Hire Calling

Authentic Recruiting in a Tech-Driven World With Julia Arpag

• Pete Newsome • Episode 91

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What happens when life gives you the push you’ve been avoiding? For Julia Arpag, getting laid off just five weeks after giving birth wasn’t a setback; it was the spark that launched her recruiting agency, Aligned Recruitment. In this inspiring episode, Julia shares how losing her “stable” W-2 job opened her eyes to the power of owning your career path.

With roots in therapy and a passion for meaningful connections, Julia reveals how she has built a thriving business by leading with empathy, curiosity, and authenticity, proving that recruitment doesn’t have to be transactional. She also challenges the hustle-at-all-costs startup myth, showing how it’s possible to grow a business and design a life you love.

From navigating motherhood to embracing AI in recruiting, Julia offers hard-won wisdom and a rallying cry for anyone contemplating entrepreneurship: "If you're determined to learn, no one can stop you."

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👋 FOLLOW PETE NEWSOME ONLINE:
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Blog Articles: https://www.4cornerresources.com/blog/

👋 FOLLOW JULIA ARPAG ONLINE:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julia-arpag/

Pete Newsome:

You're listening to the Hire Calling Podcast, your source for all things hiring, staffing and recruiting. My guest today is Julia Arpag, ceo and founder of Aligned Recruitment. Julia, how are you today?

Julia Arpag:

Hi, pete, I'm great. It's so good to be here. Thank you for having me.

Pete Newsome:

It's really nice to connect. You have your headphones now. You didn't have them the first time we tried, but here we are. We're doing this. Yeah, yeah, I'm happy, I'm prepared, here we go Well, good, well, let's get right into it then. I just want to start by getting a feel for your recruiting background. I've read your story, I know it, but share that with us, if you could.

Julia Arpag:

Absolutely. Thank you for asking. So I first started recruiting, actually as an admissions counselor at a college back right out of college myself. I had so much fun. I was an English major so I had literally no career prospects and so I went into admissions and it was such a blast. And then my husband and I moved from New York down to Atlanta for his job. So I was like, okay, what do I do now? So I ended up landing in corporate recruitment, like I got an internal recruitment role at a headquarters here in Atlanta, did that for about a year and then pivoted to agency recruiting. So I've been doing agency recruiting since the end of 2018.

Pete Newsome:

And eventually you decided to go out on your own. So, we all have this journey right Anyone who starts a company. I have my story. Was there a catalyst that was kind of a light bulb moment where you said now's the time I need to do it?

Julia Arpag:

It was a pretty significant catalyst, as you know from my LinkedIn post. So August 2023, the CEO of the tech recruitment startup I was working at at the time called me and he was like hey, I know you had a baby five weeks ago, but there's no money left, so I have to let you off. Like I just have to lay out. He was like I haven't paid myself in months. There's our $0. So I don't even hold that against him. Like whenever I tell people that story, they're horrified. But I'm like you can't make money grow on a money tree. So he was in a tough spot. Like I feel for him.

Julia Arpag:

Now that I'm a founder, I'm like man, that would be a terrible phone call to have to make. So it was actually perfect because I'd been thinking about going out on my own for about a year at that point, but it just felt so terrifying, like there was so much I didn't know there Again, I have kids. I had four kids at the time. We have two biological sons the one who was five weeks old then and another who was two year old two years old then, and then we are also foster parents and another who was two years old then, and then we are also foster parents, so we've had kids in and out of our home for the past four and a half years.

Julia Arpag:

So at the time we also had two teenage foster sons, so it just felt really scary to lose the stability of a full-time salary. But then when I got laid off, I was like, oh, there actually is no stability in a full-time W-2 salary and, if anything, if you own a business and you lose a client, that's okay because you have other clients, so you don't lose all your income overnight. But if you're a W-2 employee and you lose your job, you lose all your income overnight. So that really is the kick I needed to get out of the nest and I started the business.

Julia Arpag:

Like three weeks later I had a co-founder. At the time she had already spun up the website, but she was like hey, I haven't closed a single client and it's been four months. Like, you seem like you're really good at this, can you come help me? So, sure enough, I closed three clients in our first month and I was like this feels like an inequitable partnership. So I ended up buying her out, uh, which I definitely stand by that decision. Um, and so we've been running the business for almost two years now.

Pete Newsome:

I love it. I love it. Well, if it makes you feel better, I think you'll appreciate. My catalyst was my 53-year-old vice president of sales getting laid off from his job, who I reported to at a very large company. Now I'm 54 now, so this really resonates with me and that was a panic moment for me. I looked at this situation and said this is what I'm aspiring to, the job I'm aspiring to be in. There is no security in this. So I made the decision. I talked about starting a staffing company for a decade before actually doing it, and I told my wife I remember where, exactly where we were. We were in the parking lot of a Publix around the corner from our house. She was pregnant with our third child and I said I'm quitting and I'm going to start my staffing company in a few months. And her line that I've repeated so many times over the years was just don't be stressed when the baby comes. That's all I ask I'm like. Well, that's impossible.

Pete Newsome:

So I might as well be stressed on my own, with my fate in my own hands, versus waiting for the ax to fall because someone else decided that for me. And so I think anyone who goes out on a ledge and does it probably realizes that's not the real risk. The risk is not taking a chance and betting on yourself?

Julia Arpag:

Yes, I completely agree with that. Now.

