.png)
The Transparent Podcast
The Transparent Podcast
Steve Switzer - Legacy in Recruiting and Entrepreneurial Challenges
Honesty and transparency are the cornerstones of effective recruiting, but how often do we really see these principles in action? Meet Steve Switzer from Legacy Recruiting, who joins me for a heartfelt conversation about transforming the recruiting industry with sincerity and a focus on meaningful relationships. We dive into Steve's journey, the ethos behind "Legacy Recruiting," and why being forthright about both the strengths and weaknesses of candidates can lead to enduring client partnerships.
As the conversation progresses, we pivot to the art of team communication and decision-making. The key takeaway? A B-plus idea backed by team consensus often outshines an A-plus concept executed in isolation. We examine how different work styles can either clash or complement each other, share anecdotes about implementing new systems, and discuss the balancing act of scaling a business as a solo operator. My own experience with integrating an automated email tracking system and its impact on efficiency becomes a case study in managing organizational change.
The episode wraps up by tackling the complexities of entrepreneurship, balancing spirituality with ambition, and the challenges of scaling one's business without losing the personal touch. I open up about my own journey as a solo entrepreneur, the trials of virtual hiring, and my ongoing quest to refine processes while embracing technology like AI. Entrepreneurship can be immensely rewarding, but it's not for everyone. This episode offers insights and advice for those contemplating this exciting but demanding path.
We're here. Hi, my name is Nick Ford and I'm the host of the Transparent Podcast, where we believe in bringing transparency to the world of small business. Today, I'm joined by a guest, Steve. I will let you introduce yourself.
Steve Switzer:Hey Nick, thanks for having me. My name is Steve Switzer, with Legacy Rec, legacy recruiting here in Toledo Ohio. Um again, I appreciate you having me on, um, it's good to be here.
Nick Ford:Yeah, thanks for coming on. Um, yeah, so I originally, when I started this podcast, I uh just wanted to be able to let people hear from other entrepreneurs, people who have started a business, large or small, and just kind of get some insight into what went into that and hear from people who had done it. And again, kind of the theme for my business, transparent Staffing, is bringing transparency to the staffing industry. That's kind of the vision of the company. So similar vision with the podcast and I started Transparent Staffing back in January of 2021. So it's been four years, which is kind of crazy to me that it's been that long now. But it's been a lot of fun and I've learned a lot, the hard way some of the time. But tell us just a little bit about legacyiting and kind of what got you into that.
Steve Switzer:Yeah, so no, thank you for sharing. And I would say Legacy is built on some of the same principles, you know. So we started. I started in I'm just a one man show and I started on my own in March of 2021. So a couple months after you and same thing. It just sounds crazy. Four years has gone by really fast. But to your point, with the transparency you know, legacy recruiting. I'm in the technology space, so when people hear in tech, when they hear the word legacy, oftentimes it's associated with old, antiquated, outdated. You know people's careers, teams, organizations better than what they were before. You know leaving a lasting imprint, or, in this case, a legacy on. You know wherever people are, the places they work, the environments they touch, so leaving a lasting imprint, um leaving a like yeah I love that.
Steve Switzer:That's kind of that's, and you know, like you said, being transparent, you know, so just leaving places better than they were before yeah and I love that leaving a legacy behind with your clients and the people you work with right, yeah, just doing things. There's so many, you know, not just in recruiting but in sales, and every, every, every industry there's. There's so much negative negativity. You know we want to go about the right way and do them for the right reasons. Right, you know kind of how we came up with that.
Nick Ford:That's great, yeah, no, I love that. And it is a tough industry and there's, you know, every industry has its challenges and, uh, that was one of the things that frustrated me somewhat working with other recruiting agencies and hearing about how other recruiting agencies we competed with operated. I just wanted to do it differently and to me, being transparent just means being honest, open with people. So I tell clients like I want to share as much about candidates I'm sending to you as I can, even if there's maybe a negative thing. Every client knows that not every candidate is going to be 100% like what they want, but if they know kind of like what the, if I tell them something that maybe is a drawback for a candidate, and I'm upfront with them, people usually are okay with that If they meet a lot of the other needs that they have for the role or whatever it is. And so I try to be as transparent with the candidates too, because ultimately we're you know, we're doing permanent placement recruiting, so we want long-term relationships with the client and if they keep getting candidates from me that were not what they thought it was going to be, or the candidate didn't, the job wasn't what they thought it was going to be. They're not going to stay. Uh, I'll owe a lot of backfills, which in recruiting means, you know, having to replace someone who left, that I placed and uh.
