3. Dixie Agostino - Switchgear Search and Recruiting

Dixie Agostino:

Who do we want to be when we grow up? What is our message? What's our ideal client? What are their problems? What are we messing up? What did we learn? What can we do better? What are we really good at? We're always investing in our people and making sure that we're getting the right people and that there's a growth plan for them.

What we're trying to get is ... Everyone is on the same page about what's expected when, so that they can win and they don't have to stress.

Robert Wagner:

From HoganTaylor CPAs and Advisors, I'm Robert Wagner. This is How that Happened, a business and innovation success podcast. Each episode of the show, we sit down with the business and community leaders behind thriving organizations to learn how business and innovation success actually happens.

Robert Wagner:

Well, today, we're going to talk about human capital and about the people in our business. If you go to any website for a company, there's a prominent discussion in that website about people and how people are our most important asset. We couldn't do without our great people within. For those of us who work with companies all the time, the truth is, most companies really struggle with their recruiting process, their hiring process, it's often very haphazard, and it's not very well organized.

Robert Wagner:

We're going to talk about that today. We're going to talk about the humans in our business. We've got a great guest for us today, who has a recruiting agency, and is a dynamic thought leader in the industry. Her name is Dixie Agostino. She's the owner and founder of Switchgear recruiting, a Tulsa based talent recruiting firm. Dixie, welcome to the podcast.

Dixie Agostino:

Thanks for having me. I'm jazzed.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. Excited to have you here. Really looking forward to our discussion today. Dixie, we want to talk about the recruiting industry, the recruiting business, and that process, and innovations that are going on in the recruiting industry. But before we go there, tell us about Switchgear and what they do today, and what markets they're serving.

Dixie Agostino:

We predominantly focus on the Tulsa area. We service the five-state area. But what we do is we specialize in a process called outcome-based hiring. We narrow the field down not based on specific keywords, like traditional recruiting firms use. But we're after as people who can get the job done. That may not have the same background or skill set as the person who's in the role before.

Dixie Agostino:

But what the company is always paying for is the results and the outcomes. Your degree, your skills, or your resume, your resume doesn't come into work and do the job, you come into work and do the job. We're trying to find the best person who can do the job and get what needs to be done, done. If the company is going to pay wage for a job to be done, we want to make sure that we get the person who can do it the most effectively.

Robert Wagner:

Sure. Okay. You talked a little bit about just in your opening there about the resume doesn't always reflect maybe who this person is. Let's talk about your own resume for a second. You have a degree in marketing. You started, I think, at a local trucking company ...

Dixie Agostino:

Yeah.

Robert Wagner:

... not doing recruiting. Take us back to early Dixie career and take us through how you evolved into being a recruiter.

Dixie Agostino:

I got a job at a temp company filing papers for a trucking company. After a while filing, I said, "Do you want to have a job here?" "Sure." Then I was in their safety department and recruiting department, but just puttering around and saying, "Hey, is anyone working on this? Is anyone working on our subrogation and collection?" "No." "Okay. Well, I'll do it. I've got time."

Dixie Agostino:

Then I managed to bring in like $100,000. They were like, "Here, you can do these other projects." Then I got shifted over to operations and ended up running a fleet of 150. Also was put on weekend shift running the entire fleet of 1,200 drivers. I never ... I got to the point where I realized I needed to transition careers. I wasn't happy. I thought, "Well, what on earth am I going to do?"

Dixie Agostino:

What I'm good at is basically yelling at truck drivers, getting people to do what is in their best interest, their family's best interest, but for whatever reason, they are uncomfortable and doing it right now. I was chatting with one of my friends and like, "What on earth am I going to do with myself?"

Dixie Agostino:

He was like, "You should just do my job. You should be a recruiter." He was moving out of state and bam. That was how I switched.

Robert Wagner:

Okay. Wow. All right. At that point, you're working for a recruiting company, right?

Dixie Agostino:

When I was at Melton, I didn't do any other recruiting.

Robert Wagner:

Okay.

Dixie Agostino:

Then I got an opportunity to apply for Express's executive search firm, search division. It took me about six months to get through their process of getting that job and hunting the manager down like a dog to let her know that I was very interested and came on and made my first placement within two or three weeks. Me and another girl didn't really know what could be done. Didn't know, if we're doing good or not.

Dixie Agostino:

Turns out, we were doing really good. We ended up getting the number one and number two recruiters within 600 offices.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah.