Pete Newsome:

Yeah, the world doesn't encourage us to do that, though, does it it?

Julia Arpag:

doesn't, because I think so personally. I didn't know any entrepreneurs growing up. I shouldn't say that my aunt and uncle are entrepreneurs, but they lived in like another state. They felt so far away. My parents had like the same steady job for their whole lives. My dad just retired from teaching last year. My mom is retiring from being an arts practitioner this year. Like they were very traditional in their path. So I just saw like really no examples and I saw they did have a lot of stability. Like you know, if you're a teacher you have a pension. Like you're golden, Like you have to really suck to get fired from being a teacher. So I saw these examples of W-2s being stable growing up and then obviously it's, you know, years and years and years later than it was when I was a kid.

Julia Arpag:

I'm 35 now, so the world has changed. But also the industry I've chosen is very different from the industries my parents chose. I chose tech, I chose recruitment and my parents didn't. So I think I've learned in the space I've chosen. Yes, there is actually a lot more stability going out on my own and it does take a lot of self-reliance though and a lot of self-confidence. If you're not a top performer, I actually don't think you should go out on your own, because you probably won't be able to make it, because the rest of us are out here, to put it bluntly, kicking ass and taking names. So you just can't compete.

Pete Newsome:

I couldn't agree more, and I noticed you wrote something similar to that in a LinkedIn post and it really resonated with me because I was a top performer as an employee and I felt guilty. I always wanted to do something on my own, but I felt guilty, taking that time away from my job and I would see other people do things on the side and I always thought, well, that doesn't seem right to me. You have to be the best at whatever it is you're doing at that moment.

Julia Arpag:

And.

Pete Newsome:

I realized, as many of us do, who take this step. Well, I could be the best for myself, or I could be the best for someone else, and if you have that work ethic, that is a huge component of, in my opinion, of what's going to determine your success or failure. If you go out on your own is no one's watching you, and if you're not able and willing to perform when no one's looking over your shoulder and I had operated that way for years as a sales rep in the technology space I knew I would do it and be motivated and didn't need anyone to help me.

Pete Newsome:

But I don't think that's the case for a lot of people. I think they realize that the hard way when they go out on their own.

Julia Arpag:

Agreed, Agreed. Yeah, If you're not the top producer on your team, you should not start your own company Like you. Just don't. You just don't have the drive, the motivation, the discipline, the perseverance. I know I'm going to get pushed back on that but that is 100% what I believe.

Pete Newsome:

I'm with you. Well, look, I mean thinking of going on their own, but you mentioned something I want to go back to that the industry is very different than what your parents worked in, of course, but I would say our industry is very different today than it was even in 2023. It's changing rapidly.

Julia Arpag:

That's a good call.

Pete Newsome:

That's true, I would agree with that. Well, you'll appreciate this. When I left recruiting um in early in my career and got away from it in the technology sales when I came back in 2000, uh, december 2005 is when I started four corner, there were no job boards when I learned to recruit that wasn't a thing coming into the world of. At the time it was monster they were the 800 pound gorilla. And then career builder was coming on the scene Monster, they were the 800-pound gorilla.

Pete Newsome:

and then CareerBuilder was coming on the scene. That was all new to me. So the industry had changed a lot then. But now it's changing almost on a monthly basis, it seems, with AI. What's your take on that?

Julia Arpag:

I'm so excited, pete. So let me be fully transparent about my almost two years of running the business. I have realized about myself I can hire backend operations team members for my team, no problem. But every time I've tried to hire a recruiter, I'm holding them to the standard of me, and everyone who's performing like I am has started their own business. So that's not fair of me. So I love AI because it's allowed me to start to think about how can I just multiply my own efforts, like, is there a way that I can run a seven-figure business where I don't need to hire other recruiters because I'm able to be so efficient that I can carry a million-dollar ARR on my own? And the answer now is yes. So I'm at the beginning of figuring all that out, like figuring out what tools I want to use, figuring out how I'm going to source more effectively, screen more efficiently, make sure the only candidates I'm speaking with are definite submits to send over to my client. But now there's tools that make that possible. So I'm thrilled. I'm so excited.

Pete Newsome:

Any tools in particular that you've latched on to yet.

Julia Arpag:

Yeah. So my favorite sourcing tool I've found so far is Juicebox, and it is super affordable. So LinkedIn Recruiter I don't know if you use it as a business owner, but they charge you an arm and a leg because there's really no competition. So, rather than give literally all my money to LinkedIn Recruiter, as soon as my contract with them ends I'm going to switch over to Juicebox or maybe there'll be a better tool on the market by then, but that's the best one I found so far for sourcing. I'll be honest, I have not found a good one for screening, because everything I found, I think, gives a really bad candidate experience where they're like okay, this weird robot thing is interviewing me, this doesn't feel personalized, it doesn't feel good. I don't like that. Like I really would love to find some kind of screening tool that sets the candidate at ease, and I haven't found out what that is yet.

Pete Newsome:

So our experience has kind of been the of that where I just heard of Juicebox this week in fact, and we're setting up a demo with them. So I'll get to experience that soon. But we use Converse AI. I don't know if you've tried that or demoed it?

Julia Arpag:

No, I'm writing this down right now. That's your screening tool.

Pete Newsome:

That's our screening tool.

