Buyers and Builders
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.
00:40:21 · Mark Sinatra
[00:40:21] S1: Yeah. So it's interesting, you know, had a one year earn out. And, you know, when you go through these... That's the other thing that's not talked a lot about in searches like, well, what happens, you know, after exit? Well, it really kind of kind of depends a lot. And the default line of thinking is, well, you sell the business and then, you know, depending on how, how, what that outcome is, you know, that could inform your next, your next step. But what about like opportunities at, you know, the parent company or with the new buyer, right? Obviously, if sell you the business and you, you recap it to a private equity firm, you know, you're likely going to continue in that role, right? Because they're excited that you're at the helm. But in my case, I sold to a large competitor, but I ended up forging really good relationships with the CEO, the executive team of that business. I liked their strategy a lot, so they created a new role for me to oversee the Western half of the country, because they they had done several acquisitions and they they, wanted to have a, kind of more kind of thoughtful org... Organizational structure. So I was a GM president of, you know, the Western half of the country for for that organization. And it was a role that I really, really enjoyed. It was a new role. Got to, to, you know, really embrace it for that short period of time through through the... Their sale, you know, to to the public company. Once the sale happened to the public company, you know, I kinda said to myself, okay, it's a great company, but it had been a long journey for me at that time. And I wanted to kind of step out, step back, recalibrate, and kind of think about like, you know, what the next, you know, step would be for me. And that leads, you know, into your other question, and this is in, the late summer of twenty nineteen, and then, you know, started to do a little bit of investing, you know, in in search, right, as a lot of former search operators will do. You know, for me, it was obviously, you know, space where at the time I had a had a lit... A little bit of a network in. So, you know, I was able to get some looks at some opportunities, But also, I felt like, and I still feel strongly about my experience as an operator is and can be very helpful to searchers during the search phase and the...