Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Building a Seven-Figure Franchise for Six Figures: Cary Daniel's Nextaff Opportunity

Transcript

Building a Seven-Figure Franchise for Six Figures: Cary Daniel's Nextaff Opportunity · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
0:08
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:11
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:14
adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and
0:16
today's guest is Carrie Daniel, Co Founder and CEO of Next
0:20
Staff. They are a staffing franchise
0:23
that focuses on matching talented individuals with
0:26
organizations in the commercial healthcare and technology
0:30
sectors. Through its unique X Factor
0:33
recruitment process, Next Staff aims to deliver top quality
0:36
service and help businesses reduce turnover by placing the
0:40
right people in the right roles. Kerry has worked in the staffing
0:45
industry for many years, playing leadership roles in multiple
0:48
companies before Co founding Next Staff.
0:50
He is passionate about business ownership and sees staffing
0:53
franchises as a way for entrepreneurs to thrive in their
0:57
local markets. Next Staff and Carrie have
0:59
earned several honors including recognition as an Ernst and
1:02
Young Entrepreneur of the Year, regional Finalist, placements on
1:06
the Inc 500 listings, Entrepreneur Franchise 500 and a
1:11
spot in the Franchise Times Top 500.
1:14
Carrie's dedication to franchise ownership and client success has
1:17
helped Next Half grow across the country.
1:21
Now before we get into all that good stuff, today's episode is
1:24
brought to you by my company, Add Back Benefits Agency, where
1:27
we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that
1:31
are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your
1:34
bottom line. Imagine being able to give even
1:36
your temporary employees free access to doctors, therapists
1:39
and prescription medications. And here's the fun part, the
1:43
program actually puts more money into your employees pockets and
1:47
the company's too. One recent client was able to
1:50
increase net profits by $900 per employee per year.
1:55
Results vary for each company and some organizations may not
1:57
be eligible. To find out if your company
1:59
qualifies, contact us today at AD back benefits.com.
2:03
All right, back to our guest today, Co founder and CEO of
2:05
Next Staff, Carrie Daniel. Thanks for making the time to
2:08
Share your story today. Thanks, Anthony.
2:10
Appreciate it. So Carrie, you've been in the
2:13
staffing industry for decades. How did you first get your
2:15
start? It's kind of an odd story and
2:18
the fact that I was coerced into the industry by my current Co
2:23
founder. There was a company in Kansas
2:26
City that was hiring. They were on a rapid growth plan
2:29
and he said you got to come check these guys out.
2:32
I went in and interviewed and said, no, that's not for me
2:35
because I wanted to get in sales.
2:37
And all they had was, you know, kind of the recruiter position
2:39
open and he came back and said, ah, you don't understand how
2:42
fast they're growing. So you know, you should give it
2:45
a shot. And so I went in second
2:49
interview and back then they did a gallop personality profile
2:53
test and I actually failed that test, but they called me and
2:58
said you failed the test for a recruiter, but we are going to
3:02
encourage them to give you the management test.
3:05
And so they gave me the management test.
3:07
I passed and that's how I got into the staffing industry.
3:10
So a couple times where I didn't want to get in, they didn't want
3:14
me in, but it happened to work out.
3:17
So that's interesting. So the person who recruited you
3:19
in obviously was a friend, somebody you'd known for a
3:21
while. I've known him for a couple of
3:23
years. Yeah, I've worked together
3:25
before. And so something about your
3:27
personality made you not a good fit for a recruiter, but what
3:31
made them think that you might be a good fit for management?
3:35
You know, having been in this industry now for, you know, 2
3:39
1/2 decades, I can see where, you know, on the recruiting
3:41
side, you're typically you have more of the, the empathetic
3:45
personality trait, much more of a, a softer personality, where
3:48
mine was more of a hard driven, a go go go, much more tailored
3:53
to sales and evidently based on the Gallup poll, more tailored
3:58
to management. So I guess lucky for me when
4:01
Gallup did that, they, they had a, some kind of way to compare
4:05
it and said, hey, he he doesn't really fit the profile for the
4:08
recruiter that you're looking for, but we think he'd make a
4:11
good manager. OK.
4:12
So at that time that company was a big believer in that.
4:16
It was kind of a if this test says you're good, we'll hire
4:19
you. If it says you're not, we're not
4:20
going to hire you. Oh, that was it.
4:21
That was the yardstick, huh? That was kind of their thing.
4:24
They were big believers in it, so evidently it all worked out
4:29
long term. What's your perspective on that
4:32
kind of assessment? How much faith do you put in
4:36
those today? You know, it's a tool and you
4:39
know, I think as we get into this conversation, we'll dig
4:42
down into kind of The X Factor and where that tool lives.
4:45
But it's, it's one of many things no different than people
4:48
talking about AI today and recruiting.
4:51
It's a tool. It it's not going to be the end
4:53
all be all. And I don't think just like a
4:55
personality profile test shouldn't be the one and only
4:59
factor, AI is not going to be the one and only the only factor
5:03
either. So I want to spend the bulk of
5:06
our time talking about what you're doing at Next Half, but
5:08
let's lay a little bit more groundwork first, because you
5:11
weren't the staffing industry for a bit before you started
5:15
next Half. What was the most formidable
5:18
stop and roll for you prior to next half of what?
5:22
What did you learn? What'd you take away from that?
5:25
You know, the first company I was with, they, they were
5:29
publicly traded, just went public.
5:31
And so it was, it was a great time to be involved in a company
5:33
like that because of the rapid growth and the injection of
5:35
capital and everything. But you, there was a lot of
5:39
change that happened at the levels above me.
5:43
And I, I thought, you know, I, I kind of saw my path and then I
5:47
saw my path kind of either get backed up or disappear.
5:50
And it just so happened I was recruited away from that company
5:53
to another staffing company. And I literally, I think it was
5:57
the Monday I started, they announced that they had just
6:00
sold to another company, a publicly traded company going
6:03
through a roll up. And within six months of me
6:06
being there, there were only three people ahead of me.
6:08
The vice president sails, the CEO and the CEO.
6:11
And within three, six months of working there, all three of
6:14
those people were gone. And now I, I was reporting to
6:16
people in Salt Lake City whom I'd never met.
6:19
And I thought, you know, I'm not, I'm not going to let
6:23
somebody else control my future and control my destiny.
6:27
I'm, I'm doing all the work anyway.
6:30
I've sold. I've seen the recruiting side of
6:32
it. I've opened offices for other
6:34
people. I'm going to do it for myself
6:36
until that was, that's what launched it and.
6:40
Where was your business partner at the time?
6:42
Had he followed you or was he still at the original company?
6:45
He had gone. He was doing sales for another
6:47
organization. OK, Yeah, he had.
6:49
He had left the publicly traded company.
6:51
He went one way, I went the other, but I stayed in staffing
6:54
and I called him up and I said, hey, what's because we've been
6:58
talking about it, thought, you know, maybe this is something we
7:01
should do. And we joked that one of the, I
7:04
guess it was good at the time, maybe bad for them.
7:06
I said one of the biggest mistakes that the publicly
7:08
traded company ever made with us was that they would share their
7:11
monthly P and LS at the office level with us and we'd see what
7:15
we were making versus what that office was making.
7:18
And we thought it'd be nice to be on the bottom line side of
7:21
this business, so. And what skills did your partner
7:26
have that you're like, I got to do this with him?
7:29
Operations, the all, all the operations, the recruiting side,
7:33
the operational side. That was not my Forte.
7:35
It's never been my Forte. Mine's always been on.
7:40
The business development, sales growth.
7:42
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
7:44
And what's his name? What's your partner's name?
7:45
Let's. James.
7:46
James. OK.
7:48
And so you and James decide, OK, hey, we're going to go out and
7:51
start our own thing. Did you both quit your jobs to
7:54
go do that, or did you stay at your jobs and kind of do it on
7:58
the side until you got things built up?
8:01
I came home, my wife was 6, I think was six months pregnant
8:04
and I said, hey, I quit my job and I'm starting a business.
8:09
James stayed at his company, I think for about a month just so
8:13
we could get the ball rolling. But pretty, I mean, within 30
8:17
days we were both feet first and didn't know what we didn't know.