Pete Newsome:

It doesn't do everything we'd want, but it solves a problem that I've that's bothered me for years, which is, you know, one click apply is so prevalent now, and we know that, and it's really just made a mess of the application process where you post a job and candidates there's no, there's no level of effort needed for them to just send their resume over or apply to the job. So you end up getting a lot of unqualified candidates. We all know that, and so what I wanted to solve was a first-level screen where I was thinking we could do it via email and this is just something that was impossible for me to solve, which seems crazy where we just have an auto-reply that effectively said thanks for applying. Please confirm the following you have these skills, you're in this geography, you're at this salary level, whatever, it is right. Just some basic screenings so that one click apply applicant who knew they weren't qualified for the job would have to actually spend just a couple of seconds of effort and they wouldn't do it. Odds are right. They're not going to say yes.

Pete Newsome:

I meet this criteria if they don't, but I wanted to use that as a baseline before one of our human recruiters actually became engaged with the applicant. So Converse solves that. Converse will call, email and text the applicant as soon as it happens, and it's amazingly effective and powerful.

Julia Arpag:

Now I have a question about that, because we mostly headhunt Like. Very few of the candidates we engage are actively applying for jobs. They're the ones that we're going out and sourcing. Have you found this to be successful with headhunted candidates? Are they willing to do this?

Pete Newsome:

So the candidate acceptance for this is really high and we haven't seen much of the differentiation between low-level, high, high end candidates, whatever it might be when we. One thing that Converse doesn't do, yet that we'd like it to do, is take a hot list of candidates that and then proactively reach out to them right.

Pete Newsome:

So it's really more of a reactive solution today. But, to your point, if you're calling one candidate at a time, it's not going to be as effective for you, right? I don't know that. I would recommend it for higher-end positions where there's a really small candidate pool. So we don't see the same benefit across all of our jobs, but as the candidate pool widens we really see that effectiveness kick in because it allows us to be so much more efficient with reaching a hundred candidates, 200 candidates for baseline screening and then really spending time with the ones who are qualified and you know that administrative it's not administrative time, but it may as well be where you're looking through resumes, trying to find the right candidate.

Pete Newsome:

The search time If you can take all that out of the equation and just have recruiters actually speaking live with candidates, to me that's utopia, that's the goal.

Julia Arpag:

I agree, I agree. So I have a sourcer on my team who does that. He reviews all the applicants and he headhunts 20 to 40 profiles per day. He's fantastic, but if I could make him even more like, if he could do that for 100 to 200 candidates today, because he has AI tools undergirding his work, that would.

Pete Newsome:

Check it out and it's more of ruling candidates out than it is of qualifying them, and I think that's a huge time saver.

Julia Arpag:

So yeah, check it out.

Pete Newsome:

We helped each other with that.

Julia Arpag:

Thank you, yeah, I'll take it. I'll take it.

Pete Newsome:

Are there any other tools that you have your eye on?

Julia Arpag:

So those are the two. Well, now I have Converse AI, but Deucebox is my favorite for sourcing and then for candidates submit notes. I use two different AI tools. I use Firefly's AI I use to record client intake calls so that my team and I can refer back to them, because it records the whole video. But it comes into every platform, so whether you have it on Zoom, microsoft, teams, google, whatever, it just comes in as like an additional guest. So that's been helpful to have recordings of every single client sales and intake call. And then I use Granola AI because it types up the notes. So I use that for candidate screens, so that types up my notes for me so I can use those as the submits and take out the admin time of having to arduously type everything up.

Pete Newsome:

Now, does that populate in your ATS, or do you have to do that manually?

Julia Arpag:

No, I have to do that manually, okay Okay. But if you have to do that manually, no, I have to do that manually Okay Okay, but if you have one that populates in your ETS.

Pete Newsome:

I'll definitely hear about that.

Julia Arpag:

We don't currently, but there's a product called Quill. I don't know if you've come across that. I have heard of Quill. Yeah, it's a lot pricier, I'll be honest. That's why I'm sticking with Granola for now?

Pete Newsome:

Yeah, Okay. So Granola AI yeah, yeah, exactly. So where do you think AI is heading? Do you think? Are you worried at all about how it's going to impact the job market overall, how it's going to impact our?

Julia Arpag:

industry? Not even a little bit. I think it'll just weed out the bad recruiters, like the people who can't assimilate, the people who can't figure out how to use these tools and make their work more effective and more efficient. They'll just leave, and then those of us who do figure out how to use it to be even better at what we're already good at we'll just keep killing it.

Pete Newsome:

So is it fair to say then you're not worried because you know you're good enough to survive that. But for the market as a whole, I think it's going to reduce the need for the number of recruiters out there.

Julia Arpag:

And the number of screeners anyone?

Pete Newsome:

who's in that role. I think I could see and this may sound extreme, you may not agree with it that about 90% of the effort of recruiting that takes humans to do today is going to go away, and we're going to God.

Julia Arpag:

I hope so. Oh Pete, you and I would bill so much more money if that happened. I hope that happens. That'd be fantastic.

Pete Newsome:

I just think it's inevitable, I mean the evolution is so rapid and we're like just talking about Converse. I mean, if you hear the demo or the live conversations it has, it of course identifies that it's AI, but if it didn't, you wouldn't necessarily know during the conversation. It would at least take a while to figure it out. So it's so early in this. I just think it's going to continue to evolve so rapidly and we're doing things with BD right now. I won't spend too much time. I'm happy to talk to you about it later, but we're doing prospecting emails that are generated by AI, that are just. They're at such a different level of effectiveness and scale than a human could ever do.

