Where is Your 30 Day – 60 Day – 90 Day Roadmap Going 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 Jordan Franklin. Hello, Jordan.

Hey, how are you?

Great. What part of the country are you in today?

I'm in northwest Arkansas.

I didn't know there was a northwest Arkansas. Just kidding.

It's the best part.

Oh, is it great. A lot of lakes up there, isn't it?

Yes, yes. Beaver Lake is beautiful.

Yeah. I remember being up there for a golf clinic or something a long time ago. And so let's talk about. You are the CEO of Stratus, and Stratus is a concierge human capital management firm. Concierge human capital management firm with 120 employees and 12 million or so in revenue, currently started in 2015. And tell us about how Stratus got started. And you got started as CEO.

Yeah. So Stratus was started in 2015 as a IT project space firm. So by my husband. My husband, Scott Franklin started the firm. And then in 2017, I moved over and brought what a lot of people would call staffing, what we call human capital management over with my back, with my background and staffing. I brought that over to stratus in 2017. So. And then from there, we've grown as a. As the concierge human capital management firm. So we go out and, you know, work with companies and their teams to strategize how to grow better, faster, more efficient and with the right butts in the right seats.

And how. How did that decision come about?

So I was the number one seller in the number and ran the number one office for the agency that I worked with before. And it just was kind of an opportune time for me to make a jump over to our own company. And my husband made a deal with me that he would run all the back office. He has an IT degree that he'd run all the back office and payroll and everything if I wanted to do sales and recruitment. And we just kind of made the leap, had two little twins at the time and just said, okay, why not? You made the deal. I. If I don't have to do any of the awful things, then I'll go just sell and recruit for. For us. And so we built it from there.

You're on the front and he's the back office.

Yep, yep. He. He runs everything in the back office. So our ats, our CRM, all of our tech stack, does all the payroll, finance, all that kind of jazz runs all of our third parties. Yeah.

And how old, how old was were the twins when this.

So yeah, so the twins were one when we started Strata, when he started Stratus, and they were three when I switched over. And then five days after I switched over, I found out I was pregnant with my third and we just kept going.

You guys are gluttons for punishment, aren't you?

Oh, yes, for sure. So we now have twin almost 8 year olds and a 4 year old.

Oh, well, congratulations.

Thank you.

God bless the young parents because what a job it is. How did you get in the staffing world? Capital, all of that? How long were you doing that and how did you get into it?

Yeah, so I actually went to school to become a doctor. I thought I was going to be like a pediatric oncologist. Did all of my internships in that realm of things. Went all the way through college with all of my science degree and I had a minor in art. Um, but then I got out and started working as an admin for a staffing agency that my father helped start and kind of work my way up through that company. So that was the company that I was with before and he had left. And so at that point in time is when we, I left as well and started our, our own. Yeah.

Why did you not continue on in the medicine medical one?

So I got out of school a year early. I got a little note two weeks before graduation that said, hey, you only need one more class to graduate. You can take that class over summer if you want to walk a year early. And I was like, why not? So I still took my MCATs, I was accepted and into medical school, But I'd become the number one in that year. I'd become the number one salesperson. And so I kind of found working.

Working while you were in school.

I was working on in a gap year. Yeah. So I, I, I took, I took the early graduations, I graduated in three years from college and took the early graduation and took that year to work in the staffing agency, became a recruiter and then became a salesperson and then in that year became one of their top producers, not their number one, but one of their top in the first year and just really loved it. The reason why I wanted to be a doctor was because I wanted to help people. And as a little kid, I think you always grew up thinking, no, doctors are the people that always help people. But I think, you know, in the staffing world, you're really helping people move into their next career choice or into the next stage of life and things like that. And we're. We're kind of like counselors. I know that sounds crazy, but career coaches and I really loved it, so I just kind of kept on.

So how did that had to be a surprise for you that.

Oh, my parents hated it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Talk. Talk about that.

Yeah. My parents wanted to, like, convince me out of it daily.

They were probably going to strangle you. They paid for this medical school, and now you're going out there.

What? Yeah, it was pretty much daily that they were like, are you positive? Are you sure? I mean, like, you should just keep doing this. And I'm like, I really like it. I'm doing well. I'm fine. I'm not gonna. I'm. I love it. I love what I'm doing. And I mean, like, seriously, daily, for like three years, they were like, no, I really think you should go back. I really think that's what you're supposed to. You've said since you were 2, you were gonna be a doctor. And I was like, well, I mean, I really don't think I'm going to be a doctor. So I had a. It took a lot of convincing, but now I think they. They actually work with me. My mom was an HR for Home Depot for 17 years, and my father helped start another staffing agency, and so they both work within Stratus as well. So.

