Fractional
Fractional
Julia Arpag: Culture ad instead of culture fit & always selling as a fractional
In this episode we're joined by Julia Arpag, CEO & Cofounder of Aligned Recruitment. We discussed her journey from employment to running her own firm.
Topics include:
- How the market is thinking about fractional talent in today's economy
- Executive awareness of fractional
- How fractional need to sell every day to keep their businesses going and where to find leads.
- Staying healthy to be in it for the long run
https://www.linkedin.com/in/julia-arpag/
https://www.alignedrecruitment.com/
https://www.amazon.com/Never-Split-Difference-Negotiating-Depended/dp/0062407805
https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Habits-Proven-Build-Break/dp/0735211299
https://dianeprince.co
Edited by Caleb Johnson @ http://www.embrin.com/
Hello and welcome to episode 53 of the Fractional Podcast. I'm super excited to have our guest today, Julia Arpag. And Julia and I met about five years ago. And I don't even remember the very first transaction we had. So Julia, I'm gonna let you introduce how you and I got connected and we got started on this and how you find your way into our show. Super happy that you're here.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you, Lance. Thank you, Joshua. Good to be here, you guys. So Lance actually responded to a random stranger's cold DM in his LinkedIn profile five years ago. I have worked in recruitment for over six years now, but five years ago, I was in office five days a week. up in Atlanta. It was an hour and a half commute one way. So I was furiously scouring LinkedIn for people that were established in remote work and could help me figure out how to break into a remote recruiter role. So Lance very graciously responded to my DM and he was like, yeah, I'm not exactly like hiring, but like we could talk. And he just shared his experience and his expertise. And he was so, so gracious. And we got to spend 30 minutes just chatting over Zoom. And since then, I've been connected via LinkedIn. And when I saw He had this fabulous podcast. I reached out to see if we could chat again.
SPEAKER_02:So I'm curious, what was the, obviously other than the horrible commute, what made you really believe that breaking into being remote would be a game changer for you? What was the drive for that?
SPEAKER_03:Oh my gosh, the implicit trust that a remote environment implies. Because if you trust your employees enough to say, hey, listen, you sit wherever you want, I'm going to sit wherever I want, and let's just get our work done. That baked into a culture that operates like that. There's autonomy, there's trust, there's the idea that you're hiring adults to do their job, not children that you have to micromanage or babysit. All
SPEAKER_02:of that just so resonated with me. There is no tangible amount of money that I could tie to the value of that. All right, give me millions. Sure, we'll talk. But there's that trust factor. And yes, I love hearing that. That's such a big reason why it matters beyond all the personal benefits that you get for it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So I also remember, Joshua, we worked at the same agency at the time with like all in on remote work. My six-year-old, he just turned six. I had the same. And because I saw you doing this with, I did the same. I interviewed candidates for the job with my son sleeping in the baby carrier, right? Rocking him while I'm talking to candidates, interviewing them. So that was great. And another connection point around kids, and Julia, I think this was something that you and I first had a connection on in that, and you've been very open about your journey with being a foster parent. And my wife and I were just wrapping up our experience of adopting, growing our family through the foster care system. And so, yeah, hats off and kudos to you and your family. And I love seeing what you're doing there. I love the giving spirit that you have. So really excited to just dive into all the things here with you. Awesome. So you started your own venture. That's a story in itself. We'd love to hear about that. Aligned Recruitment, you're the co-founder, you're the CEO. How did that happen?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, great question. So speaking of kids, I was on maternity leave. I have two kids. One is three and one is now nine months old, but at the time he was five weeks old. And I also, like you mentioned, Lance, I'm also a foster mom. So I have two foster sons who are 13 and 14, four boys. So I'm very badly outnumbered in my home. But so back to kind of the origin story of Aligned Recruitment. So I was Yeah. I just had a lot of compassion for him. I was like, man, this sucks. You have to figure out what to do. You have to make all these calls. I was one of three people that was laid off on maternity leave. So that just sucks for him. I really felt for him. And I was very grateful that my network came through. And literally within two weeks of getting laid off, I had six job offers. So my decision became, okay, I'm going to be fine. I'm going to land on my feet. What does that look like? And I decided the way to say yes to all those job offers was actually to start aligned recruitment with my co-founder. She came to me. That was one of the offers. She came to me and said, hey, I would love to have you on my team. Let's be co-owners of this business. So that's what happened.
SPEAKER_02:So you basically navigated full-time job offers into a business. How were you feeling stress-wise during that time?