Nick Ford:So yeah, transparency I think helps a lot with just building trust and long-term relationships with people. So that's kind of the theme behind my, the name of my business. But I love your. Your yours has a twofold kind of catch with the legacy in technology and then leaving a legacy behind with your clients. That's, that's pretty cool, so I like that. Well, um, what do you like about recruiting? Like, what's your favorite part about recruiting itself, Cause you've been in it for over 10 years now.
Steve Switzer:So, yeah, great question. You know, I think really, what you just alluded to, uh, the relationships, uh that was what I got into it, the reason why I got into recruiting. You know, I was right out of college. I was in a sales, uh, sales driven um, kind of like strong clothes sales driven type business where it was, um, basically sell, sell, sell, buy, buy, buy, close, close, close, close, close, close. Everything is right now immediate, and I just wasn't me, you know, uh, it was a great, great job, great organization, great people, great company, but I it just the, the the setup was did not match my personality and so, fast forward. I really wanted something that was based on, um, more relationships, and what you just mentioned was hey, I want to give people more transparency, even if that means sharing some of the bad, because I want to be able to build credibility and have this I don't want to use the word transaction but have this business relationship be based off of, again, transparency and credibility. So, again, I got into it, based off relationships.
Steve Switzer:And that's what I enjoy most is the relationship aspect, and you know so. My customers know that they can come to me and they know they're getting honest, truthful information, truthful information. I will say another uh part that I like is uh, it allows me to kind of like exercise my desire for competition.
Steve Switzer:Um you, know so nice play basketball growing up you know, uh, well, through high school and, and excuse me, into college. But, um, at some point the athletics go away, but you still have that, that need for to compete. You know, and I think recruiting is one that allows us, whether it's competing with your colleagues, competing with the industry or just yourself, you know making sure you're doing the best you can every day for your customers and the people you're representing. So I would say relationships and competition, those are my two favorite aspects.
Nick Ford:Yeah, I love that. I mean I played. I was a pitcher through college so I played all four years at the D2 level and so I feel like I'm pretty high competitive in nature and playing college sports definitely went well into sales type role Cause I mean I was a recruiter but I was very much so a sales role. I mean it's commission based and I was managing relationships with the clients, kind of like an account executive recruiter type role, and so I loved the competitive part of it and in that industry it was very, very, very fast paced, like if I missed, like you know, presenting a candidate by an hour, I could easily lose that placement and another competitor or sometimes even an internal competitor, like someone on my own team could end up filling that job. Yeah, and so it was a very fast paced, very competitive. I loved that environment and thrived in it and that part of recruiting was never a challenge for me.
Nick Ford:The competition side of it, I love that and I think for me, yeah, relationships I just love networking with people. I love connecting with new people. I love the matchmaking side of it making a good match with a client and a candidate. Hopefully that's a good career change for the candidate and can help them with providing for their family and their life, and then a good fit with the client and getting that positive feedback that a candidate is just like a rock star and has made an impact. I just had that happen last week with a candidate that started in January and they just love them and it's worked out really well. So that's kind of stuff so just makes me get excited about it, like I get so excited about recruiting when that kind of stuff wins, when those wins happen. So definitely kind of some of the same things that I like about it. Competition, relationship building Uh, I just love to talk to people and communicate, um, so it just makes me think I talk too much.
Steve Switzer:I think like that's an area I'm always having to work on and to listen better I'm the same way, you know, but I think it comes down to just passion for the for what you're doing, you know, a passion, joy and a love for what you're doing. Because I I'm the same way. I could, like we start talking on a topic and I could sit here all afternoon and chat about recruiting and the subcategories of that, everything that goes into recruiting, you know, I could talk all day about it's because it's something that is ingrained in us and we, you know, we love and yeah, which is such a blessing to be able to work in something that you really like that much.