Yeah, well, it's his fault. He kind of got you started in that. That world. Did he?

Oh, yeah. 100% his fault. Yeah, yeah, I do. I do blame him. Yeah. So. But yeah, he. It's all his fault. Yeah. He told me from. From the get go, he was like, you're never going to do this. You're never going to work here. Your sister did it and she hated it. This is not what you're going to do. And then I started working there. I was like, oh, no. Yes. I love this.

So how did you have a knack for this type of work? When are you working with companies? Are you working with individual. I mean, when you, you know, are you working with the people who are looking for jobs? Are you looking for the company that are looking for employees?

Yeah, so both. Right. So when we go out to a client, right. Or we're. We're going in, we're sitting down with the client, and we call it an intake call. So we're sitting there and going, okay, where are you going in 30 days, 60 days, 90 days? What's your year plan? What, what's your game plan for your personnel? Right. Like where, where's your roadmap going? And we sit there and we go through all of that with them and then we pull and extract out the positions with them that they've identified. They may or may not have job descriptions written. We can help them through all of that. And we go through the whole game plan and really see the vision for their, their organization. And then on the, on the consultant side, the client, you know, the candidate side, we go out and we find candidates, passive candidates that aren't out there necessarily looking for a job. Most of the time they already have a job. And then we go out there and talk to them about our clients and what they're looking for and really convey that vision that we've been working so hard on with our clients and pull the candidates into the right position, you know, culturally and technically. So we make sure they're the right technical fit, but also the right cultural fit for the organization that they're going into.

And what income level do you. Because you said this is a concierge service now. What income level are you recruiting for? You're not just doing it entry level or, you know, lower staff. Yeah.

So we do, we do mid to senior and vp. We've done cto, cio, C level, everything. But from mid and up on the junior level, I kind of call it my passion project, we are working on a program, it's called Fuse, so that we can work with those junior level candidates. Because it's definitely a need to create a pipeline so that we have more mid level people. Right. And it's a need because a lot of our clients don't have enough time or bandwidth to spend training those junior level candidates into the positions that they need them in. So we are working on that. More on the projects based side, which was what we started out as. Right. And IT projects firm. So going out, getting those projects, using the junior level talent, pairing them with senior level talent and really doing what like an apprenticeship program and training them into positions for clients.

When you go out to a company, you can't go in and you know, they need a person. Go in and do all the intake thing, they need a person. I mean, they've got to have a batch of people they're looking for.

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Right. So a lot of the times if it's a onesie twosie position, those positions are with clients that we already know. Right. Like we know your team, we know what you need. We've got it will fill that position. But the onesie to be 2Z positions are going to be a little harder to fill just because we really want our clients to be our partner. Right. Like we really need you to be here. And if you can take that 30 minutes to do the intake call for that position, then we can be successful on that. But, but if it's just, you know, hey, here's the position, I'm going to throw it over the fence. We're probably not the right company for that. Yeah.

And so how does, so what is the income level that you these would start, you would start working in?

Yeah, I would say the lowest income level that we work with is about, you know, 80 to 100K. And then. Yeah.

Okay, now when your business, what, how do you know you're doing well?

Yeah, so how do I know or how do I like our recruiters know that they're doing well too.

Both.

Yeah. So the recruiters are, they're like there's a gross margin and then they're all ranked off of gross margin. So we have goals for them and then we do a trip every year like president's trip for other companies. And if they, you know, they can see there's a scoreboard every week that comes out and they can see where they're ranking against their peers and other producers. So you know, goal would be to be hitting like 3,000 per producer in gross profit, gross margin. Right. And what does that come from?

What does that come from?

So that's the different, that's the difference in between bill rate and pay rate. Well, bill rate and loaded cost. Right.

Okay, so say you have, you place somebody that's $100,000 salary, how does that transfer to you or to yourself?

So roughly bill rate that bill, you know, that pay rates roughly $50 an hour. Then their loaded cost would be, you know, depending on what kind of company and what benefits you offered staffing wise, Loaded costs can be 20 to 33% on top of that. And then on top of that would be your margin. Right. So let's just say you could build them anywhere from 80 to 100, just depending on what client you have. That difference would be your gm.

Oh, that difference between.

Between loaded cost and the bill rate. So let's just say. Let's just say for numbers purposes.

You lost me again.

No, you're fine. Just for numbers purposes. Let's just easy numbers that I know off the top of my head. $50 an hour bill rate. Right. I mean $50 an hour pay rate and a loaded cost of 25% is 60, right?

Yeah. 6,250.

Yeah, 6,250. And let's say you're billing them at, you know, 87.50. Then you have $25.

I see.

Right.

And so.

And then. And that's per hour. That would be a. Per hour.