SPEAKER_03:Very low. Honestly, very low stress.
SPEAKER_02:So that's so amazing. One of the things that I've seen in the past with me is there was a period where I was going through a job transition and suddenly I saw all this opportunity open up and I didn't know what to do with it. And so to see that you kind of pivoted that, I'd love to hear how has that been going? What are some things that have gone well? What are some things that you've learned from with that venture?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I love that question, Joshua. So gosh, what's going well? I'm obsessed. I'm going to be an entrepreneur for the rest of my life. This is the most fun I've ever had in my career. I just love the freedom. Kind of the same thing we talked about with remote work and why that resonates with me. Just the freedom, the personal accountability. I love it. I love getting to build something that's all your own. And as far as what's going well, I mean, we hit the ground running as a business. Like I said, those couple of companies that had extended offers to me, they came on board as our early clients. And we've been able to grow the business pretty quickly. We've been in business for just eight months, and we've already closed over$500K in revenue. So I just feel very, very grateful for the network I already had that I've established over my years in recruitment prior to starting Aligned. I feel very grateful for the awesome recruiters that I know because we were able to hire really quickly to support us as we delivered for our clients. So we have a couple really, really talented recruiters working on our team. Well, what I do differently... Gosh... I honestly view everything that happens as a learning opportunity. So there's really nothing I regret, to be honest. There's things that I don't like, like, gosh, setting up payroll. Nightmare. Hate it. Two thumbs down for payroll. But I'm very grateful that I've learned how to set up payroll and have kind of figured out how to do those all those nuts and bolts kind of things.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you're speaking Lance's love language right there, running payroll.
SPEAKER_00:I
SPEAKER_02:wouldn't call it that, but... excited about at that point.
SPEAKER_03:Oh my gosh. So I work in recruitment because I actually do genuinely think that this changes people's lives. I actually do believe that. I actually just posted on LinkedIn today when my husband pivoted from nonprofit to tech, he got a 250% salary increase. So I've watched it from a personal level and a professional level actually literally change people's lives, their standard of living, what they can provide for their kids. So I would just hope that we were able to expand and grow as a team. I unfortunately see a lot of recruitment companies that are actually just in it for the bill rate and they're just in it for how much they can charge their client and they're just in it to kind get a candidate hired so they can get the commission. And I'm really hopeful that our business continues to grow and surpass those companies because I think our why is very compelling.
SPEAKER_02:That was my experience when I transitioned into tech nine years ago. Now, I doubled my income and that just changed our entire family's possibilities for everything that frankly helped us buy a house right before things got completely ridiculous, which for a millennial, I am very thankful that that's not, again, And being able to move into tech, being remote, and then suddenly being thrown into a company where I was trusted to just help and learn, that was such a great opportunity. So I can personally speak to how amazing that can be.
SPEAKER_00:How is the market thinking about fractional talent, independent talent? So I was listening to your story and you're saying like, you went through this. hiring process and then flipped it and turned it into an independent opportunity. But do you think, all right, I'm jumping ahead to a question that I have down towards because you told this story, but like is for someone like myself, like Joshua, people that are in this like independent world, is that like an opportunity that you think people should be pursuing? Like, did you see a full-time job?
SPEAKER_03:Should you go ahead and apply for full-time jobs and then be
SPEAKER_00:like, full-time jobs and try to transition? You
SPEAKER_03:should not do that.
SPEAKER_00:You don't recommend following your... That'd be the
SPEAKER_03:rudest bait and switch ever. No, so hear me say, I didn't apply for any of these jobs. Like, they all approached me. Like, they all knew me. I actually didn't apply for a single job after I got laid off. I had all of these former connections who approached me and said, hey, we know you're available would you like this job? So I actually didn't apply for any. There is one job that I interviewed for. My friend referred me to her company and I did take that referral and started the interview process, but then stopped it because I realized I wanted to work for myself. But no, you definitely, your BD strategy should not be applying for jobs you have no intention of taking.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, good.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that would directly harm your own business. There's a big difference with when someone reaches out to you and it's a personal connection, then you can kind of talk about what the relationship could be like. And I've done that in the past where someone says, hey, I could use your help, Joshua. I kind of think the work relationship could look like this. And then I propose an alternate idea and we go from there. That's a good clarification. I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, exactly right.
