People Are Your Profit: Transform Your Biggest Expense Into Your Biggest Asset (#281)

On this episode of Maximize Business Value, host Dave Casey and Mark Mitford of HR Catalyst discuss how to transform HR from a transactional expense into a strategic profit center. Ahead of his new book launch, People Are Your Profit, Mark explains how proactive succession planning and leadership development protect a company’s long-term continuity.

Tune in weekly to hear more from Mastery Partners and to receive relevant key content on your journey to maximizing your business value!

Podcast Chapters:
00:00 — Introduction
01:05 — Guest Welcome: Mark Mitford
02:13 — Writing "People Are Your Profit"
05:44 — Scaling HR in the Middle Market
08:31 — The "Right People, Right Seats" Dilemma
10:06 — Why You Can't Just Promote Without Training
14:17 — The Reality of Succession Planning
19:46 — Retaining & Grooming High-Potential Leaders
22:44 — Turning the "HR Black Box" into Processes
28:41 — Jack Welch's Rule: Hire Smarter Than You
35:09 — Moving from Reactive to Strategic HR
36:52 — Outro & Where to Find Mark

GET THE BOOKS:
'Start with Maximizing Business Value' by Tom Bronson, and 'People Are Your Profit: Transform Your Biggest Expense Into Your Biggest Asset' by Mark Mitford. 

Learn More about Dave Casey:
Dave Casey is a seasoned business owner with deep expertise in all aspects of organizational behavior and a passion for helping entrepreneurs reap the full rewards of building their companies. He understands that a truly valuable business isn’t just profitable—it’s secure, scalable, and transferable. In addition to his work with Mastery Partners, Dave actively gives back to the entrepreneurial community through leadership roles with organizations like Business Navigators, Biz Owners Ed, and Liberty Ministry. Whether advising on strategic growth or mentoring the next generation of business leaders, Dave brings clarity, integrity, and decades of real-world experience to every interaction. His mission goes beyond exit planning—he’s committed to helping owners build lasting legacies.

Learn More about Mark Mitford:
Mark Mitford is an outsourced HR Leader & Trusted Business Advisor to CEO's of middle market companies. Small to middle market sized businesses need HR thought leadership and expertise. I am the recent Author of the Book – People Are Your Profit – Transform Your Biggest Expense into Your Biggest Asset. Your people costs are 50-75% of the overall costs in your business! I help you optimize your leaders and employee’s performance, that creates higher revenue and higher profitability.

Outstanding track record of helping companies grow their people and company bottom line. Worked in organizations various life cycles - high growth to retrenching modes. An MBA, bottom-lined focused, expert in succession planning, M&A, leadership retention & development and organization change. 

Mastery Partners

Elevating Businesses to Achieve The Business Owner’s Dream Exit 
The unfortunate reality is that for every business that comes on the market (for whatever reason), only 17% of them achieve a successful exit. You read that right. 83% of attempted business transitions never reach the closing table. Mastery Partners is on a mission to change that. We ELEVATE businesses to achieve maximum value and reach that dream exit.

Our objectives are simple - understand where the business is today, identify opportunities for dramatic improvement, and offer solutions to enhance the business, making it more marketable and valuable. And that all starts with understanding the business owner’s definition of his or her dream exit.  
Mastery has developed a 4-Step Process to help business owners achieve their dreams.

STEP 1: Transition Readiness Assessment
STEP 2: Roadmap for Value Acceleration
STEP 3: Relentless Execution
STEP 4: Decision: Now that desired results are achieved, the business is ready for the next step in the journey!

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Transcript

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Tom Bronson (0s): Welcome to the Maximize Business Value Podcast, brought to you by Mastery Partners, where our mission is to equip business owners like you to maximize your business value and achieve the exit of your dreams, whatever that means to you. With insights gained from over a hundred business transactions, we share real world strategies, lessons, and expert advice to help you build long term sustainable value in your business.


Each episode is hosted by one of our Mastery certified partners, their seasoned experts who've helped countless business owners navigate the complexities of growth, scaling, and building value. They bring firsthand experience, actionable insights, and a passion for helping you build a business that thrives. So, let's dive in.


Dave Casey (1m 5s): Well welcome once again to the Maximize Business Value Podcast. So this is a, a conversation that we hold for the many ways that, that a business owner can actually work to enhance the value or maximize the value of their company, and perhaps sometimes look for areas where your value is taken away and what we, what can we do about that? So today, we're joined by one of the top voices, I think, in the country, and one of the most puzzling, at least to me, aspects of business.


And that's the people problem. And so, welcome Mark Midford, CEO of HR Catalyst. Good to have you.