Dixie Agostino:

Surprise. Oops.

Robert Wagner:

Right. Yeah. Express is a very large place. It's a very large agency, I think it's nationwide. I'd seen that in your resume where you had become, at least for a period of time, the number one or number two recruiter at the agency. That's fantastic. That was obviously a great start. What was driving early success, I guess?

Dixie Agostino:

I think it was not knowing what didn't work and what didn't work. We just tried everything. A lot of people were afraid at the time to pick up the phone and call. Well, we didn't have a database. We were doing a lot of engineering recruitment. Going to meet with engineers, getting involved in all of the engineering organizations, picking up the phone and cold calling directly people at work, where other recruiters would send an email or this is when LinkedIn was just getting started.

Dixie Agostino:

Try to connect on LinkedIn. Well, all of that takes time to establish rapport and trust and or it goes nowhere. You pick up the phone, and, "Hey, this is a weird call. But I'm really interested in your background. I wanted to know what your dream job would be. If this is it, and if it's not, what would it need to look like to be your dream job? People will get to talking?

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. Yeah. You did that. Then in 2011, I think is when you started Switchgear. What drove you to do that? Are you an entrepreneur at heart? Was that always the plan? What pushed you to take that step, which is a really big step?

Dixie Agostino:

If my entrepreneur, you mean, rebellious person who doesn't like to be told what to do and wants to do it her own way? Then yes. But actually, my ... The trigger was really ... the catalyst was my daughter. After I had my daughter, I was at work and just realized, I feel like I need to have some mental health days, a lot of them. I probably shouldn't be here.

Dixie Agostino:

If I'm going to be away from her for 9 to 10 hours a day, this has got to be worth my while. I felt pretty on my own. I didn't feel I had a whole lot of support where I was, and had been very wise with my money over the years and blessed to come from a family that had trained me in financial literacy, which you just get lucky. I had the resources to take the drive.

Dixie Agostino:

I basically had a year's worth. I had a year's worth of income saved. I decided I'll take six months. If I can't do something, if I don't make a sale in six months, because my first placement at Expressive and after two or three weeks, six months should surely be enough time. Then if I don't, then I'll quit. It took me five months and one week. It was so frustrating.

Robert Wagner:

Not that you were counting.

Dixie Agostino:

I was counting the days. Yes. Then from there, it really snowballed very quickly.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. It's interesting. I want to get into. You start a business in 2011. That's a human capital business. It's reliant on growth of the economy on movement in the economy, not a great time to start the business.

Dixie Agostino:

Yeah. Right.

Robert Wagner:

Right. You were ...

Dixie Agostino:

Just had the stock market crash.

Robert Wagner:

We're hungover from the Great Recession. But of course, your timing was based on a personal life event, right?

Dixie Agostino:

Yeah.

Robert Wagner:

It wasn't based on that. But what was it like starting during that time? That was ... Those were still tough economic times in our country.

Dixie Agostino:

It was. But really what I've been trying to focus on is getting clarity as to what the job requires is you can say, "Hey, company, for every dollar you put into payroll, you're going to get 3, 4, 5, or 10 more. It's a solid investment." A lot of times the challenge, especially during economic downturns, was you're paying this person 80, this person 50, this person 60. But I can find you someone for 95 who can do all three jobs. That is going to cut your costs.

Dixie Agostino:

Sorry for the other three who may end up being reassigned, but it helped clean a lot of organizations that needed it.

Robert Wagner:

Right. In the recruiting industry, or in the recruiting business, you have to customers, just a little bit unique. Talk about serving ... You got to serve your business customers and helping them find talent. But you've also got this other customer out there, which is the talent, and you're trying to make connections and serve both. Talk about.

Robert Wagner:

That's not completely unique in business. But most businesses aren't structured where they've got to serve these two masters.

Dixie Agostino:

I know, yeah. If you're selling a car, it's not like your car can ... the car you just sold is absolutely not. I don't want to have this owner. A lot of recruiting firms say, "Oh, well, 95% of our offers are accepted." Ours are not because we're not targeting a segment of the population is actively looking. We're targeting people who are currently high performing professionals who are open to change.

Dixie Agostino:

But that does not mean that they are going to leap for everything. Yeah. It's really digging down from the very first conversation on both the client side and the potential candidate side as to what they're looking for, and then pulling the plug if that's not going to make a match. But you'd be surprised how many times a candidate's like, "I have to have this."