SPEAKER_00:Good. You mentioned that some of your customers have... done had some requests like to look for fractional talent, that you've done fractional recruiting for some of your clients. What are you seeing in the marketplace How is the market thinking about fractional talent? Is today's economy having founders or executives thinking differently about their hiring strategy? Is fractional talent part of this consideration? Is it growing? What are you seeing out there as a recruitment partner for hiring firms?
SPEAKER_03:That's a good question. So actually, my clients typically do not come to us for us to look for fractional partners for them. What I tend to see is these are almost two separate worlds. So like what I do is fractional. Right. Like my team comes in, you can basically scale us up or scale us down as much as you need within your company. But then as far as the roles my team is actually recruiting for, they're typically in-house full-time W2 roles. We have recruited for a couple part-time roles before, which I guess in our cool like 2024 language, we could call fractional instead of the old school part-time. But it's not like they're like the consulting type work that you typically associate with fractional, right? It's more like, hey, we only have part-time work needed so that That's kind of the focus there. So that being said, it's almost two different worlds. Like as a fractional recruitment partner, I don't typically run fractional searches. I run full-time W2 searches.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Do you see that? Do you think that looking at the hiring strategy that your customers are working with, like, do you ever see people saying like, well, we just can't afford that or we can't hire for that right now? Like that's a future thing. Or if they were actually thinking like, hey, actually- you could consider a fractional. Like right now, like the education part of this, is education of executives like a big barrier to fractionals like finding opportunities?
SPEAKER_03:Oh, that's an interesting question. I wouldn't say so. I mean, I think it really depends on what kind of culture you're looking to build and what kind of environment you're looking to build as an executive. Like, for example, one of my clients has always had a fractional bookkeeping agency. That's always been how they've done their bookkeeping. And they're actually right now bringing someone in-house because that resonates better with their business model. It just has ended up being truly a full-time job. And it's such an intense process for their specific industry that it makes more sense to have that person in-house. But I would say, as I'm talking to executives, they're very open. And there actually have been times where I've said, hey, I don't know that you actually have a full-time need for this role. Have you considered, since I obviously am a fractional recruiter, I've said, hey, have you considered hiring a fractional content marketer or a fractional, I don't know, copywriter, whatever the case may be? So in my experience, there's a lot of openness And I'm so grateful to be alive in this lifetime because I feel like there's such a culture of openness in general where I think you can really make the argument for, hey, why would you bring on a full-time W-2 employee when you could get the same work done by an expert who's done this at many, many companies and done it very, very well. So, no, I think the market is definitely in favor of fractional work for the most part.
SPEAKER_02:And one of the big things I see, and I've talked about this many times on the podcast, when you pull in a fractional and let's say you set up a long term engagement, you're going to work with them six, 12 months or longer. Once you you suddenly have that switch where you're looking to them for advice as a founder, they you're saying, what are you seeing in the field from other clients? What are what are ways that I should handle this? And they have the ability to actually push back on you because their entire income is not tied to you paying them. And that is just such a thing that is so easily missed, where if you're a W2 and 100% of your income comes from one source, it takes a really good person. And when I was full-time fractional, I would call out founders often and they always thanked me. They were surprised and then they appreciated it and they said, please do more of this.
SPEAKER_03:I love that. Yeah, you can kind of be more of a thought partner.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. What, if you're looking forward a couple of years, Lance and I are trying to figure out the pulse of where we actually stand in this curve. Do you think fractional is going to become a significant portion of how hiring is done in America? Do you think not? Where do you think it might go?