Mark Mitford (1m 45s): Great. Thanks Dave. Yeah. Looking forward to the conversation with you and yeah, no, I'm happy to, you know, please, I'm sure you might have a couple of questions for me that I'm happy to, to share some insights, some insights with you, and we can


Dave Casey (1m 58s): Go from there. Hey, as long as the, as long as the ticker's not running and the bills aren't running up, I'll, I'll, I'll take all the wisdom you can give me. You know,


Mark Mitford (2m 5s): We're, we're, we're good, Dave. We've known each other for a few years. Know this is, I, I'll give as muchs advice I as I can for pro bono. Okay. Super.


Dave Casey (2m 13s): Super. So I guess right off the bat, I know that finally, after all these years, you've captured some of that wisdom in the form of a book, so congratulations.


Mark Mitford (2m 27s): Yeah, thanks so much, Dave. It's, it's been a great, you know, it's, it's been one of those things, I think I've had it in the back of my mind kind of percolating for several years, and given some of the experiences I've had, and especially dropping down, down into the middle market space and lower middle market space. So I thought maybe it would be helpful for people to share some of the, some of the things I've learned, lessons learned that went really well, and some of them are actually some things that kind of failed. So it's, you know, so it's kind of a composite of those, both, both of those things.


So that's, yeah, kind of. So with that, you know, that's, that's kind of the, that was a little bit of the genesis of the book, probably starting two or three years ago.


Dave Casey (3m 8s): Yeah. So what, what's, what's the title of the book?


Mark Mitford (3m 11s): Yeah. So it's kind of funny because it just is, it's so brand spanking new that it's, I still always have to remember what the title is. So it's, it's, People Are Your Profit Transform Your Biggest Expense Into Your Biggest Asset.


Dave Casey (3m 25s): Wow. That is, that is a momentous undertaking.


Mark Mitford (3m 29s): Yes, it is. That is awesome. Of course, the, that second, that second part is the subtitle, but it is, yeah, like I said, it is gonna be brands making New here, it's gonna launch on Amazon on April 30th.


Dave Casey (3m 42s): Wow. So it's re fresh. Oh, wow. Yes. So we, you can probably, we can probably pre-order at this point, it sounds like.


Mark Mitford (3m 48s): I would, I would hope so. You know, we've got a publisher in place, so I, you know, that's way beyond my pay grade date. Yeah. That's getting the heck out of that, that lane.


Dave Casey (3m 57s): Well, it's enough just to put together your thoughts to do a book. I've never done one. I've envied the friend. I have many friends that have, and I envy them that they've done that. And it may be something I do at some point. I don't know if anybody would be interested, but it'd be worth worth a shot, maybe.


Mark Mitford (4m 10s): Yeah, never say never.


Dave Casey (4m 12s): Really, really. So, you know, with, when we talk to the folks that follow this podcast, they're typically business owners, multi-generational. Some of 'em are brand, brand new. They may be in their twenties and just launched a business. And, you know, the world is all in front of them. Everything is ready to roll. Some have had their business for years, some it's generational. They may be the second or third generation to run a business. Others are like yourselves. Others may have come from the corporate world and kind of got maybe a little dis dissuaded that I, I don't wanna finish my career there.


That, and they've gone off and started their own business, or they've, you know, bought into a, to a small, medium sized business. So it's all over the gym. When we, when we think about the people that, that view these podcasts and that, that we hear from and that we work with that mastery partners, frankly. And, but people problems are, are almost universal. I mean, that, that is one of the things that always comes up. And, you know, when we talk to business owners many times the, the two big drivers for valuation of a business are profitability and growth.


And I think that spans whatever kind of business. It could be a Fortune 500 business, or it could be, you know, your corner store. But profitability and growth are both important. And, and both of those are wound around, I guess, the people issue or problem or opportunity.


Mark Mitford (5m 44s): Yeah. You know, it's, it, it is, it's, it's, it's very Well, you know, insightful comment on your part, of course, as a business former, you know, business owner and helping business owners now, but Yeah. You know, it's, it's, I I, I guess I jokingly say that I've been, I've been doing HR work for over 30 years now, so I've been at it for a little bit. You know, it, it, it doesn't matter, you know, and I've worked at some iconic companies that are Ericsson, Texas Instruments, PepsiCo. Wow. And, and then I drop down to the middle market world where I finish off my corporate life and headed up HR in a, in a couple of ventures.


And, you know, it's, it's a, I always jokingly say HR is not rocket science. A lot of it's common sense, but as, you know, sometimes, sometimes been as business owners and leaders, they probably have a lot of common sense. But when it comes down to people, processes and creating scalable systems within your people, a a lot of them just, they truly don't know what they don't know.


Dave Casey (6m 50s): Yeah. Yeah.


Mark Mitford (6m 50s): And especially in the world we live in now, you know, because our, our, our client, our, our typical, the clients we love to serve, you know, 50 to about 250, 300 employees. Right. That's kind of our sweet spot. And in a, in a lot of cases, our value proposition at HR Catalyst is really the common denominator is their, they typically don't have a person who is a HR director, VP of hr, who's actually trained in HR and formally learned HR practices.