8:23
Hindsight, looking back at it, we were like, in no way should.
8:26
We've never done that because it was so stupid.
8:29
And I've got to ask, did it really go down that way?
8:32
You'd hadn't had a discussion with your wife.
8:34
You just quit your job one day and you came home and said new
8:38
plan. We, we have been talking about
8:40
it and I said, you know, we're, we'd like to do this and this is
8:43
what we're thinking about doing. But one of the key hires that,
8:48
that we had in mind to come aboard with us, it was kind of
8:53
the impetus because he called and said, hey, I just got let go
8:57
of my job and I'm available if you guys are ready to roll.
9:01
I'm ready to roll. And we thought, OK, we don't
9:05
want to miss out on this hire because this is the guy we were
9:08
like, if we do this, we got to bring this guy in.
9:11
He's he's an absolute stud when it comes to sales in the
9:15
business. And that was the impetus.
9:18
We're like, he's available. We've been talking about it.
9:21
Let's go. And yeah, again, in hindsight,
9:25
you don't know what you don't know at the time, but yeah.
9:29
What was the biggest thing looking back that you didn't
9:32
know? You didn't know.
9:34
Well, it, when you're running a branch, you know, the, the
9:38
essence of our business is very simple, right?
9:40
You find companies that need people, you find people looking
9:43
for work, you match them up, repeat the process.
9:46
We did that for years. What we never had to deal with
9:50
was all the stuff that goes on in the back, the payroll and the
9:53
taxes and the work comp and the insurance and the software and
9:57
the vendor negotiations. And so, you know, we just
10:02
thought, let's go get clients. We already have some that we
10:04
know about. We know how to recruit people.
10:07
We can do that. We can match them up.
10:09
And then it's like, Hey, we need to see a copy of your work comp
10:12
insurance and hey, what's your general liability policy look
10:14
like? And hey, who how are you funding
10:16
your payroll? All clueless.
10:19
And this is, you know, this is 98.
10:21
You know, this isn't like I just go ask Chet GPT to figure this
10:25
out or Google. Really.
10:26
It's like, I remember calling, I think it was American family.
10:29
I called my American family homeowners guy and said, Hey, I
10:33
need to get some work comp insurance.
10:34
And he was like, we don't do that here, you call.
10:38
Different. Silos, yeah.
10:39
And so I call this guy gets my information.
10:41
He's like, OK, well yeah, we can buy and coverage.
10:43
I need you to bring, you know, $25,000 deposit down.
10:46
And I'm like, wait a minute, I thought this was going to be
10:48
like $200 a month. Like homeowner sees.
10:51
I'm sure these people are like Oh my God, I can't believe
10:53
underwriting these people. What a rookie.
10:57
Terrible. So how did you get that first
10:59
client? It was somebody that we had
11:03
worked with before. It was another client that so
11:06
the gentleman that we hired, he'd been in the industry with
11:09
us four years prior and stayed in staffing.
11:13
And so it was somebody that we knew and you know, had a good
11:17
relationship with. Told him hey, we're starting our
11:20
own. Would love to have you as a
11:22
client. He's like, let's go.
11:24
Right away. Yeah.
11:25
Right away, it's that personal relationship.
11:27
He remembered the service, he knew who you guys were
11:29
personally and that felt good to him.
11:31
So that that $25,000 that you needed to come up with, Were you
11:36
guys just dipping into your own pockets?
11:38
Did you have to, you know, like go ask friends and family for
11:40
some money to get started? We were, we were fortunate at
11:44
the time that we had two friends of ours, both were in the
11:47
accounting world working for back then.
11:49
I think it was the Big Six. Today is probably the Big 4.
11:52
But they've been talking about, you know, funding us and maybe
11:59
doing some kind of investment. And so those conversations have
12:02
been going on for a little while.
12:04
And so when we called him and said, hey, we're ready to go,
12:06
we're ready to launch, they had already had some kind of idea of
12:10
what the expectations were. But again, you know, it's one of
12:14
those where you don't know what you don't know.
12:16
And we certainly didn't budget a $25,000 work hog deposit in
12:20
month one Pro Pharma. So, but you know, to their
12:23
credit, they they came through and.
12:26
They stuck by you, they helped you out.
12:28
And so at what point, like, all right, this is really working.
12:33
We got something here. At what point did that occur?
12:39
Probably, you know, we were, we were probably 3 months in and we
12:44
had kind of stalled out at a certain level.
12:47
And there was another woman that had worked for me at both prior
12:53
companies and I've been trying to recruit her away.
12:58
We finally got her to come over and I'll never forget her going
13:02
down our, you know, this is back in the old days where you'd
13:04
you'd have stuff and put on a white board and get all our
13:07
orders written up there. And I'll never forget her first
13:10
day coming in and we're sitting down.
13:12
It's me, James, our salesman, and this other lady that we
13:16
hired. And she just went there and
13:17
she's like, OK, tell me about these jobs.
13:18
Well, this was this one. And she's like, Nope, Nope.
13:22
And she just went through and crossed them almost all off.
13:26
These are purple squirrels. I need a underwater welder for
13:30
$6.00 an hour. I need a forklift driver with 10
13:33
news experience for $7.00. And she's like, Nope, Nope,
13:37
Nope. And so, you know, we sat there
13:39
and thought, man, if we could just fill these 50 orders that
13:41
we have. And she kind of brought that to
13:44
a halt and said, you, you don't have 50 orders, you have three.
13:46
I'll fill those today. Go get me 50 real orders.
13:49
We doubled in probably 30 days, doubled inside inside 30 days.
13:55
Holy cow. So she was getting rid of these
13:58
jobs that were just going to be impossible for you to.
13:59
Fill we call them. Purple squirrels and why?
14:03
Why purple squirrel? Because they don't exist.
14:05
Yeah, there's probably one out there.
14:08
Yeah. You know, it's like a white
14:09
Buffalo. There's probably one out there
14:11
somewhere, but you'd spend the rest of your life looking for
14:14
it. Yeah.
14:15
And So what else did she do that kind of helped put you guys on
14:18
the right track, other than saying no to all the purple
14:21
squirrels? Well, none of the purple
14:23
squirrels, but also guiding the sales effort to what could be
14:28
filled. So in staffing, it's one of the
14:33
struggles that people run into in this business is everybody
14:38
out there either uses or could use staffing, right?
14:41
Every business out there has some kind of hiring need at some
14:45
point. And so as a salesperson, it's
14:48
almost overwhelming because you could walk down the street, walk
14:51
into a warehouse and they need guys put on putting a widget in
14:54
a box. You go next door to a
14:56
manufacturing plant and they need somebody to operate a piece
15:00
of machinery and you go over here to a an insurance customer
15:04
service, they need 20 people answering.
15:07
You could spend your time just bouncing around the city and
15:10
your recruiter is trying to gain some momentum and trying to gain
15:14
some focus. Because if, if let's say
15:17
housekeepers, for example, that was a big one that we did in the
15:19
very beginning. Once you are recruiting
15:22
housekeepers for let's say Marriott, if Marriott says, OK,
15:26
we're good now will the other 10 housekeepers that you had
15:30
recruited that we could send those to Hyatt or we could send
15:33
those to fill in the blank. And housekeepers tend to know
15:37
housekeepers and general managers of hotels tend to know
15:41
other general managers and franchise owners of hotels know
15:44
and own other hotel franchises. And so you can build very
15:48
rapidly if you if you become a niche player instead of bouncing
15:52
all over the city trying to fill anything and everything that
15:56
somebody gives you an opportunity for.
15:57
So what were the niches that you were focusing on back in late
16:00
90s and early 2000s and how is that evolved into today?
16:05
So back then it was housekeeping and pretty much warehouse type
16:10
work, you know, guys driving a forklift, picking, packing,
16:14
assembly, that sort of work. And where are you guys today?
16:20
Compared to today, we don't do as much housekeeping.
16:25
You know, it's just not a business that we tend to focus
16:29
on. But we have really 3 verticals,
16:33
commercial, which is a massive vertical in staffing.
16:36
So that covers everything from light industrial, warehouse
16:40
through clerical and professional.
16:43
We do quite a bit of commercial work.