Steve Switzer:Yeah, for sure.
Nick Ford:And work for yourself. So, um, I know you're an independent operator. I make jokes with my wife all the time about uh needing to get permission from my boss. Or, like my favorite was I got, um, I bought a uh Yeti backpack sitting right back there on my chair. I got that for. I got it for Christmas for myself.
Nick Ford:Uh, in December of 2022, maybe and it showed up at the, at the door, and we were actually at my wife's parents for the holidays and it showed up the door. My wife texted me and she's like what is this $250 backpack doing here? And I texted her back and I said thanks for ruining my Christmas present from my boss. And she, just like I rolled through the ceiling. But, uh, I love, I love making jokes like that with her. She doesn't. I don't think she thinks of that funny now, though, but um, well, so, like, when you're looking at implementing new uh software, I know we probably have a whole hour long conversation about what kind of software and stuff to use, but in the past, when you've been working with teams, or when you see companies that you work with implementing new processes or systems or whatever, do you think it's better to get feedback from everyone that is going to be impacted by that? Or is it better, kind of from a high level for management or whoever's in charge, just to implement something?
Steve Switzer:uh, kind of an isolation chamber? Yeah, that's a great question. I would say I would. You know a little bit of both. I would say, if um short answer is, I would say probably the T. You know you want feedback from the team, um, versus just jumping in and having management say, hey, here's what it is, you know, get used to it, um, because the team very well may have some valuable kind of boots on the ground, insight or feedback that that could change the decision for the better, but that you know they may have insight that management may not have one way or the other, but I think also, you know, from a leadership perspective, presenting the use case like, hey, here's what we're going with and here's why, you know, because I think it's going to be a positive to affect everyone's day to day. You know, create that ROI, make you more efficient, you know, and not necessarily to do with budget, but more so from a like a return on investment on your, on your efficiency, your workload, things like that.
Nick Ford:Yeah, I think it depends a lot on the team. It gets harder as you get bigger. I'm sure, like ideally you'll get. You would get if you're going to do something that affects like the whole company, like changing a crm or a software that you use, that everyone uses every day ideally you'd at least get feedback, I would think, from from, like your managers you know your VPs and your directors and things like that to let them at least be a part of the conversation. Otherwise, if it doesn't go well, then no one's bought into that idea and it's whoever made that decision's fault, because they were never involved in the conversation.
Nick Ford:I had a friend at our church.
Nick Ford:He was like a lead minister and he was over a team of people at the church and he said that he told me a B plus idea is better if you get buy-in from the team than an A plus idea that you came up with and implemented by yourself.
Nick Ford:And I can see that I mean at least letting people be a part of the conversation and you may learn something from the other people that you didn't think about if you had just done it on your own. So you know, that's something that I'm having to do now because I've now now have a, so I'm not a solo operator anymore. I do have a vice president of sales and recruiting and so he's tech background, so he's very picky about software and systems and process, which I'm not like. I'm a go do it and figure it out later, and he's a let's figure it out and then do it type personality. And so, like him coming in, he like immediately just dove straight into our database CRM that we use and was like trying to optimize everything and was like, dude, we need to go make money, we can deal with fixing the software later.
Steve Switzer:And he just couldn't handle that yeah, I would say I'm more cut from the same cloth as you. You know, kind of ready, ready fire aim type of thing is how I've heard it put is just let's, let's, let's figure it out. You know, let's go, what's going to bring us closer to the, to the money we got to.
Steve Switzer:we have bills to pay, you know. So what's going to bring us closer to that and in terms of opt, but I do recognize the need for, like process optimization and organization and all that. I personally am not that great at it, Um.
Nick Ford:I'm not either. I don't enjoy doing it, so yeah, yeah.
Steve Switzer:So I think there's definitely a a spot for it and a need for it. But, um, yeah, it's, he's. He's done one half dozen of the other type of thing.
Nick Ford:Yeah, and the other type of thing, yeah.
