Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Oftentimes people will hire based on their resume. They'll hire because they like this person or how they're connected with them and they don't look at the many other very important factors. 78% of resumes have outright lies on them and 100% have embellishments.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: Most firms survive the best ones scale.
Welcome to the Managing Partners Podcast, where law firm leaders learn to think bigger. I'm Kevin Daisey. Let's jump in. What's going on, everyone?
Welcome to another episode of the Managing Partners podcast. All you lawyers out there listening, thanks so much for tuning in. As always, I appreciate you and excited to have some, some experts in here that we haven't had before. So we have Alec Broadfoot today. He focuses on placing great people and building awesome teams. And so hopefully we can learn a lot from Alec today. And I will be sharing alongside him as we, we, we riff today. So it's gonna be fun. So Alec, welcome to the show.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: That's great to be here, Kevin.
[00:01:18] Speaker B: Yeah. So you're out of Ohio, as you said. Columbus, Ohio.
Awesome. Sounds like a booming area, a growing city. Well, introduce yourself and tell us more about your company and what you specialize in.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: Yeah, so I'm CEO of a company called visionspark and we help find and hire great leaders for organizations, small to mid sized businesses. We have a few specialties where we're really good at finding that number two, that integrator position to match with the owner or owners that match their culture and core values and make sure they're fit. We do a really good job with that, that senior sales and marketing position as well as other leadership positions. We've been in business since 2012, so over 14 years now. I've been running on EOS since about 2015 and we've been a part of the US conference nine of the last 10 years.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: That's awesome, man. I love it. You're speaking my language right now, so it's interesting. I was telling Alec, I'm not sure when these episodes will go, but I just had Craig Goldenfarm on the show and we were talking about EOs and for those lawyers listening that want to be lawyers primarily and you want to grow your firm, you have to find those other people. You have to build that C suite, you have to have that number two. I think that is super important. If you want to grow a business and still be the lawyer, that's fine. But there's roles that need to be filled if that's the case. So it's a good Segue from my last conversation. So, Alec, my wife is a recruiter for many, many years. She places high end technology people and programmers at various organizations around the country. So I know a little bit about that space. But her, she's more of a contract placement. Right. They don't match up with core values, they're not there as a full time person, they're more contract. So it's definitely a different world. But what you all do is you focus deeply, it seems like on making sure that I find the best number two position or those key roles in leadership, kind of, tell me, how did you come to kind of niche and focus on those areas?
[00:03:29] Speaker A: Yeah. So, you know, back in 2012, we started this by really trying to find leaders for organizations and we wanted these organizations to really value culture and that they had core values and they didn't just want a good resume. And so we have a very scientific approach in our process where we vet candidates for their leadership skills, their mental aptitudes, their personality, we interrogate their resume, we make sure that they're a cultural fit, we make sure they're AI savvy. And so, you know, this was before AI, so we do that now. But I was in a Vistas group and one of my friends, he was a consultant then and he actually became one of the first EOS implementers in the country.
And he's like, you ought to focus on working with companies running on EOS because they value culture. Part of their BTO are their core values.
And I'm like, that's a good idea. And I was talking to a potential client, it was a Tuesday afternoon and he needed a CFO and there was a company here in Columbus and he said, alec, I need you to find me a CFO and I need you to find me the CFO by Friday and I'll pay you if you can find it. Meet as CFO by Friday. And I said, you know, Mr. Customer, you don't understand, you know, that's not how we work.
We actually want to understand your culture, your core values. And he, you know, he got very heated and he said, you know, started using all sorts of F bombs here and there. And I said, hey, we are not your search firm. You, we're not going to work with you because we obviously have miscommunication. So I really thought what my friend Alex said was true. Like we need to focus on companies running any OS and then actually focus even more on that number two, that integrator.
[00:05:25] Speaker B: Yeah, because people that run on eos, they've already Made some decision to care about their business, about their people, about their culture and designing their business versus just, you know, letting it go wherever way it's going to go. And a lot of law firms unfortunately run just day to day in the weeds. Technician becomes owner and operator of a business and, and doesn't. They don't really necessarily have a lot of business background or skill. It's not taught in law school. So I think for, you know, for those that, that do run on EOs and a lot of successful law firms do, I know plenty.