Dixie Agostino:

Let's just throw out numbers. I have to have 100. Then a client will say, "Well, I'll give you 90." It's like, "Well, why are we having this conversation?" Then having to get really real with a client about from day one, we said 100, and if you never intended on 100, you shouldn't have fallen in love here, because ... Yeah.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. I'd be remiss if I did ask a question about the name, the Switchgear name, where did that come from?

Dixie Agostino:

My husband and I were driving to Oklahoma City before ... when I was thinking about starting my own business. I was thinking about creating a place that would create a positive impact for the people who worked there, help them be better people, and but also the candidates and the companies. Our clients would have more effective people in their role.

Dixie Agostino:

They'd be getting a bigger bang for their buck, so that they'd be more profitable, and have more resources to invest in the community. That the candidates themselves would have less stress so that they could give more energy back to their families and communities, and maybe have more income. Sometimes people take a pay cut to have a better life, but also be able to train and develop our staff, and increase their incomes so that they could be in a better spot.

Dixie Agostino:

I wanted a different model than the one I was working under and the one that I'd seen, which was very geared towards doing X number of tasks on a daily basis, which doing 100 of something may not be effective as doing 10 really authentic deep dives. Just trying to meet 100 people is stupid if it's not the right people.

Dixie Agostino:

Anyway, we're driving down the highway, and I'm super jazzed. I'm just like talking, talking. My husband's like, "Switch gears." I had been driving on the highway in fourth, and the engine was just raring. When I put it in fifth, you can feel the motor relax. I was like, "That's what it feels like when you have the right people in the right places on your team, and that's what I want."

Robert Wagner:

Okay. That's a great story. I want to go off on something you said there about people sometimes taking a pay cut to get a job. I'm always as an employer as a hire, I'm always leery of that. I feel sometimes people say they want to do that, or maybe they've been looking for a while and so they take a step down.

Robert Wagner:

But it's just always seems risky to me, because they feel like, "Well, I was once making X and now I'm making X minus." I don't know. My experience is that doesn't work out very often. What's your experience with that?

Dixie Agostino:

A lot of times, when you're looking at it really from a time for money lens, people might be making X dollars, but they're putting in so much time that their per hour rate is dramatically decreased. When they look at something where they're going to instead of working 60, 75, 80 hours a week, they're going to work 40, 45, 50 for close to the same money or even not, even a lot less. That they're like, "I won't have the stress. I won't have the burden. I will actually get to go to my kid's soccer game."

Dixie Agostino:

In fact, we had one very specific case. It was an engineer. He hadn't had a weekend off in a year. He hadn't had ... I think he had only gotten one Sunday off. He had three daughters. They all played sports. He didn't go to any of their stuff because he was just working all the time. It was getting to the point where his wife is going to leave him.

Dixie Agostino:

We found him a job. It was probably a $5,000 or $10,000 pay cut. But it was a 45-hour week. In fact, he got to leave early on Fridays. When you think about what's the cost of divorce, what's the cost of your kids being mad at you and then not thinking you were there when they were growing up? That $5,000 or $10,000 was nothing.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. You mentioned you have that story where someone's really willing to trade some money for some time in your own personal experience. You made a change in your life because you've got this new human in your life, a daughter. This is, again, from an employer standpoint, this is a really big trend where people are wanting "The work-life balance," but they're really serious about it.

Robert Wagner:

They want to be stuck ... or not stuck. They want to be in that 45-hour week or less on a consistent basis. What do employers need to be doing about that? I feel we're still behind trying to adapt to these requirements, or these requests that we're getting for more flexibility, more ability to work around life and life's issues.

Dixie Agostino:

In the very beginning of my career. I was in situations where it's very much your butt needs to be in this seat from this time and kind of like a factory situation. You have to be available to take calls and you're doing this work in this seat in this time. That's not the way it works in my industry now, because we're answering emails and calls and messages from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Dixie Agostino:

It doesn't make sense to say, "Hey, I need you in the office from 8:00 to 5:00 with a break from noon to 1:00 for your lunch." Because my team, now that we have really clear outcomes like, "This is what I need you to do on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis." They can get that done in the timeframe that fits them. They know on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis if they're getting an A for their job or getting a B, or if they're in trouble.