Nick Ford:And he's kind of the opposite way, where he would probably analyze and overthink something to death and never actually do anything if I didn't, and he would argue that obviously. But that's how I feel when he's like you know, our, for instance, one thing he did that was great. Like we have an applicant tracking and CRM system basically, where we keep candidates and jobs and we track all the notes and data and stuff as we go through the recruiting process and, um, I would I'd pretty much only put stuff in there if it was something that was going to be a deal, like I wouldn't put every single kid that I talked to in there, I would just put them in if they, you know, were going to interview or whatever, because I just thought it was a waste of time otherwise and that drove him crazy. So he got it to where if we ever any candidate we ever put in the system or any client we put in the system, it automatically puts every email we send, that client or candidate into the system automatically. Like tracks all of that.
Nick Ford:Yeah. So he set that up in like the first week and at first I was kind of irritated because I was like, how is that making us more money or helping us close it? Like you're just recording stuff that's happening, you're not like doing anything that's going to produce new results? And of course he had the opposite argument. But yeah, yeah, but yeah, I think for my, if I was going to say an answer to that, you know, making a decision with the team or not, I think probably better to get feedback at least, so that the team has buy-in to whatever the decision is. But again, it just depends on the company. But you know, one of the things that's been challenging for me is how do I scale and grow as a solo operator, like how do I, you know, make more placements or grow my client base and that kind of thing? How have you approached that as a as individual kind of, you know, on a one man team?
Steve Switzer:Yeah, that's a that's a phenomenal question. That's probably my biggest, uh, the biggest thing I wrestle with, you know, cause I started off and I'm like you know, I, I know for a fact I'm only going to be a one man show, um, and that's the way I want it, that's the way it's going to be, you know, from now until forever. And then, as you get going, it's like okay, you have these, I have different ideas, different thoughts and and perceptions, and and, uh, you know, do I want to scale, do I want to bring people on different paths you can take? I don't know my thoughts on that, and especially now, with all the different technology, automation there's a different tool every five minutes, so it's impossible to keep up, you know. So, yeah, you know, I guess the biggest challenges I face are, you know, deciding what, what, uh, I guess, what setup you want.
Steve Switzer:You know you want to build want to be a one man show, one person show? Do you want to build a team? Uh, hire virtually. You know I've gone down that route hiring someone virtually overseas. That that did not go well. That, yeah, it was. Yeah, long story short, it was my fault. But, um, yeah, I guess the original question. You said what, what struggles do I have what? What thoughts do I have on scaling?
Nick Ford:yeah, what's your? What's your biggest challenges with scaling as an individual versus you know and and and why is your strategy to stay? I guess that's a good question too, Like what? Why is your strategy to stay an individual versus hiring people?
Steve Switzer:Yeah, so biggest challenges I would say is challenges is or are? You know there's only so many hours in the day, you know. So no matter how niche somebody may be, you know they may have their niche completely dialed in from a skill set perspective, from a geography perspective. You know, their database, like we just talked about, their database is completely optimized. Again, it's one, they're one individual, so their workflow may be completely optimized, but it's one person. There's only so many hours in the day.
Steve Switzer:So how do you scale from there? It's either spend more hours working or get some help, and you know, from there you have to decide and then getting help. Then it takes time away. You got to train, you have to, you know, teach or coach and bring somebody else on, and then that's you know. As with recruiting, it's it can go one way or the other. You know, are you gonna that person gonna work out? Um, are they gonna like recruiting? So, yeah, yeah, my biggest challenge is, uh, I know that I want to be a one-man show and remain that way. So it's kind of dialing in processes and, like we said before, I'm not a process guy but figuring out processes and optimization, um, dialing in my niche and things like that. So that's kind of where, especially with automation and ai, figuring out, you know what works and I don't know how I feel about all the automation and ai at this point. I'm an old school guy, I'm a phone guy so I am.
Nick Ford:I am too like I'm pretty you know. I see I get messaged like every day, it seems like, about some new ai tool for recruiting and it supposedly helps you find candidates or helps you with doing like business development and like automatically message people or whatever. And a lot of that I've stayed away from for a branding purpose, because I just hate getting messages from people where it's like hey, we help um accounting companies like you that uh need help with scaling, and I'm like I'm not. Like you didn't look at my LinkedIn profile for like a second.