16:46
We also do healthcare. And then we just started rolling
16:49
into technology. And so the healthcare roles that
16:53
you're filling, are these nurses and doctors or what are we
16:57
talking about? Predominantly nurses,
17:00
RNSLPNSLVNS and then you could get into like the CNA level.
17:08
OK. And how about technology?
17:10
Are you placing coders, programmers, developers to be?
17:14
Anything. Cyber And so as I think about
17:19
those three different industries, it seems to me that
17:21
obviously the the needs are different.
17:24
But tell me if I'm sort of thinking about this in the right
17:26
way. Like in the commercial vertical,
17:28
they may need somebody, I don't know this week, but maybe not
17:32
next week. Whereas maybe the technology
17:36
clients that you have, they're like, hey, we've got a six month
17:39
project that we need somebody here for.
17:41
Is that like the other industries maybe are a little
17:43
bit more short term text, a little bit more of a longer term
17:46
placement? Close to that, yeah.
17:48
So in commercial, you tend to have two type of users.
17:52
One is for their flex staff. So for example, right now it's
17:58
October and we have some of the companies that are really busy
18:03
during the Christmas season, Kirkland's, for example, let's
18:07
say, really ramping up to service that.
18:10
And so they will use us to flex up and then as soon as the
18:13
season's over, they flex down. That's one user.
18:17
The other user is somebody that is looking for full time
18:20
employees, but just wants to outsource the recruiting, the
18:23
screening, the hiring. They get to try them for 90 days
18:26
through US and they're kind of the offshoot of their HR
18:30
department. The majority of temporary
18:33
workers that we have are looking for full time work on the
18:37
commercial side. A lot of the companies are
18:40
looking to hire full time people.
18:42
So, you know, in the industry that's it's a little bit of a
18:45
misnomer in that it's all temporary work.
18:48
That's usually not the case. Most of the time.
18:50
You know, the majority of people would go full time if the
18:54
company offered it and they were a good match.
18:57
And then in technology, right, most of that is going to be
19:00
longer term contract work. We we're doing an SAP
19:03
implementation. It's a two year implementation.
19:05
We only need these people for 12 months.
19:08
And then in healthcare, it's a little bit of both.
19:11
Healthcare is a lot of filling in shift work because there's
19:15
such a shortage. And then there's also, you know,
19:17
contract work where they need somebody for maybe a 12 week
19:21
assignment. So it can be kind of a mixture
19:23
as well. At what point in the company's
19:26
trajectory did you guys make the decision to focus on a franchise
19:31
model for growth? We sold so we we were rapidly
19:36
growing. So in December of 98, we
19:38
started, and by probably early 2002 we'd opened up 10 locations
19:46
in four different cities. All franchises are corporate.
19:49
Owned corporate owned OK, and we it it.
19:52
It's ironic. We got a call from a business
19:54
broker asking if we were interested in buying a location
19:57
in Wichita, KS or something and we looked at it and decided that
20:02
it. Wasn't.
20:03
I'm sorry, Carrie, where was your headquarters at the.
20:05
Time, Kansas City. OK, go ahead.
20:07
Yep, headquartered in Kansas City.
20:09
And we said no, it's not a good fit for us.
20:12
And he flipped the script on us and said, well, have you guys
20:15
ever thought about selling your locations?
20:18
Well, no, I mean, we've only been in business really three
20:20
years. We're we're just now taking off.
20:23
And he said, I get a lot of interest from people to buy
20:26
staffing companies and we're like, well, I mean, what kind of
20:30
interest? And so the recommendation was go
20:33
get a valuation. And so we talked to our two
20:36
investors and we all decided we had a number in mind.
20:39
If it came back at this number, we would try to sell it.
20:43
If not, we'd keep building. And the valuation came in 20%
20:46
higher than our peg number listed it and it was sold within
20:50
90 days. So we sold the Kansas City units
20:53
to 1 gentleman. We cut off Saint Louis and
20:58
Springfield to two other gentlemen and then we had the
21:01
Denver location we sold to somebody else.
21:03
But those were outright sales. This was not the franchise model
21:06
yet. OK, go ahead.
21:07
Done. And so now here we are sitting
21:10
there, you know, I'm 30. I think it was 31, maybe enough
21:16
money to do something with, but certainly nothing.
21:19
Nowhere near retirement. And really my entire career to
21:24
speak of was staffing. And so we were like, you know,
21:27
maybe we should franchise the concept that would allow us to
21:32
do something outside of our non compete in Kansas City.
21:35
And so we went to the buyer and we said, hey, we're thinking
21:37
about franchising this. Do you have any objection if we
21:40
franchise the concept sold staffing as long as we don't do
21:43
in Kansas City? And he's like, sure, no problem.
21:45
And so that's what started it is we thought, you know, when we
21:48
started this in 98, we were so naive.
21:52
We had the staffing experience, but we still had no idea how to
21:55
run a staffing business. There's other franchises out
21:58
there, but, you know, maybe we could build one that kind of
22:02
would help guys like us. And so we spent most of 2003,
22:08
you know, taking everything that we knew and putting it into a
22:11
replicatable, duplicatable system, getting compliant with
22:14
the Federal Trade Commission to sell franchises and all the good
22:17
stuff that goes along with that. And in 2004 rolled out the next
22:22
half franchise concept. And did you still have your own
22:27
location at that point or had you sold everything?
22:29
We had sold everything. We had sold everything.
22:31
OK, yeah. And so did you now open up a, a
22:35
corporate location as you were sort of starting the, this new
22:39
model and the, and going after the franchising or it was like,
22:42
Nope, we're just going to sell franchises?
22:45
The idea was just to sell franchises, but we had a little
22:49
bit of an ace in the hole in that The Denver location that we
22:53
sold, we sold to the branch manager at the time with owner
22:59
financing with the idea that, hey, once we franchise this
23:04
concept, what we'd like to do is roll you in as franchise #1 and
23:11
we'll do all the back office finance, the payroll, we'll do
23:14
all that other stuff. And he was like, that sounds
23:17
good to me. So, you know, nobody wants to be
23:20
a first franchise. That's that's a little scary.
23:22
But so we were lucky that we could roll in with somebody that
23:25
knew us, trusted us, rolled out. He was our first franchise.
23:29
So now in talking to somebody else, you could at least say,
23:32
yeah, we have one other franchise on our give him a
23:34
call. And he had known us for years.
23:37
So you know, it helped having that early validation right out
23:41
of the chute. So how did you get the second
23:42
one? The second one I believe was
23:45
from Houston, the gentleman that was in staffing with his I think
23:51
his ex father-in-law who became who was father-in-law, who
23:54
became his ex father-in-law. And he wanted to do something on
23:57
his own, but same thing didn't know the back office needed that
24:01
help and, you know, signed him up and started rolling.
24:07
So, yeah, it was, it's kind of scary because you, you, you
24:11
don't know, OK, we know what we're doing.
24:13
We think we know what we're doing and we think we have a
24:15
good concept. Will anybody else believe in
24:18
that or buy into that? So we were lucky that, you know,
24:21
in a relative short time we had a couple wins under our belt
24:25
that we could we could build upon.
24:27
What was the biggest growth lever that you were able to pull
24:31
that really helped to accelerate the sales of these franchise
24:34
units? You know, the, the stories, the
24:38
stories a little different 1 So let me back up and I'll, I'll
24:42
try and compress 20 years into two minutes.
24:46
So we started selling franchises.
24:47
I think we got to maybe 8. And then 2009 hit big downtrend.
24:52
The economy staffing industry is usually a leading indicator.
24:56
So we're six months ahead of any recession, 6 months ahead of any
24:59
upturn. And so the, the staffing
25:01
industry was taking a nosedive and, you know, the talks of
25:06
Obamacare and healthcare and all this other stuff started coming
25:09
out and we thought, you know, what might be a good pivot here?
25:14
What if we found a payroll company and apeo company and our
25:18
existing franchise owners could start selling that as well.
25:21
And so we, we found a, a company in Kansas City that that did
25:24
those things work to deal with them and closed on that deal
25:30
January 1st, 2010. And so we were able to now start
25:35
offering not only temporary business, but the PEO and the
25:39
payroll solutions in a time when people are trying to figure out
25:41
how to get under 50 full time employees etcetera.