And so a lot of times they don't have anybody who's got the infamous seat at the table Yeah. And the leadership team who's actually helping to, to drive a people strategy. And that's where we try to help clients. And that's where we fit into the mix on a fractionalized capacity.


Dave Casey (7m 40s): Wow. That's what a tremendous value that brings, because Yeah. 'cause when you're saying that, I'm think I'm envisioning if you're at a 50 to 250 size organization, an organization that size senior leadership really knows every employee. They've met every employee, they know 'em, they, they probably know a bit about them. Some they, they know very well. And sometimes that's a wonderful thing, first of all. I mean, I, I think that that's, that's what makes small business successful.


But on the other hand, those are the things that probably in the back of your mind, you can't make hard HR decisions when you, when you know everybody and you know their kids and, you know, it's, it's, right. Right. It, those are, those are tough. That for me was very tough, you know?


Mark Mitford (8m 31s): Yeah. You know, it's a great point. Yeah. When you bring that Dave, because in, in a lot of cases too, these are your, in some, in some cases, these are your friends. Yeah, yeah. You know, you know people from the local chamber of the Rotary club, you know, people from church, your kids go to school with these people. That's


Dave Casey (8m 48s): Where you find, that's where you find your next employee is in those social networks. Yeah.


Mark Mitford (8m 52s): Right. Right. And in some cases, you hate to say, but some cases they really aren't the right person. You know, a lot of what we know, you know, in, in the, in the, in the ranks, you know Right. People right seats. Yeah. Yeah. In some cases you have the seat identified, but you might have the wrong person in the seat. Yeah.


Dave Casey (9m 12s): Great person may not equal Right. Person.


Mark Mitford (9m 15s): Right, exactly. You know, and sometimes they have great skills. Yeah. But if you have a person who's, you know, a good example was, yeah, that's it. You know, it would, would be if you have a person who's in sales who's really good at operations and is quite introverted and doesn't like to talk to people, and doesn't like to go to networking events and meet and greet people and start can can't talk, can't do small talk. Well, yeah. To actually build a little bit of a quick relationship, they're probably not gonna be a really successful sales leader because you have to be able to talk to strangers, create a relationship very quickly.


And so that would probably be a glaring example. Of course, there's hundreds of others I could bore you with, but I won't. So,


Dave Casey (9m 59s): But so what's the, what's the structure of the book? What do, what do you, what do you look, what do you attack in the book? Or how's, how do you, how's it organized?


Mark Mitford (10m 6s): Right. It really is organized very much. I I would say it's almost like it's, it's really topical by core HR functions.


Dave Casey (10m 15s): Oh, okay.


Mark Mitford (10m 16s): Such as really hiring and selection. One chapter onboarding is another chapter, leadership and leadership development is one chapter, succession planning change often


Dave Casey (10m 29s): Overlooked.


Mark Mitford (10m 30s): So, yes, exactly. You know, it's a, and I do a lot of work with leadership with a number of clients right now. And, and it, it's a, and, and I bring up the example, a quick preview. 'cause I thought it was a funny example. It's almost like for those, for those of us, like ourselves, you know, have had, you know, and, and for a lot of people out there who've had kids that are, that are driving learn how, learning how to drive, I, I say the correlation there is you, you, they've seen you drive, and therefore they think this is pretty easy.


So then when they turn 15 or 16, you go get a light dri, you know, permit and you throw the keys at 'em and say, you know, Johnny or Sally, here's the keys. Take the car up for a spin and let me know how it goes for you. 'cause you've watched me do it a ton. And it seems pretty basic and simple. Of course, when you've been driving for years, like the two of us have, it's, it is somewhat, you don't even think about the process. But it, and it's very similar, especially in those lower middle market size companies that are 500 people or less, let's say definitionally.


Yeah. Yeah. They, a lot of times the, the, the classic thing is they're really good at what they do. They're really good at what they, their job is operationally, technically, but you put 'em into a leadership role and it's very similar because it's almost like you're throwing the car keys at 'em when you've given them no lessons around leadership. Yeah.


Dave Casey (11m 53s): Yeah. And just because they're great at a, an operational function or a, an aspect of their, of their job doesn't automatically indicate they're gonna be a great manager, leader, coach, mentor, all those things that, that are parts of, of, of taking that next step.


Mark Mitford (12m 12s): Right. Exactly. You know, that's, that's, and that's, and in some cases, there's a huge liability risk. Yeah. And in, in some cases too, the biggest challenge, especially in those companies that are like, I don't know, a hundred, 150 people, a lot of times they were promoted from their peer rank and they're promoted now they have to manage these


Dave Casey (12m 31s): People Yeah. That they're, that they go out for happy hour on Friday afternoons with


Mark Mitford (12m 36s): Exactly. These are their fishing buddies and golf buddies and Yeah. Kids playing the same softball team or baseball team. And


Dave Casey (12m 44s): All of a sudden the dynamic change.


