Episode 519: Most Influential Person in Staffing in the World with Jordan Franklin

Welcome to this edition of the Million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell. I'm talking with the CEO of Stratus, Jordan Franklin. And they've got over 120 employees and they're recruiting 40 to 60 hours a week.

I mean that's just me.

They'll be recruiting for you if you call them. And over $12 million in revenue. And you were the top staffing influencers of 2021 and 2022. What's that all about?

Yeah, so world staffing organization, they do a poll and you can submit and I won. In 2015 I was number three and not 2015, sorry. In 2021 I was number three most influential person in staffing. And then in 2022 they put out the top 100 list. So they kind of made it more, more encompassing and everything and talked to a lot more people. So actually me and my co CEO, so there's actually two of us just correction. But so we both made the list. We are chief exploration officer. That would be me and then chief experience officer. So.

Well, how do you get who votes on this?

Everyone in staffing. So every other. Yeah, every other staffing agency.

United States, world. In the world.

Yeah, that's the world.

All the stinking world.

Yeah.

Wait a minute, let me get this. You started in here in 2017 and by 2021 you're the number three most influential person voted in a worldwide vote of people in staffing as a number. Good lord. You've got to be kidding.

I mean I got a little plaque.

That's kind of a big deal.

It was, it was really exciting. I didn't think I was even going to make it. We were sitting in our little WeWork office, me and a couple recruiters at the time, and it flashed up there that I made the top three because they just called out the 1, 2 and 3 and I made the top three. And you would have thought that we were like a hundred people in WeWork.

Wow. And so what did that do for your business?

It's been great. So we went to a couple different.

Do people hear about that or. I mean, I guess you can use it in your calling marketing. But did it open doors?

It does. I think it opened quite a few doors. Right after that we got nominated for best small business in Arkansas. I was nominated for seat best CEO in Arkansas. I didn't win. But the lady that one runs, like. She runs a giant trucking agency, and they have, like, 14,000 employees. So, like, how do you compete? Like, I run a hundred, and you run 14,000 people.

She sounds like a bad woman.

She's amazing. She must not sleep.

But whoever this woman is, we got to find her because she knows something.

Yeah, she worked her. She worked her way up. She lives in Fort Smith, Arkansas. She's amazing. Even my grandfather called me and saw who else was nominated, and he used to work with her, and he called me and he was like, you have a really tough group of people. I think she's gonna win. I was like, thanks.

So you don't have to win everything, Jordan, come on.

No, no. She was. She was so sweet, too. She knew everyone that was nominated and knew them by name and introduced herself to them. She was the nicest lady. She.

This massive competitive streak.

I think I was born with it, but so when I was younger, so my sister is dyslexic, and so am I. And so we've always said that it's a curse when you're younger because you're annoyed that you can't do that. You're not as efficient at reading and doing things as everyone else. But when you get older, you really realize that it was actually a blessing because when you're younger, you have to learn how to really learn and really be competitive and really, like, have stick to it. Iveness. Because you learn at, like, second grade that it's going to be fricking hard.

Yeah.

And it's just like an early life lesson that some kids just don't ever have to do. And our husbands say all the time, they're like, it's a blessing. You two are the most driven people I've ever known. But, yeah, and so sixth grade, that's.

One of the things we found over the years that the people. It's an insane disadvantage for people to be really smart, really beautiful, really athletic from a young age on up because they're treated special. And then sooner or later, all that fades away and you're up there competing, you know, with everybody else, and the whatever advantage or boost that gave you is kind of run out. And everybody else who wasn't quite so pretty, smart or athletic learned early on to work, had they. They were going to have to work like a dog, and they weren't special, you know, and most CEOs realize, have the attitude, I'm not that special. You know, I gotta work. And I used to. People used to say, why? You know, why are you work so hard. I said, it's because I'm not very smart. If I was smart, you know, what happens is it'll say to you too, you're just a genius. That during Jordan, what a genius. And when, when they would say it to me, I would say, if I was a genius. I wish I told myself, you know, my 20 years ago, because I sure could have saved myself a whole lot of time, right?

No, I don't. I tell everyone, even my clients, I'm like, listen, I am not the smartest person in this room. That's the reason why I do what I do. So I can bring the smartest person to the room. Like, that's, that's what I do, is like I'm supposed to bring you the talent. I'm just a facilitator, a connector.

When you show up at a company that are, start talking to people, what are good signs for you? Because you realize these are going to be great people to work with. They've got their act together. What are things that send that signal to you?

Yeah. So when they really ask, how are you finding these people? Where are you going to look for them? What are your avenues? You know, how many interviews do they go through before they get to us? Those kind of things. But even, even though the companies that don't have their act together at all are kind of fun, right? Because then you go in and you can talk to them and say, okay, so here's the other things we need to go through. We need to really talk through all of this. Because you haven't thought about these things. And though that's fun too, it's, it's the ones, the ones that are hard, that are always a hard. No is we don't use third party. We don't pay to get people. People come to us and it's like, okay, so you haven't hit your growth spurt yet. Or, or you're just not thinking outside the box. Because if accounting firms like Deloitte Accenture, like all of these big accounting firms will use third party recruiting firms and they can prove the profitability off of it, then you probably can too. And I can show you how we can get there. But you've got to get past that. Right? Because a lot of companies will just say, we don't use third party. So that's, that's the roadblock.

Yeah. And so talk about some of your. An ideal situation you get into is that with the government work or.

