That's why I want to go there. OK?
38:42
Feeding team.org was started because in 1985 and 1986, Lisa
38:47
and I were what's called a gap family, a gap family.
38:52
These are people that make too much money to qualify for any
38:55
kind of public assistance, but not so much money that they're
39:00
not food insecure if something goes bump in the night.
39:06
So in in my neck of the woods, it's somewhere in that 40 to
39:09
$45,000 a year income level and four or more mouths to feed in
39:16
the home. feedingteam.org pantries are designed to be
39:20
located anywhere where GAP families will be or where they
39:25
live. So certain apartment complexes,
39:27
certain trailer parks, tattoo parlors, frankly, at the public
39:33
health department at the fairgrounds at
39:36
churches@schoolstodayfeedingteam.org is 71 outdoor freestanding food
39:44
pantries, no questions asked, open 24/7, 365 with non
39:49
perishable meals. And we're serving 12,000 meals a
39:53
month with just what we're pushing out.
39:56
About half of our pantries are managed by pantry hosts.
40:00
We manage the rest of them. We supply food.
40:02
We have volunteers that sort stock clean.
40:06
But it's the thing that people need to understand is it's tied
40:10
inextricably to the business. We don't have any paid
40:13
employees. We run fundraisers, Sure we are
40:15
5O1C3 but it's funded by talent logistics.
40:20
Every dollar of of revenue that comes into TLX, about 1/4 of a
40:26
point of the revenue goes over to feeding team to buy food, put
40:29
materials for the for the box truck to deliver the the
40:32
pantries, to paint them, to supply them to, to store food,
40:36
pay insurance, gas. So when you do business with
40:40
TLX, you're helping the community.
40:42
When you do business with TLX, we feed our families because
40:46
that's how we that's how we earn our living.
40:48
I put people to work at your business and they I'm feeding
40:51
your family. I'm also feeding their family
40:54
because they're earning a paycheck.
40:55
And at the same time, we are all collectively feeding people that
40:59
otherwise would not get a meal. You can't unwind this do
41:04
business with TLX because it helps the community.
41:07
It helps feed people that otherwise wouldn't go hungry.
41:11
Business and ministry. The intersection of the two.
41:15
I don't buy the thumb, but if people want to talk about why we
41:18
do this, every pantry has my life first on it.
41:21
Cautious 323 and 24 do. Everything you do is under the
41:24
Lord, not unto men. Wait, say that.
41:27
Say that again. Cautious 23 and 24, which the
41:31
paraphrase is everything you do unto the Lord, not as unto men,
41:36
your reward is in heaven. Your reward is not here.
41:38
You don't do it for personal glory.
41:40
You don't do it for anything here.
41:42
You do it because of what God has done for us.
41:45
And and it's in small type. You know, we don't we don't
41:49
Bible thump people that are hungry or people that can't feed
41:53
their kids. They don't care to know about
41:55
any of that stuff. And we will put there'll be some
41:59
proselytizing material that'll be in there.
42:01
There'll be job opportunities in there.
42:03
We try to connect them with other services if they're really
42:06
hurting. But the crossover piece is
42:08
what's important. People will do.
42:11
We never intended it to be this way, by the way.
42:14
People will do business with us because of Feeding team.
42:18
They'll do business with us. They can spend their, you know,
42:21
their contract labor money anywhere, but they'll do
42:24
business with us because of what we do with feeding team.
42:27
Lisa, I just, I started just pulling in the driveway.
42:30
They're going today to pick about 800 lbs of food that will
42:33
be distributed out. We have about 30 volunteer
42:35
families that stock and manage pantries.
42:38
They come here every Wednesday to the office.
42:42
So I'm looking at your site Feeding team.org and I see a
42:45
couple of pictures of these that you call them pantries, and I
42:48
think that's a good word for it. I'm trying to get a sense of the
42:52
size. I mean it seems to me like this
42:54
is the size of like a normal size smallish closet.
43:00
Yeah, about 6 foot tall, about four feet wide, about 3 feet
43:04
deep. And it'll hold 400 to 500 non
43:07
perishable meals. That we don't stock it like that
43:11
anymore because people take advantage.