Mark Mitford (12m 46s): Yes. Exactly. And all of a sudden, I have to give you some pretty challenging news and constructive feedback Yeah. That you're not really that good at your job. And some of 'em are like, I don't, like nobody likes conflict. Yeah. But in a lot of cases they're like, I can't do this because this is somebody I've known for years. Yeah. And this hard is really tough. So it's a whole different world when you move into one of those managerial slash leadership roles.


Dave Casey (13m 12s): Yeah. The other thing that, and I'm, I'm somewhat familiar with your process. We have clients that, that are obviously, that are HR Catalyst clients as well. And there's many aspects to HR that I don't think people think of is hr, you know, and, and one you just touched on is leadership training and leadership enablement. I think a lot of people think of HR as well, we have all these mandated things we have to do for employees. You know, we have to provide benefits, we have to do reviews, we have to do this, we have to do that.


It goes way beyond that. Obviously the management of recruiting, talent development, you know, su succession planning is one you brought up that again, that I was terrible at. And, and the other things are, you know, there's just many aspects of it. And where do you, I imagine that you touch on pretty much all of them within the book, but where have you seen in that small mid-market that the biggest challenge seems to, seems to come in


Mark Mitford (14m 17s): Rob? Wow. Great question. I would say one of the biggest challenges, and I've had my business since 2013, so, you know, thir 13 years, give or take. Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of it is, it really goes back into, I'll kind of hit a strategic one that I'd say is a major gap, which is succession planning. I think succession planning is tough. I, you know, I, I, I did succession planning at Pepsi and it was a brutal eyeopening.


You put the gloves on and bring up painful things about people that were like, we need to exit this person and we need to figure out an exit strategy for them.


Dave Casey (14m 58s): Oh.


Mark Mitford (14m 59s): Oh. To where, when you, when you, when you take a company that's, you know, multiple hundred thousand employees, that's global. Yeah. That's one thing. 'cause of course, the people in the room don't know these people that well. Right. Right. To your point earlier that you brought up, which is really good, is that, you know, you know these people Yeah.


Dave Casey (15m 17s): It's a lot harder conversation when they're friends and


Mark Mitford (15m 20s): Right. And then the biggest challenge too is that, which I think a lot of companies, and I think part of the specialty of what Mastery Partners does is that a lot of, you know, a lot of people who are, you know, in, who are, who have been, this is their baby, this is the company they grew, and now maybe it's a $25 million company. Sometimes they think they're gonna continue to work there forever. Yeah. And they're 58, they're 62, they're 67 whatever age where they're kind of in that latter, you know, the latter stages of their career.


And they don't think anything is gonna happen health wise. They don't think they're, they think they're gonna have the same kind of motivational, the gas in the tank they do today. Yeah. And so, a lot of times, why do I even need to do con succession planning? 'cause I'm just gonna continue to run the business, you know, the next day they'll, they'll bury me, I'm gonna have a funeral and I'm gonna be gone. Yeah. But, and so I think some of them, it's a really hard, it, it's a, it it's almost like a, a very real conversation. They don't want to have


Dave Casey (16m 22s): Yeah. It's almost like writing your will, you know, or any kind of estate planning, you know? Right. This, what's missing in this picture? Well, you are, because this is for when you're not there, you know, so.


Mark Mitford (16m 35s): Right. So Right. And then they think that's a big part of what they, it, it, when you start doing it, it becomes much more real. They know in the back of their mind, they've got this little person screaming at 'em saying, we've gotta do this, this, this is the right thing to do for the ongoing concern of the business. Even if you're looking at selling the business and, and having it an exit strategy and transaction, the company who's looking at you to possibly purchase you, they wanna understand the succession plan. Sure. Because If you disappear and you, sorry.


I was just gonna say, If you disappear and you're the guy who runs all the sales and brings in 70% of the revenue and you disappear, your, your company's going to be a lot less valuable than if you have three people who are lined up to move into your role. And several of them have some sales, they have some sales goals and objectives in their, in, in their job description and the goals they have set up


Dave Casey (17m 32s): For 'em. Yeah. That, that goes back to at the outset when we talked about there are value detractors and obviously having no succession plan in place at each level, really, I mean, it not just the business owner, but senior management, even middle management, if an outside party's looking at that company, it's, it's a lot nicer story to tell and say for, for every, you know, significant job in within, in this company. We've got a, we've got a person in waiting that's being groomed to take over that position potentially, you know, and, and again, so that there is a plan, because you never know what's gonna happen.


People leave. They, they come, they go, they, they said they wanted to do this, they started doing it, decided it wasn't what they wanted to do. There's always those challenges and so on.