Nick Ford:I don like I'm not like you didn't look at my LinkedIn profile for like a second. I don't. I'm not an accounting firm. So like I just don't want people getting messages like that from me that are like automatic AI stuff, because it just comes across as very ingenuine to me and so I'm sure there's a way to make it work well and it can help you or whatever, and I'm sure it'll keep getting better. But at the end of the day, in recruiting, the job is finding the best fit candidate for for a role. I mean, that's what ultimately what you're trying to do.
Steve Switzer:So if you can do that without AI, then I don't see a reason to have to use it, so yeah, I agree and it also comes back to what we were talking about earlier is you know why we got into this? Relationships, you know, and the transparency, and you know I just I AI is great if you know how to use it the right way. I I'm not. I just personally I'm not big on it. I mean, I'll, I'll dabble in it for what it's there for, you know, maybe to summarize a paragraph or something like that. But yeah, outside of that, I really don't use it.
Nick Ford:Yeah, yeah, well, um, you know I'm really into motivational speakers and things like that. So I last week I posted a podcast from uh Art Williams who, uh, he has this awesome uh do it speech. It's called just I think it's the title just do it. And it's called just I think the title, just do it.
Nick Ford:And so I follow a lot of that kind of stuff and so you know I'm into what makes people succeed, like why do some people do really well in sales or whatever they're doing? And so my thoughts on that are I think that the thing that separates a lot of people who succeed in business from that don't think the biggest thing is having goals that you're working toward. A lot of people just kind of wander through their career or their business day to day or they're you know they don't have good life goals or business goals. And I think the people who have goals that they're really working toward and pushing themselves toward and have a clear direction for where they want to go with whatever they're doing, I think that's the biggest thing. Probably to me that separates the people who succeed from the people who fail or don't achieve what they want to. But what are your thoughts on that, now that you've been an entrepreneur for four years? A lot of companies don't survive as long as you have.
Steve Switzer:Yeah, I would agree with you. I think goals are very important. I've always been big on control, you can control, yeah, and I remember my former boss kind of you know. We sat down and he was like, you're right, control, you can control. However, most people don't realize that they can control more than they realize.
Steve Switzer:Yeah, you know meaning people will say, hey, just control, you can control. And then they'll just passively go throughout their day and just be like, well, I can't control that, so whatever, well, to an extent that's true, but what I guess, what it means, you know, are you planning properly? You know how many like we're talking about phone call, how many phone calls and recruiting? At least you know, are you making the most amount of phone calls that you can, maximizing phone time? Are you really handling yourself properly on those phone calls? Are you, you know, maximizing your skill set? So you know, I guess, to answer your question, what motivates me or what do I think are the most important things? Yes, goals, you know I'm a spiritual guy.
Steve Switzer:I would consider myself a religious guy. That'll resonate with some, not with others, but I, you know, know, for me prayer is a big thing. Yeah, without it, I, you know it. That's just a part of who I am, so I think that's very, very that's central. I would say that's number one. Um, yeah, especially, you know, recruiting is it's just, and let's be sales and professional life and life in general, it's just a beast, you. And so people have their own people have their own avenues and outlets that they turn to and you know I respect that, but for me it's it's prayer man and that's that's great, I love that.
Steve Switzer:Keeps me grounded and sane. You know, I guess.
Nick Ford:Yeah, yeah, I would consider myself very religious as well. Uh, I'm, I have a christian background and been very involved in our church and trying I've been in a leadership role at our church. Uh, I was actually a uh on staff with our church at one point, basically doing I was the operations person, doing all the business stuff finance, accounting, building maintenance, working with all the contractors and stuff. But yeah, prayer, I think, is huge for me too, and just also like the wisdom books in the Bible or Proverbs If you need some motivation, go read Proverbs. There's some awesome nuggets in there. There's some awesome nuggets in there. But yeah, I think that turning to prayer for things versus other outlets I think is something that I need to focus on more instead of trying to figure everything out myself.