43:13
We'll we set a new pantry, we'll put 3 or 400 meals in it and
43:16
then about every three days someone will come back with 20
43:20
to 100 meals. Ramen, canned tuna, canned
43:23
protein. When I speak on feeding team, I
43:27
talk about the same crossover. I bring a can of dandy more beef
43:31
Stew with me, just as as an illustrative object.
43:36
When Lisa and I first started 8586, two small girls at home
43:42
car engine blows. This was us.
43:45
This is where this came from. We were a gap family.
43:48
We're Wednesday, we both work, we're getting paid on Friday.
43:52
We're going all right. Well, how are we going to feed
43:53
the kids tonight and tomorrow night until we get paid on
43:56
Friday? Supper more times than I would
44:00
care to admit was a can of beef Stew back then.
44:03
You'll appreciate this from Ohio Kroger cost cutter, God awful
44:08
yellow can of beef Stew that we could get for 30 cents and a
44:11
baked potato. That was so and we've been
44:16
blessed to a place where we can give back to people that were in
44:20
our same spot. That's all this is.
44:22
It's a it's a big box you put food in.
44:25
It's not a complicated model. Well, and it reminds me of in my
44:28
neighborhood here we see these tiny little birdhouse shaped
44:32
things where it's for books, have a book, leave a book,
44:36
right? And then similar thing I've seen
44:39
same kind of size things where people will put kind of like
44:43
you're doing some food in there and like you have something,
44:47
leave it, you need something, take it.
44:49
But you guys are doing this on a different scale and you're not
44:53
primarily relying on other folks to stock these things.
44:57
You are taking that upon yourselves.
44:59
You've built these structures, you place these structures, you
45:02
stock these structures. It sounds like multiple times
45:05
per week. Yeah, well.
45:07
We started at least, and I would drive the box truck on Friday
45:11
afternoons and go put food in pantries.
45:14
Then Friday afternoon became all day Friday, then it became all
45:16
day Thursday and all day Friday and we just couldn't do it.
45:19
We had to change the model to a volunteer model.
45:22
But we know, case in point, I just wrote about it.
45:26
We write articles for the local newspapers about feeding team,
45:30
and we learned at a charity event last weekend of a daughter
45:35
of a local prominent local official single mom who is
45:40
feeding herself and her child out of the pantries.
45:43
Too proud to ask for help from her parents.
45:45
Her parents could stroke her check and buy her years worth of
45:48
grocery. Nope.
45:49
I want to do this on my own. And so you have a upper 20s
45:53
single mom with a small child who's providing for herself by
45:58
feeding out of the pantry. We see it all the time.
46:03
Now most of these are located in North Central IN just north of
46:08
Indianapolis, which is where we're located, but I see a
46:11
couple in rather remote locations from you Las Cruces,
46:15
NM and Sapulpa. OK, how are how did those ones
46:20
come about? Las Cruces was the Lions Group
46:25
in the Lions Club in Las Cruces, NM somehow found out about us
46:30
and wanted to do a pantry. So we partnered together, got
46:34
the plans, got all the documents, showed them what to
46:36
do, taught them how to run it and they branded it half feeding
46:39
team and half Lions Club. So when you go there, there's
46:43
actually the the the pantry sits outside the Lions Club.
46:47
The one in outside of Tulsa is a client.
46:50
We built it together. We had an outsourced contract in
46:52
Tulsa, where we were at, the TLX partner I told you about, and we
46:58
partnered together to put a pantry there.
47:00
Our most recent pantry just wanted a new client in
47:04
Whitestown, which is about 30 minutes away from where I'm at
47:08
now. We have pantries, 7273 and 74,
47:13
all teed up ready to go. One of them's going to go to a
47:16
tattoo parlor in Kokomo, one's going to go to a business on the
47:20
West side of Indianapolis and one is going to go to the health
47:23
department, the Hamilton County Health Department.
47:27
Mark, probably my favorite question to ask in these
47:29
interviews has to do with a personal challenge that someone
47:35
has overcome and the lessons that they've learned going
47:38
through the other side. We got to touch on this just a
47:40
little bit in the pre interview. So I have a feeling this is
47:42
going to take up the the rest of our time and I'm totally fine
47:46
and very excited about that. So I want to do a couple of
47:49
housekeeping items before we get into that.
