Why Extraordinary Leaders Outperform Resumes, with Alec Broadfoot

Dan Sullivan: Hi, this is Dan Sullivan. I'd like to welcome you to the Multiplier Mindset Podcast. On today's interview, we have Alec Broadfoot, who is from Columbus, Ohio. Alec and I talk a lot about his business because the real breakthrough for all entrepreneurs is that they have someone inside who takes the vision of the entrepreneur and translates it into the actual moving parts of the company, the operations of the company. And this is what Alec does for other entrepreneurial owners. So I recommend him widely to everyone who's come to that realization that they now have to free themselves up.
 
So I'd like to start off with what Alec talks about. And he talks about, first of all, in terms of himself, that he was not freed up to grow and that in Strategic Coach we have Four Freedoms. You need freedom of time. So the entrepreneur needs to free up their time because you can't see things properly if you're tightly scheduled. So I have a saying that tightly scheduled entrepreneurs cannot transform themselves. They can't jump to the next level. They can't create new offerings to the marketplace. They can't really pay attention to their best clients because they're too tightly scheduled.
 
So it's freedom of time and then freedom of money comes from the freedom of time and then freedom of relationship. That's both inside your company, outside your company and the marketplace. Now you've got three freedoms lined up, and that really tells you what you love doing best. And what Alex said so eloquently was that this is not what his MBA actually prepared him for when he went to university and he got his MBA, but helping entrepreneurs free themselves up by getting great managers in to manage their organizations One is, it's what his company does, it's what he loves doing, it's what his team members love doing. So it's such a pleasure, this whole notion of freedom.
 
I'd like to go back a little bit in what Alex says, and this was my case when I talk about when I was a failure as an entrepreneur. The reason was I was not telling myself what I actually wanted, okay? And if an entrepreneur does not say, this is what I really want, they can't find the right people. They can't find the right product. They can't find the right customers. He had companies that he hated. I think he was losing money on them because he hated them. He hated working in them. This thing about wanting, we all need things. That's just being human. We need things, you know, basic things. But very few people actually go beyond needing and talk about, yeah, but if you could have it the way you want it, what do you want? What do you actually want?
 
And that's why entrepreneurism, when it's done right, is such a rewarding activity because you now have an economic organization around you that can actually facilitate you getting what you actually want out of life. And it's so important. It's such a great story he tells. I mean, this is Entrepreneurism 101, the story that he's telling here. And what I love most of all, and I've seen this so often, that when an entrepreneur has a failure and is in danger of dropping off a cliff, danger of going bankrupt, It's the worst experience. I did it twice, 1970s, 1980s. I did it twice, and it's a horrible experience. It's the biggest failing report card you can imagine, going bankrupt.
 
But once you come out of it, you are such an expert and master of handling that type of situation for the rest of your life. If you go through it and allow yourself to actually experience the failure and then use the failure to actually think things through, why did I get into this situation? I wasn't telling myself what I really wanted. I didn't love what I was doing. Those are such powerful lessons. And you can see that Alec, if he was here, he would say, I am so amazingly smart about not getting myself into that type of situation ever again for the rest of my life. And it's just a pleasure to hear Alec's story.
 
Alec Broadfoot: So my name is Alec Broadfoot. I own a company called VisionSpark. We help businesses all around the country to help them find and hire great leaders that match their culture and that are strong leaders and can do a great job for them. So that's what we do. I've been an entrepreneur, I want to say almost my whole career. I started out in banking. I was two years in banking, cubicle city. I hated every minute of it. And then when I was 25, I had an opportunity to buy a small business. And so I've been an entrepreneur ever since.
 
It was a small publishing company. We published a reference guide and we sold about 30,000 books a year. So it was mostly direct to consumer. We did have some books that were in stores, but it was mostly direct. So they would call an 800 number and they would order. And we'd ship them a book, and then we'd try to upsell them. And so it was a great business, because I got to learn how to price things and how to teach my call center individuals to sell and cross-sell. And so it was a fun business.
 