Julia Arpag:

It's um really you get a good response rate to email.

Pete Newsome:

Yes.

Julia Arpag:

I'm shocked to hear that. What percent response do you get on the BD side?

Pete Newsome:

Um, this is early, so it's a tool that we're we're building with uh with an outside partner. Um, and early results are about 8% response rate.

Julia Arpag:

Oh cool, yeah, that's higher than average.

Pete Newsome:

Average is like one to three, so that's definitely better.

Julia Arpag:

It's crazy high especially when you consider humans don't really have to touch it. Yeah, it just runs in the background for you. So you're like why not close a couple new clients from something that's doing the work for me?

Pete Newsome:

Yeah, this is all different, new and different for me, but that that leads to what I really wanted to ask you about today. For you in particular and I think others would benefit from hearing your story as differentiation and you know it is something that is hard to come by in our industry, for, at least for many companies, it's something that we're all asked about, of course, right, what makes you different than your competition? So let's just start with that. What makes you different than all the other recruiters?

Julia Arpag:

Yeah, that's a great question. So one of our company values is alignment, which makes sense because we're called Aligned Recruiting or Recruitment, and so that is how I live my life. I live very authentically. You see me post on LinkedIn about, yes, my story as a business owner, but you also see me post about being a foster parent. You see me post on LinkedIn about, yes, my story as a business owner, but you also see me post about being a foster parent. You see me post about being a wife. You see me post about getting laid off five weeks postpartum.

Julia Arpag:

I'm very transparent about a lot of the elements of my story and that tends to be why I get the high response rates I get when I do reach out to prospective clients and prospective candidates. Like almost everyone I reach out to now says oh yeah, I saw you on LinkedIn or I heard you on this podcast. So I think just by being honest and being real in an industry that can be pretty buttoned up, I think has really helped me differentiate myself. And then I ask extremely intense questions when we get on an intake together. I'm going to basically know your blood type once we get off the call, because I know that's how my team and I'm going to basically know, like your blood type once we get off the call, because I know that's how my team and I are going to go be able to source the best candidates for you. So I was debating back in the day before I decided to go into recruitment. I was debating if I was going to stay in recruitment or if I was going to become a therapist.

Julia Arpag:

I actually got into grad school for a therapy program I'm not even joking and the reason I stuck with recruitment is, transparently, you can make a shit ton more money than you can as a therapist.

Julia Arpag:

I decided to stick with this.

Julia Arpag:

But that energy like that genuine interest in people and curiosity about people's stories and desire to serve people and help people I've carried that with me in my recruitment career and most recruiters I've met just aren't like that. So I think I have these intrinsic qualities that make people want to talk to me because I ask about them, I want to hear about them, something that I would love for your audience to start doing. Get someone to talk for four minutes uninterrupted. Their dopamine will spike. So if you can ask them thoughtful enough questions that they want to talk four minutes straight, they will remember that because they'll remember having they probably wouldn't put words to it like this, but their dopamine would be higher during your conversation than it typically is. So truly, that's a big thing that differentiates me. And then on the delivery side, like we just get really good candidates in process really quickly, like one of our North star metrics is that we have four candidates actively interviewing with all of our clients, and these are typically executive level searches within three weeks of launching the role.

Pete Newsome:

You know, it's such an interesting statement that you made.

Pete Newsome:

I've never heard that or thought of it in that context, but one of the things that I've learned over the years is that by asking questions, you're so much more likable than if you're talking, and what I encourage my team to do is just put themselves in a situation of like being at a party, if you don't know anyone in the room and you meet someone new and all you do is ask questions of them when are they from, what do they do, what do they like, what their interests are and you say nothing about yourself.

Pete Newsome:

When you walk away from that conversation, they'll think you're wonderful, right? Even though you shared nothing about yourself to give them the impression that you're wonderful, but you expressed genuine curiosity and interest in them, and we all want that right In our relationships. We all want to feel valued, we want to feel heard, we want to feel respected, and you're bringing that to the business world and it's simple, right? I mean, that's the crazy thing. You don't have to feel pressure to tell a story or talk about why you're so good at what you do. You just need to ask and why do you think more people don't realize that?

Julia Arpag:

Pete, I have no idea. It's so strange to me. I'm like guys, just be Okay. To be transparent, I think it's because a lot of people haven't seen this modeled. So I think most people in the world aren't very good at asking questions and aren't genuinely curious about other people. So I think that's a big piece of it is they've never seen it modeled, so they haven't been able to learn it. And I've seen this as a consistent quality in the successful founders and CEOs that I've met. Almost all of them are genuinely curious or make you feel like they're genuinely curious, and almost all of them ask a lot of questions and really do want to get to understand and not just ask questions for the sake of checking off boxes. So I think most people don't do it because they don't know how to do it, and the ones who do do it are very effective at it.

Pete Newsome:

But isn't that how you learn, right? I mean by doing, by asking and finding out from others, right? I mean, look, we both learned something from each other within five minutes of this conversation. That is going to make us better at what we do, or at least give us the opportunity to be better at what we do.

Pete Newsome:

If you don't ask us questions you're not going to improve and, as it relates to the world of recruiting, I don't know how people effectively take job orders or qualify candidates if they don't go deep. I mean that is something that, to me, is just one-on-one right.