47:51
I just always like to invite people who are listening and
47:53
like the content to hit the like, share a subscribe button
47:57
on their favorite podcast app. And I want to let people know
47:59
the best way to get in touch with you.
48:01
Mark, what would that be? So probably the best way would
48:04
be a simple e-mail address mark.hall@tlxcorp.com,
48:10
mark.hall@tlxcorp.com or a 317-832-1104, 317-832-1104
48:20
tlxcorp.com is the homepage for all.
48:25
Great. And we'll have all of that
48:27
information in the show notes too.
48:28
OK, Mark, I'm going to kind of turn the mic over to you for a
48:31
little bit because I want to hear more about the health scare
48:35
that you had back towards the end of 2021.
48:40
Well, let me let me rotate back a little bit.
48:42
So you've had, I think this is your 71st show, if I remember
48:46
right, 70 or 71. We've got a few that have been
48:50
taped but not published yet. So I thought it was kind of
48:52
ironic. 71st pantry, 71st show. Oh.
48:55
OK. I like that though, yeah.
48:58
I'm arguably going to be the only person that you've ever had
49:01
on your podcast that has died twice.
49:04
OK. One of the films we did a little
49:08
same group that did the art of art of recruiting, integrity
49:11
recruiting did another little 92nd blurb.
49:15
I died once in 2004 and I died on the table when they were
49:19
putting a stent in a family history of heart disease.
49:24
And then in 2021 to to our conversation earlier, I
49:29
discovered I've been facing a a pain in the upper left side of
49:33
my chest for a long time. It was like a burning baked
49:36
potato, and it would really stress out when I had a
49:40
contentious conversation with an employee or a contentious
49:44
conversation with a client or when the Colts defense was on
49:48
the field. The only relief that I could get
49:53
would be by standing in the doorway and pushing my hands up
49:57
and really pushing against my shoulders, and that would
50:00
provide me some relief. We checked everything.
50:03
Now. I suspected in the back of my
50:04
mind that, you know, it could be similar.
50:07
My father had had 7 bypasses, my mother had had three.
50:12
So I have a history of this. So I, I'm not naive, but you
50:18
know, hope springs eternal. Well, maybe it's not.
50:21
So we ran this myriad of tests from about February of 21.
50:27
Every test you could think of that wasn't a heart
50:29
catheterization. In the meantime, while we're
50:33
doing these tests, I'm planning to run for office.
50:38
So I, I had lost in my first campaign in 2000 and well, back
50:44
up. I ran for a caucus and lost.
50:46
I ran in 2018 and lost. I ran in 2019 and lost.
50:53
So I'm, I'm pretty sure I'm thinking, OK, yeah, God's
50:57
closing this door. He really doesn't want this to
50:59
happen. And sure as anything we're going
51:02
through these tests and Lisa and I are, are praying through this
51:06
pretty hard. And it was pretty obvious to us,
51:09
yeah, you're supposed to run again.
51:11
So we spent the summer while we're doing all this testing,
51:14
preparing all of the collateral material required to run for a
51:18
countrywide race, a county wide election in our, in our neck of
51:24
the woods county, Hemly County is a very affluent county, about
51:27
380,000 people just north of Marion County, north of
51:32
Indianapolis, as we talked earlier.
51:34
And the proposition of winning a county wide race here is much
51:37
like winning a statehouse race or in some parts a federal
51:41
representative race. So we filmed, we did pictures,
51:46
we prepared all the cloud or material.
51:48
And then the doc says you need to go have a heart
51:50
catheterization. So you can imagine the angst.
51:53
We've done all of this work, spent 10s of thousands of
51:56
dollars to get ready to go run again against what I was
52:00
describing to you earlier, the evil empire, embedded
52:04
establishment politicians that did not have the constituents
52:09
best interest at heart. And I'm laying on the table and
52:13
all of this emotion culminates when I hear Doctor Pyle say you
52:18
got to go straight to the open heart.
52:19
Wow. And it was pretty surreal.
52:24
What goes through your mind when you hear those words?