What I learned is that I inherited these employees when I bought the business. And it was a very dysfunctional group of individuals. It was the previous owners. It was his friend, his cousin, his friend's daughter. It was a bunch of misfits. And I came in because I was the new owner, and they had no buy-in to who I was. And I start talking about profit and KPIs and hitting numbers and start introducing accountability, and I was not welcomed. But that was a precursor to what was next, which was another business where I actually learned how to hire better, which was a predecessor to me starting my company that I have now.
 
So one of the things that I have found in terms of early on in hiring is that we tend to settle. So when it comes to hiring, we tend to settle, we compromise. We hire someone because we like them. They like us, you know. I read in a book about hiring and it talked about a typical interview is a conversation between two liars. And so when we interview, we, you know, typical interview, you're selling your business, right? And then the person trying to sell themselves and then all of a sudden you, you get the job and you're like, that's not the person I interviewed. And they're like, this is not the company that I joined.
 
And so the number one thing is don't compromise, right? And make sure you hire from a large pool of candidates. One of the biggest mistakes is hiring from a pool of one. And then definitely do some sort of assessment on that person or on multiple candidates and choose the best. And entrepreneurs are not great at hiring. We are people-oriented. We tend to be more empathetic. We see the needs in the marketplace, and we're really good at creating products and services to meet those needs.
 
But that same strength is also a kryptonite when it comes to hiring, because we're gonna have empathy and sensitivity toward that person. And if you are that person, like I was, you need data, like from an assessment tool, and you want some other people helping you make the right decision, objective decisions. And you wanna shift your sensitivity on, you know, is this the best person for the company, right? What's best for the business, as opposed to what's best for this individual, right? It'd be great, I'm gonna be a hero, I'm gonna hire them, they're in a bad job or they're unemployed or I feel bad because they're, you know, a single mom or whatever, I'm going to be their hero. Then all of a sudden now you have a liability because you didn't hire the right person.
 
I got the idea from VisionSpark because it was the experience that I had in the mailing company I owned 20 years ago. So I've had VisionSpark 13 years, and in the mailing company, we were hiring, but we ended up firing 7 out of 10 people. And so I reached out to a mentor of mine, and I said, what am I doing wrong? And he's like, are you using any sort of assessment or data in the hiring process? And I go, no. So we started implementing this assessment tool, and instead of 7 out of 10 employees getting fired, we actually retained 7 out of 10 employees. So it transformed our hiring.
 
At that time, we needed an office assistant, and we couldn't find anyone. And finally, this woman comes in, and she just nails the interview. And I'm like, man, she could be it. And so I had her take the assessment, and the assessment results were horrible, like absolutely horrible. And I'm like, these cannot be true. The assessment is wrong. And we still use that same assessment to this day in my search company. And I said, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to check her references, because I'm going to prove this assessment wrong.
 
So I checked her references, and she gave good context. I didn't know how to ask good reference questions like I do now. They were pretty good references. And everything the assessment said about her was true. The assessment said that she was going to be a slow learner. She was a very slow learner. Said that she would have a lot of energy and be a social butterfly, which she was. Said that she would have low attention to detail. She did. Said she would be extremely insecure and need a lot of affirmation. Within a couple weeks, we fired her. And I said, never again.
 
So I was in a peer group at the time. And the peer group, I saw my same entrepreneurial friends making the same mistakes. Like, don't hire these people, right? And so that was the beginning. And after that, I sold my interest in that business. And I started helping companies improve their cash flow. And what I saw in those businesses is that they all had tremendous people issues, especially when it came to leaders. And so these leaders were literally handcuffing them from being profitable. And so in 2012, I started VisionSpark with the passion of helping entrepreneurial companies find and hire great leaders.
 
If you're looking for a great leader, you need to look beyond the resume. So most people focus on just hiring from someone's resume, like they have great qualifications. Most resumes have lies on them—over 50% of resumes have lies on them, and it's getting worse and worse as people are using AI to write their resumes. And then 100% of resumes, 100% have some sort of embellishment on them. And so number one, you don't want to fall in love with the resume or hire someone from just the resume's purposes. That's number one. You wanna make sure that they have the leadership skills.
 
And so we have, we call them indispensable traits of every great leader. And so they need to have a very strong mental aptitudes, which would be their learning speed, how quickly they learn, their mental acuity. Are they problem solvers? Are they strategic? So in this day and age, with AI changing everything, you need to have leaders that are problem solvers, strategic thinkers, critical thinkers, and can think on their feet. Good leaders are process-oriented. They're organized. They're great with people. They love to lead people, coach, hold people accountable. They're good communicators. And so those are traits that you're not going to see in the resume.
 