So for everyone out there listening, obviously check out eos if you don't know what that is.
Entrepreneurs Operating System. The book Traction. I mentioned this in almost every episode. Somehow or Another is a great book to pick up if you, if you're not familiar. So I love what you did there. You also, you know, early in business is hard to, to push back or to say no to a prospect that is ready to pay you.
So I commend you on that. It's, it took me years before I got to the point where we, you know, fire clients, say no to clients, and only take the clients that are good fits for us. So commend you on that for sure.
So fast forward to today. You know, some of the notes that I had written down speaking with you earlier is you, you said your process, you have assessments that you run.
One of the things that you, you mentioned a lot of things there that you, you kind of check is emotional intelligence. Is that something that, you know, maybe is one of the, the things you look into?
[00:07:13] Speaker A: We definitely check a variety of things. Emotional intelligence is one of them. So you know, we look at mental aptitudes, we look at learning style, mental acuity. And then we also evaluate someone, we call it emotional development. So this measures how tolerant they are of themselves and others.
We also measure someone's audience sensitivity and their level of team player. And so from those aspects you can conclude if someone has a high EQ or not.
[00:07:48] Speaker B: Excellent. No, I love that. It's actually we, we have a book club within our company. If anyone wants to join it, we buy the book and send it to them and we meet once a week. But we're actually, we're reading Emotional Intelligence right now, so fresh on my mind.
I mean that's so important. I think everyone, most people hire people for skill iq, right. And that they can just perform a skill or a job.
And for me that's the least important of hiring that person in a role.
When we're looking at somebody, obviously they got to know what they're doing for certain roles or like a lawyer has to have gone to law school and things like that. But yeah, I think so many people make mistakes by just saying, oh, they're really good at that and just ignore the rest of it. And that's when you get a bad actor or someone that's going to erode your culture just because you're trying to put someone in a place that, that can just fix a situation for you.
So I'm sure you got plenty of stories.
[00:08:53] Speaker A: Yeah, so many. I mean, right on what you're talking about. Oftentimes people will hire based on their resume. They'll hire because they like this person or you know, they're, how they're connected with them and they don't look at the many other and very important factors like emotional intelligence, like mental acuity, leadership skills, cultural fit, character, their aptitudes, their ambition, you know, the want it factor, you know, is, is this just a stop on their career or they are they here for the long term? So it's very easy, especially for entrepreneurs, business owners to fall in love with with a resume.
78% of resumes have outright lies on them and 100% have embellishments. And so we definitely not want to put any stock in someone's resume. In fact, some companies are moving to a no resume hiring process.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: I think resumes are, I don't know how the last time I really looked at a resume, but I don't even. Yeah, it doesn't mean anything to me, honestly. Other than the fact that you've been employed at, you know, maybe a place that I might respect or there's no gaps in employment or oddities. But outside of that, that's, that's like a, we make, you know, we get folks that send in a video and you know, wade through all the crap that we get because people are just submitting for jobs. Right.
And you can give chatgpt to make a resume for you. Yeah, at this point.
[00:10:26] Speaker A: Oh yeah. So it used to only be 50% of resume civilized and now it's jumped to 78% because of AI.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. That's just a starting point. So yeah, you know, we've had plenty of experiences in our past with, with how many folks we've hired and bad decisions we've made.
But yeah, everything you're saying is, you know, what are their, their values and what are their, their personal goals and you know, the role that they're going to fill and the company, if they're going to work for us or, you know, or one of your clients, like, do we even align with them meeting their goals or, you know, is just a disconnect there that, that might not be there.
If it's a long term position, like a number two position like that, that's, you know, you don't want to hire someone that's going to be there for six months or a year that's going to cost you a lot of money and set you back. So it's important to, to dig deep and find out a lot of this, that information.