Right, Per hour. Your. We could, we could go forever figuring. Figuring that out. But the. I can see now why you're happy your husband is handling the back end.

Yeah. So it gets really confusing too. So if you dig into it, some staffing agencies will call that GM just for the recruiting side. And some will say, well, the salesperson brought in the job order and the recruiter filled it. So now that GM split. So it's 1250 and 1250 an hour, 50 to sales and 1250 to recruiting. Yeah. And it just depends on how their commission plans are baked in and how, you know, how they, how they set all of that up.

Yeah. So how do you get going in a business like this?

It's really networking, right?

Is it?

Yeah. So staffing is.

Show me how that works.

Talking everyone.

So really, because you said you, you in 2017 started from just, you know, IT and tech support type things to capital management. Parentheses staffing.

Yeah.

So what was your first week month look like? Yeah, how'd you explode? How did the top salesperson explode out of the gate?

Yeah. So we.

With twins screaming at home.

Yeah. And going crazy. Right. And then going back into Covid with two 5 year olds and a 2 year old. That was nuts. So we, we got onto state term contracts. So you can get onto those. A lot of those have staffing, you know, portions to them, talent acquisition portions in state term contracts. We do a lot of state local education work. And those are pretty consistent. Right.

Government work.

Basically we do a lot of government. We do a lot of corporate work as well. And we stay in contact with, like, every single person we place because you never know where their next position is and that they'll bring you along with them into that. Into that company, into that position. So we have one HR manager that's gone to three different companies, all fairly large. And at each company, she signed us as their staffing agency, which has been fantastic. So it's really managing relationships and managing networks, and it's going to a conference and talking to everyone and really getting to know them. It's never sleeping on a plane and always talking to the person to see if they could be someone you could place or someone that could be your client if you can help them out.

That would be prospecting. So talk about how you started prospecting.

Yeah, so we. So when we left.

Tell me more about that, you know.

Yeah, so when I left, I knew two weeks after I did, I. I left and started with Stratus, that there was a contract at the Alabama. Right. Which is where we're headquartered at the state of Alabama. And I went and got on that contract, which was the largest contract that I had when I was at the other agency, went and got our name on that contract, which is still one of our largest accounts, and went to the CIO for the state and purchasing and everyone, and had them add me to that, add Stratus to that contract, and then went to all of the age. All of the software companies and IT companies that provide or vended to the state of Alabama. So went to them and signed contracts with all of them so that I could staff the personnel to those agencies or. Or companies and really be the person that knew how to staff within Alabama. Because let's be perfectly honest, there's not a whole lot of people that want to live in Montgomery, Alabama, or move. It's hot, like, 90% of the year. And. And I had moved like 143 people in like nine months and so into.

That hellhole of Montgomery, Alabama.

Just.

Just kidding. Alabama.

I love. I love Montgomery wholeheartedly. I love it. I love it. I'd move back tomorrow, but. But it was. It was. It was hard. I mean, we moved people from Seattle down to Montgomery, but you just. Yeah, yeah, you have. You have to find the way people tick. Yeah.

Yeah. So how do you find the way they tick?

So they're. I think there's really four. Some people would argue there's five. So people took either for money, Right. Title, purpose, which purpose can be also called culture, and then also, like, work, life, balance. So. So it's going to Be one of the four or a combination of two. Right?

Yeah.

So a lot of the people that we were moving down there were taking for like work, life, balance and, and purpose. Right. So the project that they were doing was going to affect a lot of people. It was really purposeful and we found the people that that meant a lot to and would, you know, pick up a move for it.

So you didn't just go to Alabama football clubs around the country and find people who wanted to move so they could get season tickets, right? No, that's not, that wasn't a game plan.

Nope. I didn't call through an exam.

That might not be a bad one. That might not be a bad.

Not a bad one. Not a bad idea.

Get desperate.

Yeah.

Remember that came from me. Just kidding. Prospecting. You used a lot of what you did. You ran with who you knew and what you knew and re tapped, reoriented those over to your new business. Right.

I ran with that and then also tapped into their organization. So, hey, I'm, you know, you've seen what I've done for you and how I built out a team from Xero to what, what we did for you guys here in Alabama. Who would you recommend I talk to in your network, in your organization? You know, in people that you guys work with, who would you recommend I speak with? You know, outside of that and always having a warm lead. Never. I'm the worst at cold calling. I'll say it right now.

Right?

Never having a cold call.

Yeah. Yeah. The warm is infinitely better, percentage wise.

Oh, yeah.

If you do, Cole, you're going to go out of business, you know, you're going to go out of business. So you've got to go friend to friend to friend to friend. Find a way to go friend to friend to friend to friend to friend. I know a guy who knows a guy or I know a gal who knows a gal, you know, and that's what makes the world go round.

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