52:26
Well, they have me on a little bit of percent, but I was lucid
52:31
enough. The first thing that strikes me
52:35
is my wife. The next thing that strikes me
52:39
is my kids. Then it goes to grandkids.
52:43
And you think about in that moment, you think about your
52:46
legacy and you think about the unimportance of so many things
52:53
that we do is when you're faced with the very real prospect of
52:56
your own mortality in a very near and a very real sense, life
53:01
changes. And you know, there are no
53:04
atheists in foxholes there. There are no atheists in in the
53:09
open heart surgery laboratory. If you get my get my undertone.
53:13
So roll tape forward and we go to Saint Vincent's hospital,
53:17
which was incredible. I gave them a five star rating
53:20
on Yelp. It was even the people that that
53:24
cleaned. They were happy and they were
53:26
singing and we got we got good food and it was incredible care,
53:31
even including the surgeon. The surgeon, I don't mind
53:36
getting bumped for people that are requesting a world class
53:39
surgeon to do heart transplants. And he would sit on my bed in
53:43
the morning and say, look, I could do it, but it'd be like
53:45
8:00 tonight after a heart transplant.
53:48
And I really want to give you my best.
53:50
I don't. And this happened twice.
53:53
So we got pushed back and he got pushed back and he got pushed
53:56
back. We stayed through Thanksgiving
53:58
of 21, and then the day came and I was the first one of them.
54:02
And I remember the theater. If you've ever been in a surgery
54:07
center like that, the lights are, it's like being on the sun.
54:10
The cold, I can remember it being in the 40s.
54:13
It's frigid. And me being the quiet, shy,
54:17
unassuming guy that I am, I'm cutting up the crack of jokes.
54:22
I got myself off the Gurney and I'm not.
54:24
I'm having heart problems. I got myself off the Gurney.
54:27
I jumped up on on the operating table and I'm joking back and
54:30
forth and they're telling me to calm down.
54:33
They understand that my jabber jabbering is a nervous reaction.
54:37
So what's coming on? So 4 1/2 five hour surgery.
54:42
Lisa describes the the most dire part is when you're in the
54:47
surgery theater, they won't tell you anything.
54:48
They have a monitor outside in the waiting room and you can see
54:52
the different stages of the surgery.
54:55
So it's a different color and you're coded by a patient number
55:00
and not it's not the name. And she could tell at the point
55:03
that I was taken off and put on life support that they stopped.
55:07
My heart had it out. So she knew in the the, the
55:11
moment again, Lisa and I've been together 49 years, married 45.
55:15
The moment that she was the most emotional with my daughters was
55:19
that moment when she knew that this was completely in God's
55:23
hands. My husband's heart is no longer
55:25
beating. It's sitting outside his chest.
55:28
And they're, they're going to begin to work on very surreal
55:34
moments. Then couple of very funny
55:36
moments afterwards. I'm, I'm coming out of the
55:38
anesthesia and just to prove that that boys will be boys.
55:44
My pastor is inside. He's, he's going to be there
55:47
with, with Lisa and I'm starting to come out of the anesthesia
55:52
and I'm still a little loopy and they're talking about I got to
55:55
calm down. They actually tied my hands down
55:58
because I can't talk without him.
56:00
And I looked at the pastor and I said, well, if you want me to
56:02
calm down, she's got to take her or put her shirt back on.
56:09
Apparently in that same process, he he rebuked me and then I
56:13
flipped him off. I remember none of that.
56:17
Blame the anesthesia. So go for it another hour or
56:22
two. They got their restraints off my
56:23
hands and now we're taking the tube out and we're taking the
56:27
mask off. And I looked at Lisa in that
56:30
moment and I said, OK, we're going to beat you.
56:33
She knew I didn't say anything more.
56:35
I woke up from from the anesthetic.
56:38
I was I knew I was going to be OK.
56:39
I knew I'd survived it. And I looked at my wife and I
56:43
said, now we're going to be, we're going to win.
56:46
And she's OK, I guess we're back in.
56:49
And, and were you talking about beating the heart attack or are
56:53
we talking about we're going to win the election?