Dixie Agostino:

When we were able to set really clear outcomes, we didn't care what time. I mean, you need to come in by 8:30, because we have an all hands meeting. Other than that, do what you got to do. Because we're going to know on Friday if you got your work done, as opposed to what it was when we were actually just getting started. I was trying to be very flexible. My original thought was we're going to have unlimited PTO.

Dixie Agostino:

But it ended up being ... Since we didn't have these clear performance outcomes and tracking, because I can literally see on my phone at any given time what someone's doing, we were not getting the same outcomes.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. From an employer standpoint, defining outcomes is a big part of this solution, sounds like, where we can really measure people by the results that we're trying to get versus the time that they're spinning in the seat.

Dixie Agostino:

Yeah. Because when you're thinking about a lean organization and efficiency, and people doing several people's jobs at once, you can't necessarily judge that by time and seat because you could have somebody who can knock that project out in 10 hours, and you can have someone else who's going to take 25. Let's hire the person who's going to take 10 hours to knock out the project, pay him a little more and not worry so much about how much time they spend at their desk.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. Let's go back to Switchgear as a business. 2011 was eight years ago now. Any near death experiences?

Dixie Agostino:

Yes, very much. So many. Not. We've had two really serious things. One of the things I was always taught was to be diversified in our client base. Every year I would analyze our clients and make sure that we weren't too reliant on one or a handful, in case anything happened. Well, what I did not realize is that 80% of our client base was dependent on the price of oil and gas.

Dixie Agostino:

Even though they were service related, or manufacturing, or midstream, upstream, downstream, it still all came from the same price. When the price plummeted, we lost 80% of our clients in a day. Then to rebuild from that was ... That was right after I had hired five new people and expanded offices into Houston, Oklahoma City.

Dixie Agostino:

I don't ... God, $200,000 into new offices and payroll and expansion and then it was this desert, a sales desert, tumbleweeds.

Robert Wagner:

In this part of the country, that happens. We're often dependent on the price of oil, and it does change very fast. That doesn't surprise me that that's the connection. Again, just thinking about the industry, it's a very crowded industry. There's a lot of people who hang out their shingle as recruiters and build large and small companies doing it.

Robert Wagner:

We touched on this a little bit, maybe to go a little further into how you've distinguished yourself. Why people work with Switchgear?

Dixie Agostino:

Predominantly, when people think of recruiting companies they think of staffing companies. I need someone on a temp to hire a temporary basis. We do very little of that. What we tend to ... The companies that we tend to work with are ones that have said, "We've tried to fill this position on our own for some time. It's critical and we can't afford to make a mistake, or we've made a couple of mistakes, and we definitely don't want to mess with that again. We have to get a win."

Dixie Agostino:

That's when we come in. Because when we're taking the time to really layout, "What do you need this job to do? How many new accounts do they need to bring in? How many drawings they need to complete in a day, or what is the measurable outcomes? That when you have this person come on at 30 days, what should they have accomplished in 30 days, 90 days, 6 months?"

Dixie Agostino:

As we're not only trying to fill this position, but we're helping the client basically build their onboarding schedule. There's clarity on both sides. I think ambiguity is where everyone gets ... It's like my enemy, I guess. What we're trying to get is ... Everyone is on the same page about what's expected when so that they can win, and they don't have to stress.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. When you're talking with clients, the business about, "Hey, this is what needs to happen." What do you want to have happened in 30 days, 60 days? Do they look at you like, "What are you talking about?"

Dixie Agostino:

Crazy people? Yes.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah.

Dixie Agostino:

In fact, we have had a lot of people say, "Well, I'll just know when I see it. I'll know when I see the right person." I like, "That is a terrible idea." Because I've done that and that was one of our near death experiences.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. That takes time. As I said in the opening, we talk all the time about how important our people are. But even myself, I want to rush this process. I want to go over now when I have this person, can they start tomorrow? Or maybe this afternoon would be great.

Dixie Agostino:

Right.

Robert Wagner:

You talked about when you went to Express it took six months to get through their process. They're obviously very serious about their hiring process. Why don't we do that? I mean, why do we rush such an important thing? How do you get people to slow down and do it right?

Dixie Agostino:

Well, what happens is you've got somebody who's doing an acceptable to good job leaves, and we didn't see that coming. Well, you probably should have seen that coming, or you should have been having conversations about are you happy, and et cetera. Now that it happened, it's happened, they leave in two weeks. It's a mad rush to get everyone to cover their job. Most of the time, it seems that job falls on the boss.