SPEAKER_03:Gosh, I hope so. I think it's, I think it's a great model. Because that way, I mean, gosh, I were in what round seven of tech layoffs in the past two or three years. I just, that's honestly why we do what we do. Because I'm like, don't hire a full time in house recruiter, just use us for the number of months you need to fill these roles. So I think that applies to every field. Like if you don't, if you don't need all these people in all these seats forever and ever, just hire someone on a project basis for however long it takes. However long you need them. So I think it makes a lot more sense economically. And as a business owner, it makes more sense to me personally. I love hiring part-time. I love hiring fractional. I love hiring consultants for me personally, for aligned recruitment. That's how we do a lot of our partnerships.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, there's so much cultural collateral damage to not planning your headcount, right? Like you're saying, if you don't need someone in that seat forever, but you set the expectation that they're going to get to sit in that seat indefinitely, and then you have to do the scale up, scale down. Yeah. And there's this roller coaster where a lot of people don't realize that that's actually how most companies with W2 employees
SPEAKER_02:exist today. But if you're new to it, you're probably paying a little bit higher rate. You don't know the unwritten message that we will expand and contract. We will expand and contract. And that's just how it works. And that just it guts families. People realize that their entire identity is tied to this W2 and then they lose it versus if their income split in a couple of sources and they lose one. It's not it's not great if they weren't expecting it, but they can just keep iterating. I want to. Actually, jump to another question I have. I'm always trying to figure out how people think about this. If someone is fractional and they don't have a great pipeline, what would you suggest to them? If they're worried about backfilling clients they're losing, how would you approach that for someone? And I know this isn't specifically what you're doing daily, but how do you think about that? No, this
SPEAKER_03:is what I'm doing daily. It's literally what you're doing. Okay, perfect. If you are... Any kind of entrepreneur, if you're a fractional consultant, your main job is sales. That's
SPEAKER_02:what you're doing for yourself, yes.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, I really do believe that. I really do believe that you need to be backfilling your pipeline every day, like even proactively. Like right now we have, like I said, we've closed a lot of business. We have a ton of great clients. I do sales every single day. I send sales messages every single day. I have sales calls every single day because like we're talking about, I have a lot of great recruiters in my network that I can scale up or scale down to partner with my business. as we do have more business that comes in. So no, I think if you're fractional, I think you need to do sales every single day.
SPEAKER_02:And if you're not interested in that, that is where the hopefully not too volatile W2 might make more sense, right? If you're not wanting to have those conversations and put yourself out there, that's when I did it full time, that was half the job was trying to find new work. And then I had to balance that with doing quality work with the clients I had. And one or the other always felt like it was slipping for me. And that was a challenge that I was trying to navigate while having a very short runway. So I'm not traumatized at all by it. I
SPEAKER_03:was gonna Should we ask you some questions, Josh? Are you OK?
SPEAKER_02:Let's go through it. So, yeah, I just love your whole take on this. And when you can educate companies, when you're working with a founder and you're trying to fill roles for them, Are you in a position where you can give advice for maybe you don't actually need this role, maybe you need this one instead? How do those conversations often go?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, very much so. So our clients typically come to us because they have a specific role they need filled. But then as we work with them and they grow to trust us over the weeks, months, and now I even have some companies I've partnered with for years, like I worked with them even before I started a line of recruitment. They've seen that we do good work and they've seen that we genuinely care about them and their business. So when they know that we have that heart for them, that genuine concern for them and their well-being. That's when we can speak into that situation and be like, hey, I think you have an opportunity here where if we pivot the role to this title or if we actually focus on hiring for this team instead, that would actually increase your revenue and your profits in these ways. So, yeah, I do have those conversations pretty often, actually.
SPEAKER_02:What right now are you seeing from founders for where their fears are at right
SPEAKER_03:now and where their hopes are at? in product-based companies where they just simply need the runway to build the product so they can sell it, they're struggling with that. So I would say that's a big concern I hear a lot from founders.
SPEAKER_02:I felt it directly just seeing founders who before I'm going to I think there's a before Apple's AT&T and after Apple's AT&T that directly impacted consumer based startups that were using Facebook ads to this was about two years ago to they could spend a dollar on ads and they could get four dollars back and they could just turn that all day long. And the moment Apple released AT&T, the ratios dropped. So a dollar would now you'd get 80 cents back and it no longer makes made sense for many, many, many startups. And so I've been watching as a lot of them have been realizing the model doesn't work anymore. And that's pivoted to do we go profitability? Do we try to extend our runway? What do we do? And I started a whole other podcast on this topic, like did Apple's ATT cause a recession? It's a fun little headline idea, where so many startups were built on this model, which maybe wasn't a great thing, but it's how they were built. And suddenly all these founders are forced to pivot.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I've actually heard that from some candidates. They've said exactly that to me. They said whatever business, whatever company they were in, that changed and there were mass layoffs. Like they have tied that together in their conversation with me. So yes, I would say the answer to your question is yes.
SPEAKER_02:So do you see, all right, if you have a founder, and this isn't quite even what we brought you on for, but I'd love your answers on this. If you have a founder that is primarily VC and is worried about that, what do you see them pivoting to? Or is it trying to get more funding? Is it trying something else?
SPEAKER_03:That's a good question. I would say they're typically still in fundraising mode. I haven't really seen them give up on trying to get funding because they still have this dream. They still have this product. They still want to make it happen. So where their focus is, is on building their products as quickly as I can. So we recruit a lot of software engineers because that's how the product gets up and running as soon as possible. But then they are also very focused on trying to get that funding to extend their runway. Yeah, I see both.