56:55
We own the election. This was the evil empire in
56:58
context. These are not nice people in
57:02
context. We received death threats for
57:07
running for a county office. In context, my middle daughter
57:12
was nine months pregnant two days before the election, gave
57:15
birth, and people on social media were posting horrible
57:20
things about wanting my grandchild to be born and
57:22
stillborn. We would have.
57:25
We would have spent any amount of money, done any amount of
57:28
work just because of they picked on the wrong family if they came
57:34
out. Come after me all you want, but
57:36
leave my kids, my wife, my grandkids out of it.
57:38
And they didn't. It was as much a Rocky Alboa
57:44
moment as I've ever had in my life, waking up, knowing I was
57:47
going to live and knowing I was going to go kick his ass.
57:50
And, and we did. We beat A5 term incumbent by 17
57:54
points. That's unheard of.
57:57
Never, never happened. Five term incumbent.
57:59
I mean, most elections are decided within, you know, a
58:02
handful of percentage points. But to beat A5 term incumbent by
58:06
17 points, that's, that's insane.
58:11
So how did how did this affect the your your view and the
58:15
vision of the world and your life going forward?
58:18
So I made, I made preparations before in case I didn't make it.
58:23
I hired someone to run the businesses day-to-day.
58:26
And he served for about 8 months in a vice president role.
58:29
And right before I went in, I promoted him to the president of
58:32
the, of all of the entities he runs the day-to-day.
58:35
So I, I, I had a, a tremendous amount of peace, you know,
58:40
spiritually I was at peace. You know, if I die, I'm with my
58:43
maker and I got that. I don't want to die, but if I
58:46
did, I'm at peace. The toughest part was the
58:49
conversations with the kids. That was hard to have those
58:53
conversations and what I expect out of you and what I, what
58:57
you're going to need to do to take care of your mother.
58:58
And all of those conversations are gut wrenching.
59:02
The conversations on business was pretty easy.
59:05
Here's what I want you to do and keep the wheels on and get it to
59:07
here. And once you get it to there,
59:08
I'd like you to sell it. Make sure this is taken care of
59:11
and keep wrong benefit. That was just check the box da
59:13
da, da, da, da. But again, we talked about
59:17
legacy. So coming through that it, it
59:22
has changed my life because now I focus on things that are going
59:26
to have longer last impact. Feeding team, public service,
59:33
the charitable work we do through church.
59:35
It not because of a near death experience.
59:38
It just really kicked my butt to say, look, dude, you're not.
59:41
Business isn't your end game. Business is a means to get to
59:45
your end game and you can use what you do in the context of
59:50
helping other people and glorifying God or you cannot.
59:54
It's your choice. This is what we were talking
59:56
about before, how you love this combination of business and
1:00:00
ministry and you've got to work for it.
1:00:02
Yeah, business tree it, it fits it.
1:00:05
And you don't have to be a a big faith person, but you can use
1:00:09
your platform, your tools, your business to be able to help
1:00:13
others even in a small way. We, we talk to people all the
1:00:17
time. You never know the value of a
1:00:19
can of green beans put in a pantry until you're a mother who
1:00:23
can't feed her three kids. That's a that's a tremendous
1:00:28
every day we get. Every day we get to be a part of
1:00:32
that. I I'm looking out over the top
1:00:34
of my screen and I can see a pantry.
1:00:36
It's 20 yards from where I'm sitting right now.
1:00:40
So I see people pull in all the time here.
1:00:42
There's a guy that comes up on his wheelchair.
1:00:45
He's got one of his motorized wheelchairs.
1:00:47
There's a state highway out here.
1:00:48
He rides the state highway. Oh my goodness.
1:00:51
There's a dad who brings a kid on a backpack and his kid up on
1:00:55
his shoulders and always grabs a, a protein bar some hands to
1:00:58
the kid. There are large families of
1:01:03
transient people that will come here and and take the food that
1:01:06
they need to get wherever they're going.
1:01:09
I get to be a part of that vicariously, but I get to be a
1:01:13
part of that. If they need real help then we
1:01:16
then we offer them help to get to to bigger food pantries and
1:01:19
places that can take care of them.
1:01:22
I would never. Have been in that place, but for
1:01:24
this business, the business funds all of that.
