Brad Lambden - CEO at iWorkZone

Welcome to another CEO Wisdom Pod. We have Brad Lamden with us today. He's a CEO at iWork Zones, human systems, talent wiring, and AI-assisted workforce alignment. Brad is in Dallas, Texas. Welcome, Brad, to the pod. Tell us a bit more about yourself and what you're up to.

Hey, Charles, thanks for having me. Yeah, you know, we've been around for a while and we like to help people. That's what it boils down to. I think I was put here to help people, and we can help people align with their roles, and we can help companies get the right faces in the right spaces. And so that's, that's what we strive to do every day. It's a little more complicated than that, but that's sort of the general synopsis.

Nice. And tell me about your background. You were director of biz dev and project management before you started or were CEO at iWorkZone.

Yeah, so I did take a role in project management. I've worked in— through iWorkZone and through my life through owning a lot of different businesses and working in a lot of different verticals, I have experienced many, many different diverse roles and different industries, and I feel like that has just aided us in our strategic approach to what we do. Because we actually work in pretty much every vertical there is one way or another, from financial services to HVAC companies to recruiters, you name it, we're there. Car dealers, we've done them all. So, it's been very valuable learning the different industries and understanding their opportunities and places that we can fill in gaps for them.

And how did you get there is sort of my question, right? Like, why become CEO at that company precisely?

So, years ago, it would have been 2014, I heard a guy speak in a public setting. I don't know, there were a couple hundred people. And I was really impressed with what he was talking about. And he was one of the founders of iWork Zone. And they had been around for a few years. And I, he kind of, I was impressed. And he talked me into coming on board. And I did that. And through a series of events, I ended up being asked to lead the company. And, and so I began that journey. And since that time, coming from what they were to where we are now, we've morphed. It's, you know, the industry has changed; the world has changed, right? Obviously, big impactful things like COVID and things like that certainly, you know, played a role in some of that. But As a whole, it continues to change and evolve, and so we've worked very hard to stay in the front of that and lead the pack, if you will. And we've really done that with customer feedback. You know, we've put our product out there and said, okay, here's what it does, and then what do you need it to do? And they say, well, it'd be great if it did this. And so we would look at that, and if it made sense, we would put that into our system. And after a while, we started having these calls, and, and, you know, the person on the other end would say, wow, it'd really be great if you did— if it did this. And I say, guess what? It does that. So, um, we really have been created from our customers, and we've got, we've got customers that are on their 10th, 11th year renewal now, um, with us on the current— on the system. And of course, our software You know, we've upgraded platforms a couple of times in there, and we've done some different things. And most recently, as you and I discussed earlier, you know, we added an AI element. It doesn't change the core science of what we do. It just makes it better. It basically just builds on top of it and allows users to have a more specific experience to what they're doing.

And with iWorkZone, what should I pay for, and what do I get on the other side?

We have multiple different offerings. Most of what we encourage is a subscription model. A lot of our customers will do multiple years, especially the larger ones, because it's a change to their processes quite often. Some of the smaller ones will come on, they'll come on for like a year, something like that. But we want to use the subscription model because we want you to use it. We want our customers to use it. It's in their best interest to use it. on everyone, not to just, you know, pick and choose. Hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take advantage of the iWorkZone system here. I'm gonna take advantage of it here. To use it across the board for multiple reasons, from, from legal reasons, consistency, building a culture. All these things add up to a very positive experience for the customer if they use it in that way. So by not nickel and diming the customers— this is what it is, this is where it is, this is what it's going to cost you— We bring those in. And so, you know, from that standpoint, the annual multiple-year subscription model works best for us.

Okay. But again, what's the number one product and who's your ICP? Who do you target with what product? What's your flagship?

