What The Funk?

0:00 I'll write back on what funk we've got a couple Jeremy's today, me,

0:07 obviously, the funk and what the funk. And then Jeremy Jensen, a guy who I don't think I've really ever met, which I like having people on the podcast who haven't met before because it usually

0:20 sparks a good conversation. You're going to tell me a bunch of stuff that I didn't know. Tell me all about you, all about your business, about your life. Obviously, you're a Houston guy. So

0:30 we'll jump right into it. And I want to hit you with the question that I ask all my guests, which is, who are you? Who's Jeremy Jensen?

0:40 Well, excellent. It's good to meet a fellow Jeremy. This is probably the third podcast ever that I've been on where I had a Jeremy interviewing me. So it's not a foreign territory, but so I'm

0:52 Jeremy Jensen. I'm

0:55 41. I'm an entrepreneur. I own a 40 person executive search firm here in Houston. We recruit in the energy industrial manufacturing space, right, and we recruit 100k plus professionals All of our

1:09 employees are all in office full-time W2. We don't do Contractors we don't do remote right so we can talk about that because I know there's a lot of companies that that are Trying to discover whether

1:20 or not they want to go hybrid or remote or use third-party resellers Maybe like yourself as opposed to full-time staff And I've got three young sons 13 11 and 9 their mom is

1:35 a petroleum engineer. She works at BP She's been there for over 20 years And I'm recently engaged my fiance. She's 25 She's a retired professional athlete that moved here from Poland on a D1

1:49 scholarship and She's the most hilarious and athletic and most beautiful individual that I've ever met, and that's probably the highlight of my life right now. Well, congratulations on your recent

2:03 engagement. You guys have a wedding day plan? Yeah, it's May 16th of next year in Poland, actually. And so we're getting married in an 18th century palace with about 250 guests. She actually

2:15 hired the celebrity wedding planner of Poland and so, man, we've got some big shoes to fill with regards to living up to some

2:22 of these recent weddings. Yeah, well, that sounds exciting. It sounds fun. I take it, you've probably been to Poland a few times then I've been to Poland four times now, going for a fifth in

2:33 December. We're thinking about building a place out there. And as

2:40 I think about legacy and things of that nature, I tell you what, man, it's a lot easier to make a name for yourself in a community where that average household income is about60, 000 a year, as

2:52 opposed to here. It's in the six figures. And so, I'm really excited about making waves Polish community. with the Jensen last name. Very nice, very nice. Well, thank you for sharing all that.

3:05 That's cool, has me get to know you a little bit more. Talk to me about kind of your upbringing. You from Houston originally, and then get into like, how'd you get into recruiting?

3:19 Yeah, man, great question. So I grew up in Ailey factually. I don't know if you're familiar with that area of town of Houston, but it's a very underprivileged, highly minority populated area of

3:31 town. I'm half Mexican. My mom is Mexican. I've got a white dad, but my mom had me at 16 years old. She was a high school dropout. Very early on, she became a single mom to myself and my

3:43 brother who's seven years younger. And so, in order to survive in my community, right, you either had to learn how to fight, or you did what I did, is you learn how to talk yourself out of

3:55 situations, right? So I've got rap dude, I've got games. Uh, and, uh, and so I can't fight, unfortunately, but, you know, I played football, um, you know, I was that kid that was just

4:06 naturally gifted because I was smart. I definitely didn't work as hard as some of the other athletes, and that's the reason why I didn't play, you know, uh, in college, but, uh, but, um, you

4:18 know, in high school, we actually moved from kind of like the bad part of town where we had a house to a good part of Sugarland where, uh, we lived in the apartment complex, right? And so that

4:29 was a, a little bit of a challenge for me, um, kind of being a little bit more underprivileged, lower income, being around kids that were driving brand new F one 50s that were jacked up, you

4:41 know, that lived in these 5, 000 square foot houses and, and, uh, and, you know, we lived in the apartments, right? And so I always kind of felt like an outsider. Um, you know, I started

4:51 my first company when I was 24 years old. Wow. Uh, it was an email marketing and lead generation business called market share Um, you know, did that for a couple of years was making about a