1:01:27
The ability to help people is because of how good we are in
1:01:30
our business. They're inextricably
1:01:34
intertwined. The County Council work that's
1:01:38
just that's business, that's business consulting and it's a a
1:01:41
$300 million budget and you get to help a lot of people.
1:01:45
But this is very direct. See, people will pull up in a in
1:01:49
a late model car and they got nails all done up and they got a
1:01:52
really nice cell phone and they can't feed themselves.
1:01:59
What a neat feeling it must be for you, Mark, to have that
1:02:02
pantry sitting right outside your office window where you're
1:02:06
toiling away. Sometimes things are going well
1:02:08
at work. Sometimes there's big
1:02:10
frustrations. And every now and then you get
1:02:12
to look up and you get to see the fruits of your labor in an
1:02:15
entirely different way. Playing out the the dad with the
1:02:19
kid on his shoulders, you know, the guy in the motorized
1:02:22
wheelchair. I have to imagine that the
1:02:24
feeling it creates in your renewed heart is something
1:02:29
that's probably hard to put words to.
1:02:31
It is. Have you got time for a story?
1:02:33
Yes. All right, so this this was a
1:02:36
lesson for Mark. Big picture window right here.
1:02:39
Lady pulls up and normally if somebody has a cooler, they're
1:02:44
coming to take too much. So I was triggered.
1:02:47
She brings out this red cooler and she brings out a child.
1:02:51
This one happened to be a daughter and she's not ten yards
1:02:54
from me, like right where I'm looking and she begins to sign
1:02:58
to her her daughter. OK, that's unusual.
1:03:01
I've never seen that my my Spidey sense is going off
1:03:05
because they've brought it cooler.
1:03:06
You're going to go. Over to the painter.
1:03:08
They're going to take everything out and they're going to bail.
1:03:09
So this proves Mark's predisposition and God's sense
1:03:15
of humor. She takes this thing over with
1:03:18
with the daughter and opens it up and proceeds to sign telling
1:03:23
it's like 4 shelves in the pantry.
1:03:25
She's telling the daughter about the different pantry items and
1:03:29
then the daughter starts getting things out of the cooler and
1:03:32
putting it in the pantry. Because this is a take what you
1:03:35
need, give what you can't model. And of course I'm feeling oh
1:03:39
God, because that was not what I thought.
1:03:41
That was the furthest thing from my mind.
1:03:43
You were. Ready to go confront her and and
1:03:46
you try to not do that but. Yeah, Cooler.
1:03:50
So just to add insult to injury, she gets done, she goes back
1:03:55
with some red cooler back and outcomes a boy with a blue
1:04:00
cooler and the whole thing happens all over again.
1:04:03
And the little boy goes over and puts stuff in the pantries just
1:04:07
to prove the point. To Mark.
1:04:09
You don't judge the book by its cover, you idiot.
1:04:12
Oh, I love that story. That's so a wonderful one to end
1:04:16
on, Mark, because it gives you a ray of sunshine and hope in a
1:04:21
world where there's just, there's a lot of chaos and
1:04:23
division. You see, when you see something
1:04:26
like that happen, it just it, it lights you up for humanity
1:04:29
again. It does, Anthony, we get to live
1:04:31
in a world of hope because we see it on a regular basis.
1:04:35
I don't, I don't have a lot of hope in our government and I'm
1:04:38
on the inside and it's, it's hard, you know, saying no to
1:04:41
people and balancing budgets. This is pretty basic, you know,
1:04:46
candy green beans has a big impact on a mom's life.
1:04:49
Like I was saying, if her kids are hungry and through our
1:04:53
business, we have the opportunity to be a part of that
1:04:56
entire food chain. Feeding her family.
1:04:58
Feeding her clients family. Feeding my employees family,
1:05:01
Feeding my family. That's terrific, Mark.
1:05:05
I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time
1:05:08
and your story with us today. I really appreciate.
1:05:11
It my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
1:05:12
It's been a joy. I, you can't tell.
1:05:14
I don't I, I I don't have fun having these conversations at
1:05:16
all. The the the room lit up because
1:05:19
of you today. So thank you folks.
1:05:22
That's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
1:05:25
Thanks for learning with us today.