Julia Arpag:

Yes, and that's why, to your point, 90% of the work we do is going to be automated, and so that 10% of the stuff that requires high emotional intelligence do is going to be automated, and so that 10% of the stuff that requires high emotional intelligence that is going to make agencies like yours and mine really rise to the top, because we do have that skillset, we have learned how to do that.

Pete Newsome:

Yeah, so I think it's safe to say then you're not big in the VMS world.

Julia Arpag:

Ah, 0%, not in VMS at all. Okay, fair enough.

Pete Newsome:

What else I mean? So they look you're, you're going up against. You're in Atlanta, right, yeah, um, you're going up against. I mean, insight global is headquartered there, right there's a huge Ronstadt office.

Julia Arpag:

Here, yeah yeah, huge, huge global companies are headquartered here.

Pete Newsome:

Yep, everyone's there. Uh, we know that. So it you have to get in the door somehow, right? I mean, to be genuine, to have those conversations, you first have to have the opportunity to interact with someone. Live, what, what do you do in there? I mean, that's, that's look, it's really hard. I mean sales to me and staffing and most industries, but specifically in ours is the hardest part of it. Recruiting, oh yeah, relatively is easy. I don't mean to downplay that. You still have to be really good and thorough, but you have to get the business first and that's where most hit a ceiling and new people really struggle. I mean hiring new and training new salespeople is probably the biggest challenge of most staffing companies. Those who figured out grow, those who don't can't. So how were you able to get in the door?

Julia Arpag:

So I'm targeting different clients than the Insight Globals and the Ron Stodds of the world. So, like I said, before I started my business, I was working for a tech recruitment company that solely worked with startups. So I was working with really small companies, really small teams, and that was such a blast that that's where I knew I wanted to focus when I opened up my own boutique firm. So my goal is not to go toe-to-toe with Insider Ronstadt. Those are not my competitors. My competitors are fellow boutique agencies and my goal is actually not necessarily to grow.

Julia Arpag:

I think once I get to between 1 and 3 million ARR, I'd be really surprised if I decided to grow past that. That is a very, very sweet spot for me where I want to work with a handful of clients where I personally am directly involved in sales and delivery. I really enjoy being able to do the work I do. So I pride myself on really understanding my niche, which is small B2B SaaS startups, and serving them with white glove service, where you're not just one of thousands of clients that a huge firm has, you're one of a very small handful and you're getting to interact directly with the CEO and founder. Me Understood.

Pete Newsome:

Now, that's limiting, right. You can only be in so many places at any given time, do you? Uh? Do you not think at some point you'd want to be able to replicate yourself somehow, even though?

Julia Arpag:

that's, oh, my gosh P I would love to replicate myself. Who do you know? That's as intense as I am. Send them to me, please.

Pete Newsome:

I mean that's that's such a hard decision, and it'll be. I'll look forward to following your. When I started by myself, I didn't anticipate that I would have a difficult time replicating myself. Quite frankly, I thought because, sales, I think if you're good at it, it seems very natural you take some of the things you do for granted. You expect that others should be able to do it.

Julia Arpag:

But then you find out that is so relatable. It's been shocking to me that things I assume are like base level competencies people don't have.

Pete Newsome:

No, why do you think that is?

Julia Arpag:

Pete, we're the cream of the crop, I guess based on this conversation. No, you tell me, because you've been running your business for 20 years. How have you found those absolute rock star A player, pete times 10 people? Where are they? Do you have them on your team?

Pete Newsome:

No, we well, I, I, we have a few, but that has been our limiter Um, and no question about it. That's why I turned to marketing. Uh, six years ago, uh, for the first 13 years I was in business, we did no marketing whatsoever. Our website was five pages. I would say stupid things in hindsight, like what are you supposed to put on a staffing company website Like you have? You need people. We find people like how many?

Pete Newsome:

pages does it take? Here's how to contact us Now. Our website is tens of thousands of pages and we have a ridiculous amount of content on there. We've invested heavily time, effort, dollars into it so we can attract inbound business and have those opportunities come to us. I mean so.

Pete Newsome:

I only turned to that, out of frustration and almost a concession, quite frankly, that I couldn't figure out how to scale a sales organization right, even though on the surface it seems like it should be relatively easy. But I have to acknowledge that sales is anything but easy.

Julia Arpag:

It is. It is and my goal. Honestly, I'm very content being a founder-led sales organization, but I think what's been surprising for me is that I've only hired one recruiter. She was amazing. She was with us for a year and then left for another opportunity, but now her current company is our client, so it all worked out. But I've only had one recruiter that I was delighted with. Everyone else I've had performance issues. Either they've left or I've had to let them go.

Julia Arpag:

I cannot, for the life of me, find a kick-ass A-player, rock star recruiter. So what I've done is I'll do splits, like other recruitment agency owners I know. If they have a lower desk, I'll bring them in to work on my recs. I've talked to several other solopreneur-ish type recruiters who have done that and been very successful with that. So I do have a couple of those agreements, which has been very effective because they are similar to us, because they're fellow agency owners. But that's obviously not a great long-term model. I really would like to build out better internal capacity. So I'm on the hunt.

Julia Arpag:

I will say my executive coach, diane Prince. She's a total genius. She and I were on a coaching call yesterday and her recommendation is that you actually hire people who are doing the job that you're recruiting for. So right now we have a ton of tech sales director roles on our desk. So I'm actually chatting with a couple tech sales reps this week and next week to see if they could be a good fit to come on board as a 360 recruiter for me, where they're recruiting people who are basically them and they're selling our services at Aligned. So that's something I'm trialing. I'll let you know how it goes.