Mark Mitford (18m 24s): Right, right. And I, I bring up an example in the book. Well, it's a, it's a real, it's a real life situation. When I was at Texas Instruments, the CEO of Texas Instruments, Jerry Jenkins. Yeah. Barry Fitz Runner, I think he was 56 and he was on a, he was on a business trip over to Germany and he died. Yeah,


Dave Casey (18m 44s): I remember that. I remember that occasion


Mark Mitford (18m 46s): Actually. Yeah. So, you know, and if they didn't have succession planted, that would've probably been like, oh my gosh, what do we do now? And so


Dave Casey (18m 52s): That's a multi-billion dollar corporation at that point with Yeah. And he was such a thought leader for that company too. I mean, he was a driver. Right.


Mark Mitford (18m 60s): He was in that chair for a long time. And, and it was very, I am sure it was very tumultuous. Yeah. What, you know, behind the scenes, which was way above my pay grade. Yeah. But, you know, they came out quickly and then they announced the new president's CEO and you know, the con the business continued and the business continued to do very well, and, you know Sure. Did they miss a beat. Absolutely. But yeah, for the most part, organizations, and it doesn't matter if your organization is a hundred people, 150 people.


Yeah. You've gotta have successors and I say plural Yeah. For those key positions. And then you've also, another big component of that is also those diamonds in the rough


Dave Casey (19m 46s): Yeah. Yeah.


Mark Mitford (19m 47s): You know, who are those 30 somethings Yeah. Who are waiting in the wings that you need to, first of all, you need to retain them. Yeah. And secondly, you need to be able to groom and you need to start grooming them and have a really robust development plan for them when they're, you know, if you identify them at 35 and they're a rockstar if you don't, and you've probably seen it time and time again too. Yeah. If you don't groom them and challenge them, it's almost like a race horse, you know? Yeah. If this race horse, you take 'em to the, the county fair and you have him kind of tooling around and doing pony rides, the, the, the horse is gonna act up because this, this horse was bred to run.


Dave Casey (20m 27s): Yeah. He's not, he's not. That's what I, he's been designed to do. You know, it's funny you should say that. I'll tell a personal story. My, my son's in that position right now. So he joined a company a few years ago in the semiconductor business. So all those companies are booming, let's put it that way. And it is an up and down business, but it is, you know, the, the, the trend is high and to the right, you know, for pretty much all the time. And he was selected just I think less than a year ago.


He said there's a, there's a, basically, they call it a management training track. You know, he's a manager, he's a product manager at this point, but he's got some great management experience. He has military background and so on. So he, he's looking at it and he, he said, yeah, they have this program and they pull people from all aspects of the company, from, you know, manufacturing, production, engineering, hr, sales, marketing, you know, finance, everything. And they build these kind of cadres or teams and we meet as a group, you know, so we get to know each other and we get to, to work with each other.


And they give us scenarios to plan, you know, work on. And, and, and it is very much, you know, this is the next tier of, of leadership within the company. And that they're working hard to retain those folks and keep them interested. And, you know, this is a $22 billion company. So that, I mean, it's, so, it's to get people to understand and meet people from across the world that are working at the company and in different aspects and, and give them that perspective. You know? And I, I think that that's a mark to me, that's a mark of a great company that really thinks through, you know, the succession plan, the, the, the pipeline development kind of things.


Mark Mitford (22m 14s): Right. You know, and that's it. The, and that's part of what the, the, the challenge is, I think with the companies that we interface with those that lower middle market world, because for a company that's a billion dollar, billion dollar plus company, they have these resources. You know, at Pepsi, I, I probably knew 5% of the HR people at Pepsi. Yeah. And I was actually embedded in, I wasn't in lay in Dallas, I was actually in the IT division of, of PepsiCo. Yeah.


Dave Casey (22m 42s): Yeah.


Mark Mitford (22m 44s): But I knew five, 10 people over at the Frito side, and we were about three miles away. Just 'cause we never interfaced though with 'em. Sure. Yeah. But, and they probably had a, you know, a handful of people who did succession planning and pipeline development. But, you know, that's where I would say the value proposition for a company that's growing is, and part of that's that whole foundation of the book is, you know, you, you, you've gotta be able to set some foundational processes around your HR function, you know, just like you do in sales, in marketing, operations, finance, you all have documented pro, you know, you do month end close, you do quarterly close, you do year end close.


There's always gonna be processes


Dave Casey (23m 30s): And KPIs attached to those. Right. And all that kind of stuff.


Mark Mitford (23m 32s): Stuff. And most of them, they see this black box of hr. Yeah. And I, and I,


Dave Casey (23m 38s): They see me outta jail, take me out of the court. You know,


Mark Mitford (23m 40s): It's just, yeah. And part of the title of the book, you know, is like, well, it's your biggest expense. Your people by far in any business is gonna be your people. Your, your largest cost is gonna be baked around your people and all the, and all of the ancillary cost around your people. The benefits. Yeah. Maybe 401k match profit sharing. You know, that's a big, it's, it's a big nut. Yeah. And a lot of organizations, unfortunately, they kind of take their people for granted. Yeah. And when they leave, that's okay, we, we leave, we'll just go get another one.