SPEAKER_00:I want to go back to Joshua's earlier question about selling every day as an entrepreneur. I'm curious, what are you seeing that gets you the best results? You said you're sending messages, you're having sales calls. How are you finding success as an entrepreneur and filling your funnel? And could you break that down into different categories of I spend time doing this, I spend time doing that, I invest in Yeah,
SPEAKER_03:I will tell you literally exactly how I do it. So number one, I hired an executive coach. She has built several profitable recruitment businesses. So she specializes in my niche. So that is my best advice to any founder ever. I know it's expensive. I am weirdly frugal, like weird. It's weird, guys. But this was so worth it. I cannot, I cannot emphasize it enough. So Diane Prince, look her up. She's a taught me everything I know about sales. So what I do now is I time block and my sales time, nothing can get in the way of that. That is the lifeblood of my company. I only continue to exist if I continue to sell. So I make sure to, like I said, I make time for that every single day. And the strategies that work best are just going after the warm leads. Like who did I go to college with? Who have I worked with before? Who have I recruited for before? What companies have I worked with before? What candidates have I hired before? There's so many people Thank you so much. I use my sales navigator as a plugin and basically just run lists of my target ideal customer profile. And then a member of my team, she does some cold calling as well. And she cold calls into tech companies that are currently hiring. And we actually have a couple of really good sales candidates who we call those companies and say, hey, we have this specific salesperson. Like, do you want to hire them? So that's a really helpful approach for us because we're not just like, hey, can we have your business? Like, we'll quickly find someone. We're like, hey, we have someone. Do you want them? So those are some of the approaches that have worked really well for us.
SPEAKER_02:When you are doing the cold calling, obviously it's a numbers game and rejection is kind of the point, but what I've been reading Noah Kagan's Million Dollar Weekend that he gives a suggestion, which is great for me. When you buy coffee, ask for a 10% discount. And if you're not used to cold calling, you will have, you will break out in sweats when you have to do that. It's like a great exercise. So for you, when you get a positive response, what are you hearing from people or what kind of responses do you get in general?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you mostly get no's or you mostly get people that just don't respond for sure. When you get a yes, man, great. Let's go. So what I hear, what I hear, basically the people who say yes are the ones who are like, actually, yes, I have an immediate need. And for whatever reason, my internal team is not able to fill it. And this directly impacts our revenue and profit goals. So yes, I would very much like to hear more about what your team can do for us.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, this hurts right now. And you have the salve. Yeah, that makes it rewarding.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So as After you close a new opportunity, what are some of the experiences that make you feel like, yes, this is such a great partner to work with? What are some of those characteristics that you have in hiring managers, recruitment processes that you're like, ah, this is what I live for versus, oh my goodness, what a dumpster fire. How can I get out of here? That's a
SPEAKER_03:good question. Oh my gosh. Responsiveness, number one. Like, so sometimes we have hiring managers who will send them candidates and we're like, they fit every single thing we're looking for and it's just crickets. And then we do have weekly calls to make sure that we're syncing. So then, you know, they're not responding to emails. So we get on the call and they're like, oh yeah, I love that candidate. They were great. Let's set up an interview. And I was like, well, they're no longer interested because a week ago when I sent them to you, they were already interviewing with five other companies. So that's what would make me say, oh man, this is a real bummer. What's amazing is basically all of our clients are not like that. Like the one we just launched this past week Gosh, we hit the ground running with them. Like they on Monday confirmed, yep, we want to work together. On Tuesday, we had a signed contract, a signed invoice or a paid invoice and a launch meeting scheduled. The next day, we already had candidates we'd reach out to. The next day, we already had our next meeting scheduled. Like that kind of efficiency makes our process better for you as the client because we can get you candidates faster because you're letting us move as fast as we can. So that's my favorite.
SPEAKER_02:Are you able to provide any pre-education to hopefully make that a better, to make that process smoother by letting people know what to expect, how it's going to happen successfully?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, very much so. So I do that as part of my discovery calls because that's kind of a big difference. Like that's part of what makes my firm different is that we do have that kind of boutique hand-in-hand recruitment style. We don't just kind of chuck resumes at you and hope one of them lands. We, like I said, we have those weekly syncs. We do this really in-depth launch call so we can really understand the granular pieces of the person that you're looking for. So I set that tone all the way back on the discovery call. I'm like, hey, this is how we work. If you're looking for like a spray and pray recruiter, that's not us. But if you're looking for a boutique white glove recruiter, that is us.