25:44
And so in a time when the staffing industry was taking a
25:46
nosedive, our growth went through the roof over the next,
25:51
you know, five years. And so we were able to take that
25:54
company up north of $100 million by 2015 and then had a very
26:00
similar experience that we did in 2002 where somebody reached
26:03
out and said, hey, we're doing APEO roll up, would you be
26:07
interested in selling the PEO? And we took advantage of that,
26:10
sold it. It's now rolled up in part of
26:13
paychecks. OK, fascinating arc.
26:16
Yeah. So that, you know, that was 2015
26:21
into 16 and then in 2017 we had not sold franchises for almost
26:25
10 years. Because you were focused solely
26:27
on growing the PEO payroll side of the business?
26:30
Yeah, it it, it was like a tiger by the tail trying to trying to
26:33
manage that. And once we got rid of that, it
26:37
was like, OK, well, let's get back to the franchising
26:40
business. And so 2017 really kind of
26:43
that's where The X Factor came up and all the that kind of
26:48
switch from the PEO payroll into staffing.
26:52
And so 2018 we relaunched, you know, the Next Step franchise
26:56
model. And then most of what you see
26:58
today is, you know, over the last seven years, we still have
27:01
a few legacy offices that are around, but most of who we are
27:05
today is the result of the last seven years really.
27:07
And so how many locations do you have today?
27:10
We have 25 locations with six in development.
27:13
OK, tell us about the franchise opportunity.
27:21
So in staffing, like we mentioned, it's, it's a
27:24
relatively easy concept, easy concept, but not, not, not easy
27:29
to to perform. Easy to describe, hard to
27:32
execute. Yes.
27:34
And and the execution really is about just following through on
27:38
your, your daily activity commitments.
27:42
So for us, the franchise opportunity is finding somebody
27:46
that you know, there's a lot of people that they don't have that
27:51
restaurant experience or retail experience where you
27:55
traditionally you think of a franchise as restaurant or
27:58
retail. The B to B side there's there's
28:02
far fewer of those and even far fewer I think that I would
28:07
consider kind of really professional, you know, type
28:10
atmosphere businesses, you know, versus janitorial or window
28:16
cleaning or something like that. So for us, it's finding that
28:19
individual that probably has a sales background, has that
28:25
entrepreneurial desire, but knows what he doesn't know and
28:30
says, I would like to do something professional.
28:32
I really like helping people. And in this business, it's kind
28:35
of a win, win, win, right? You're helping the client find
28:37
the people you find, helping the people look for work and you get
28:40
paid to do it. So it's, it's a, a win, win, win
28:43
across the board. And for us, I have seen after
28:48
being in the International Franchise Association, after
28:51
just doing my own research out of curiosity, you know, there's
28:54
probably 4000 different franchise opportunities out
28:57
there. It's very tough to find a
29:00
franchise opportunity that for the entry level that we have,
29:05
which is you know, 120 to $150,000 to have the kind of
29:11
return on equity anywhere. I I I've not found another
29:15
opportunity where you can. See, does that include even
29:18
comparing each other's staffing? Franchise opportunities.
29:21
The other ones are similar, most of them are more expensive on
29:25
the upfront because the minimum requirements are are higher in
29:28
terms of full time employees etcetera.
29:30
But I'd say the staffing franchise opportunity in
29:33
general, you know, it's hard to find an opportunity where you
29:38
could invest low 6 figures and very quickly could be making
29:45
that annually and within a matter of years you could have a
29:49
business worth 7 figures. It's just hard to find a lot of
29:54
these other opportunities I see outside of staffing.
29:56
You know, you're talking about mid 6 figures and you're hoping
30:00
that you can make 6 figures a year.
30:03
And why do you think the math is so different?
30:05
Is it because hey, in staffing you need an office but you don't
30:09
need expensive kitchen equipment?
30:10
Basically you need phones and computers, right?
30:13
The overhead isn't pretty intense.
30:15
That's it. I mean, there's no FF and E it's
30:18
really people. And that that depends on what
30:21
you want to do. Do you want to start Leanamine
30:24
or do you want to grow something big and massive and quick?
30:27
But it's really your, your staff.
30:29
I mean, rent, I've, I've had people do $15 million a year out
30:34
of 1000 square foot office. So and that could be really
30:39
basic, basic office stuff. So yeah, handful of computers, a
30:42
couple tons, little bit of a budget for marketing and your
30:46
staff and you're off and running.
30:49
OK, so tell us about X Factor. What is it?
30:51
How does it set you guys apart? So after we sold the PEO and the
30:55
payroll company, you know, that had been that would that had
30:58
been our, you know, USP for years.
31:02
Hey, we could do temp to payroll, temp to PEO, we can
31:07
cover everything in between. Once we kind of chopped off
31:10
three leg, 2 legs of that stool, we kind of had to look at
31:13
ourselves and say, OK, how can we be different than everybody
31:16
else out there? And it was interesting because
31:19
at the time there was a a survey that got put out by one of the
31:24
industry associations. And this industry association is
31:29
a little unique in that it has as members, not only staffing
31:33
companies, but buyers of staffing services.
31:37
So you really get two different angles of people in the same
31:42
world. And the survey was to the
31:44
staffing buyers. When you're thinking about
31:47
choosing a staffing agency, what are your top three things you
31:50
look at? And in that survey, lumped all
31:53
together was what the majority of staffing companies sell.
31:57
Price, workforce strategy, risk, diversification, speed, all this
32:02
other stuff. But on their little, on their
32:04
little chart way up, the outlier was worker quality.
32:08
Far and away the number one thing the buyers wanted.
32:12
That was not surprising to us because we hear that all the
32:15
time. That was not surprising.
32:17
What was surprising was then they went through their staffing
32:21
agency database websites and look to see who even talks about
32:27
staffer worker quality. 18% Wow. So 80% of the buyers really only
32:33
care about quality. 80% of the staffing companies are selling
32:37
everything else. So that was our first aha
32:39
moment. And my school I went to school
32:43
psychology major for industrial organizational site.
32:46
So this was right in my wheelhouse.
32:49
I researched every white paper, case study, anything that had
32:53
ever been published on determining quality of hire,
32:58
what's out there, what can be proven.
33:00
Because what was interesting is even of the 18% of staffing
33:04
companies that did talk about quality, when we would do our
33:07
own searches, you know, best quality staffing, kind of
33:09
whatever, well, you'd start to read their stuff.
33:11
And it was very subjective stuff, right?
33:14
Anything we, you know, we get the best quality people because
33:16
our people are better. OK, well, what does that mean?
33:20
Right. Where's the quantitative data
33:21
backing up what you're talking about?
33:23
So we looked at everything, put it on a correlation chart, and
33:29
found out that the majority of HR departments and the majority
33:32
of staffing companies are using the tools that are the least
33:36
predictive measures of quality, which is the resume, which
33:43
indicates kind of your job experience, infers your page.
33:48
And then most people do an unstructured interview versus a
33:51
structured interview. What's the difference?
33:54
So an unstructured interview is let's say I'm talking to three
33:59
candidates and the interview sounds something like this.
34:02
So Anthony, tell me about the experience you had at your last
34:05
company. And then interview B is, hey, I
34:08
see you played football at K State.
34:10
You know how was that? You know what'd?
34:11
You learn you're asking different questions of
34:13
everybody. The structured interview is
34:15
Anthony, tell me about the biggest obstacle you ever had to
34:18
overcome. Mike, tell me about the biggest
34:21
obstacle you ever had to overcome.
34:23
Sarah, tell me about the biggest.
34:25
So you're asking 3 different people the same questions so
34:28
that you can get some kind of baseline on you know what?
34:31
When I asked that question, you know what, Anthony?
34:33
He really did well on that one. Compared to everybody else.
34:36
Instead of this, Yeah, it's twice as predictive.
34:39
Just that one thing. OK.
34:41
So in between what most people are doing and the most effective
34:46
tool, which is a work sample test, you have all kinds of
34:50
things in between. You have reference checks,
34:52
personality profiles, behavior, integrity tasks.