It's almost like a widget. And I'm like, well, no, people aren't widgets. And if you treat 'em like a widget, then you know, you're probably going to underperform consistently on a financial basis.


Dave Casey (24m 22s): You know, and it's, it's, I've had this conversation with several business owners, and it's, on one hand, I'm, I'm kind of singing that song to them. Okay. That part of HR is, every, every position in this company needs to be identified. We need to document what, what the position is, what it does, how it fits in the organization, what the compensation levels are for that, what is an ideal, you know, persona of a person to hold that position. Where do they come from, where do they go from here?


That kind of thing. So all the things that, that I know that are in this book, actually. So, yeah. And, but in many cases they're going like, yeah, but, you know, you're, you're talking about like interchangeable parts that if I have this position I'll identified, then I can plug people into that position and they can become successful fairly soon because I've laid out what the KPIs are, what, how it's supposed to work and all that. But they look at it as, but, but that's Bill's position.


Bill's always done that for us. And there's no need to look for another bill. 'cause we have Bill, you know, and it's, it's this perfect. Sure. You know, so, and it's getting past that and just saying, yeah, there, we, we don't, we don't treat people as widgets, but we do have to identify everybody's position what they do. Maybe they're doing things that they really don't want to do and aren't very good at, but they just ended up with that thing. And, and now the assumption is because they execute it well, that they love to do that, and we're gonna give them more of that.


So, I mean, it's, it's what a, that's the puzzle for me. It is, it is. So many moving parts. And maybe you had touched this on the book, have you applied AI to, to the HR puzzle?


Mark Mitford (26m 10s): You know, I, I, it's, it's kind of funny. I don't think I, it's probably, I dunno if it's a miss or not, but it's a, I did really, I, I'm, I'm of that same, I I'm in that generation, honestly. Yeah. Of AI still scares me to death. So if


Dave Casey (26m 25s): You build, build you a shopping list, you're really happy. So


Mark Mitford (26m 28s): Yes, exactly. So it's, you know, so I don't really, within the HR function, I, I, I know some of the things that are out there industry-wise in hr, I would say it's still, it. Well, ai you can argue it's probably, it's not in its infancy. It's been around for years. Yeah, it does. But I, I didn't really touch on ai, you know, I, I know that some organizations that are much larger do use, you know, but the, but the, the challenge that you see there, even with like recruiting


Dave Casey (27m 1s): Yeah.


Mark Mitford (27m 2s): You know, with AI and some of the things you can build with AI and the agents there, it, it's, there, there definitely is a loss of some real key candidates will fall out of your process.


Dave Casey (27m 14s): Yes. Yeah. That would be a big concern for me. That, that, you know, particularly if you're a small team and every team member is quite important and a bad hire or a mis-hire is gonna, is gonna hurt you a lot. And to me, that depending on a computer to choose that person for me, put it, you know, bluntly would be hard. So.


Mark Mitford (27m 41s): Right. Exactly. And I think that that's where, and of course though, if you're doing, if you're doing Ericsson or Pepsi type of volume and you're, you're hiring, you're not hiring one person at a time, you're hiring a hundred people at a time. Yeah. You know Sure. For, for the sake of efficiency, you know, and we do a little bit of recruiting, it's not a core expertise of ours, but we do some recruiting and I think we do it very well, but we're just old school. Yeah, yeah. You know, we look at resumes, we will interview people, we do phone screens with them before they ever get to a, a client.


Yeah. And our success rate, and we've done HR accounting, we've done some leadership and operations positions. So we, we get a little bit out of our core expertise. But, you know, if you can, if you can, you know, again, recruiting is a process. Yeah. So if you can ask the right questions and make sure you get that ideal candidate profile from the client, you know, you could be, we will, our, our success rate's pretty darn good. So I


Dave Casey (28m 41s): Was gonna say, you can get pretty far down the road just, just for those things that, again, as a business owner, I struggled with. I, and I, I'd think I often made the age old mistake of hiring people that were like me.


Mark Mitford (28m 57s): Sure. You know, it's like,


Dave Casey (28m 58s): You know, you gotta like, okay, I, I really like this guy. We could hunt and fish together or we could, you know, play golf or whatever, and he fit in great. You know, it's not Right.


Mark Mitford (29m 8s): You know, it's, it, it goes back to, you know, good or bad. You can say if Jack Welsh was an iconic leader and he, I think he was by all standards. Yeah. You know, the Jack Welsh model, you know, hire people who are smarter than you and think differently than you. Yeah.


Dave Casey (29m 22s): Yeah.


Mark Mitford (29m 22s): You know, a highly functional team, you may look at them from the outside if you're sitting there as a martian on the wall listening in, you know, they may fight like cats and dogs. Yeah. But, you know, you wanna stay away from group think. Yeah. 'cause there's a lot of cases with group think that turn out very badly. Yeah.