5:02 quarter million bucks in my mid twenties. And, uh, and I couldn't really scale. Right. And so I took a look at my client base and saw that about half my clients were staffing and recruiting

5:11 companies. And I said, damn, I'm charging these guys five grand a month to provide a managed service to generate leads, but they're making 50, 000, 80, 000, 100, 000 a month from the service

5:23 that I'm doing. And so let me go ahead and start a recruiting firm So in January of 2013, I actually started a recruiting firm, and the rest is history, man. I started generating leads here in

5:34 Houston. So a lot of my clients were oil field service, a few operators, some manufacturers, distributors, people that provided ancillary service and products associated with the oil and gas

5:46 industry, and

5:49 just grew organically from there Well, congrats, I appreciate your openness and authenticity and vulnerability to share. all of that, it definitely frames a lot of who you are. And interesting

6:04 that you just saw this opportunity and despite not having a background being a recruiter, like nobody goes to school to be a recruiter. I mean, it's the same thing I say about sales, right? Like

6:14 I was a history major, American studies, I was like social guy and then I get out and I'm looking for jobs. I'm like, oh shit, I actually don't know anything. Like I'm not qualified for anything,

6:24 but what are you good at? Well, I can talk to people. Okay, well, are you willing to work hard? Yeah, all right, here's a phone, here's a list of people to call, get after it, right? And

6:36 then hence a career in sales. And you know, with my firm, Funk Futures, we started off just really as outsource sales, fractional sales, lead gen appointment setting firm, and then sort of

6:49 organically extended into recruiting as well I still sort of view it as a bit of a secondary part. of our business just because it's newer to me, but it just made perfect sense. If we go into an

7:04 account and we have success and we help them grow, who knows their company better than us, right? So why don't we then either backfill ourselves or start filling out the team and found a good

7:15 partner in Austin, kind of had to teach them oil and gas a little bit. And now it's kind of a full-fledged line of business for us. And I think it's an interesting space because, well, and you

7:28 know this really better than anybody, I think it's a lot like real estate where you've got a bunch of terrible recruiters, but then the few that are really good do extremely well with it and create

7:42 a different experience both for the hiring company, as well as the person looking for the job itself. So talk to me a little bit about how have you been able to build such a large firm?

7:56 Yeah, so you got to remember that my background was in marketing and lead generation, right? And so, I think that there's a lot of people out there that are recruiters, that they'll break away

8:08 from a Michael Page or a Robert Half or a Lucas group or something like that, and then they'll just go hang their own shingle and start recruiting. And they're doing it the exact same way that they

8:17 did it at the big shop. But with me, whenever we started recruiting in 2013, I never worked as an account manager. I never worked as the recruiter side. All I was focused on was generating new

8:32 client leads, right? And I can go and hire somebody that has two, three, four years of industry recruiting. And then I can give them that growth engine to say, Hey, I'm gonna give you a

8:43 constant streamof job orders to work on. And so the first recruiter I hired in January of 2013, the next one was in May, the next one was in October, right? Those three recruiters and myself kind

8:53 of scaled the business to about 12 million.

8:59 And I remember one day I was in a VISTAGE which has appeared to peer leadership advisory group. And I was bitching about my recruiters. There was a guy that was billing about half a million dollars

9:12 a year. He was making a quarter million. He was specifically focused on recruiting in the wire line services space. Very niche. And he was taken two hour lunch breaks. He was coming in at 10 am

9:26 He was leaving early. And I was like, fuck man, I can't get my guys to hustle and grind. They're getting a little fat and happy, literally. This boy was getting big, you know? 30 pounds, he

9:38 knows what he takes, right? And so I was venting and there was a guy in my visage group and he was like, damn dude, you must be losing a lot of money. And I was like, man, I made half a million

9:48 dollars last year. What are you talking about? And so he was like, Golly, what if you actually implemented processes and systems and accountability? What if you actually had a business person

9:59 come in and show you how to run the business so you could focus on what you do best as generating leads? And so that's whenever I brought in a COO back in, it was probably August or October of

10:13 2016. And that individual helped kind of turn us into a real organization with enterprise value and scalability, right? We brought everyone W2. We started offering benefits and