These are big positions that you're talking about. So tell me a little bit about engagement with your, with your company. Obviously, vision, spark for those that are out there going, man, I need help.
You know, what's the engagement look like with you all? And how do you make that work?
[00:11:38] Speaker A: Yeah, so. And we love working with law firms because the return on investment is super high, you know, so a lot of the attorneys can start spending more time doing client work, start billing their clients instead of spending time in back office operations. You know, a lot of our clients don't see it as an expense, they see it as an investment. But law firms will see a return on that much quicker because of that opportunity cost. Typically the process, it takes about 90 days. And you know, we don't want to make a bad hire. The cost of a bad hire is astronomical. And so we spend time getting to know the owner, the entrepreneur, the stakeholders, the culture in the organization.
We really help our clients with what does success look like? What are some of the main responsibilities of the role? Why should someone come to work for your organization? If you were trying to sell someone and they were looking at the law firm across the street or you know, a professional services firm in your area, why would you tell them to come? So we spent some time and we put together this magnetic position profile that attracts candidates. And so we strategically place that position profile. We have also have a pool of candidates that are looking for work. And there's just a number of ways that we attract talent. But instead of us as the search consultant trying to sell the opportunity to candidate and then selling the candidate to you, we actually reverse that where we're the buyer. And so the candidates are saying, man, I want to work for Kevin's law firm. This I can't wait. This is my dream job of X, Y and Z. My search consultants hear that every day. And so we're able to take them through five rounds of vetting. So they go through a resume interrogation because there are lies on resumes, they do a cult. We do a cultural interview to make sure they're aligned with the company's culture.
We do a leadership screening interview to make sure they have the leadership qualities.
And we do. If your firm really is starting to embrace AI, we'll do an AI savvy interview. And so that's step one. And then we'll take those individuals through a personality assessment that also measures mental aptitude. So it's a very in depth assessment.
You could have someone that has the best resume, the best cult, they could have, you know, the best disc or Colby or what have you. But if they don't have the strategic thinking skills to be a number two leader, you don't want to hire them. And so our assessment actually measures mental acuity, which, which is problem solving, strategic thinking, critical thinking, memory retention, vocabulary, which measures their ability to communicate, numerical perception, which measures their attention detail. So there's, that's just the mental aptitudes part. And then there's 10 personality dimensions that we measure.
And so based on those personality dimensions, we can, we know if they're going to perform on the job. If they do well on that step, then we put them through a leadership study interview which ranks them in 12 areas of what makes a great leader.
This interview is so important that our clients generally will pick the candidate has the highest score in this interview.
And we'll start with dozens, sometimes hundreds of candidates. We'll do all this vetting so the client doesn't have to. And at the end, our client will have two to three candidates to choose from. We'll set them up for interviews, we'll give interview questions, we have a scorecard that we provide on the client in all the different areas that we've measured.
So it's kind of like a quick overview and a very quick executive snapshot of that person.
And then you'll interview them. And from those two or three candidates, you'll decide who you want to move forward with next. The hiring process doesn't stop after you make an offer and the person accepts. So we'll meet with you to make sure that they're being onboarding correctly. They know what success looks like. We'll actually do some, we'll go over their personality assessment with you. And I failed to mention that we actually have the owner, the hiring manager take that same assessment. So we can, in the end, we can communicate how you're gonna work together, what are some easy ways, what are some difficult ways? So that. Awesome.
[00:15:53] Speaker B: I love that.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: Yeah. So that's our process.
You Know, I say it's in a nutshell. You know, there's, there's five steps, but you know, really backstage there's about 65 steps that we do to, to for our clients to hire a players.
[00:16:08] Speaker B: Wow, that's extensive. That's awesome. I love that.
And you started this with saying how costly a bad hire can be. And it really is, it's, you know, if you could do the, the math, it's. Sometimes it's hard to, to kind of calculate, but especially at a high level, like, like this position you're talking about the second of the integrator. So I love that. So it's kind of, I love how you said too. It's kind of like the law firm or the, or the client has to sell themselves to you and you have to learn everything about them. I feel like a lot of companies are like, hey, we're hiring.