Dixie Agostino:

Now the boss has another job, because now they have to backfill the role, they have to do the role, and then they have to do their own job. They also have the fourth job of managing the team, because the team has been shook. It's just too much. What we're trying to do is eliminate ... is if we can have one or two hours of thinking time upfront, then we can save a lot of wasted time in crap interviews, or hiring someone that's not the right fit.

Dixie Agostino:

It looks like we're taking too much time. But what we're trying to do is just be very efficient in time usage. Because wouldn't it be much more fun to interview 3 people rather than 15? An interviewer those three people, two or three times to really get to know them so you know when you lay the offer letter down, it is 100% the right person?

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. Yeah. I just want to follow through with that. What are you doing in the second interview and the third interview to go deeper with that person? What kinds of questions or conversations are you having?

Dixie Agostino:

When we're working for a client, we're oftentimes getting a referral. We've already have some background. Then we're talking to the candidate from a very neutral place, just tell us about yourself, tell us what you're looking for where dreams are, but also what are your wins? Okay. If these are the accomplishments you're most proud of, who can verify them for us?

Dixie Agostino:

Then we're talking to all the people that can verify. We're not just taking the candidate's word on it. We're taking all these referrals word for it to make sure that we're delivering a person who can get it done. When it comes to our internal process, which is super long, or spits pretty tough, we have a very set process as well, because what happened ... I'm going to sorry, take a little tangent here.

Dixie Agostino:

But after we had grown so exponentially, and then the bottom fell out of the oil and gas market, I had 15 people on my staff that I was almost direct ... I was managing almost all of them directly, which is a terrible idea. Maybe 5 or 7 I can handle. I can't handle 15. We were four or five years in and I was exhausted because I had another daughter too, two kids and this business it's booming and I'm freaking out because I'm not an excellent lay structured manager at this time.

Dixie Agostino:

I'm probably still not. But so I did. I called a girlfriend of mine out of Arizona, and I said, "Things are not good. I'm going to have to make cuts and the bottom has fallen out of our market. Get here now." "Fine, I'll fly in tomorrow." We sat down and we spent 24 hours and we barely slept. We worked on cash flow and client projections, and what markets to target, but we also cut our staff almost in half.

Dixie Agostino:

Then she walked me through this hiring process that has been something that ... I'd read the book, it's from a book called Who from Geoff Smart. I knew that this was a fantastic resource. You can go on to his website. He's got smart tools, and you can download all this stuff. It's really neat. I knew about it. I'd used an abbreviated form. We always had with our clients that I had gotten crappy and decided that I knew what I was doing and I was going to go with my gut.

Dixie Agostino:

Here, I'd hired about a 50-50 success rate, which is 100 years worth of data from the world's best hiring, the world's authority on hiring Geoff and his dad who wrote Topgrading have said, "If you don't have a process in place, you got a 50-50 shot." Claudia and I, my girlfriend from Arizona, put together our clear outcomes, and we built a performance management system in an Excel spreadsheet.

Dixie Agostino:

You just enter the data every month, and then it's either green or red, and you're good to go or you're not. Putting in monthly performance meetings, instead of yearly reviews. Everyone hates yearly reviews. Let's just knock it out every month so we all know where we stand. Then having this set structure where the same person asks the same questions, and it's all very systematized.

Dixie Agostino:

The candidates know exactly what to expect. The only variable is the candidate. We went from having a 50-50 hiring success rate internally, because we got busy and we let things slide to having a 95% success rate. We haven't had anyone leave to go to another agency in years. The only time that people are leaving is to get dramatically higher career step type roles. I feel like I talked through the longest time in that segment. My God.

Robert Wagner:

That was very good. That's very good. Let's talk a little bit about technology and how technology is changing this industry. As a business, as a recruiter, as a candidate, we've all got a wealth of information available to us now. We've all got company websites. We've all got LinkedIn. We can Google someone and stalk them on various social networks and things. It seems like everyone's got all this data available.

Robert Wagner:

How is that impacting your business and your spot in the market, I guess, in the recruiting industry?

Dixie Agostino:

I feel like LinkedIn is always trying to figure out how they're going to eliminate third party recruiters. But at the same time, human beings are still human, and like other humans. When I'm on LinkedIn, the messages that I get from recruiters are always laughable. I'm so sorry if you get them too. I usually reply back and say, "No, I'm not interested in this dramatically under-qualifying position in an industry that is not even close to mine."