10:23 401K and amenities and things of that nature. And so you say, How did you do it? It's really just freeing up myself to focus on generating leads. And then that way I could have an

10:36 operational-minded person focused on doing one-on-ones

10:42 and coaching and mentorship and development and hand-holding and emotional intelligence and training and things of that nature. Yeah, there's a lot of similarities here. And I think I'm kind of

10:52 where you were eight years ago in some ways where we're trying to do this now, but a sales operations manager who's got experience with EOS and will kind of curate a process and turn us into a real

11:08 company. And I'm glad you mentioned 2016 also because that was a big time down year. It was a definitely tough time down. Yeah, yeah, yeah I could walk you through that. Yeah, so how did you

11:20 and COVID too, right? Like how did you make it through those times? Like what did you do? Yeah, great question, man. So, you know, obviously being in Houston, all of our clients were oil and

11:32 gas or oil and gas adjacent, right? Manufacturers, service providers. And I remember that my sales guy, which was my cousin, he landed Weatherford And I remember being. you know, at the

11:49 facility at St. James Place, meaning with Mark Hopman and Eric Blanton, the US product line director for liner hangers and completion systems. And just telling Eric, man, just take a shot. Give

12:02 me a shot, dude. You know, there's firms that are way bigger that have way more experience, but all hustle and grind. You're working with the owner. I'm never gonna fudge a resume. I'm never

12:10 gonna lie to you. And man, in 2013 and 2014, we probably made 15 placements, dude, which you know how lucrative that can be in direct tire recruitment. And then I remember, you know, being in

12:24 Eric's office, and it was like August of 2014, and he was like, Jeremy, we're gonna have to pull these offers that we have out.

12:34 And I was like, what are you talking about, dude? Like we're blowing and going, we're killing it. We're commercializing new product lines and new geo markets. We're bringing in tens of millions

12:42 of dollars and new revenue with the salespeople that we're placing And he's like, Dude, you haven't seen? I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like, oil is shitting the bet. And I mean,

12:55 mid 2014, I mean, it was like128 a barrel and now you fast forward to August, it's like 75, 80. Then you go into December, January, February of 2015, it gets into the '40s later on in 2015

13:11 and early 2016, it's like32

13:14 a barrel, you know?

13:16 And so we had to diversify man and so we migrated away from focusing on oil and gas in Houston. We started doing email blasts, trying to land new clients all across the nation.

13:29 There wasn't really any brand recognition, they weren't familiar with us. My engagement rate went from 18, probably down to sub 4. I just made up for it with volume And so when you look at the

13:43 revenue that we did in 2016, that was about 12 million, I had to like work twice as hard to get the same revenue of 1 million in

13:57 2014 because our close ratio just wasn't as high. We were working in geo-markets. We didn't know the source companies. We didn't know the competitors. We didn't know the candidate base. They

14:07 weren't familiar with us. And so we really just fucking turned up the volume as how we endured Yeah, you've got to have the right people on the team that understand, yeah, I know you had a good

14:20 year last year, maybe even at points it seemed easy. But this is not going to be easy. And if you want to make anywhere close to the same money, you're probably going to have to put in a lot more

14:31 time and deal with a lot more shitty things. Like you mentioned offers getting pulled. I mean, let's take a step back. These are people, right? These are people that may have gone in and

14:42 resigned from their job and had the celebratory dinner with their spouse and they're excited about what's next, and then the offer gets pulled. And like, that really messes up their entire life,

14:54 right? And you, in some ways, have to be the one to communicate that to them and be the bad guy. And that's a brutally difficult conversation. Yeah, man, we had a principal RD chemist that was

15:08 at one of the bigger shops. It was like a consumer packaged goods company And we got him like

15:16 a40, 000 raise with an oil-filled service chemicals company, right? Oh, he loved you guys. And he loved us, dude. And he went back to India for three weeks and he was celebrating with his

15:26 family and taking some PTO that he hadn't used. And we had to reach out to this cat to tell him that his offer was being pulled and his start date was being pulled. And he was in India, right? So

15:39 like it was hard to get a hold up. And so fortunate enough, he went crawling back to his former employer was able to salvage the deal and go back with the same salary

15:53 and, but that was a big learning moment for myself, right? To say like, hey, just because it's closed one on the board, that shit don't matter until the check hits the bank. 100, yeah, yeah.