So how do you see those traits? With really good interviews. So good interview questions. And the second way is a really good assessment. So I recommend to anyone's listening, start with a large pool of candidates. You know, if you have two or three candidates, your ad's not good enough, your position description's not doing a good enough job attracting. When we do work for clients, we'll have dozens of candidates. Start there, and then you want to have good interviews and an assessment, and in the end, you want to hire someone.
 
And the number one factor for determining someone's success, Harvard actually did a study, and they found it wasn't resume, it wasn't their education, it wasn't community service. The number one factor for success is fit. So do they fit with you and do they fit with the team, right? So that's super important. And it's a very costly decision to hire the wrong leader, right? So the author of Top Grading, Brad Smart, did a study, and the average cost of a mishire for a leader is 14 times their salary. 14 times, right? So do you really want to just spend a couple hours trying to hire the right person? You really may take time. And so at minimum for a leadership position, it's about 100 hours of time, at least.
 
So, as we're looking for leaders in our company, we really have to know the difference between leading and managing. And so, if they're managing employees, you need to make sure that they're really good at coaching people, holding people accountable, that they have thick enough skin, like a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of, you know—something that we measure in our assessment is someone's sensitivity level. So if they're too sensitive, they're not going to be good at managing people, right? So yeah, you want to make sure that they have thick skin, that they're good communicators, they have no trouble holding people accountable, they're encouraging, and they can inspire, which is different than a leader, right?
 
And so it's a great question. So yes, you have to know, if you truly need someone to manage people, then you want to make sure you're hiring a good manager, not just a good leader. The way we get clarity on if they're a project manager or a manager of people is we want to understand what are they going to be held responsible to, what's going to make them successful. So if we were to look a year from today, you know, this is one of the questions we ask, you know, what has to happen for you to feel happy about their progress, right? It's very similar to the R-Factor Question. And so that gives our clients clarity.
 
Okay, they need to manage this team. This team has to hit their goals. they need to be able to hire individuals for this department. So that's definitely a manager, right? But if it's more project-oriented, right, that the project needs to be on time and on budget, they need to make sure there's efficiencies, et cetera, that's gonna be a different position, right? So another thing we do is we flip the question. You know, let's say in three months you're deciding to fire this person. Why are you firing them? Is it because they didn't manage the team well, the team wasn't succeeding, or they weren't getting the project done well? And so that's usually a clarifying question. It comes from trial and error a lot, but we do a lot of studies on our candidates that succeed.
 
So we know what makes them super successful. So sometimes we'll work with clients who they have someone on their team that is not currently a great fit and we will take them through our TIP assessment, Talent Impact Profile assessment, and we'll take them through our leadership study interview, and then we'll reveal those results to our client. And then they're like, oh man, that makes complete sense. Now I understand. So we know from those experiences what is not a good fit.
 
Also early, year two, we made some mistakes. And we said, okay, this person did not last as long as we wanted. What happened? And so we looked at the data. And we said, okay, they didn't have one of the non-negotiables, right? Or they had one of the non-negotiables. So that's where we learned. We use an interviewing system that is research-based. So we have a series of questions we ask and we know the answer that we're looking for. So if the candidates don't have that answer, we don't move them forward. So they get a score, a leadership score, on 12 different areas, and we can see if they're gonna be successful or not. It's a good predictor of future success.
 
And our assessment tool, the Talent Impact Profile, because it measures those six mental aptitudes, and it measures 10 personality dimensions, and it also is really cool, it measures their distortion. So we know if they're BSing. Like, are they really trying to be someone who they're not? Are they being open and honest? Or are they trying to get the position? So will they answer the questions of what they think we'll need? And so usually that's a good indicator. So in this day and age with AI, and people can ask AI, how should I take this assessment? So that's one of our unique things is that individuals can't do that, right?
 
So it's just trial and error and those experiences that have allowed me to learn a lot. You know, my team knows what success looks like and we can transfer that knowledge to our clients because ultimately we want to make sure that they have that awesome candidate that's going to make a difference and it's going to give them that freedom of time, money, relationship, and purpose.
 