34:55
You have attempt to hire staffing company.
34:58
I don't know if I want to use a staffing company.
35:00
Why should you? I use you.
35:02
By trying somebody for 90 days, you're twice as likely to get a
35:06
quality hire out of the process. Statistically proven.
35:09
Not my opinion, not me making it up, not me saying because my
35:12
people are better. It's a statistic that the thing
35:15
about it, you try anything for 90 days, you're going to get a
35:17
pretty good idea whether you like it or not, all the way up
35:20
to cognitive tests and work sample tests.
35:25
So what we did is we packaged that up into what we call The X
35:28
Factor process. And it's really a really a
35:31
customized blend based on your company of those key components.
35:38
It's not the same for everybody. And sometimes it's only a few of
35:42
those components, sometimes it's a little bit longer.
35:45
But back to your original question on, you know, those
35:48
profiles, we lean on them as a tool, not only for our offices
35:54
and doing some of their work for staffing clients, but when we
35:57
look to get franchise owners, it just gives us an indication of
36:02
their tendencies. And then you can structure your
36:06
interviews around those concerts.
36:09
So when it says that, hey, Anthony's a bit of a maverick,
36:12
maverick, he, he's not going to be really good at following
36:16
direction or following rules in a franchise system.
36:20
That's something we want to vet out quickly.
36:22
And so we'll talk about it during those calls.
36:26
Do you have a favorite personality assessment?
36:29
We use the predictive index. That's the one we use.
36:33
For both franchise candidates as well as employees.
36:37
Yes. You mentioned one of the ways to
36:39
judge people or or assess people and their skills is a work
36:43
sample. How often is that actually a
36:46
possibility it? Depends on the, the job
36:51
obviously, but one of the greatest examples we had was
36:56
there was a, that's kind of a weird thing they made, they did
37:00
the testing for circuit boards and the piece that tests, I
37:05
don't even have something here. If you can imagine that the end
37:09
of a, the end of a pen, that little piece right there, that's
37:12
about the size of the probe. They were assembling microscopic
37:16
little tiny, tiny things and they were under a big, you know,
37:20
magnifying glass all day. Putting together these little
37:23
tiny probes that would test circuit boards, massive
37:27
turnovers. You can understand doing that 8
37:29
hours a day. That's all they did.
37:31
Take a tube with a spring with a thing, stick it in, do repeat
37:34
that a million times. Huge turnover.
37:38
I'm like, have you guys ever thought about like giving them a
37:41
work sample test before you hire them just to see if they even
37:44
want to do this? Never thought about it.
37:46
I said well give me a couple of your boards, we'll start doing
37:48
it. Massive reduction in turnover
37:51
because you'd have people sit there for 5 minutes and go no,
37:54
no, no possible way. Well, I'd rather know that than
37:57
their first lunch break and they never come back.
38:00
And you'd have other people say, so I can listen to my
38:03
headphones. This is all I have to do all day
38:04
long. Yeah, love it.
38:07
And so you, you, you weed out the people that we're not going
38:10
to be a good fit very, very quickly.
38:12
So work sample tests like that. You know, you get a lot of stuff
38:16
like 10 key type tests that if they're going to be on 10 key
38:21
all day, fine, let's make sure they're proficient in that.
38:24
Stupid. You'd be surprised.
38:28
You go talk to a a company, they want shipping people working in
38:32
their shipping department. So what's been the problem?
38:35
People can't read a ruler. OK, well, do you give them a
38:39
ruler test before they start? No, I never thought about that.
38:43
Well, why don't we give them a basic ruler test first before
38:47
you get them in the shipping department?
38:48
They can't read A10. You know, it's it's you'd be
38:50
surprised at the simplest little things.
38:55
OK. Because those are things that
38:57
you feel comfortable doing in an interview.
38:59
Like, you know, when I've hired folks in the past, my favorite
39:03
approach is because, you know, the interview is fine.
39:05
Like we can talk, but I actually want to see the quality of your
39:08
work now in the kinds of roles that I'm hiring for, I'm giving
39:12
folks a paid task. Like here's the project, go away
39:15
and do it. It may take you 5 or 20 hours.
39:17
Whatever it is, I'm going to pay you for it.
39:20
But you know, it's the sort of the scale that you guys are
39:22
operating. And for some of these roles,
39:23
that's not really necessary. Like it's something super basic.
39:26
Like, OK, here's a roller, a ruler, like show me 4 inches,
39:30
right? Or here's a circuit board.
39:32
Can you do this for a couple of minutes?
39:33
Right. Like some of this is just real
39:35
low hanging fruit. Super easy stuff.
39:37
Yeah, it could be very low hanging on another one we had
39:40
was somebody that wanted appointment setters and
39:43
obviously very high turnover position.
39:46
And so part of the interview process in which we worked with
39:49
the company and we actually paid them to do, we had three people
39:53
come in our office for one hour. We gave them a list of 100
39:57
companies with a script, and we wanted to see how well they'd
40:02
perform. And it was funny because I said,
40:05
OK, these three people, they're off.
40:07
Who would you pick? Who would you pick?
40:09
Who would you pick based on the interviews?
40:11
And it was like 123. And the best performing person
40:16
was not number one on anybody's. Right.
40:20
And that's something. And she was an absolute
40:23
superstar. Worked.
40:25
I think I lost track of her probably 2-3 years at this spot
40:29
and just killed it. But would have never been their
40:32
original hire. So we're talking about some of
40:34
the tools that you use, right, the personality assessments, The
40:37
X Factor that you guys have constructed.
40:40
And you mentioned at the beginning of the interview that
40:42
AI is a tool. How?
40:43
How are you guys using that tool yourselves today?
40:46
So with us AI in the forefront on the recruiting side, it can
40:53
do a lot of the tedious work. So for example, we we have
40:57
offices, we probably get 500 applications a week.
41:01
That's a tremendous amount of work to try and get a hold of
41:04
these people, schedule interviews, you know, do the
41:07
initial upfront, what are you looking for?
41:09
What, what job do you apply for? So AI can handle that very
41:12
efficiently. So that's one area.
41:15
The second area is through like texting workflows that start to
41:23
become intelligent based on how you're answering.
41:27
So that way, if let's say Kirkland's calls and says, hey,
41:30
I'm going to need 200 people in the next two weeks.
41:32
In the old day, we were, we were dialing the phone 1000 times to
41:36
find 200 people. Now I can send a message, say
41:41
here's what we're looking for. Here's the shifts we're looking
41:43
for, etcetera, etcetera. Send that out, it'll go up to
41:45
10,000 people and they can select what that works for.
41:50
So that's on the recruiting side.
41:52
Eventually I see that working its way into some of the more
41:55
complex onboarding, like for nursing.
42:00
You know, to onboard a nurse or even a CNAI mean the laundry
42:04
list of stuff they have to provide to become.
42:07
You know, certifications and what not.
42:09
You know, they have to have their OK, I need a copy of your,
42:12
you know, CPR qualification. I need a copy of all your, you
42:16
know, tests and this and that. I mean, it's just a laundry
42:19
list. There's a lot of human follow up
42:21
that goes into that where AI could take that over and not
42:26
disrupt the relationship you're trying to build, instead trying
42:31
to make it more efficient. We still use the recruiter to
42:33
build a relationship and to, you know, manage that.
42:36
But that's where I think AI will play a big role is the upfront
42:41
heavy lifting of just narrowing down who's going where, who
42:46
wants what, and then the, OK, you're interested now here's the
42:50
14 things I need from you in the next two weeks.
42:55
Let's have AI follow up on that and make sure it gets all
42:57
checked off. So we're using that.
43:00
And then on the sales side, very interesting.
43:03
I was just testing it today on the sales side.
43:06
We are working on a, an AI sales coach and I have this thing set
43:14
up right now. It's unbelievable.
43:17
I call it up and it's like, hi, I'm Steven, your AI sales coach.
43:19
I'm here to help you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
43:21
Talk to me like you would anybody else.
43:23
You can stop me at any time. You can start over anytime.
43:25
You can ask me how, how you're doing.
43:27
You can get feedback. Go ahead with your opening
43:30
script whenever you're ready and they start, they rattle it off
43:33
and then he starts hitting them with objections based on how
43:36
difficult they said they wanted him to be.