16:04 And then, well, what if they're there for two weeks and it's not the right fit? Well, you got to backfill it, right? You got to backfill it You know, this is stuff that I've really kind of

16:13 learned on the fly and people tell you and they prepare you for it. And there's definitely, as you know, similarities to sales. I mean, same deal, I've had signed contracts and sales where

16:22 people are like, hey, bad news. We're gonna have to cancel. Like, what do you mean cancel? You just signed. They're like, yeah.

16:31 We just lost our COO and a new one came in and he has a preferred vendor for this. So I'm like, great, now I got to tell my boss, You got to take this commission back that you just paid me on,

16:43 and that conversation's gonna suck, and my day is ruined, but it happens. And I think, you know, experience is the greatest teacher in all of this, but I think it's harder in a lot of ways when

16:54 it is the person, right? So fortuitous that this chemist you're talking about was obviously good enough and didn't burn the bridge on the way out the door that he could go back, but it's not always

17:04 that easy, right? Sometimes people quit and they're like, you know, I took this job because I wanted to take the job, but more importantly, I just wanted to leave where I was at.

17:14 And then it's like the movie Half Baked, or he's like, fuck you, fuck you, you're cool. I'm out.

17:22 I wanna talk to Janssen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

17:26 Yeah, I mean, so, yeah.

17:32 The recruiting space has been pretty fascinating to me, just having been in it now for a few years, Because like, we had a really good year in. At the end of 2022, we really kind of started to

17:40 amp it up. 2023 was great. We're placing some CROs and VPS sales, some developers. And I'm like, all right, cool. Like, now we're going to get to the next level. And 2024 was really hard,

17:52 actually, for us. And I think a lot of it was, oh, we're waiting to see what happens with the election, right? And really taking their time. And it seemed like there was a lot of great

18:01 candidates and companies would be posting roles and say, hey, go find this person. And it was like, they're just not the perfect fit, right? And it's like, oh, OK, you're going to be like

18:10 incredibly choosy about this. And maybe you ultimately don't even hire, but you want to start building and seeing who might be out there when it's time. And we have to communicate, hey, if they

18:21 have a bad experience in this process, they might not want to come back, right? When you're off the road, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you get a stud candidate in front of your client and

18:30 the client's stalling or ghosting. You're not even getting a shot at that guy when the market's hot again. you know, you burn that bridge. And so I think that a lot of employers and hiring

18:39 managers need to recognize that client experience means a lot, candidate experience around it. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, let's remember, these are people, right? Like, although the

18:48 barrier to entry is extremely low, right? Like real estate, houses are different, right? Yeah. People have emotions. That's so funny, you're absolutely right. Yeah, yeah. So we have the

18:60 same kind of a story trajectory, right? You know, in 2022, we did about 115 million in revenue. That's awesome.

19:10 2023, we went down to about 108. Ugh, a little bit of a hit in the gut. First time I ever went down, 2024,

19:20 we did 998, bro. I thought about like asking my mom to buy something for 20 grand just to hit it over 10 million, you know? Oh And that was a big ego hit. And then fortunately this year, we're

19:33 trending to finish the year at about 14 million again. So we were able to diversify, reposition, invest a lot in marketing, lead generation business development, technology. And now we're back

19:44 on track, right? But, you know, when you're a small shop, I don't know how many people you have, sounds like you got two, right? You know, if you're billing600, 000, 700, 000 a year,

19:55 that's a pretty good payday for you, man But imagine carrying6 million in payroll, right?

20:02 Like I can't afford

20:05 to lose placements. I can't afford from my close ratio to go from 63 down to 25 or else motherfuckers are losing their jobs, dude. And you know, their families aren't being fed, you know? And

20:19 you talk about burning a bridge, I don't want to lose some body that I've groomed and poured into over the last five years. And now I gotta watch their intellectual capital walk out the door just

20:31 'cause I can't generate enough job orders to keep them fed. So it's a huge weight on my shoulders as the chief marketing officer to make sure that the top of the funnel stays full at Encore Search

20:42 Partners. God, we're much smaller than you, obviously, but there's a lot for me to learn. I think you and I probably need to have lunch when I'm in Houston next time so I can pick your brain even

20:53 more But,

20:55 you know, one of the things too that's been funny for me in terms of recruiting is like, you know, when I was in sales, I was never content, right? And I was always, always willing to talk

21:05 about the next job, right, and talk to a recruiter and kick tires and see where I might go. And maybe it's a better fit than where I'm at. Maybe the comp plans better. Maybe I like the boss more.