Dixie Agostino:

But people are using these tools incorrectly. Undertrained recruiters are blasting out messages to hundreds of people that they've just pulled out of a keyword search and wasting people's time. When you're instead well-versed in the industries that you work in, and you're reaching out to people that you know, and you're saying, "Hey, I've heard from so and so that you're excellent in this. I'd really like to talk to you more about it." You get a different response.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. Well, you got ahead of me there because that was a question I had for you. Is LinkedIn going to just cut you out eventually?

Dixie Agostino:

No.

Robert Wagner:

Okay.

Dixie Agostino:

No.

Robert Wagner:

You're sure about that?

Dixie Agostino:

If the phone company cuts us out, then that's a problem. But people don't often answer the phone. LinkedIn has been a wonderful tool to go ahead and get the call established. But really it's very ... it's so much easier to get to know a person in-person and on the phone than it is through an email exchange.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. Okay. Well, I hope you're right. But I got to believe it's in their head to take that on so much.

Dixie Agostino:

Oh, yeah. I guarantee you.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. But if you think about ... if you had a clearly defined role, like you're talking about with clearly defined outcomes, in other words, you made that the selection of who you're looking for more binary. It's these things, yes or no on every one of them. Then you got candidates and their qualifications. If you could get that binary as well, then you've got it. You're going to match them up?

Dixie Agostino:

Yeah.

Robert Wagner:

No. I agree with you. It's got to have the human touch somehow. It just feels like it has to. But I got to believe LinkedIn is thinking about how do we just squish all this data together and become the matchmaker ourselves?

Dixie Agostino:

Well, but how do you make an industry change, or a dramatic career change? I mean, I would have never thought that operations management and a trucking company will qualify me as recruitment. But what it is, is you've got these assets, and how do you maximize the assets? The assets at the trucking company are the driver on the truck, and then in time, and then the asset in recruitment is the client and the job and the candidate and time. It's all very similar.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. How has the business been disrupted, say in the nine years that you've been doing it? Has there been significant disruption? Are you fearing significant disruption coming?

Dixie Agostino:

That's a really good question. I feel like you might have stumped me a little bit. The biggest disruptions have come ... Like you said, human capital is important are barges expenses payroll, by far, it's probably 75% of our expenditures. For every person that we bring on, we're going to invest a specific amount of money, and we want to make sure we get the right investment.

Dixie Agostino:

Before when I made all the decisions in a rushed and pressured state, and we didn't get great outcomes, it was a waste of money. Now that we have this process, and I'm actually not the only one who makes the decision, actually, I don't make that decision at all anymore, because our CFO and CEO have taken over the hiring roles, and they're even better than I am.

Dixie Agostino:

We've made sure that all the money that we're investing in our human capital is going somewhere. Every disruption is just when someone leaves and sometimes we celebrate, and sometimes we cry, sometimes it's both.

Robert Wagner:

Okay. That's interesting segue maybe to this next question. Give us some advice, as business owners, because I think if you've hired enough people, you had this experience where we didn't follow what we should do. Okay. We didn't follow a process and we didn't use TechCity and Switchgear, we've got this person on board, they've been here a week and we know we made a mistake, what do we ...

Dixie Agostino:

Cut it. I mean, of course, any HR professional is going to tell you, you need to get your documentation in order. The documentation required is not ... Did we document that they know that this was our expectation, not that we documented this was our expectation. That you're giving them a chance. I feel maybe I'm going to backtrack a little bit.

Dixie Agostino:

But if you've had a really good interview process, you can know in a week if you've made a mistake, because the outcomes and expectations were made really clear all through the interview process. This is what we expect to be, this is what the job entails. That's one of the first elements in our internal interview process is we have eight questions. Some of them are, "What do you think about this? What do you think about cold calling?"

Dixie Agostino:

If they're going to like it, well, that is the job. Honestly, half the people eliminate themselves off the bat within the first 30 minute phone screen, because they don't want to do the job. You're just saving us time on the back end. Yes. Thank you for that.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. Okay. You started Switchgear, you've been a great recruiter, you started the business, and you're running a business. You know how to do the recruiting part, which is the meat and potatoes of your business? What are the other things about being a founder and business owner that have been hard for you?