Dave Casey (29m 42s): Yeah. I've read a lot about we, so my dad worked for ge, so that was great. Oh, yeah. But, but it was, yeah. He didn't earn the name Neutron Jack for, for no, no reason. But


Mark Mitford (29m 52s): Nel. But,


Dave Casey (29m 53s): You know, but, but he, he was brilliant in many ways. Right.


Mark Mitford (29m 57s): You know, during his, during his time there in his tenure, you know, the company did extremely well and they needed to pivot and Yep. They did some different things along the way. But, you know, you take a GE or a Pepsi. Yeah. You know, they generate leaders, you know. Yeah. One of the, I'd say Pepsi CEOs love to be quoted on, I said, if they ask you a question, what's your most proud of? I'm, I would imagine 95% of them would say it's the talent that we groom and develop here. Yeah. Yeah. Same with the ge or you know, nowadays it could be like a Tesla or an Apple.


Sure. You know, some of these more high tech,


Dave Casey (30m 33s): Google, Google has spawned a lot of people in a lot of businesses, you know. Right.


Mark Mitford (30m 37s): Just because they know if you could work there and thrive there, they know you have the right stuff. Yeah. Some of those core competencies that are really a driving Yep. Successful person. And so a lot of those folks can punch their ticket and move, but they move around Sure. Almost as will. Because once they see that, yeah. When I was still in my corporate days, everybody would talk about Pepsi, you know? Yeah. Who did you work for? What did you do? Yeah. Because they just know it's one of those companies that is an extremely well run hard driving company.


And even if you get in the door there, yeah. You're probably, you know, you're, you're probably better than average from a performance standpoint because they're looking for the, and I had a weird blend of skills change management and s at hr, which is what they needed in the role. 'cause we went through a transformational change. But I was at Pepsi that I was one of the, one of the HR folks who kind of was, was involved in that process.


Dave Casey (31m 33s): So it's, so I imagine the book is really aimed at that small to mid market business leader. Is that, is that true?


Mark Mitford (31m 42s): Yes, very much so. I'd say it's really targeted, you know, companies that are a hundred million and below. Yeah.


Dave Casey (31m 48s): Perfect.


Mark Mitford (31m 49s): Would, would be kind of that, that really, that target just because that's the world I live in. And I've actually lived in this world now for about 20 years. Yeah. So about seven, eight years prior to me breaking out and starting HR Catalyst. So I've got, so actually most of my experience, it was surprising when I wrote the book, I did the math and I was like, geez, I've actually did most of my life now my, my professional life has been spent in that lower middle market ized organization, less, you know, less than a billion dollars in revenue.


And most of the companies now we deal with are less than less, maybe a little bit less than a hundred million in revenue. Occasionally we'll get above that. But typically, you know, that 20 to 50 million, 20 to $80 million companies is kind of our sweet spot.


Dave Casey (32m 37s): Yeah. And that's, that maps obviously to where, where we are as well. And, and it's interesting. I think there's tremendous value that you bring to the table in that having been through that corporate experience. And it's, it's hard to replicate that. I mean, you can't, once you, you gain that level of experience and then bring that down to that lower mid market, that's, that's fantastic. Because if you grew up from a mom and pop company and went upward, you've never seen the big, the big processes and the big, the way things are done at the corporate level.


And that's, you know, that's the reason, for example, good, good to Great. Was was written, you know, the, that famous book is taking all those corporate successful corporate stories and then making them available to, to everyone. Right. So,


Mark Mitford (33m 30s): And it's amazing the correlation there. Yeah. You know, a lot of those good, the great companies that were really industry leaders in their respective industries, they still had a lot of those common, those common building blocks. Yeah,


Dave Casey (33m 44s): Yeah.


Mark Mitford (33m 45s): That really made them successful. So I kind of go back to what I said earlier. It's not rocket science. Yeah. But it's, it's not, it's, it's, it's, it's not rocket science, but it can be very hard to do because it's, you have to be very intentional. And that's why I think, you know, when I talk to organizations or a prospect about a people strategy, some of 'em look at me like I've got like three heads. Yeah. You know, what, what are you talking about? You know? And we don't have a people strategy. We have people Yeah. But we try


Dave Casey (34m 13s): To keep 'em, we, we have pizza on Fridays, you know, so


Mark Mitford (34m 17s): It's like, and every once in a while we lose some people and sometimes we lose a really good one. We don't know why we lost them. And sometimes we see our sales starting to stagnate and our top and bottom line starting to stagnate. And then I'm gonna peel that onion back a couple of layers and say, well, you know, I, I think there's some, some of the stuff that we do that could be helpful for you just because you, you really don't have any strategic, there's nothing strategic about what you're trying to do with your people.