21:14 Maybe I travel less. And then you're recruiting for a position. And early on for me, I'm like, damn, that actually kind of sounds like a job that I wanna take.

21:25 Have you ever had anybody on your team like start sourcing for a job and then they're like, I want that job, like I'm not actually, of course, absolutely, I've lost a couple people that have gone

21:36 in house and worked for clients, you know, uh, you know, one individual is named Ryan Ferguson, you know, he was a chemical engineer out of McNeese State, uh, 40 GPA, but he wanted to play

21:48 football D one and he's a fucking 511 white dude, right? So he couldn't go play at Oklahoma. Yeah. So he went to McNeese. He graduated, you know, 2016, 2017 oil shit the bed. You know, he

22:01 was like an assistant property manager for a multifamily developer. And, uh, and I found him and I was like, man, I got this sharp young guy that understands thermodynamics and, you know,

22:12 electric circuits and, and, you know, fluids and things of that nature. And so I made him an oil and gas recruiter at Encore Search Partners 2017 in. And he was a beast, dude. He spoke

22:24 chemicals. He spoke upstream. He spoke midstream, downstream, everything was a big biller. And then he went and took a big six figure in-house salary, right? And created a big name for himself

22:37 on the corporate side. And that was a big punch to the gut, but this was a highly educated, highly technically competent individual that I had to be aware that he may go and seek that six figure

22:51 security one. You know,

22:54 I look at Linda McMahon. She was a high-performing legal recruiter on our team for a couple of years. And you know, when 2023 started to kind of decline and scale back a little bit, a little bit,

23:05 you know, she went and took a six figure salary doing in-house corporate recruiting at a law firm, right? Not being on the agency side. And so, you know, I think that if it's a. a good role

23:17 that gives them more stability and upward mobility and from a career development trajectory standpoint, I'm happy for them. If they go and go to another agency to recruit, you're dead to me, bro.

23:29 Like, you know, like, dude, you're crazy, right? So, and so there's definitely two paths that two people can can take whenever they leave on research. Yeah, like the guy you're talking about

23:41 from McNeese State, it was never his dream to be a recruiter.

23:47 Right? He had bigger fish to fry in his mind. And even though maybe he could have made more money doing, doing, working for you. Like, he had a path that was the path that was in his mind and he

23:57 followed it. Have you had people leave and start their own firms? Yeah, I've had a couple, you know, one in particular, you know, we, we made the decision to let go in late 2019. A little bit

24:10 of a personality conflict with some of the other high performers on the team. He was actually our top producer for three years in a row, masters in petroleum engineering. Early 30s,

24:22 recently married. And he's experienced a tremendous amount of success. He's carved out a nice little niche in recruiting for midstream and downstream operators You

24:37 know, truth be told, we probably parted ways on bad terms, but after a couple of years, he reached out to me and said, Hey man, I just want to tell you thank youfor your mentorship coaching and

24:47 development. I wouldn't have been brave enough or competent enoughto be able to pull this off. And Jeremy, no matter what happens in our careers, I'll always look at you as one of my mentors. And

24:59 so, Hudson Chin is somebody that I am. I know that

25:03 I am. He's pretty good about posting authentically on LinkedIn. So I didn't realize good for him, right? And where did he learn it from, you know? He learned it from me, right? And he's very

25:16 honest and open about that, right? But, you know, he's got a nice little1 million business today, it's him and

25:23 a couple of contractors. And, you know, I don't know if he's got the grit and focus and discipline to build a14 million firm, but hell, if Hudson can build a million dollars and make 700 grand

25:35 more power to him. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. No, thank you for sharing all that. So, let's pivot a little bit. What do you do outside of work?