Dixie Agostino:

Being the jack of all trades. In the very beginning, I'm the one that sets up the emails for the sets of the computers. I'm the one that purchases our insurance and determines what software we're going to use. I'm also doing all of our sales and then trying to fill the orders and hire staff. It was just so much. Also at the same time, too, I don't have a background in human resources. That's not what I went to college for and that's not my career had been in.

Dixie Agostino:

When we're having problems internally or client calls and says, "Hey, someone just ... I think they embezzled, I don't know what to do." They expect you to have the answer. I joined the Tulsa Area Human Resources Association, because I was like, "I need to make sure my risks are covered and I need to be around people who know what they're talking about, because people is my business."

Dixie Agostino:

I'd been involved in that in a couple ... for five years and got on their board. They were like, "Hey, you want to be the president?" Like, "No." But did it anyway.

Robert Wagner:

A second ago, you mentioned that there's a CFO or ...

Dixie Agostino:

Yeah. CFO and CEO

Robert Wagner:

... and a CEO. You're not the CEO?

Dixie Agostino:

I'm not. I'm so sorry.

Robert Wagner:

No.

Dixie Agostino:

The founder, president.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. Which I knew that.

Dixie Agostino:

Okay.

Robert Wagner:

But tell me about that. Tell me why you made that shift so that there's someone else at the helm? How involved are you in day-to-day business?

Dixie Agostino:

I'm not very involved at this point, which is very ... I'm really lucky. When we have that snag, I had ... prior to hitting ... prior to oil and gas collapsing, I've been chasing downloads for about two years. I had actually called a bunch of people who were well-known in recruiting, and said, "What's the third party?" These are corporate recruiters. "Who's the person that outside of your industry that you trust the most?" Her name kept coming up.

Dixie Agostino:

I kept reaching out and having lunches every six months. Finally, the timing was right, and she came on. I had continue ... I was overburdened, and I kept looking for someone to basically be the number two or the number one run the thing. Then I can think about what the future entails and look for risks instead of just being in all the time, in day-to-day.

Dixie Agostino:

We pay for continuous improvement and continuing education for our staff, including my personal development seminars. I had gone to a bunch of Tony Robbins stuff and told our team, "If you want to go, we'll pay for it." Well, some other people went, when she came back, she's like, "I want to be the CEO." Apparently her husband thought that was pretty outlandish to do.

Dixie Agostino:

But I was like, "Yes. Let's do this. Okay." We set up a 12-month timeline of what needed to happen for her to be the CEO. She actually got it all knocked out in seven months. At that point, we were about eight years in with two daughters. Then my husband had been in law school for a year and a half and even with two-part time nannies, it was just too much. I was like, "I need to go on sabbatical." Said, "Right now." Right now, as we're talking, I'm on sabbatical.

Robert Wagner:

Awesome.

Dixie Agostino:

But they're running the show.

Robert Wagner:

I'm envious. You're on sabbatical. Hopefully, you're thinking about anything about the business. But ...

Dixie Agostino:

I still have a couple hours of work to do on a weekly basis. But that's it.

Robert Wagner:

What is that allowing you to think about that you wouldn't be able to think about, if you were in the trenches still?

Dixie Agostino:

Well, how do we ... Who do we want?

Robert Wagner:

Okay. Well, we certainly advise clients to do something similar to what you've done. I really applaud you for that, to get themselves out of the business, in particular, smaller businesses, where it just seems natural, says, "You're the person. You make all the decisions. You're the hub of everything. I just applaud you for making that step, because it's expensive, number one, and it's ... things are going to happen that maybe wouldn't happen the way you would do them, which can be troubling sometimes.

Dixie Agostino:

Sometimes it's for the best.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah.

Dixie Agostino:

I know that I'm pretty okay with a high level of risk. It was that taking such dramatic risks was what put us in that near death situation after oil crash. If I'd been slow and steady on our growth, we never would have made all that investment to lose it.

Robert Wagner:

What are you investing in now for the future at Switchgear?

Dixie Agostino:

We're always investing in our people and making sure that we're getting the right people and that there's a growth plan for them. That growth plan may not be with us. It might be where there ... [Wendy Drummond 00:39:15] was talking about this other day. She was talking about this may not be your dream job, but you might get a lot of fulfillment out of it, and it might get you ready for the next big thing for you, and that's okay. If you stay with us for 10 years or two years, it's all fine.