Pete Newsome:

Yeah, that's interesting. Good luck. Have you ever heard of or read a book called the E-Myth? No, so I recommend it. It's basically the premise is that most people who start a business aren't entrepreneurs we talked about that a little bit ago but they're technicians. They're someone who felt that they did something really, really well. They were a top performer, wherever they came from. Does that sound familiar? And they thought I can go and do this on my own. I don't need to do this for someone else. And they do. And then they realize that they're not running a business as much as they are the business. Now you seem like you're content with that, at least for now. I'll check back with you in five years to see if my tune has changed, which it might.

Julia Arpag:

When I started the business, hear me say I wanted to scale it to eight figures. This is a new realization where I'm like wait the things I value more than anything else. I value flexibility and freedom over revenue, so my focus is on. So I work 30, 35 hours a week. I'm not driving myself into the ground I have two young kids.

Julia Arpag:

I have a marriage that I want to continue to invest in and not burn to the ground either, so that is such a priority for me that that's why I have no hesitation about prioritizing those relationships over setting a lofty revenue goal. So, all that being said, yes, I'm very open to my priority shifting as my kids get older and as my life changes. Anyway, keep going with the E-Myth.

Pete Newsome:

Yeah, I mean, for me it was as much as anything. I didn't want to. You could sell indefinitely, right? I wanted to evolve. I wanted to run a business eventually and help others have success and grow and scale. So that was my intention. But you can't do that if you are the business, and so the whole book is basically. I recommend reading it. I think you'd enjoy it. It's about how you just most of us who start a company have a very difficult time getting out of the way.

Julia Arpag:

A hundred percent, because we do unfairly hold our team to the same standard that we hold ourselves to, and that's. I recognize that that's not fair, which is why I'm I'm debating do I just let that go and and really continue to simply be a founder led company? Or, to your point, do I eventually evolve and become more of an entrepreneur and less of a technician? So, like you said, well, well, let's have a yearly check-in. We're both leaning towards that.

Julia Arpag:

I'm reading 10X is easier than 2X right now, and that has a similar flavor where it's like you could 2X your business but you can't 10X it if you're going to be involved in every deal and every client and every delivery model and all that kind of stuff. So I totally hear what you're saying.

Pete Newsome:

It is so much easier said than done, but here is one piece of advice I'll give you unsolicited. You're not asking for it, it's just trust your instinct on this. One of the mistakes that I made was hiring a consultant who I thought knew better and had us change a lot of the just fundamental things, just core beliefs that I had in terms of what it takes to succeed and what expectations should be on employees. We evolved, we downgraded. Basically, we were really intense at the beginning.

Pete Newsome:

So I started with Aerotech in the early years and if you know anything about that company now the Allegiant Group, tech Systems and IT it was all under the Aerotech brand Very intense.

Julia Arpag:

Yeah, I've heard a lot about them.

Pete Newsome:

Back in the early days, you'll get a kick out of this. My first interview question I was a senior in college. The guy who interviewed me said we work eight to eight Monday through Thursday, eight to five on Friday. Should we continue? And I was like well, I got a poli-sci degree, a two point something GPA and 20 bucks in the bank. Yeah, let's go.

Julia Arpag:

That is hysterical. Good for them, though. They're like right out the gate.

Pete Newsome:

This is who we are Get in or get out. I actually love that. Turnover was ridiculous and they fully accepted it. I was one of 30 that started in my class. They were hiring, you know, growing like a weed at the time and I think by the time I got promoted from recruiter to sales, that was the carrot that they dangled right. Work really hard and figured out and you can get promoted to the sales role. It took me about seven or eight months to get promoted and I think there were only nine people left from the 30 after that, so huge turnover.

Pete Newsome:

But you know what they they? They held true for at least many, many years to their core beliefs, which is we're going to outwork everyone, we, we, we're in a commoditized industry in many cases Not that they said that back then, but I think that was the premise. That's what was going on. Yeah, we're going to outwork everyone. And then people say, well, work smarter. Well, they're going to work smarter too. So now who's going to win? Yeah, right, I'm working smarter and I'm going to work 20 more hours than you every week. Yeah, I'm going to find more candidates, I'm going to produce faster all the above. And so I have a lot of respect for that, and it was a great thing for me to establish that work ethic early on in my professional life, and I tried to carry that forward with Four Corner and ultimately I was told-.

Julia Arpag:

So when you hired that consultant, what shifted? What did they recommend? That didn't resonate with you?

Pete Newsome:

So we'd already dumbed down our hour. We worked those kind of hours early, but this was at a time where this was 2014. And there was this whole movement of be more like Google, right, have toys in the office and make office fun. And you'd see, like you know, kegs in the office. That was like stuff, all like celebrated on LinkedIn. You know people doing as much stuff that had nothing to do with work as they did with work, and that's just. I don't believe in that. So I believe in let's work really hard and earn, you know the the right to enjoy our time when we're not working, right, but I didn't. I don't like. This is a long story I won't bore you with, but when I was at Aerotech, you were expected to spend time outside of the office with them. So it wasn't just work until eight, it was work until eight, and then let's go to happy hour for two hours.

Julia Arpag:

Oh my gosh, it's not happy hour, that's bedtime.