25:46 Two things, bro, family, right? I'm recently engaged to Yulia Kolu. She's about

25:53 to graduate with her master's from U of H. She's super intelligent, creative, ambitious, super high-flying performer that's inspired me to live a life of physical activity, fitness, health and

26:03 wellness mentally and physical. I've got three boys, I never miss a game. They're in basketball, football, gymnastics, all the above, right? I love it, I just love to see them win, man. It

26:15 brings me so much happiness. But what I do outside of family is I love to play pickleball, dude. I play five days a week, I play with my fiancee, I play with my kids, I play with my colleagues,

26:28 I play with my clients. It's an opportunity for me to be competitive, maintain a strong social life, burn a shit ton of calories and have a lot of fun, man. It's completely transformed my life.

26:44 That's awesome, man. So I see a whole bunch of awards behind you. Talk to me a little bit about some of those. First of all, congrats, it looks awesome. I see Inc 5, 000, I was with a company

26:54 that was on that list, you got Fast 50.

26:58 Tell me about these awards, man. Yeah, man, the awards were very pivotal in our growth. you know, 2016, 17, 18, 19, whenever you're kind of an unknown in the market, right?

27:12 You know, as the new kid on the block, it's hard to land really strong, talented individuals. But if I can say, hey, look, we won best places to work. We're on the FAS 50, the FAS 100, right?

27:25 We're innovators in our space. We're constantly doubling in revenue each and every year These trophies are credibility showcasing why a high performer needs to come work and on course search partners.

27:38 And so that's what I would say that the awards did. Did a client ever come in the door and say, you know what, we want to give you500, 000 in recruiting fees because we saw that you're a best

27:48 place to work? Absolutely not, right? But with that being said, it was a great credibility resource that allowed us to top-grade our team 2020, 2021, '22. You know, you look at who we are in

28:03 2025, we're perennially recognized as the number one search firm in Houston. Congrats. People come knock on our door, right? Whether we even know that they exist or not. And so that gives us a

28:14 tremendous amount of discipline to make sure that the individuals are aligned with our culture and not just people that can showcase that they made, you know, a quarter million dollars last year.

28:24 Because just 'cause you're a rainmaker doesn't mean you're gonna fit an on course search. Yeah, now there's a cultural element, of course And you wanna mold that since you're a company, right? So

28:35 I get it. I mean, they're giving it. Yeah, I'm gonna expand on that a little bit, you know?

28:42 You know, I'll pick on Hudson in particular, right? You know, Hudson that last year, 2019, he built880, 000 in

28:50 revenue. And this was a number that we had never seen in the company's six year history at the time. And, you know, there was a little bit of conflict. He was a little bit puffy-chested, you

29:01 know, and arrogance and title-ment. And he was kind of like rubbing some of the other rising stars the wrong way in the organization. And the funny thing about what happens whenever you let go of

29:13 your top salesperson is by rule, the very next fucking day, you have another top salesperson

29:24 And funny enough, letting go of that person that build 880 allowed Christina Liles, who was feeling some of that conflict, she became a18 million dollar biller inside of Encore Search Partners. So

29:38 could you imagine if I had said Christina, fucking live with it, Hudson's a rainmaker, he's a stud, she would have quit. She would have gone out and joined one of my competitors, And I never

29:53 would have seen her grow and to develop into something that we had never seen in our industry, which was183 million in

30:01 one single fiscal year, right? So you got to protect the culture, dude. You can't have these, these pirates, right, steal

30:12 from the positivity and the momentum in the organization. Yeah, I love it. I love it. No, thank you for sharing that story It's something similar happened here early on, and I'll tell you what,

30:24 everybody started to sit up straight, straighter, right? Well, shit, I thought that guy was untouchable. If he's going to let him go, then what about me? Right? Well, I better step it up.

30:38 And that wasn't the reason for letting that resource go, but that was definitely an effect of it is the rest of the team started to perform better differently on their PSNQs, for sure.