Steve Switzer:And with that I think maybe there's some. I know certainly I've had some. I don't know if confusion is the right word, but maybe having it be misconstrued, as you can still be a very religious, very spiritual, very prayerful person and at the same time be very competitive, still be very tenacious, you know yeah, I agree, a great recruiter, a great salesman, a great anything, and still want to be in first place, you know, still still want to win.
Steve Switzer:You don't have to be a passive person just because you're, you know, um so yeah, I agree completely with that.
Nick Ford:I attribute to yeah, Um, well, you know, now that I have a uh, an employee that works with me, what I'm having to try to figure out is where is my time the most effectively spent versus what should I kind of delegate to him to handle? And we're it's only been three months or so, so we're still figuring that out. But how do you now that, like you're an individual contributor, like I have been for like the last four years, how do you decide where to spend your time? Like you know, I'm sure it's a balance of, like business development and recruiting. That's a big part of it for me but how do you choose how to effectively spend your time?
Steve Switzer:Another really good question. You know, when I first started out it was a huge wake up call, because I remember the first month it was like man, I just spent eight hours and I'm not kidding. It was like an entire day on the phone with verizon trying to get you know an account set up and it's transferred over and security codes unlocked. I'm like this was brutal, like that was a complete waste of a day, like it terrible. And then the next day it was like trying to get you know Microsoft outlook set up and the phone system and this, and that you know. I'm like I don't like this stuff, this, I'm a recruiter, this is terrible. And then so fast forward a week or two weeks or whatever, finally get everything, all the systems and everything set up and I'm like, ah, I feel like I can breathe again, all the systems and everything's set up and I'm like, ah, I feel like I can breathe again.
Steve Switzer:So ultimately, my point is I think the best use of your time is where a whatever's closest to the money um, because you have to pay your bills and you have to make money to stay afloat. And then b you also have to be in a space that you enjoy and maybe those are the same, maybe those two are the same space. But maybe there's some things that aren't necessarily revenue generating or complete revenue generating that you really, really have a passion for, that. At least sprinkle those into your day and same with like maybe he's not necessarily like always going to be doing revenue, like maybe you said he's a very process oriented guy. Right, let's put him in charge of and I'm just using that as I'm not telling you what to do, but as an example no, yeah, I hear you, he's you, his passion is process.
Steve Switzer:So what that's? Maybe his A, you know, his 1A and then his 1B would be the revenue, because his 1A is going to help you focus on the revenue, you know.
Nick Ford:Yeah, that's totally correct. Yeah, yeah, there was a quote, I can't remember who said it, but he. His quote was if you can find someone who can do a given task at 70 of what you could do it at, you should pay that person to do it. Yeah, and and uh, I it's hard, it's hard as a you know, I, um, I guess I'm not, I'm arrogant, maybe, but I just it's hard to feel like I could pay someone else to do the same thing I would do and that they, you know, letting go the fact that, like he's not going to do it the way that I would do it, he's going to have his own way and it may be better, or it may be something I need to train him on, or whatever it might be, but delegating has scared me. And then also paying someone a salary and hoping that it works out is a challenge that I'll continue to face, I'm sure, but so far, far so good.
Steve Switzer:You asked me about the challenges with scaling and I would say you just nailed it. You know the delegation piece has always been tough for me. You know, because yeah like, if you want something right, do it, you're done. If you want something done right, just do it yourself.
Nick Ford:And yeah, that's, it's always been hard for me um yeah, there's some tasks though that like, like I just probably spent, I don't know, maybe a whole week just updating all my going through like four years of accounting stuff to up, to redo all my books, because I finally I have a cpa and should basically just kind of fix everything at the end of the year and do my taxes and stuff.
Nick Ford:And I had a friend that I hired to on a just on a project base to go reckon, actually reconcile all my books and I had to download probably 300 statements from different accounts and stuff so he could actually reconcile it properly for the first time like ever. Maybe according to him, I'd never really reconciled you know whatever. But like that is just something that like I have no interest in, I is a total waste of my time. I think like that's something where, like I could probably pay someone to do 200 as well as I would do and pay and it'd be way more effective to pay than him to do it yeah yeah, so that kind of stuff, but but yeah, I think that's a challenge for every entrepreneur.