So you guys out there, you're lucky that you get a chance to maybe work here. And that's just not how it's going to go. Right. Like, why, why would they want to work there? You know, we need to uncover everything and put it out there to attract the best talent. But at the same time, that talent has to prove themselves. So you're kind of making both sides, you know, come clean to the table and prove themselves and you end up with this magical pairing that works out for both sides versus. We hope it just works out. We, you know, five hours in maybe one bit. But you know, that's, that's a lot of time. And it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to make a bad hire.
[00:17:26] Speaker A: Yeah, the success rate is about 1 in 5.
So Gallup actually did a study and there's. Their studies are very thorough, but they said 82% of the time companies fail to choose to hire the right leader.
[00:17:41] Speaker B: Well, I made that set up on this on the spot, but I was close.
[00:17:45] Speaker A: Yeah, you are super close there. Right. And then it could cost up to 14 times their annual salary plus about a 300 hours of time.
[00:17:53] Speaker B: Wow. Yes. You're talking about a six figure position in this case.
[00:17:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: So, you know.
Yeah, that's a lot.
And we've been there, we've done it. I have 65, I think roughly right now, full time, folks. And so we've seen the good, the bad, the ugly. And it's. Every hire is important, even down to, you know, an admin assistant at this point. Yeah, we, we had a pretty thorough process. So the fact that you guys do all that for the client is.
It's Quite impressive. Necessary. Yeah. So lawyers, if you're listening out there and you know you're growing your firm, you got these.
You don't have these expertise or skills in place. You're a lawyer. You got to think about, how do I take this firm to the next level? How do I bring someone in to fill these. These roles? Also Eos, you know, I mentioned that a minute ago, but he's decided to follow firms that run on Eos for a reason, because they get it. They know their numbers, they have core values, they have some of these basics in place. Trying to get anyone to just understand all that just because they want to hire or use Vision Spark would be quite difficult. So now, do you work with companies that don't do Eos, or is that kind of like a golden rule for you?
[00:19:09] Speaker A: Yeah, most of our clients run on Eos or some sort of operating system like Eos. What we love about companies running on Eos is they really value culture and core values. And so if they don't run on Eos, they use a different operating system. We really want to make sure that culture is really important to them, and they just don't want a great resume. They actually want someone that fits. Fits within their culture.
We're looking at, would you, as the owner, enjoy working with them, and would your team enjoy working with them? Those are two big questions.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: Yeah, you're not a body shop, so.
And have you heard of Bloom?
[00:19:49] Speaker A: Yeah, Bloom. That's actually. We use Bloom as our. As our. As our software, I guess, our application for, you know, running our L10s and our to dos and issues and headlines. Yeah.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: Oh, cool. John Glahn is a friend of mine, and he's been on this podcast before, and.
[00:20:09] Speaker A: Yeah, I know John.
[00:20:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, cool. I didn't know that. Didn't know you knew John.
Small world on the managing partners podcast.
[00:20:16] Speaker A: It is, it is, yeah.
[00:20:18] Speaker B: Yeah. So, I mean, that's the kind of people we like to talk to and hang out with and how we run our companies. So, yeah, core values are so important. And culture, you know, we've.
We've even gamified it to some degree. We have. Our core values are used every single day by every single person in the whole company, every single day. So that's how important we think they are. And I think just to have them is one thing, but, you know, I think it's hard for most people to have every employee know where they are and they're not just on a wall somewhere, but actually work them into every single thing you do it's going to take it to the next level.
[00:20:54] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's important for us too. So we do. We hire buyer core values. We do a monthly core value winner where get nominated by their peers.
[00:21:03] Speaker B: We do the same thing.
[00:21:04] Speaker A: Yeah. And at the end of the year we call it the Spark Award. You know, it's part of our vision Spark name and it's a big deal. They get a nice, really nice gift card. Only one person wins it. They get a really nice, you know, it's not a. It's a plaque or trophy. It's. But they get something with their name on it. They're featured on our rotating monthly monitor as core value winner. You know, we put them on our social media. So it's a big deal. We take it very seriously.