30:53 Talk to me a little bit about AI and maybe the impact it

30:57 could have on recruiting, or is it something that you guys use, or does it not really creep into your world? Like, you know, it's something I sort of ask everybody and the answers range wildly

31:08 with, yeah, everything we do is touching AI. Or, no, AI will, you know, we wanna see where it goes. We're still in the early innings. Talk to me a little bit about maybe AI within your

31:18 business. Do you guys use it, how do you use it, all that stuff? Yeah, so I would say we're definitely in the middle of those two experience shares right there. You know, the way that we use AI,

31:29 a lot of it has to do with our marketing, our editing, our copywriting, things of that nature, right? AI is integral in our information systems, right? Data visualization, reporting, you know,

31:45 feeding real-time intelligence to mid-level management and enterprise leaders in the organization. For the most part, we still make cold calls. Real humans that are American that sit in their chair

31:57 in Houston, Texas, and we cold call other humans, right? But the way that I can see us leveraging it and continuing to invest in it is, if I know that I have the intellectual capital to convert

32:10 any, you know, fortune 1000 employer at the sea level to convince them to use us for direct higher recruiting services, let me leverage AI to do a lot of that sales development rep stuff to get

32:22 appointments for me to actually show up to, to convert that client, right? When in the past, I would have invested in these 75K BDRs to try to convert people and they're bringing fucking two to

32:34 three clients a month. Well, shit, now that we're using automation, AI, and technology, I'm generating 10 to 15 leads a month, which is me without carrying their salaries. And I'm having real,

32:47 sophisticated business conversations with other executive leaders. building trust, rapport, and credibility, right? As a leading CEO in the executive recruiting space, I think that's what's

32:58 separating us from some of the bigger shops, is they've got these pimple-faced 24-year-old kids that are doing recruiting. Their CEO's never gonna go out of their way to fucking go on that BD

33:09 meeting, but I actually like it, dude. Yeah, yeah, I mean,

33:13 it makes sense, right? So how can I put me in more meetings, AI, automation, and technology? I dig it, I dig it I think I need to do that.

33:22 So, like, you've obviously had a nice trajectory, right? You guys have continued to achieve milestones. You won awards, right? You've built great teams and culture. Like, where do you go from

33:36 here? Like, what does this company look like in a couple years, five years? Like, what's your vision? Yeah, so we implemented EOS. We started in December of 2017. The three officers in the

33:48 company are still here, myself, Scott Kelly, and Casey Knight. So we have our executive off-sides where we identify, discuss, and solve. We make sure that our VTO is still aligned with our

33:58 mission, vision, and values, what are our near-term and long-term rocks. We do a good job of implementing a lot of the near-term strategies that lead to success. So when you say where are we at,

34:10 let's say in 10 years,

34:14 right, we're still going to be an industry leader, you know, right now we're number one in the nation, in the wealth management vertical. That's our largest revenue generating business time. And

34:25 so we want to invest in additional practice areas where people bring portable books of business, right? So you think wealth advisors, investment bankers, private equity, venture capital, public

34:38 accounting, engineering consulting, architecture, things of that nature. That is the biggest area in which we generate revenue is by bringing a partner from one firm,

34:50 bringing them to another firm, they bring that million dollar portable book of business, and then they pay us75, 000 as a recruiting fee, 80, 000, sometimes 100, 000, depending on what their

35:03 first year guaranteed comp is. Dude, I tell you, I'd much rather recruit an eighth year associate in a big law firm with a 375K salary than, you know, a SMB CFO. That's got a 275K salary. You

35:20 know what I'm saying? It's like these guys in professional services are such high earning professionals.

35:27 I'm gonna go and

35:30 recruit where the money is. Dig it, man. Dig it.

35:36 You're a Houston guy, right? You've been a Houston guy. You've obviously, you're repping the kooks right now. Give me like your top two or three favorite places to eat in H town. Dude, you know,

35:48 when I weighed 284, it was a different answer than what I weigh now. I weigh 190.

35:55 So at 284, bro, I'm telling you, Chewies. That's the spot, dog. Lupe Tortilla and Chewies were the two spots. But if you were to ask me at 190, man, sweet green, man. I love sweet green And

36:10 I got a funny story, actually. So,

36:14 you know, as I mentioned, the largest practice area that we recruit in today in 2025 is wealth management. There was a3 billion RIA in Los Angeles that came to us and said, hey, we need

36:29 a

36:34 senior vice president to help commercialize the professional athlete and celebrity vertical, right? Here in LA. to try to bring in a billion dollars in assets under management to the firm, right?