43:39
And I've given him a hit to him. I've given the AI agent, you
43:43
know our top 10 objections and he'll coach him through it all
43:47
come through it and it's it's amazing.
43:51
It just it baffles me when I. And this most of the tools that
43:57
you're using I'm guessing are probably off the shelf tools,
44:00
maybe that some customization for you, but you're probably not
44:03
building your own custom things. Yeah, it's usually a starting
44:08
with a template and then customizing that template from
44:11
there. I was at an event a couple
44:13
months ago where I met a founder of a company that's working on
44:18
an AI sales agent tool similar to what you described, but
44:21
taking it a step further. So that if one of your
44:24
representatives is on a call, this agent is listening in and
44:29
providing coaching as they're going like, oh, here comes in
44:33
the customer objection. And it's like, OK, let me get
44:36
you prepped for that. Like here's, you know, some
44:38
bullet points of things that you can say.
44:41
Wild stuff. Yeah, I've I've seen one similar
44:43
to that as well, which. Is it?
44:45
Is it ready? Is it baked now?
44:47
I think there's one out there that's ready.
44:50
You know, back in the day, you would sit there as a sales Rep,
44:52
you'd have all your objections kind of laying out in case, but
44:55
but you're on the phone also. So while you're on the phone,
44:58
you could sit there and fumble around looking for OK, where's
45:00
that objection of I I'm happy with my current.
45:03
Oh, OK, here it is. Now a lot of this is on Zoom, so
45:07
but yeah, I've seen some of those that I have not demoed
45:11
those. But if it's anything like the
45:13
one we're using, I don't see why it couldn't listen.
45:16
And, and while you're on your Zoom call, be over here giving
45:19
you the, I think we also use AI for that initial franchise
45:24
inquires. So we get tremendous amount of
45:27
inquiries. A lot of people are just doing
45:30
their research. So we have an AI agent that
45:33
takes that initial phone call and we've given to them all the
45:37
answers to all the stuff you upload at once.
45:39
You never have to train it again.
45:40
And you could sit there and have a 20 minute conversation.
45:43
Is it feels, I mean, obviously you're, you're talking to an AI,
45:46
but does it feel pretty real? It's, it's spooky, it's spooky.
45:52
Every once in a while you can wait a minute, something's
45:54
weird. But now the key to this is, and
45:56
we tell this to our offices as well as if you're going to use
45:59
these tools, you don't try and hide the fact.
46:02
So even on our franchise AI agent, it says, you know, hi,
46:07
I'm Michael, I'm the franchise AI assistant here to help you
46:12
with some of your initial questions.
46:14
Feel free to ask me anything, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
46:16
You know, and it goes through a whole list, so they know, but
46:20
we've had some follow up calls with people that were like, Oh
46:22
yeah, I spoke to Steve, you know, I spoke to Michael Mann
46:24
and yeah, he's really good. And there's like, well, he was
46:27
AI, you know, he's AI. They they have no idea.
46:30
Wow. I mean, the tonality, the pace,
46:33
the zinc, the arms, that's weird.
46:36
It's really weird. That's wild.
46:38
Now I think you said you're in 25 markets, correct, OK.
46:43
And so obviously there are a lot of markets still open for you
46:47
guys in terms of the franchise opportunity.
46:49
Are there any states that for whatever reason are off limits?
46:53
There are in the franchise world were regulated by the Federal
46:56
Trade Commission and there are certain states that you have to
46:59
be registered in order to offer franchise sales.
47:03
And so for us there's a few weird ones that were like
47:06
Hawaii, I'm not going to mess with that.
47:11
New York NY's just tough on franchise law, it's tough on
47:15
employment law. We'll get there eventually, but
47:18
we have so much other territory to mess around with.
47:21
Washington State's and other ones just difficult to deal
47:23
with, so we just don't bother. But if people are interested,
47:26
where can they go to find out more information?
47:29
So for the franchise opportunity, we have a site,
47:31
it's next staff, NEXTAF, f-franchise.com and that gives
47:38
you all your information about franchising and then the talent
47:42
side and the client side is Next f.com.
47:45
OK. And make sure.
47:46
We, we separated those out because we, when we had them
47:49
both at the same, we would get an enormous amount of franchise
47:52
inquiries of people looking for jobs because they, they'd sit
47:56
there and they'd read our stuff and they'd go to contact us and
47:58
didn't realize that one was for franchising, 1 was for talent
48:02
sale. We just thought we'll make it
48:03
easier and separate those too. Smart.
48:06
And we'll make sure we include links to those in the show notes
48:09
and we'll actually give folks those addresses again towards
48:12
the end of the interview. But you said something else I
48:14
wanted to come back to. You mentioned that staffing is a
48:18
leading indicator of what's going on in the economy.
48:22
So here we are recording this in October of 2025.
48:26
What are you seeing? Up until recently, this is the
48:30
first time in history that staffing has not cooperated with
48:34
the overall economy. It's been a strange turn and
48:41
it's got most of the industry people baffled because it you
48:46
could, you could track it through history.
48:47
As soon as staffing went down, the economy went down.
48:49
Six months later. As soon as we went up, economy
48:51
went up six months later. And it just, it just followed
48:55
the staffing industry up until about a month and now we're in
48:59
October. About two months ago had about
49:02
30-4 months of straight decline year over year.
49:08
Very bizarre, very unusual. And during the election, we
49:14
thought, OK, this, this happens sometimes, right?
49:16
Uncertainty to the election. Just think about it from a
49:18
hiring manager's perspective. I don't know who's going to go
49:21
in office. If it goes one way, maybe I'm
49:23
not going to do this. If it goes another, I'm going to
49:25
hire some people. So let's wait to see what the
49:26
election happens. So we thought as soon as the
49:28
election's over, OK, we'll finally get out of this broken
49:30
cycle. Well, the election happened, but
49:34
then we start talking about tariffs and all and then it just
49:39
very confusing hiring. The market doesn't like
49:42
uncertainty. Hiring managers don't like
49:44
uncertainty. Entrepreneurs don't like
49:46
uncertainty. And I just feel like over the
49:48
last, you know, 2-3 years, we've been living in this perpetual
49:53
uncertainty of what is going to happen.
49:57
And it felt like we were just stuck.
49:59
We would get, we'd get signed agreements with people saying we
50:02
know we're going to need people eventually, but we just don't
50:04
know when. And about August, we started to
50:07
see an uptick and we're starting to continue to see that right
50:11
now. So if we'd broken out of this
50:15
abnormal cycle, that would tell me that the rest of the economy
50:21
would be picking up toward the end of Q4.
50:26
So this is what you guys are seeing at Next Staff.
50:28
Do you have connection with many of your peers in the industry to
50:31
see if it's a similar trend? That same trend, Interesting.
50:35
I was just on AI, was on a call 2 weeks ago.
50:38
I think we had nine other CE OS all over the country, all
50:43
different verticals and across the board.
50:46
They all said the same thing about August.
50:49
Start to see for finally start to see some.
50:53
Sorry, all different verticals, but they're in the staffing
50:56
industry. They just serve different
50:57
verticals. Interesting.
50:59
Yeah, we'll see. Let's take.
51:01
A. Little bit of a, a left turn
51:03
here. I I want to hear about a big
51:06
serious challenge that you've overcome in your life, Carrie.
51:09
How'd you get through it and what did you learn?
51:14
Probably the you know, I've got a handful that come to mind, but
51:22
there's one that stands out more than the rest for obvious
51:29
reasons. In In 2018 I lost my 17 year old
51:41
son in a car accident. And does any parent has ever, if
51:52
any parents ever been through that, they obviously know it,
51:54
but it's every parent's worst nightmare.
52:00
But that was something that took a while to figure out, you know,
52:11
one, how are you going to deal with it?
52:12
And what do you do? Where do you go from there?