SPEAKER_00:How often do you start an engagement and think, wow, how did they get this far? Like without thinking much about their talent attraction, talent acquisition, like program, like how often are you like, oh, I wish I could just like revamp this for you
SPEAKER_03:oh that's funny so we actually do revamp it for them so that's that's kind of that's kind of our pitch like we we only work with really small early stage companies because that's what we love to do like we don't expect them to have a robust ta function when we get there we expect them to be like hey like one of our clients that we just launched they were like we were like what's your offer letter process they were like oh we we send an email and they respond and say yes we love that that doesn't scare us at all we're like great that's why we're here let's go. So no, honestly, I love working with companies like that, because we can provide so much value.
SPEAKER_00:Awesome. What are some of the like, what are some of the biggest pitfalls that you would say to like an early founder, early startup person, whether it's process, right, you mentioned offer letter, maybe it's cultural experience wise, like, what are some of the mistakes that you see employers making, like, on a regular basis.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, man. Well, the good news is I would say our clients are not toxic. So I would say for the most part, they're not making huge glaring hiring mistakes, which is awesome.
SPEAKER_02:You're not working with those people to begin with. I
SPEAKER_03:just don't work with those founders. Yeah, like I'll be honest. I've turned
SPEAKER_02:down business. You've had a
SPEAKER_00:long career in this though. You probably have
SPEAKER_03:some. So yeah, now that now, so before I was not in the position to turn down business, right? Before I was just a cog in a machine at a recruitment agency. So I had to take what they threw at me. So in those situations, God, probably my worst ever client experience. They were just mad at us from day one. Like they were just really mad. And that's why I say I start this conversation during the discovery call because my guess is that what was communicated during the sales process was very different than what was delivered during the actual recruitment relationship. So that's where I can see it go off the rails is when the client doesn't actually know what to expect and hasn't actually been briefed on how the relationship works or what the KPIs are and things like that. But as far as like, a good hiring process and kind of what you should target as an early stage founder. I mean, I would say. Focusing on culture add instead of culture fit is my biggest coaching that I offer hiring managers. Because if everyone at your company looks and sounds and feels and acts exactly the same, that's actually going to make you less profitable, like statistically. Like the more diversity you have on your team, the more successful you'll be. So yes, maybe this person doesn't act and think and talk exactly like you, but are there things about them that could contribute to your company's mission, vision, and values?
SPEAKER_02:I've never heard it said exactly like that, culture add instead of culture fit. Can you share a little more about how you educate people to start thinking like that?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, for sure. So we have one client in particular who, what he does, his team is mostly sales. He mostly just needs salespeople. That's really all that he needs. But whenever he does have the opportunity to hire outside of sales, the whole culture is very intense, very driven, kind of like the typical sales personality, sales persona. So he wants to just have that same personality in every single role. So it we've talked about is, hey, maybe if you have someone whose role is like eight hours at a desk, very administrative, that personality actually wouldn't serve them in that role. So let's think about how we can, you know, yes, we still want someone who's motivated, who's driven, who cares deeply about that work. So how can we maintain that culture that you've built here, but be open to maybe that personality looking different so they can actually add to the culture you've built here as opposed to just fitting into exactly what everyone else here looks like?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah. term can make stuff happen quicker and often get short term results and they will view that as the successful answer a company that's heterogeneous where it's made up of many different diverse cultures and backgrounds might be a little slower to start but and that's what the book was about if you can figure out the factors to get people to cross connect it has far more longevity far more ultimate profitability if you want to think about it that way And I think that is often missed with founders. It's, I want to hire the people who are just like me because I get along with them.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. And hear me say, as a founder, especially when you're hiring like the first or second hire for your team, you should like them. Like you definitely should like them as a person. Like hear me say, don't hire someone that you hate just because you're like, well, I should hire for diversity. Like don't do that. But they can be, the right candidate can look a variety of different ways. So I think you can balance both.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. And I think that The liking factor is very different, right? Where you think differently than me, that is a great thing. But we're also friends. That's a great thing as well. Yes, exactly. Yes. And even with this tiny little podcast where Lance and I are similar in so many ways, there's a few areas we're very different. And I'm grateful for that on the days where I have zero interest in doing the things that he is okay doing.
SPEAKER_03:That's so key. That's so key. So I mentioned earlier how much I hate payroll. One of my recruiters is wanting to stretch and take on more operational administrative tasks. And I was like, hey girl, you want to run payroll? And she was like, I would love to. So I completely hear that. I love finding people that actually want to do the things that you don't want to do. So you're different, you have different skill sets, but you can still work well together.