Yeah. So, we've morphed the name. The science hasn't changed. We refer to it as Talent Wiring. It's a 15- to 18-minute assessment that sits at the forefront of our science. We've got many other tools involved, but that is our core. That's where, that's where we come in into your world. That assessment is extremely accurate. It is self-completed by an applicant or by an employee, depending upon what stage they're in. And then that science is a matching system. And We're not benchmarking them. You've heard the old personality test or something where they take a test and it says, oh, you should be a fireman, or you should be a barista at Starbucks. It's not like that at all. What we do is we look within companies and they say, OK, I've got this individual. He's retiring. She's retiring. She's moving on. I need more of this type individual. Our science figures out who they are, how they're wired, identifies their talent wiring very accurately. And then you use those individuals or a combination of those individuals. Sometimes you'll have Tom and Betty and they're both strong in certain ways and you want to combine them. You say, well, if I had somebody that was both Tom and Betty in one, in one head, that would be an amazing person to have in the seat. Sometimes we'll do it that way as well. But very quickly, people, people will apply on the hiring side. And let's say you have 100 applicants for a role. Hiring manager just simply looks on there and says, okay, This person is the best match, the highest percentage match, and their experience, or what we refer to as their resume score, also aligns with that. Let's start with them. And some of our clients, we've got, you know, some international clients. I'll use one as an example. So when they first came on board, they were interviewing 10 for every 1 that they hired. And we changed that ratio to 1.2 to 1 within 90 days.

Wow!

And they, they came back and said, you know, this is incredible. We're not spending all this time interviewing people who aren't going to fit. It's like the first person that we talk to, like all the stars align when we put them through our interview process, and they're the right person. And so it's a big time saver in that way. Getting those people in, in a role where their, where their wiring aligns with what they're doing is critical, because that way, they hit the ground running. You don't have to sort of change who they are or try to bring them in and alter their thought processes. That's already how they're wired, and that's how they think. So in that way, it's very powerful. And then it's also used with employees. Sometimes you'll have a great employee that shows up. They're, they're great attitude; they're great for your culture. They're just simply in the wrong role. And with a couple of clicks of a button, you can see what role within your organization they really should be in, talk to them. If they choose, you can move them over to that. Now you have a happy employee, and you have a happy customer, because the, the company is super happy that this person's in there being highly productive and a shining star for them in their new role. And then lastly, we really focus on a lot of team building. You know, let's say we've got a project coming up. You know, who, who should I team together and how are they going to work together? And some of our AI products now are doing a great job of taking that science and combining it and spitting out a very quick report based on your internal query on our, on our AI engines that we've created to give you the team. And you just start there. You don't have to really think through, hey, do I need Charles, Brad and Tom? Or Or do I need Susan? Who do I need on this team? It's very easy to do, and you can create a large team or a small team really quickly using a very objective approach.

Got it. So in a few words, right, like I'm a CEO and I'm hiring you because I have a pile of CVs, right? And I need to pick out of the thousands of candidates who is the right one potentially. What should I pay for that?

Well, so it's, again, it's a subscription model. So typically you're going to have all your jobs in there, you're going to have all your, your what we call talent patterns in there, and you're going to have however many applicants you have. We don't base it on number of applicants. The subscription price is just simply based on the number of employees you have at your company right now. That's why a lot of these companies will lock in a 2 or 3 year deal, because they know that they're growing. And so they'll, they'll We look at what they need to do. Are they going to want customized surveys within this process? Are they going to use any of the other tools? Are they just going to use the talent wiring portion of what we do? And many different ways that we do that. So the pricing is very customized. Our typical target audience is anywhere from companies from 50 to 250 employees, or 50 to 250 people per location. We've got a lot of large companies that have 100 people per location. Those are ideal because there's, while they are all in one They are, or while they're not under one roof, they are under one system. And so, but the system then operates, you know, as one independently and then combines back in so that you have a way to look at it holistically as a company. So it's very, they're all different. But basically, you know, you're looking at, depending on what tools you're using, somewhere between $30 and $50 a year to to take advantage of the system.

Per head, the $30 to $50?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, per employee.

Then if I'm looking to fill a position, I can check also internally with my existing team if there's a fit to upgrade to that position?

Yeah, yeah, as you should. Yeah, you, you absolutely want to take advantage of those good employees. Uh, it's hard to hire people. Uh, turnover is very expensive. So when you can, when you can use somebody who may be unhappy or you're unhappy with their performance, they might shine just by moving to a different location under a different manager, or they might shine just by moving to a different role, a different job. So, um, yeah, you should always look internally first and then go through the hiring process. And so we're just kind of sitting out front on the hiring process, and then you, you follow your normal interview processes and all the things, and we can help you structure that. Our system creates great consistency in a lot of these companies, especially the smaller companies. And I'll, I'll just tell you, Charles, we've got some companies that have 6 to 10 employees because they don't have an HR department. They don't have a talent management department. They don't really know exactly how to approach that. And our system will structure that with everything from interview guides to make your processes consistent. And that is really valuable, especially for those smaller companies.

Got it. What's it— how much clients do you have at this moment? You've been in that job for a decade now. So, How much clients you run on normally?

