Buyers and Builders
00:30:07 · Mikk
[00:30:07] S0: That's excellent. I... We have another sales guy joining on Monday, so I'll try to figure out the level of urgency, him being independent or dependent. So this was the reason I wanted to ask those questions, because we're a small team, 15 people, and we expect to grow faster than we... We've been able to do so far. So I think that's that's an important part. Another part I want to ask, like, day to day. Like, how do you... Because every single week I talk to so many people and... I mean, the market is tough. People are working hard. These are young people like folks leaving their great jobs in the BE firms or or folks who've been doing that for a long, long time. But people are working very hard, very fast pace. So how was your day to day when it comes to emotionally, physically overcoming this... What is the right way to put it? This crisis. Because that's that's also the same thing. Like, it it will break some people, and at the same time, will make some people. In your case, these tough times, these make you made you, and from there, you you were able to... Obviously, it was a little longer time. I'm not talking about the... A few year period, but it was a it was a long journey, but this this tough moment didn't break you. Let's put it in this way. So I'm asking this because there are some... Was close. Okay.
00:31:39 · Mark Sinatra
[00:31:39] S1: It's tough. It's really tough, you know, when when you're you're in the heat of the battle and it's... There's a tremendous amount of pressure and stress. And a lot of that is self induced. Right? Like in my case, like I I carried a a a lot of lot of weight in in terms of, like, trying to turn this company around. What a couple of things I think I did well and a couple of things I didn't do well in that, in that context. You know, one thing I started to kind of figure out, and it wasn't until like, you know, I was just, at a point where, you know, I was probably 15, 20 pounds overweight, wasn't taking care of myself. Right? And I remember one day I walked into the office. And again, I was just, you know, working, you know, just a lot of hours, right, on on the business, trying trying to rebuild it. And I brought in a bag of mail that I hadn't checked from, like, you know, my... Not from the business, but, you know, from from where I was living, from my house. And it had been about, honestly, like this is embarrassing, but about, you know, thirty to sixty days of mail. I brought it in and one of my managers saw that and she's like, are you okay? Like, I mean, what, you know, are you... Looks like you're just... She was like, just checking on me. And, know, it was very, very nice of her. But at that moment, it it kinda dawned on me. I said, listen, like, I've got to start, you know, at least I've got to do a better job just taking care of myself because it's extremely visible to the rest of the company. And, you know, what are they what are they thinking? Right? And it's something that, you know, CEOs, particularly new CEOs, it's it's easy to to forget, and to understand. But every everything you say, everything you do, and things you don't do, and things you don't say, people notice that stuff and employees are extremely smart and observant. And so I said, listen, like, I've got to take a, do a better job, take care of myself for me. Right? But also for the business. And so once I kinda understood that, I just placed more of a premium on, you know, exercising and trying to eat, eat, eat, eat healthy and, just overall, just just, you know, really kind of do a better job. So I started enforcing, and having some self accountability to time blocking my my week and my calendar and reserving that time for what I would call renewal, right?
00:34:34 · Mark Sinatra
Renewal, personal renewal time. Now, a couple of things that I would say I did not do well during that time. You know, I could have done a better job reaching out to the board or investors, you know, for for support. And that's one thing, Mikk, that doesn't get talked to him a lot about in in in ETA or search is, you know, when there's when there's a tough time that the CEO is is going through, you know, from a business perspective or really anything, right? You know, it's it's kind of a lonely, you know, being a CEO is lonely. Right? I mean, like, it's like you you kind of tell yourself a story that you don't have anybody to reach out to. Well, you know, you can't talk to your, you know, employees or management team or, you know, it's like, it's, you know, I'm not sure if you should reach out to other CEOs and, you know, take up their time. But the reality is is that human nature is like, you know, people are here to listen. People are here to help. And, and I, I could have done a better job, you know, reaching out to, to investors or my board, you know, for, support, during that time. I remember, you know, those, those couple of times when I did, they were extremely helpful and supportive. So anyway, just something to keep in mind, right? You know, as a, as a leader, you know, when you're going through a challenging time, don't be afraid to to pick up the phone and, you know, call one of your investors, call call a board member they've got a good relationship with, and and download them. I they're here to support you.
00:36:28 · Mikk, Mark Sinatra
[00:36:28] S0: Did you think back then that it's like sign of weakness or something? The reason you weren't doing this? [00:36:35] S1: Could be subconsciously. Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. I I mean, absolutely. But, you know, it's just such a flawed notion. Right? Like, thinking that that would be a sign of weakness when when, you know, it's actually a sign of strength. Right? The ability to to be vulnerable as a leader is is a sign of strength. And, you know, at the time, like, was, just inexperienced. Right? And I didn't have, like, that proper perspective. [00:37:09] S0: Now surviving the, let's call them dark years, then you recovered. So give us a timeline, like how was the then the growth of the company, eventually you sold it, you joined the larger group. Give us a timeline of this. And then last part of the podcast, let's cover of what you do today.
00:37:28 · Mark Sinatra
[00:37:28] S1: At our low point, you know, I remember we're talking to the board and we said, okay, well, you know, should we continue? Like what, what, you know, or what, what should we, what should we do here? Right? And this is what we got, you know, three years in. But I remember, there are a couple of things that, that really gave me conviction to move forward. And there's this old saying, Mikk, you know, and I'm glad you're bringing on that salesperson because it relates to this. You know, sales cures all problems. And it's overly simplistic, I get it, but it does cure a lot of them. And and so, you know, I remember, we had this big proposal for for a startup, but it was very well well financed startup. You know, we won that deal. We were 30% higher than our than our closest competitor, but we won that deal regardless. That that company actually in... Was proved to be after two years of selling that deal, our most profitable, largest customer. But at the time, like, winning that deal was one of those things that just was a huge boost to morale. It gave the company gave me the conviction that we were on the right track. And then if you look at the numbers too, we... I kind of validated, you know, from from, you know, kind of an objective perspective and looked at those leading indicators. Right? Looking at sales activity, looking at the pipeline, and comparing that to historical activity and pipeline levels, you know, we were at a much higher level looking at net promoter scores from a client perspective. Look, so looking at those leading predictable indicators, and seeing those continue to go up and up, gave us the validation and the confidence that we were we were on the right the right path. And so we had a good year, good run, you know, from from, you know, those last kind of six years leading us up to, to 2017, you know, in five thousand five years in a row, you know, multiple, you know, con... Consecutive years of double digit growth. And, and thankfully, you know, we found a great partner, in the company we ended up, selling to, you know, Oasis Outsourcing. They were, fantastic to, to partner with and, you know, they were kind of in the eighth inning of their roll up of the industry. And that's, you know, when, you know, Oasis end up selling to Paychex about a year after they bought us. So...
00:40:06 · Mikk, Mark Sinatra
[00:40:06] S0: And how... When selling in 2017, how was... How did your life... How did your role changed? And... Because in 2020, you started what you're building today, ETA Equity. [00:40:17] S1: Yeah. So the the role changed after after selling the business? [00:40:21] S0: Yep.