Dixie Agostino:

That's one of the things we've really been trying to build is that level of trust within every member of our company that they can go to, at least, with their boss and say, "Hey, I'm thinking about what my next steps are. What can I do here to get ready because this is where I think I'm going to go?" "Cool. Let's get you ready."

Dixie Agostino:

Then, for instance, we had someone specifically said, "I want to go into a corporate HR job. I want to be a benefits administrator or an HR manager." "Okay. Well while you're in school, getting your degree, let's have you start managing our benefits and knowing a little bit more, and we'll train you here, so that you're ready to rock when you get that degree done."

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. I think that's really powerful for employers and for business owners to be okay with the fact that people are going to leave your organization. If you have made them better, your business is going to be better. They're probably going to stay longer in your business than they would have if you had not invested and made them better and just being okay with that.

Robert Wagner:

We see people move inside the company, and then make other departments better or whatever, as a result of that, too. I think that's fantastic to just focus on continuing to make people better. It's okay if they leave, sometimes they come back.

Dixie Agostino:

Yes.

Robert Wagner:

That's awesome as well.

Dixie Agostino:

Sometimes they refer other people, and sometimes they hire you.

Robert Wagner:

Right. Exactly.

Dixie Agostino:

That works.

Robert Wagner:

They had a great experience in your company. They're never going to tell their friends. That's another great point. Well, Dixie, we're getting near to the end of our time together today. We ask all of our guests five questions. I want to run these by you and get your spontaneous answers to them. What was the first way that you made money?

Dixie Agostino:

My dad had a CPA firm. I used to I think file and tread papers for him for like quarters. Yeah.

Robert Wagner:

Okay. You didn't become a CPA?

Dixie Agostino:

I did not because I'm not very good with numbers.

Robert Wagner:

Wow. That hurts us here, HoganTaylor. Wow.

Dixie Agostino:

Goddammit.

Robert Wagner:

Wow. Yeah. If you were not the owner of Switchgear, what would you be doing? Not a CPA, I guess.

Dixie Agostino:

Well, I wouldn't be a CPA. That is a good question. I have no idea. Honestly, the first thing that came to mind would be like I'd be hiking a mountain somewhere.

Robert Wagner:

You'd be using your marketing together sponsors for that, right?

Dixie Agostino:

Probably.

Robert Wagner:

So you should make a living, right?

Dixie Agostino:

Make some money that way.

Robert Wagner:

What would you tell your 20-year-old self?

Dixie Agostino:

Stop drinking?

Robert Wagner:

Stop killing those brain cells, right?

Dixie Agostino:

That's right. You need them later and sleep more, because you're going to need it.

Robert Wagner:

Okay. I believe everyone's rolling around in their head a book that they're writing about what they believe in their life, what's the title of your book?

Dixie Agostino:

It would probably be like What the Bleep Just Happened to Us, Stories from Upper Management and talk about all the crazy situations. Of course, with no names attached that we've seen over the years.

Robert Wagner:

Okay. All right. Then finally, what's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?

Dixie Agostino:

Wow. These are such good questions. I think, I don't know if it was a piece of advice that he gave me. But one of the things that was pretty influential, growing up with my grandfather. He was a person who didn't talk a lot. When he did, everyone stopped talking to listen. But he made a big push about your word is your bond. Don't say it if you're not going to do it.

Dixie Agostino:

I had wrecked my car. He had fixed it. We'd made an agreement that I would send him $100 a month. I'm like 16. That's a lot, because I made minimum wage. One month I didn't do it. I had set up this arrangement, hoping he would not cash the checks. He cashed every check, because he was smart like that. But I didn't send him the thing. He said, basically, something to the point of, "If you're not willing to keep your word, what kind of person are you?"

Dixie Agostino:

It stung me so deeply that I get horrified to pay a bill light, or did not do something I said I was going to do.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. That's a crushing thing to hear from ... That is crushing and powerful, right?

Dixie Agostino:

He was so disappointed in me, I always cried. Mean about it.

Robert Wagner:

Dixie, thanks very much for your time. Really appreciate it. Thanks for being on the How That Happened podcast.

Dixie Agostino:

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Robert Wagner:

That's all for this episode of How That Happened. Thank you for listening. Be sure to visit howthathappened.com for show notes and additional episodes. You can also subscribe to our show on iTunes, Google Play or Stitcher. Thanks for listening. This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. Copyright 2019 HoganTaylor LLP, all rights reserved. To view the HoganTaylor general terms and conditions visit www.hogantaylor.com.