Yeah, so, um, I would, I would base it more on an employee count, um, because some, again, some of our, some of our customers are, you know, 5 to 10, uh, employees. Some of our customers are 5,000 employees. And so, um, I would say that at any given time, we're, we're working with actual employee counts somewhere in the 100,000 range, something like that, um, maybe 125,000, just depending. You know, some of these companies ebb and flow, as you know, and especially larger corporate America. C-suites change, leaderships change. They, you know, they make different approaches and they say, well, we don't want to do this, we want to do that. So, you know, a lot of our customers, like I said, are on their 10th, 11th renewal. We're very sticky. Once they're with us, they're with us. Once they start seeing—

But you don't work with 100K employees, right? Like, you don't serve all of these 100K employees. Right, like how many people use you is my question. How many users?

100,000 to 125,000. Yeah.

Are paying you $30 a month?

Yes. Well, no, they're paying $30 per annum.

Okay, $30 per annum. Okay, got it. Yeah, that's still, that's still a significant business, right? That is $30 million a year minimum.

These, these customers, again, so I'll give you an example: a recruiter. A recruiter might only have 6 or 10 employees, right? So, so those people then use it as a recruiting tool. So everybody that they test, which is, you know, this test has been completed by millions of people, and all those are housed within our internal databank. And so those, those are all sitting there. You can reach out to those individuals if they have opted in to to that piece of the program, you can absolutely do that. It, it makes a lot of sense if they align experience-wise and make sense for that role. But when you, when you look at it, the count varies all the time, right? These, these, these customers ebb and flow; their number of employees ebb and flow. You know, we're testing, you know, hundreds or thousands of people per day.

Right.

Certainly per week, just depending on, you know, time of year sometimes are more intense for hiring, things like that. And a lot of this is just replacing people. It's not necessarily, it's not necessarily always adding people, right? A lot of people are leaving and changing jobs and things like that.

How do you acquire your clients nowadays? What's your No. 1 GTM initiative?

You know, that's, that's really changing. As we go through our processes. That has become, um, really interesting. Uh, channel partnerships have always been powerful for us. Um, we, we're integrated with lots, many different ATSs, um, across the country, uh, and, and, and a few global ATSs. Um, that's, that's one way that we, that we get to them. Um, the, the channel partnerships might be as simple as, um, you know, a recruiter that uses it as a recruiting tool. Their customer sees it and says, oh well, This is amazing right here. We love this. And what does this look like? They only want to pay us as recruiters to recruit, say, directors and above. But the company would really like to use this for their warehouse workers. They'd like to use this for everybody that they hire because it's effective. So, in those cases, quite often, those end up being almost like referrals, right? And then you gain a new customer.

Yeah.

In many cases, the recruiter— a lot of the recruiters are very holistic in their approach, and they will absolutely take that and, and use it as, um, where they're involved in that process, where they're consulting basically with their customer. And we're great with that. In many cases, it's, it's almost like a white label product for them. It gives them an advantage.

Interesting. Um, what's your number one priority as a CEO this year? What do you want to accomplish? the remaining months?

So AI is a panic button right now, right? So, you know, we're in the human business. We're in the business of putting the right faces in the right spaces. And obviously, I think we all can anticipate that, you know, many of these places, many of these jobs are going to go away. AI is going to replace, you know, and just throw one out there, like analyst jobs. A lot of those are going to go away. Someone will be sort of managing all that process. So we are using AI internally really in a bit of a limited manner in our approach because we want to make sure that it still stays human-focused, that it still stays focused on quality employees, right faces, right spaces, things like that. But for us, it's making certain that our customers are comfortable with the transition that AI is bringing to their company and their workforce.

Got it. All right. Well, Brad, where can people find out more about you and your business?

You can go to iworkzone.net. It is a good resource to learn and understand. And, you know, if anybody's interested and wants to reach out, you know, they can find us on LinkedIn. They can find us wherever they want to look. But certainly iworkzone.net is a great starting point. And you can learn more about what we do. And then I would encourage, I would encourage a conversation because there's— we need to hear where your opportunities are, where your struggles are, and where your strengths are as you see them. And, and then, and then we can— our guys are very good about acting as consultants in that way where, you know, they'll listen and tell you, look, this is the way to set this up. And then we set it up for you and get you going. And make it an easy, an easy thing to launch and go from there.

It was Brad and Charles.