No. And I, I think an ideal situation would be like a Startup that just got at an infusion where the investors do really understand the benefit to using a company like us. Right?

Yeah.

Because you got to get the invest at that point in time. You've got to make sure that the investors understand where their money is going to. Um, I think that's the ideal one. Right. So, hey, so and so got a million, $12 million infusion, they gotta hire 25 people. Um, that's the perfect one, perfect scenario. I want to come in there, help you guys really game plan. Because those people are the ones that a lot of the times don't, don't have the bandwidth. Right. It's not necessarily that they don't know where they're going. They probably have a great game plan. That's how they got the infusion. They just don't have the bandwidth to do all the interviewing and hiring that they need to do to get to the next level. And that's where we really come in and help.

Now if someone, an employee might be smart for them to stay plugged into you even when they start the new job, because I'm going to get you to speak to this. We've always, you know, I've been in the commission sales business, financial services, and we've always had a bad attitude towards the corporate job situation. Like it's only a matter of time before you're going to get screwed by the corporation. Because corporations don't all grow. And then when they, you know, sometimes they're sold and then they're split. And then the person that you had your loyalty knows, you know, for 20 years, this is your boss and he knows all those extra weekends you put in and your loyalties to him and his loyalty or her loyalty is to you. And then they leave. Now a new person comes in who for some reason hates your guts and has no background on the fact that you've, you know, bled and sweat for the company for 20 years and is looking for all the credit. And you're like, you know, this is not working for me anymore. And so one time we used to tell people if you're going to be in a corporation, like if you're, you're talking to your nephew or something like that, you're going to go in as soon as you go in, at least, you know, have a idea of where you would go next because you're going to go, not going to be there forever. You know, the whole idea of going with a company for all your life, 40 years and a pension. Not, not true today, is it?

No, no, no. No. And so my, my sister's in marketing and they, they hop around all the time. Not all the time. I'd say all the time. They hop every two, three years. Right. And she always jokes because she's like you. I, I review her offer letters. It's not that I, we don't recruit marketing positions a whole lot. We have for her, but we don't recruit marketing positions a whole lot. But, but it's always good to have a recruiter friend. Right. Because first of all, we're not going to charge you. We're trying to place you. We charge the client. Right. So we can at least bring you opportunities that are up your alley and talk to you about career growth. And you know, you telling us no five times in a row and then finally saying yes on the six to a communication about a position, I mean, that's not going to hurt our feelings. We get told no every day. Right. So I tell, I tell everyone, our client and consultants alike. We're like your wingman, right. You tell us when you hate the job order and we're not going to tell the client that you think their job order sucks. And we tell the client, you tell us when you don't like a candidate and we're going to, you know, let it land a little nicer to the candidate and say, hey, you know, maybe this wasn't the right position. Let's go find another position for you that looks like a better fit. So it's just like the communication in between the two. But yeah, I mean that's, I think having a recruiter friend is the best kind of friend.

Do you have statistics on how long employees can expect to stay employed in different jobs and things like that?

It really depends on what industry they're in and then how high up they are. So it industry, if they're in government, they tend to stay a little longer because they normally stay for the term of the contract. And then if they're in, you know, corporate world, I would say it's probably two and a half years. The last time I looked it was right around there. So it just really depends on how.

High up, what makes it two and a half years. And again, we're talking at a higher level. Not a staffing position.

Yeah. So more like the mid level position would be like a two and a half year because a lot of the times projects last about that long. So they get done and either they don't get placed onto something they really like or it's not moving forward as fast as they would like. So they kind of go start searching and then, and then also a lot of the times that two and a half year mark they've increased their skills enough to go get more money somewhere else where maybe their internal increases aren't as much as what they would get at another company.

Yeah. And the smart people are aware of that it's going in, don't you think?

Yeah.

And employers, it's kind of like, you know, we used to just say about like they get 20 year olds and they put them in charge of a retail store at a mall and put them through a training program and here they are just out of high school and they're, you know, there's a lot of inventory, there's staffing to keep up, a lot of, a lot of things.

A lot of things.

And they don't make any money, but they get a lot of experience and at a young age, you know, it's a way of getting a lot of experience and skills at a young age on your resume and then you can go make money. So it's important to look at pretty much every position when you're going in is what am I going to learn? Where am I going to be? Like you say you go to the company, what's your plan? 30, 60, 90 days. It's also important to let the employees think about that, where you're going to be and how you can move up, you know, improve.

Absolutely, absolutely. And I mean even, even when I was happy, you know, at the last company I was at, I still interviewed around not, I mean I didn't think I was going to move, but I still took the interviews A, to keep my interview skills up. Right. But also B, to see what else was out there and what it looked like and what the scope of the land looked like. Like it's, what's it going to take me an hour? You know, I can, if I can schedule it right, I can at least see what's out there and what they're offering now. I mean, I think that kind of depends. Right. You don't want to go after six months or three months in a position that looks like you're hopping. But you know, two and a half years, two years, something like that looks, looks decent on our resume and still looks like you're being pretty consistent and finishing what you've started.

Thanks for listening to the Million Dollar Mastermind. If you felt there were any valuable takeaways from this episode, please take a minute and leave us a five star review. Your feedback is important and really helps us get the word out to a wider audience. Remember, we have a valuable webinar that is absolutely free. Register for it right now@whiteallonwinning.com thanks for listening.