SPEAKER_02:A role I worked at years ago, one of the ways that I was able to stay on for as long as I did is they liked me and they basically said, whatever you're interested in doing, we consider valuable enough to keep paying you a salary. And so I basically changed what I did like three or four times as I was on a self-discovery journey. And that was fantastic. And it happened to make them enough money that they kept me around for a while.
SPEAKER_03:Joshua, that is such a cool story. That's so rare. That's amazing that you're in a company like that.
SPEAKER_02:It is pretty rare. And that was good for my journey. Actually, I have a question. Charlie, on our last podcast, Lance kind of got into a discussion with her about staying healthy. while running the business, while going somewhere. What are ways that you try to approach that taking care of your own mind and body while you're also trying to run a business, while you have a family? What are ways you either do that well or don't do that well?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, no, I feel extremely strongly about that. So my overarching why is my family. Like every single thing I do in my life is because I care so deeply for my husband, our biological kids, and our foster sons. I'm very committed to building the best life I possibly can for them. So what I do to keep myself healthy is 4.30 a.m. And the reason for that is so I can have some time to myself. So I'm an extrovert, but I do need time alone. And so what I do first thing in the morning is I get my cup of coffee. I sit down. I journal. I pray. I meditate. Then I do my workout. I absolutely need that as kind of my stay sane, stay healthy, stay just kind of grounded. Then my kids get up and we get them the big ones off to school. The little ones just kind of hang out and play. And then my husband and I have a couple minutes to chat between like picking up the toddler sippy cup that he threw across the floor and whatever else. is happening. And then we both jumped into our work days. And I have actually played with because when you're a founder, you can build your own schedule, right? So I've played with, okay, do I change my hours around so I can not hire childcare, but that just didn't give me enough time to actually work on the business. So I was like, okay, do I play with maybe some kind of part time. So for right now, where I've landed is I log off every day around three. And we have a nanny who comes to our home. So if I need to work later that day, she's very flexible. And I just work later if need be. But I have that flexibility. flexibility of if I can spare it, I have the afternoon to spend with my kids. And then the evening is the typical dinner time, bath time, you know, catching up with the teenagers after their crazy day in middle school. I do not miss middle school. It's hilarious having two eighth graders in my house. I'm like, man, so glad that time of my life is over. And then, you know, the evening is just kind of put the kids to bed, connect with my husband, and then I literally go to bed at 8.30.
SPEAKER_02:That's what I was
SPEAKER_00:wondering. Do you stay offline later in the day?
SPEAKER_03:That's always the question. Someone's always like, wait, how do you get before 30? It's because I'm in bed by 8.30 and typically asleep by 9 or 9.30.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. No, in our house, it's early to bed too. I'm usually like 5 o'clock, 5.30 at the latest, getting up usually. But yeah, you can't do that if you're staying up.
SPEAKER_03:No, you can't. I'm just not like nothing. Nothing helpful happens after 9pm for me. Like, it's not like I'm like, Oh, I'm in deep work mode right now. Like I'm just killing it building this new sales strategy or this new delivery playbook. No, like nine to midnight is a time that I should only be sleeping. That is only what I should be doing. For me personally, the way that my biorhythms work.
SPEAKER_02:There's a book called when I forgot who wrote it, but basically how there's early birds, night owls, and then third birds who basically don't fit anywhere. They're kind of a little off schedule. And if you know which one you are, you still crucially must have your sleep and you must know when you're most productive and if you understand that to work around it because I I see a lot of people who just sacrifice sleep and it's not a long-term plan for 99% of people. Maybe there's 1% that's weird and can handle it, but you're not that 1%. I can pretty much guarantee you that that's not you.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I agree. No, I think sleep is actually one of the most productive things you can do.
SPEAKER_02:I had two nights ago, I got 11 hours of sleep and it was glorious. I'm sure it was. I'm sure you feel like
SPEAKER_03:a new man. Yeah, that checks
SPEAKER_02:out. Yes, yes. So a founder I worked with, and this is Alex, he... regularly sleeps nine to 10 hours every night. And he says when he wakes up, he feels like he's at 100% ready to start running. That's how good he feels. And so he, I'll be curious, he's getting married and life is going to change. I'm looking forward to asking him how things are going in a couple of years. But basically, his whole life is rotated around sleep and then running his business. And I think that's just so inspiring to hear that he's not running 16 hour days of work, that he understands that work and sleep and personal life. So yeah, I think that's been inspiring for me.