Twenty years ago, I had three businesses. So I had my small publishing company, I had my mailing business, and I also decided to start an eBay store to help people sell things on eBay. I had heard, hey, three streams of income, and so that's what I did, and it was the most challenging couple years in my entire life. There was times where I was just super down, depressed, and one particular week I got word that I knew my publishing company, we were in an industry where we were trying to get a larger piece of a shrinking pie, and it was inevitable that we would not be in business. So that was one of the reasons why we were looking for a couple other businesses.
 
So I got word that the big promotion that we had that was going to sell the books was just not going well. So that happened. And then the mailing business, our largest client, which was 95% of our profit and 90% of our revenue, was going to do it in-house, right? So I'm like, that business is done. And I have all this debt from all the mail machines. Like these Pitney Bowes machines cost like $300,000. And we had several of them. And then the eBay store was losing $1,000 every day, and I didn't have any more money to lose. I was highly leveraged, and it could mean declaring bankruptcy.
 
And so I got on my knees. I did a lot of praying. This gentleman by the name of Vince came into my life, retired business guru, and I sat down with him, and he took his legal pad and wrote all three entities, and he asked me about them. And so he said, you know, which one, if you had to keep one, which one would you keep? And I said, the mailing business. So I met with him over a few months, and we came up with a plan. And so I was able to retain our biggest client in the mailing business.
 
I remember buying a suit jacket and going to their corporate office. And this particular woman that was in charge of that, she was ruthless, and she wanted to make sure that they did it in-house and saved all this money. And I had to show them that we provided a lot of value, that we were correcting a lot of their mistakes. And so we were able to retain them as a client. I sold the eBay business.
 
First of all, I figured out how to stop the losses. So I turned it around with a simple break-even analysis formula. I knew we were losing money at a certain level of transactions. We turned around, started making money, and we sold that business. So that was a huge learning point for me. My faith in God grew tremendously. I also knew that I never wanted to be in a business that I didn't enjoy and I wasn't passionate about. So that eBay store, I had no passion for. And I should have known that day one, and I went along with my business partner who really wanted it, and I didn't really check my gut and said, do I want this? What do I truly want? And I never asked myself that question.
 
So it was in that mailing business that I learned about people and the assessments, and I met some great mentors, and that's how I started VisionSpark. The way I kept our biggest client is I really created tremendous value. I showed them all the things that we were doing, because they were looking at it from a price standpoint. They were saying, okay, we can do it cheaper in-house, right? But when I showed them that they had 200 different cost centers and they wanted cost center billing, I showed them how we formulated the invoices and how we were able to put together invoices so they can do cost-centered billing. I also showed them that we were getting hundreds of pieces of mail from them that were incorrect and that we actually took time and changed that. Can you imagine receiving someone else's home equity check in the mail?
 
So we found those mistakes and we changed them. We also showed them how our value in, when we picked up the mail at 2, 3 p.m., we had it in the post office at 8. I said, do you want this to get to your clients quickly and accurately? So it was just really making a case of value of everything that we were doing. The other piece of advice is, don't have one business with 90% of your client. Make sure that you have a diversity of clients where you're not solely reliant on one client.
 
So I joined Coach seven years ago, and it's been transformational. There are so many things that I've learned and implemented in my business. One of the best things, I think it was day one of the workshop that we learned about what our Unique Abilities were. And I was told by advisors that I should be the one that was selling VisionSpark services. And I'm like, that's not my Unique Ability. And so the moment I hired my first salesperson was the moment we started to scale. And so that was huge. And I really owe Strategic Coach all the credit for that.
 
And then the other major transformation is I really wanted a Self-Managing Company. And what we do is we help clients find and hire great leaders. And many times, they're the number two. They're the integrator, the COO. And I always thought that I was too small because all my clients were larger. And I had this self-limiting belief. And Strategic Coach communicates that you have The Four Freedoms, freedom of time, money, relationship, and purpose, and those need to expand so you can become that Self-Managing Company. And I recognized I needed my own number two. And so four years ago, I hired John on my team, who's been phenomenal and helps run my company. And I can truly say I have a Self-Managing Company. So that's been wonderful, yeah.
 