52:19
But it was and still is, I mean, you know, the biggest obstacle
52:24
I've ever had to overcome. And I think you can, you can
52:31
choose to be a victim in life in any circumstance, or you can try
52:37
and find the positive out of it. And I think what helped me kind
52:44
of move through that was being grateful for the time that we
52:52
did have instead of mad about the future of what we were not
52:59
going to have. And if you can take that day by
53:04
day and shift your focus to the gratitude, being grateful of
53:11
what you did have, being grateful for the people that you
53:13
met, being grateful for the relationships you have now
53:18
because of what occurred. You know, it helps you process
53:26
that. It helps you deal with it.
53:31
And I don't know that you could ever say you you could get over
53:35
it, but it certainly helps you get on and it helps you get
53:41
through it. So yeah.
53:45
I mean, what you're saying on the surface sounds like helpful
53:50
advice. See if you can find a way to be
53:54
grateful for the time that you had together.
53:58
See if you can find a way to be grateful for the relationships
54:01
and the experiences that you're having now and are available to
54:05
you going forward. It's one of those things that
54:08
feels like is so hard to get from here to there in an
54:14
experience like that. Any sense of how you've managed
54:19
to at least somewhat cross that bridge?
54:25
The really good question, because you're right, I see
54:31
people, you know, when, when something like that goes on in
54:36
your life, you, you know, it's like anything else, you kind of
54:40
look for support of people have gone through it.
54:43
And there's plenty of groups out there on Facebook.
54:47
You know, it's, it's fortunately not a common thing where you've
54:49
got, you know, this big group of friends that have all been
54:54
through it. But I do notice that, you know,
54:58
sitting in on some of these face group folks that the majority of
55:04
them don't heal and they don't tend to cross that bridge.
55:10
They don't tend to get there and it is that they are so focused
55:17
on the loss and how do you get them to transfer from the loss
55:24
to the gratitude. That's a great question.
55:27
And I don't think I've sat down to try to dissect it, to figure
55:34
out was there something that I did?
55:38
Was there, you know, certain books that I read?
55:41
Was there a certain thing with faith or spirit, you know, was
55:44
there something I could pinpoint and say, if you just do this,
55:48
all will be better? I think it was the fact that
55:55
maybe leading up to that point, I had, you know, I was kind of
55:59
on my own spiritual quest and learning everything I could
56:03
about just life and universe and spirituality and had my mind
56:10
open to so many different things, researching every
56:13
different religion, just trying to find common denominators and
56:17
make sense of it all. And then when this occurred,
56:20
maybe something in that, you know, having a little bit of a,
56:26
a background and that helped me piece it together maybe a little
56:32
quicker than somebody else. We're already doing this
56:36
exploration prior to the passing of your son, so maybe there was
56:41
some foundation there that had you more open to the idea of
56:46
gratitude. Yeah.
56:47
Well, and if you, if you get to the point where, you know, now
56:52
we can get really deep into this stuff.
56:54
But if you get to the point where your belief is more of one
57:02
of that we don't really leave this plane, we're just in a
57:10
different format, right? It's, it's no different than,
57:17
you know, ice changing to water changing to gas.
57:22
If you have that kind of theory that well, maybe we were one
57:30
thing before and then we came here to this and then we
57:36
returned to what we were prior, You know, we really didn't go
57:40
anywhere. It's just the form has changed.
57:43
And if you can wrap your arm around that, the presence and
57:49
that energy is still there, that I think can make a big
57:55
difference in your life. And if you're open to it and
58:00
it's no different than anything else in your life, you know, if
58:03
you do any research on kind of the way the mind works in the
58:06
reticular activating system and you know, what you look for is
58:09
what you will experience in life.
58:11
If in your mind what you had is gone permanently, you'll never
58:19
be looking for the proof of it or the existence of it because
58:24
in your mind it's gone. It's not there.
58:26
But if you start with the premise that, well, we were some
58:30
form of energy before we came, we kind of condensed into this
58:35
energy form now. Now we return to that energy
58:38
form. So the energy is still there
58:40
somewhere. I maybe I can't see it, but
58:43
could I sense it? Could I feel it?
58:46
Maybe. And if you're open to the
58:48
possibility, you would be surprised at the number of
58:52
things that occur in your life and the number of
58:56
synchronicities that nobody in the world can explain to you.
59:00
Because it defies logic, it defies reality.
59:04
It defies anything you could possibly wrap your arms around.
59:08
Other than, what else could you attribute it to?
59:14
Is there a specific example of the synchronicities that you're
59:17
talking about you care to share? Man, I started writing them in
59:23
a, in a kind of a journal because they would occur so
59:28
often. And then I stopped writing them
59:30
down because they occur. So I thought, why am I writing
59:33
all these down? This is, this is just the way it
59:35
is. This isn't unusual anymore.
59:40
I might have to come back to that.
59:41
When I'm trying to think, I'm trying to think of something
59:43
that I'm trying to think of something that would really blow
59:50
your mind. I'll have to come back to them
59:53
though. OK.
59:55
Is gratitude and a daily habit or practice for you?
1:00:00
Is it something you roll out of bed and you've got a a practice
1:00:04
to help ingrain that into yourself?
1:00:08
I'd say yes. It's one of our core beliefs.
1:00:11
It's our first core belief. For the company for next step.
1:00:14
Company, yes, absolutely. The first core belief because if
1:00:17
you are not grateful for what you have now, you know you're
1:00:22
not going to be happy at your next level or wherever.
1:00:27
So I would say I'm better at it in the evening than I am in the
1:00:30
morning. In the morning it's supposed to
1:00:32
be, it's supposed to be my, you know, what are your 3
1:00:36
gratitudes? It's supposed to be on my
1:00:38
morning routine. And the copy just held up for
1:00:41
the camera. For listeners, it says don't
1:00:42
worry, be grateful. And then it's got three line
1:00:45
items that you're supposed to fill in.
1:00:47
So I used to be much better at it in the morning.
1:00:49
In the morning it was, it was a three every morning, 3
1:00:52
gratitudes. I'm much better at the evening
1:00:54
right before I go to bed. That's what I try to do, but I
1:00:57
did a thing for a long time and this is this is like, you know,
1:01:02
right after my son laying and passed away, somebody mentioned
1:01:06
to me about doing gratitudes and trying not to repeat.
1:01:10
Well, you write them down and you know, pretty soon if you're
1:01:13
doing a daily journal, you know, you're sitting here, it's really
1:01:16
easy, right? Family health, my children, you
1:01:19
know, and then you go on a couple weeks later, you're like
1:01:21
family. I said family.
1:01:22
Have I said my business? I don't know if I've said my
1:01:24
business and it occurred to me one day when I was in Excel and
1:01:27
I was typing something in Excel and a long sheet that if I had
1:01:31
typed it before, it would start to fill out the thing.
1:01:33
And I thought, you know what I'm going to do.
1:01:34
And so I created, it's just this simple, an Excel spreadsheet and
1:01:39
it's got 123 and I, I type in the first cell, my first
1:01:44
gratitude, second cell, third cell.
1:01:46
And now I'm in literally I'm online, you know, hundreds,
1:01:49
hundreds, I'm hundreds deep. You cannot believe how hard it
1:01:53
gets to where you know, you've, you've listed thousands of
1:01:56
gratitudes and now you're having to get really creative about
1:01:59
what you're grateful for. Cuz soon as you type in no
1:02:02
family business no and. Then probably more granular too
1:02:06
I would imagine. Not just business, but I'm
1:02:08
grateful for this particular Co worker maybe.
1:02:10
Exactly it it's like long tail keywords and you, you go from
1:02:14
business weather, family health to, you know, the, the people
1:02:19
that work in my business and sunny weather and, you know,
1:02:24
experiences with my family. And when your mind starts
1:02:28
working that way, I mean, I've read so many books on this about
1:02:33
rewiring your brain and you know, you, you can experience
1:02:38
some, some very tremendous impacts in your life in that one
1:02:42
shift, that one shift. Do you have, you've read so
1:02:49
much, but you have a specific book recommendation, whether
1:02:52
it's on, you know, sort of the idea of rewiring your brain or,
1:02:56
you know, the idea of because I like what you were describing,
1:02:59
sort of the, you know, we were a form of energy before we sort of
1:03:04
get condensed into this physical form now and then we kind of go
1:03:07
back to the physical form because it sounds like that was
1:03:10
incredibly helpful for you and the healing process.