Pete Newsome:

It's crazy Right In hindsight, but I was single and they would hire all these young people right out of college and that was so smart. It was at a time you could do it, but I didn't want to do it indefinitely. No one did. So the consultant was basically like Pete, you can't operate that way. You have to be more like Google. I'm like Google is Google. I don't have the brand you don't have the brand recognition.

Pete Newsome:

None of us are Google, so you can't just copy and paste Google but I bought into it to some degree and I, we changed and we, we, we started letting things go that we never would have and our culture shifted in a, in a, in a way that, um, I wish I'd never done it. So, um, we, we've recovered from that.

Julia Arpag:

That was a long time ago now, but, um, and now are you back to the eight to eight schedule.

Pete Newsome:

No, we never were that here. No, it was. But early days, we, we. I would say, hey, look, anyone I recruited internally. I would say you have to be willing to work until at least seven every night. We won't, but don't come here unless you're willing to do that, because I never wanted to have to apologize for someone staying late.

Pete Newsome:

The nature of our businesses sometimes we do have to work extra hours, right. But I always wanted the organization to be more flexible, where, if you get everything done, go ahead and leave early. Go do the stuff in your personal life that you need to do, but be willing to put your foot on the gas, and so that's kind of where we are today. But look, I mean we're a 40-hour week by default now. It drives me crazy, I'll admit it.

Julia Arpag:

You know I don't work for it, but that's good that you know that. I love that you know that about yourself. It sounds like both you and I really have leaned into what matters to us. How are we going to measure success, and not taking someone else's barometer to dictate what that looks like for our business. So I love that you've had that awareness. That's awesome. Well, I lost it for a while.

Pete Newsome:

So that's where that's so you've recovered it.

Julia Arpag:

Let's say, you've recovered that awareness, which is amazing.

Pete Newsome:

And to your point about family, I mean I always look, I have four kids. I coached every sport, I've never missed a game, I didn't miss practices. But then I was also willing to go back and jump online at night, at nine o'clock if I needed to, to do a couple hours. So that's what I've always wanted was for myself and others is to do what you need to do Like take, don't make me look over your shoulder, don't make me worry about hours that you're working.

Julia Arpag:

Maximize the opportunity.

Pete Newsome:

That's so much easier said than done.

Julia Arpag:

But yeah, yeah, there's this book I read years ago about a results-based work environment and I've never forgotten that, like I truly couldn't care less about how many hours I or someone on my team works, as long as you're getting done. What you need to get done and that, I think, has been what's hard for me to adjust to is that I think a lot of employees do think in terms of hours. They don't think in terms of results. So that's what's tough, because, yeah, I don't care how many hours you work at all, but these are the KPIs that I need you to hit. These are the places I need to make sure all your recs are in before you log off for the day, and if they're there at noon like, okay, bye, go have like a I don't know, go to the spa, I don't care.

Julia Arpag:

But, if you're not there, then like you can't log out, like I'm totally with you, pete. Yeah, if I could just get everyone to have the same expectations for themselves, we'd be golden, do you remember the name of the book. Shoot Results. The acronym was R-O-W-E. Oh Results Only Work Environment. That was it.

Pete Newsome:

Okay, I love it. Yeah, look into it. So you're never going to get people to think like you. We know that.

Julia Arpag:

No right, which is I'm in the process of letting that go. I'm in that journey.

Pete Newsome:

But once you establish your standard. I mean my mistake was letting others influence that and in hindsight I never should have.

Julia Arpag:

I should say wait this is working.

Pete Newsome:

This is what we grew 45% in the year I hired this consultant. This is what we grew 45% in the year I hired this consultant 45% and we were already over. Yeah, I think we were like a $10 or $12 million company going into that year and so things were working great and we derailed it all. So hopefully that doesn't happen, but it sounds like you are. I love where you are with this. You're in a, you're energy.

Julia Arpag:

I have a lot of clarity on what I want out of the business. That's been. That's been really helpful for me. And what's cool is so I have the executive coach and then I have several entrepreneur friends and we all value cause. There's a billion different ways to be an entrepreneur. We're all in about the same life stage and we're all in about the same. Like we all have about the same interest. Like they're all million ish dollar businesses. They're all parents with young kids who want to be super present. All of us are like they're about to leave and go live in Greece for a year. Uh, we're thinking about doing a digital nomad year where we homeschool our kids. My husband and I both work remotely, so like we're all kind of in that same. Like we aggressively value flexibility and autonomy and then we the money like undergirds our lifestyle and that's it. Like that, that's what it it it. It functions to serve us, not we serve money. That's the thinking.

Pete Newsome:

Yeah, Money to me is options, right, I mean you need to have more options. If you don't, is you know? When I was broke, I had no options.

Julia Arpag:

It's so true. It's so true. I grew up as one of seven kids, so I never really understood that, because we just didn't have a lot and that was fine. Like we were like, whatever our vacations are camping in, like a busted up camper, Like, and I was like this is so fun. Like my siblings were and still are my best friends. And then I married my husband. He was like the bougiest man who's ever lived. He was raised as one of two kids by an anesthesiologist and a software engineer, so we could not have grown up more differently. So we get married and he's like all right, we're going to go out to eat five nights or five nights a week. And I was like what is happening? Like where am I? So, yes, I didn't even realize the options that exist when you have money until I became an adult. So I totally hear that.