You, you treat them in a reactive way and it's a very transactionally focused, which is, most companies that are, you know, less than a hundred million dollars, it's pretty transactional about what they do. When, when you do something, when there's an issue in a crisis, you go put, you know, you put your fire hat and you go to go extinguish the fire. Yeah. Well, it's, but it in front of it. So,


Dave Casey (35m 9s): And it's particularly owner led businesses, which the majority of our, our clients are the owner was, was an expert at something before they started the business. They might have been an engineer, they might have been a finance, w they, they may have been a top sales producer. They may be super in operations, they may be an operational excellence person. Probably they weren't an HR is, you know, so unless it's you starting your company, you know, you would be the exception.


But, but so, and that to me, like you said, that black box, that's that's very true. I mean, it is, it is an area that everybody knows. I really need to be better at that. But I, you know, it's just, I'm not gonna be able to, I'm, I'm trying to run a company. I don't have the time to learn all the ins and outs of HR to make that a strategic advantage for my company. I just need to get by. And what I think the beauty of what, what you guys do is that you treat it as the strategic advantage.


And I think you hit on it earlier, and obviously it's in the title. I mean, people, when people start looking at their, their income statement, I mean, people are a big expense, probably the largest expense. Unless you're a, the odd duck of a company that doesn't have a whole lot of people. Right. But it's, it's, and certainly one of the toughest challenges to, to manage. So I can't, can't think that this book is, could, could come out at a better time. It's, it's


Mark Mitford (36m 48s): Perfect,


Dave Casey (36m 49s): Perfect setup. Yeah. And I really look forward to, I I think you've indicated we might get a, a preview of it right before publishing. I can't wait to to read it and review it and, and hand it out to everybody I know. So.


Mark Mitford (37m 4s): Great. Well, thanks Dave. I appreciate, I appreciate the kind words and appreciate knowing you since we've known each other for a number of years. So Yeah, you're, you're professional support and you're, you're you're friendship too. So yeah, this has been a definitely an insightful conversation.


Dave Casey (37m 20s): Yeah, definitely. And I, you can't look, so say the title one more time. 'cause I know it's a, it's a mouthful. So it's


Mark Mitford (37m 26s): A mouthful. Yes. So People Are Your profit, People Are Your Profit. And the subtitle is Transform Your Biggest Expense Into Your Biggest Asset. Yeah.


Dave Casey (37m 36s): Wow. Yeah.


Mark Mitford (37m 37s): Yeah. And it'll go live on Amazon on April the 30th.


Dave Casey (37m 40s): April 30th. I'll have to have to earmark that. Well, mark, thanks so much. I can't, can't thank you enough for coming to share with us. And, and, and certainly we look forward to the launch and look forward to continuing engagements with HR Catalyst and I and I'm sure where, where can people find you? What's the easiest way to get ahold of Mark Midford?


Mark Mitford (37m 59s): Sure, yeah. The, the easiest way is, well, our website is hr catalyst consulting.com. Okay. People can reach out to me directly on LinkedIn. And so it's just Mark and it's amazing how many people can't spell my last name, but it's just M-I-M-I-T as in Tom, FORD. So mid


Dave Casey (38m 20s): FORD as in truck, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.


Mark Mitford (38m 24s): T as in truck. Exactly. T as in Tom. So, and then we also do have a YouTube channel, which is under the same name as the company HR, catalyst Consulting. And then lastly, we do have a podcast channel. So that is our podcast handle or channel is actually HR Problem Solver. Oh, excellent. So we have that out there on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, all the major super podcast, you know, media that's out there. So you, well, I,


Dave Casey (38m 52s): I agree our viewers and listeners to get ahold of Mark and get ahold of HR Catalyst. 'cause they certainly, they bring, I think, enterprise level solutions to the lower mid market, which I think is tremendous. And what a, what a value it would value driver as you're building your business and profit driver. So again, this is the Maximized Business value podcast. It's, it's a conversation that's designed specifically for serious entrepreneurs and business owners that want to drive value within their business.


Everybody exits their business sooner or later. We're not focused on exit, we're not focused on people that recapitalizing or anything like that. We just want to help business owners increase the value of their business so that they have all the options open to them. It's whatever they want to do. They may want to grow their company, they may want to pass it down to their, to the next generation. They may want to pass it down to their employees. We've got several engagements that we've done that with. So with that, mark, thanks again and we'll see you next time.


Mark Mitford (39m 59s): Great. Okay. Thanks Dave. Have a good afternoon.


Tom Bronson (40m 5s): Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Maximize Business Value Podcast. I hope today's conversation sparked new ideas on how you can continue driving value in your business. But remember, it's not just about listening, it's about taking massive action. Visit our website mastery partners.com for more resources. Grab a copy of any of the books in the Maximize Business Value series on Amazon or via the links below.


And don't hesitate to reach out if you want to know how to apply these concepts to your business. So until next time, I'm Tom Bronson reminding you to relentlessly execute while you Maximize Business Value.