1:03:13
So either one of those things, or maybe something we didn't
1:03:16
even touch on a book that you might recommend to our
1:03:18
listeners. You know, if the, the struggle
1:03:26
that I've seen the struggle with kind of deep personal work on a
1:03:33
book is that if you're not ready for it, you you won't hear it.
1:03:41
And so I tell people this all the time.
1:03:43
I say, I'm going to get, I'll, I'll tell you what has worked
1:03:45
for me. It may not resonate with you
1:03:49
whatsoever. And I know that to be true
1:03:51
because the one I'm going to tell you about the sea of the
1:03:53
soul, Gary Zukov, somebody was talking about it one day and I'm
1:03:58
like, you know what? That sounds pretty interesting.
1:04:00
I'm going to check that out. Went, I bought it, reading
1:04:04
through it. And as I started reading through
1:04:05
it, I'm like, wait a minute, this guy, I go to my bookshelf.
1:04:09
I got it for years. I'd started reading it years ago
1:04:13
and I threw it on a shelf and I started reading that book and
1:04:21
there was a chapter in there on Illusion.
1:04:24
I better run that chapter 200 times because I got to it and
1:04:27
I'm like, wow, something here is hitting me, but I I can't.
1:04:32
It's like when you're trying to remember somebody's name and
1:04:34
you're like, oh, it's right there.
1:04:37
Reading that chapter. I'm like, oh, this, this is
1:04:42
something's tapping me. What is it?
1:04:43
What is it? And I couldn't figure out what
1:04:45
it I couldn't figure out what it was.
1:04:46
And so I finished reading the book and I kept coming back to
1:04:48
that chapter over and over because it was nagging me.
1:04:51
I'm it was like, it was like me forgetting a name.
1:04:54
And I kept reading it and reading and one day it hit me
1:04:57
and I was like, holy shit, I got it.
1:05:01
And transformation. Absolutely transformational.
1:05:06
And it's basically about making conscious decisions versus
1:05:09
unconscious decisions. But so Gary Zukoff, see the
1:05:12
soul. Absolutely unbelievable.
1:05:14
The untethered soul. Michael Singer is a great one.
1:05:18
There's so many that are out there.
1:05:20
You, you, you kind of have to find somebody that resonates
1:05:25
with you on where you're at in your journey.
1:05:28
And I've had some books that meant a lot to me early on and I
1:05:34
read them now and it. Yeah, and then I've had some
1:05:37
that Deepak Chopra. Deepak Chopra, I probably read
1:05:44
10 of his books when I was in my 20s.
1:05:48
No clue. I just, I read them because I
1:05:51
had heard about him and, you know, I, I started reading this
1:05:53
stuff and I get done with the book.
1:05:54
I'm like, I have no idea what that guy's talking about.
1:05:56
It's just bouncing off and. Then now, he was in Kansas City
1:06:00
a couple years ago. I went to hear him speak and I
1:06:03
mean, I can, I can hear him now. I couldn't hear him before.
1:06:09
It was a lot of people like that.
1:06:11
Eckhart Tolle's like that. You can listen to Eckhart Tolle
1:06:13
and go, what is he talking about?
1:06:16
Or you could listen to Eckhart Tolle and go, wow, unbelievable.
1:06:19
So it's just, it's just kind of what you're.
1:06:22
Where you are and. You're on your journey and you
1:06:26
know for some people, those will really hit home.
1:06:30
For you and other people, you're going to go.
1:06:33
That was worthless. Put it on a shelf and come back
1:06:35
to it. Carrie, before I move into my
1:06:37
last question, did one of those synchronicities pop into your
1:06:40
head? I'm putting you on the spot.
1:06:47
Yeah, yeah. I wish I would have thought
1:06:49
about that because that's OK. I would have gone and I'll tell
1:06:54
you, I'll tell you a story, not necessarily synchronous.
1:06:57
I'll tell you a story. 1 morning.
1:07:00
It was probably, it was probably two months after my son passed
1:07:05
away. I was laying in bed and at my
1:07:10
old house, the we had a kind of a, a block window, you know, it
1:07:17
lets the light in, but you can't see through it kind of facing
1:07:20
the east. And so in the mornings when the
1:07:21
sun come up and some nights you'd, some days you'd be laying
1:07:24
in bed and man, that sun would hit you in the face.
1:07:25
And so you'd almost be squinting your eyes.
1:07:29
And I remember 1 morning laying there and I was like, oh man,
1:07:34
the sun's coming up. And so I kind of was closing my
1:07:36
eyes a little tighter and I was kind of in that state where
1:07:41
you're not dreaming, but you're not awake.
1:07:42
Little in between. I was trying to, I was trying to
1:07:45
stay asleep, but the sun was hitting me in the eyes and, and
1:07:51
my mind just started wandering and I had this conversation with
1:07:59
my son and it went back and forth and back and forth and
1:08:05
back and forth and just about all kinds of different things
1:08:10
and topics and all this stuff. I'm laying there.
1:08:14
And then what it was done. I was like, wow, that was
1:08:18
awesome. And I opened my eyes and it was
1:08:22
like 4:00 in the morning. One in the sunlight.
1:08:28
Can't explain it to you. And for anybody that's ever had
1:08:31
a dream, you know how you wake up, you have your dream and then
1:08:34
you got some clear visions of it at 1st and then it throughout
1:08:37
the day. Then you can't remember what you
1:08:39
dreamed about. I went in the next room and I
1:08:42
wrote page after pay. I wrote every question and every
1:08:46
answer of that conversation like it was being dictated to me.
1:08:52
No loss of recollection. No what?
1:08:54
No. What did he say?
1:08:55
It was like it was being. It was unbelievable.
1:08:59
Can't explain it to you. That's beautiful.
1:09:01
Thank you for sharing that. So before I ask my last
1:09:04
question, Carrie, a few housekeeping items.
1:09:07
When I give people your website addressesagainnexthalf.com,
1:09:11
NEXTA, ff.com if you're, you know, interested in finding a
1:09:16
job or interested in hiring next half for employment services and
1:09:22
next half Dash franchise.com if you're interested in the
1:09:24
franchise opportunity. And then as a reminder, if you
1:09:27
want to get more people access to benefits that won't hurt them
1:09:30
financially and carries a financial upside for your
1:09:33
company, reach out to add back benefits.com.
1:09:36
And finally, if you take just a moment to leave us a comment or
1:09:38
review on your favorite podcast app, you hold a special place in
1:09:41
my heart forever. So last question for you,
1:09:44
Carrie, what do you do for fun outside of work?
1:09:48
You know, I tell people this all the time when they say, Oh,
1:09:50
well, you know, you're, you know, mid 50s now you're
1:09:53
thinking about retiring. And I tell people I like to
1:09:56
golf. I don't love to golf, I like to
1:09:58
hunt. I don't love to hunt everyday.
1:10:01
I like to fish. I don't love to fish.
1:10:04
There's a lot of things I like to do, but I mean, being a
1:10:09
business owner, being involved in activities every single day
1:10:13
that move the needle and get people fired up.
1:10:18
That's that's what I enjoy doing.
1:10:21
So I don't know that I would ever retire, but you know, I do
1:10:25
a lot of other things out there. I do competitive barbecues, fish
1:10:31
hunt, you know, all that other good stuff.
1:10:34
But you, you, you want to get me going in a conversation, man,
1:10:40
you, you, you get somebody sitting there and says they're
1:10:43
thinking about opening a business or they're thinking
1:10:44
about doing this and hey, I'm thinking about their marketing
1:10:47
or something like that. I mean, I, I could sit there,
1:10:50
these conversations, you know, you want to talk spirituality,
1:10:52
you want to talk to this. I could do that for hours and
1:10:56
hours and time flies and you know, that's when you know that
1:10:59
you're in your flow. When there's no sense of time,
1:11:05
it's easy, it's effortless, and I could do that all day.
1:11:09
Terry Daniel from Next Staff would be the first to thank you
1:11:12
for sharing both your time and your story with us today.
1:11:14
I really appreciate it. Yep.
1:11:16
Thank you, Anthony. I appreciate it.
1:11:18
Folks, that's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories
1:11:21
podcast. Thanks for learning with us
1:11:22
today.