Nick Ford:anyone listening to this that is thinking about getting into business, what would kind of closing inspiration be to to them? Like someone who is thinking about starting a business that wants to go out on their own, what would you say to encourage them? Or maybe not encourage them Because it's you know, it's a challenge. It's not for everybody, for sure.
Steve Switzer:It's not. You know, I've had this exact conversation with a number of people. I had with a friend of mine and I told him he was, he was working at a recruiting firm and doing really well. And I told him like look, honestly, I don't know why you want to do this. I'm like you're doing awesome. You're billing like crazy numbers. I'm like, if it's not broke, don't fix it. Like there was a reason why I wanted to go out on my own. And I just reached a certain point where it made sense and I told this individual like you're, you have a team surrounding you, you're happy, you have a team surrounding you, you're happy it. Don't go out on your own just so you can have a founder or owner or, uh, some fancy title, because that's not what it's about. Uh, yeah, you know, at the end of the day, if there's a lot more to it than you know, just some again some cool title. Or you know, looking cool on social media or like. To me that's that doesn't resonate.
Nick Ford:Or I don't ever think about that yeah, yeah, I, uh, I do.
Nick Ford:But that was. I always wanted to own my own company. There was some kind of level of ego or pride to that for me and now it doesn't matter anymore, this doesn't mean anything to me anymore. Um, but a bad cop or good cop, bad cop, like I would tell people that, uh, if they want to start a business, it's not as hard as you think it might be.
Nick Ford:Um, as far as just starting the business like I got so caught up on like not being able to do the llc stuff and like how do I set up the systems and all that kind of thing, and that, like you can get so many different people to help you, like get a good cpa, um, go, you can go google how to register an llc and do that in like an hour. That's nothing, that's not that. That's not that difficult. But uh, I think you know, for people who are wanting to get into into business, I think that, uh, at least take the first step and look into it and, like, do a little research. It takes just as much effort to just take the first step into doing it as it would to sit around thinking about it If you're really passionate about it.
Steve Switzer:Yeah, you're right. I think I focus more on the negative and discouraging people. Uh, from an encouragement standpoint, I agree with you. You know it's uh, if you really are right at that point, take the leap. You know, I think the biggest misconception that I realized after the fact, you know, I was like, ah, I'm so scared to go out on my own, and I think the point you made was you're really never on your own, fully on your own, like there's CPAs, there's uh, there's fellow recruiters like you and I are here talking now. There's so many people that are willing to help and support and you can lean on and talk to that Um, even if you're a one man or one, one woman or whatever uh organization, so to that there's always people that are willing to help, and that was a big eye opener for me.
Steve Switzer:So take the leap jump in and figure it out, because you'll get there.
Nick Ford:And I'd say like right now, you know, my wife was my wife was more the one I had to sell on it than myself. I wanted to do it but she was very she was staying at home with our kids. You know, I was single income so we didn't have like another income to kind of offset the risk of going out on my own, and so I ended up starting it as a side business while I was doing employee benefits, and so I it worked out really well. Where I could, I kind of got a little bit of a nest egg set aside before I had to go out on my own completely, but I would. What the argument I made to her is she was very financial security-minded as far as not wanting to take the risk, but I got let go in the middle of the pandemic in March of 2020. No, it was May 2020. But jobs aren't always secure either. There's a lot of people who just experienced that in the last three months. They just got let go for basically no reason, just a layoff.
Nick Ford:You know, job security is not really that secure either. You can get let go at any time. Most states are at will employment state, so for me I'd rather rely on myself than rely on a company. But again, it's not for everybody. Not everyone has that mindset. So yeah, but, but yeah Well. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. I really enjoyed the conversation.
Steve Switzer:Likewise, thank you so much for having me. This has been awesome, so it's great talking with you. I appreciate it.
Nick Ford:Yeah, if anyone needs tech recruiting, reach out to Steve at Legacy Recruiting, and if you need anything in healthcare, transparent staffing can help you out. Thanks again for having me. Yeah, no problem.