Pete Newsome:

Well, I hope you do that digital nomad year. We talked about doing it when my oldest who's now 25, was in her eighth grade year. So we thought once she gets into high school it won't be practical to do. And I was obsessed with it for months and we ended up not doing it for all the reasons that anyone would be held back from not doing it, which are all BS reasons. Can I ask what? What were the reasons that anyone would be held back from not doing it?

Julia Arpag:

which are all BS reasons. Can I ask what? What were the reasons you didn't do it? Just you know just it's.

Pete Newsome:

There was not even one specific reason, it was just a complexity of it, or I you know fear.

Julia Arpag:

Yeah, it is because there's a lot of details to think through.

Pete Newsome:

Fear, just like starting a business. The world doesn't encourage you to do that right. You'll find select few people who will, but it's just. It seems like it's not what you're supposed to do, right. It's odd, it's unusual. It's not as unusual as it was 10 years ago. It's becoming more common. But I will always regret it because it's time you can never get back right, I know, hey, could you go now? Credit, um, because it's time you can never get back Right. And could you go now? Uh, I well so.

Julia Arpag:

I'm in a different situation now.

Pete Newsome:

My youngest is now going to be a senior in high school next year. Oh my gosh, unfortunately my kids are. You know they're, they're all off doing.

Julia Arpag:

Yeah, they won't go with you, but you could go, adults only. I don't know.

Pete Newsome:

No, a hundred percent. We're we're planning to kind of go live in different cities for a month at a time Um, beginning next September, and, you know, go somewhere for a month, come back here.

Julia Arpag:

Um, you're doing it.

Pete Newsome:

I love that We'll get there, but but to do it with my kids, uh, to do it when they were young, we always made time for a great vacation, so I don't have any regrets there, Um, but and and spent more than I should have.

Julia Arpag:

I get it. I get it.

Pete Newsome:

Yeah, yeah. But we did all the things that I didn't do. That stuff growing up either, and that was one of my life motivations and starting a business was I wanted to be able to, you know, take the ski trips and and to to go, you know wherever we wanted to go, and we did it, and again I overspent and it was fiscally irresponsible but zero regrets on doing that.

Julia Arpag:

So I really hope you do it, man.

Pete Newsome:

I'm going to be super envious.

Julia Arpag:

No, I know right, maybe I won't tell you if we do it, because you'll be sad.

Julia Arpag:

If something tells me you won't be able to keep that quiet socially, I know, you know me, I'll post about it like every day on LinkedIn for the year that we do it. Yeah, we know me. I'll post about it like every day on LinkedIn for the year that we do it. Yeah, we're in talks right now about putting up our house on furnished finders where you can get people to rent it long-term, and then we would just stay in furnished finders around the country. My brother's doing that right now in Hawaii. He and his girlfriend have been there for six months and they're living their best life, so we're excited.

Pete Newsome:

Very cool. Well, there's another staffing company owner, a friend of mine named Patrick Surmeyer. He did it a couple of years ago and traveled around. So if you ever want to connect with Patrick, I'm happy to introduce you.

Julia Arpag:

I've talked to people that have done it without kids, but not someone who's done it with young kids, so if he did it with young kids, I would love to talk to him.

Pete Newsome:

He did too, two kids so great, great, same life. Let's. It was a lot of fun to watch their journey, so I hope you do it Well cool, all right, so I can keep you all day.

Julia Arpag:

We're actually recording, which I kind of forgot.

Pete Newsome:

We're just chatting.

Julia Arpag:

We're just two business owners and parents and just living our lives.

Pete Newsome:

About differentiation, I mean. So how you differentiate yourself is very clear to me. Which is you? You are the differentiator. Which is you? You are the differentiator. And unfortunately for us, if you want to scale you can't replicate yourself.

Julia Arpag:

It's impossible. That's why I love AI because I can replicate my work while still having me be like the personal brand. So that's where my strategy is right now.

Pete Newsome:

Absolutely Well. It's great that you're succeeding. It's not a surprise to me after spending time now getting to know you a little bit and why you're succeeding. But I also know that that's rare, that someone who has not only the potential from a personality standpoint but a willingness to put themselves out there like you're doing and it may be a little scary at first. But any advice to people who are just held back from doing that I mean many are, oh, that's a good question.

Julia Arpag:

Yeah, it's funny. I talk to a lot of people who are held back and I think, like you just said, it's fear. It's fear of the unknown, it's fear of the instability. So I honestly think you have to shift your thinking, like I did. You have to understand having a W-2 job is actually less stable than being an entrepreneur and you have to undergird your work with discipline. Like, hear me say, if you're not, if you can have a super bubbly personality but you're not disciplined, don't bother. You'll go broke in like 10 minutes, like don't, don't, don't, do it. But I think if you have the combination of you're confident, you're disciplined and you're willing to learn, then there's no reason you shouldn't do it and you will actually be very successful if you have those three qualities. My favorite quote is if you refuse to learn, no one can help you. If you're determined to learn, no one can stop you.

Pete Newsome:

I love it. What a perfect quote. What a perfect way to end. So that is we can't top that. We can't top that, we'll leave it there. It is a thousand percent accurate. So, julia, thank you, this has been a lot of fun. I really am glad that we were able to do this today. Headphones and all.

Julia Arpag:

So, yes, me too, pete, thank you for having me. Yes, me too, pete, thank you for having me. I really loved it.

Pete Newsome:

All right, we'll check in next year and see where you are then.

Julia Arpag:

Yes, let's do it.

Pete Newsome:

All right Thanks.

Julia Arpag:

Thank you.