[00:21:30] Speaker B: I love that. And we do a very similar thing. We do monthly kind of winners and then we do a quarterly. Actually I think we have 60 some people, so it's quarterly. And then we use it in their annual review. And then we. Each core value is covered in their annual review. How they live up to that core value areas they can work on.
But yeah, we've kind of gamified it too through Slack. Is a way to give out every day, you know, like, hey, Alec plus whatever points to Alec for helping me do xyz.
And then you can hashtag the core values that associate with it and then that calculates in a sheet and that's kind of how we track it. But it's. It's been really cool to see and I could ask a new employee that started yesterday what our core values are and I bet they could name them.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:22:23] Speaker B: Yeah. So, yeah, be creative out there, folks. Like, if you have core values, they shouldn't be just on a wall or in a document or on your website.
But like, how are people using them every day and could your team actually recite them? That would be a good test, I think, for everybody listening so well. Alec, I love what you're doing.
You know, obviously for folks that are in a challenging situation, they're looking to, to bring on more folks. I know in the law firm space. Hiring is. I hear a lot of grumblings about that. And that's an issue. Obviously that might be attorneys, associates and, and those areas. But, you know, think past that.
They don't have to just be an attorney. They might need a COO or, you know, a CFO, CMOs, these other positions that are very important to run that don't have to be a lawyer to be in Those positions. So what's the best way for folks to connect with you, learn more about your firm and to reach out?
[00:23:28] Speaker A: Yeah, so a couple different ways. The websites visionsparksearch.com I wrote a book called Hiring the Right Number Two Leader. It's an Amazon bestseller.
And then I would love to connect with them on LinkedIn.
[00:23:40] Speaker B: Yeah, go connect on LinkedIn with them. I think we're connected already.
If you want a personal introduction or email comment, reach out. DM me if you're watching this on LinkedIn or Facebook, wherever. And I will make the connection to Alec for you.
So.
Well, I appreciate you sharing today.
Super important stuff. I love how kind of intense your process is, but it's for good reason.
And it sounds like if someone really wants to get that perfect fit for a very important position in their firm, that Vision Spark is a great partner to talk to. So.
[00:24:20] Speaker A: And if I could share one more thing, Kevin?
[00:24:22] Speaker B: Sure. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: Attorneys probably do not like it when their clients try to be lawyers without them. They try to practice law, they try to. They look on ChatGPT or other AI or they write contracts themselves. And you know, lawyers are probably like, you know, let us do that. We are trained, we are experts at this. We've gotten degrees, we have tons of experience.
And I would say the same is true when it comes to hiring. You know, we outsource whatever we're not an expert in, but when it comes to hiring, for some reason we don't outsource that to an expert. And so my encouragement is to think of hiring like you would law. And, you know, there are experts out there who are really good at hiring.
[00:25:04] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a very good point, I think.
Yeah, I do marketing for law firms. You know, it's. The lawyers shouldn't be managing their website or doing all the marketing themselves. They need to be knowledgeable, they need to understand it. But yeah, you should bring in experts and either hire experts or bring in experts. But totally agree with you. I think to your point, I feel like hiring is one of the ones that we feel like we can just do ourselves and not get outside help. But the cost of it, the time, the energy, just, just to hire the person is immense. Not an dimension if you make the wrong hire. Good thoughts, good lessons. Alec, I appreciate you sharing. I love that you're into eos and traction and core values. These are all important things that every firm listening to needs to embrace and get on board with. It'll.
It'll be a night and day difference in your business for sure. All right, Alec, well, appreciate you sharing. Everybody go check out Vision Spark.
Connect with Alec on LinkedIn. And thank you for tuning in to another episode.
Alec, anything else before we go?
[00:26:07] Speaker A: No? Great. Thank you so much, Kevin.
[00:26:09] Speaker B: All right, well, stay on with me.
Everyone else, thank you so much again for tuning in, and we'll see you on our second.
Sam.