36:40 So they gave us a 500K salary to go out and find someone. It was a fun search to work on. And one of my recruiters, his name is Michael Barish. He actually spoke to a candidate in LA that

36:52 expressed interest in the role. And after Michael was talking to him, he got the gist that this guy didn't really need to work. Right? And so he's like, just not a curiosity. I'm gonna make up a

37:04 name, Tom. You know, how did you create all your wealth, brother? And he said, well, I used to be the senior vice president of brand marketing at Mattel. And one year my wife and my child,

37:20 who is special needs, we were at a resort in South Florida, right?

37:26 And it was an ultra high-end resort, five stars, all inclusive, I don't know what it was, right? But one of the other parents also had a special needs child in the pool and so the parents started

37:37 to kind of bond They became friends. They started to travel together. They started to share ideas and investment opportunities. And the parent of the other special needs child was actually the

37:51 founder of Sweet Green and brought in this guy who was our candidate to be one of the early stage early investors in Sweet Green 15 years ago. And now it's a multi-billion dollar, right? Fast

38:06 casual restaurant. And so he's like, bro, sometimes the opportunities to make real life-changing money is not actually in corporate America. It's investing in people that have aligned mission,

38:20 vision, values. Does that make sense, right? And so it's just funny, right? Like over the years, we've presented the inventor of the Xbox. We've presented the wealth advisor of LeBron James.

38:33 We've presented a guy that became a nine figure entrepreneur by investing in Sweet Green, right? Like you meet a lot of really cool people when you work in executive search. And there's a story

38:45 behind each and every one of them. Oh, I love it, man. Thank you for sharing all that. So tell me, where can people find you? You're LinkedIn, your company,

38:56 all of that. And what kind of searches are you looking to do? Yeah, man So we have 40 employees, this year we'll do 14 million in revenue across about 275 placements. So we pretty much do all

39:10 100k plus professional and technical searches. Whether you're looking for a sales guy in Midland, you're looking for a product line manager, a chief commercial officer, a chief revenue officer,

39:20 right? We know that you want to take a lot of those searches, but we recruit a ton of - There's plenty of room, man, as long as it's for the good ones, right? Yeah, so we love to solve complex

39:32 problems. problems for employers that wanna grow, right? And that's the niche in which we recruit is if a company is growing, let's say they just brought in50 million in growth capital from a PE

39:42 shop, they need their commercialized new product lines, open new geo markets, higher salespeople and marketing teams, right? I would love for you to connect with me on LinkedIn, right? LinkedIn

39:54 is the platform that I always choose. I've got 45, 000 followers there. I try to be consistent around creating content in being recognized as a thought leader in our space. But if you want to

40:05 follow the personal life of me and my Hafiancé, follow me on Instagram. It's just Jeremy Jensen. Yeah, that's great. So, man, I live a great

40:16 life. I surround myself with men who I respect and admire. I've got a tremendous amount of role models that inspire me to become a better father, a better husband, a better leader, a better

40:28 investor, a better marketer. I just want to surround myself best, man, because you are the sum of the five people that you surround yourself with. And I want to be elite. Well, sounds like you

40:40 already are. And, you know, congrats to you. You just surrounded yourself by the best podcast or no one gas. So at least we go, let's go. Yeah. But really, I tell that to Mark LeCour, right?

40:50 Yeah, he would see what well marks. He's like running the podcast company now. I'm not sure what even podcasts. But yeah, he's got to have 40 podcasts under him, right? It's an impressive model.

41:02 No, it's been, it's been really fun to have you on. I think your energy speaks for itself as as does your professionalism. And yeah, I definitely want to pick your brain more, not that you know,

41:13 you necessarily want to build up another recruiting firm. But you know, we're niche, right? We sort of know what our lane is, we, we pick the right roles in the right companies and it works.

41:22 And I think can we scale that? We'll see. You were clearly able to do it. So there's definitely a lot for me to learn I appreciate you coming on today. Absolutely, man. Thanks for having me.