And just the idea of having new ideas and going 10x. And so there's something exciting we're working on that I truly believe can be that 10x company that can take our Unique Ability of what we do, helping companies hire better, more to a mass market. And so we're really excited about this new venture we got going. So I started in Signature, I was in Signature for three years, and then I was in 10x for three years, and then the last year I've been in Free Zone.
 
And so, you know, Strategic Coach, every time I come to Coach, whether it's Chicago or Toronto, it's my favorite thing to do in the quarter. It's time where I can actually work on myself and work on my business, and be with other entrepreneurs. We're unique in that there's not that many of us around, and when you're with other entrepreneurs, you get to talk to them, and you learn a new tool, and it's a game changing tool and you get to share that with other entrepreneurs and you hear them. So that is why I come to Coach. I just absolutely love it. The materials are meant for entrepreneurs.
 
And so I have an MBA. I did that prior to becoming an entrepreneur, but that was teaching you how to be a successful corporate executive. And so I always had this pride as an entrepreneur. Well, I have an MBA, but truly, I realized that you cannot be a successful entrepreneur with just an MBA. You really needed to learn the tools that you learn in Strategic Coach. And so just from managing your time, learning the time system, to Unique Ability, to hiring great people, you know, all of those are game changers. And not only has my business grown tremendously from joining Coach, I think we're four times the size that we were when I joined Coach, but also I have so much more free time and I get to spend the time doing what I want to do.
 
The Free Zone has been a great experience. The individuals in Free Zone are very successful entrepreneurial individuals. They don't worry about competition. And it's just been a great group of individuals who are very much for you. They want to see you succeed and they cheer on success. There's some collaborations that happen, different exchanges. And Dan facilitates the Free Zone workshop. So just seeing his genius and hearing his genius has been instrumental. So yeah, it's been a good experience.
 
If you had asked me after I graduated college, you're going to be happy having an executive search firm for entrepreneurial companies, I'd be like, what are you talking about? I majored in international business and minored in French. But this is truly my passion, that I love helping businesses find and hire great leaders, and those businesses have someone that can help them increase their Four Freedoms. Then also we find these candidates that they've been looking for this dream job of working for this entrepreneurial company, and we made a difference in their life.
 
It's what gets us excited, my team at VisionSpark. We just share our wins every Monday morning. What are your wins? You know, Positive Focus. And we share these stories, and it's wonderful that we're making a difference and making these companies more successful. So a new project we're working on is something called the People Plan. Most entrepreneurs know that they want a bigger future, and some of them have like a three-year goal, where they want to be at the end of three years or five years, but they don't know how to get there.
 
So what we do, because we're not just an executive search firm, we have consulting and we have different assessments and tools, what we do is we talk to the entrepreneur and we ask them what their goals are, what their dreams are, and then we analyze their team and we look at their current team and see if they have the right people in the right seats. And then, what are some key people decisions they need to make? Do they need to move someone? Maybe they need to move Joanne from this position to this position. Or maybe Bob is not the right fit and maybe Bob needs to let go.
 
And the entrepreneur realizes that they need more free time, that their Unique Ability, you know, maybe it's in acquiring new companies or maybe it's meeting with new clients or it's new verticals. And so how do we free up their time? And so we help them say, hey, you probably need an integrator. You probably need a number two. And then you may not want just a virtual assistant. You may want an in-person assistant because they are game changers. And so we help them hire those positions.
 
And so instead of us saying, hey, you know, here's your fee, we charge a flat fee for a search, which is very unique. This is a three-year partnership. We work with that client over three years to help them achieve their goals so a hundred percent of our clients have signed up after going through the workshop and they're like, where was this? You know, like, I've been looking for someone like you my whole life because I've had this dream and I know people are the major issue and you've uncovered that, you've helped give me clarity on the key people decision. So we're super excited about this.
 
And you know, Strategic Coach talks about your next largest check, right? So this is our next largest check, yeah. So VisionSpark Search is our website. I have a book called Hiring the Right Number Two Leader. A lot of our clients need that number two, they need that integrator. So I wrote a book to really help them with that. And then of course they can connect with me on LinkedIn. So that's how they can learn about me.