SPEAKER_03:Good. Good. I love that. And I think it's so about life stage. Like, yes, I'm not in a life stage right now where I can realistically sleep nine to 10 hours a night, but I can have other rhythms that allow me to be the best person I can be in the stage of my life.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. Bro's going to have kids and that's going to change.
SPEAKER_03:I was going to say, hey, buddy, call me when your baby is screaming and we'll see how those nine to 10 hours are going.
SPEAKER_00:There is no tired like new parent tired.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. No, it's a really unique moment
SPEAKER_02:we had this point where i don't know one of the kids was waking up a couple times at night last year and my wife is far better than me at being interrupted and being able to handle it like she's the reason our family functions the way it is is because she carries a lot more of the burden than i do just to be very frank on that in almost every aspect but we're like how was it Story. Story.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, my gosh. That's a really good question. My wildest. I mean, people sometimes treat you like a therapist, like as a recruiter, because you're talking about something very personal, like this is going to be their source of money, right? Like this job that they do or don't get. So I've had people go in and tell me about their childhood trauma, their relationship with their spouse, their divorce, their kids, their infertility, their gosh, just really intense stuff, which is great. I actually backstory on me. I got And that takes it away
SPEAKER_02:from it's not a transactional thing for you and that person, right? And that's where they feel a connection, they feel that safety, and they feel that you've got their back. And that does make a difference. Yeah. It makes it feel like people's lives do not matter at all. And I understand profitability. I understand the onus on a company must exist to make money. But there is a long term health to actually caring about people. So I think that's fantastic.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, no, I agree. It feels crappy to be to use people. Like it feels crappy to view a candidate as just a way to get a commission from a client. And it feels crappy to use the client as just a way to get paid. Like these are all humans. These are all moms and dads and sons and daughters and people who have whole lives outside of the call that you're on with them right now. So I do feel very strongly about that.
SPEAKER_00:Does that mean you have a no ghosting policy?
SPEAKER_03:I do have a no ghosting policy.
UNKNOWN:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, I do. It's I mean, I get it. Like, let me just defend the poor recruiters that do end up ghosting. There are so you talk to so many people. So if you don't have like supreme organization, and I'm sure there's a candidate out there who I forgot to follow up with who's listening to this podcast, and he's like, this girl is lying. So to that candidate, I'm so sorry if I ghosted you and forgot to follow up with you. But But yes, I do as much as I possibly humanly can. I do try to touch touch base with everyone and just close the loop with everyone.
SPEAKER_00:Awesome. Take note recruiters out there.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Everyone in that chain, it actually is a lot better if you can have a little bit more grace with people and not assume that they're evil right off the bat.
SPEAKER_03:100%. So one of my clients actually recommended to me the book, Never Split the Difference. And it's a business book. It's a negotiation book. But he talks about how the way to be successful in business is to make your all-encompassing goal understanding the other person and what they have to say. Period. So I take that into every conversation I have every day that I live. I think that's such a beautiful sentiment and I totally agree with it.
SPEAKER_02:And the distinction, it's been a few years since I read it, but it doesn't mean you have to agree with them, but you must understand.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:If you can understand and actually even argue both sides, that means you have, they feel heard, which if you think of a hostage situation, a lot of times- And this was, I think, a former FBI agent, right?
SPEAKER_03:Fantastic
SPEAKER_00:book as well.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:How can people find out more about you, Julia? How can they reach out? Maybe they want your services or they just want to randomly chat.
SPEAKER_03:So as you heard, my schedule is very tight, so I cannot randomly chat with you, but you can reach out to me. I'm on LinkedIn. So Julia Arpag. I'm actually the only Julia Arpag on LinkedIn. So you'll be able to find me pretty easily. Isn't that fun? Yeah. And then our website is alignedrecruitment.com. So you can check out our site or you can email me at Julia at alignedrecruitment.com.
SPEAKER_02:Perfect. We'll put Put that all into the show notes. Thank you so much for coming on, for chatting with us. This has been fantastic. And then I'll just say for anyone who has questions, feel free to email us, email at fractional.fm. And I don't know, we say it all the time. We get some emails. If you're not even sure that any emails we will read and we'll respond to, and we might read them on air unless they're bad. In that case, we'll check them. But thanks so much for listening, everyone. And we'll be back next time.
UNKNOWN:Bye.
