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Ever wish you had a mentor to help you become who you were meant to be? Crystal Ware is redefining what it means to become your best self, in business, life, and love and sharing everything she she knows to get YOU there faster.
Are you stuck? Feel like you are meant for more but not sure how to breakthrough? Every week, we will explore all of your questions on building a path to true happiness, achieving success and creating our dream life. Brick by brick, we will work through the issues and mindsets that keep us stuck, dive into finding our passion and how to take ACTION. Clarity (vision) + Confidence (Owning your worth) + Courage (to live life on your own terms and become your own CEO) propels you to your destiny. And the good news it: its all within you!
Each week, host, Crystal Ware, will bring you all of the practical wisdom to grow every aspect of your career and life including mindset, vision, goal planning, social media management, financial acumen and so much more. You'll also meet top business leaders, entrepreneurs, mompreneurers and innovative thinkers who invested in themselves and found their way success and happiness by leading on their own terms.
You were made for more, so start living like it today. Join us as we take action, grow together, and get inspired to reach for your dreams.
Crystal Ware 0:00:21
Welcome to the get clear with Crystal Ware podcast where we get clear on our goals, own our worth, and learn to be the CEOs of our own lives. I'm your host, Crystal Ware, lawyer and former Fortune 500 corporate leader who found the confidence to say goodbye to a lucrative career and start my own business. Now I'm opening up the playbook and sharing everything I've learned to get you there faster. It may not be easy, but it will always be worth it because you are made for more. So put on your big girl pants, jump on board, and let's reach for the stars. Are you ready to get clear? Thank you so much, Jeremy, for getting together finally. We have had this on the books and talked about this for about six weeks, and I just know you are leading the way here in Houston in entrepreneurship and growth and development for yourself, for your company, and for all the people. And this is just such a good story that I want to bring to our audience, showing people what is possible. When you think outside the box, you don't restrict yourself and how you can live the life that you always dreamed. So thank you so much for being a guest on Get Clear.
Jeremy Jensen 0:01:32
I apologize. She's saying that we've been trying to get together for six weeks. We had one meeting on the books, and I had to cancel it same day because business takes priority sometimes.
Jeremy Jensen 0:01:47
Right?
Jeremy Jensen 0:01:47
So this is the fun part of my day. So let's have fun.
Crystal Ware 0:01:51
Absolutely. And it's right. And that's right. Before we jumped into the podcast today, we were talking about that, how we both had last minute calls. As many of you know, I have a traditional business in addition to the podcast, and we both had last minute calls and things going. And sometimes you just got to squeeze it in when you don't want to let the fish get away, right?
Jeremy Jensen 0:02:10
Yeah, exactly. And the way that I think we both see it is, hey, the other person's a business owner. They'll understand if I'm 5 minutes late, right?
Crystal Ware 0:02:19
I am so glad. Honestly, I want to record this. I want to write it down the minute that this says I can share it with my husband. Because we debate on this all the time about the nuance of being a few minutes late, and especially when you also have kids, but you're a business owner. There are things that come up. And while I always strive to be on time and strive to keep my calendar, it's just not always possible.
Jeremy Jensen 0:02:43
And I think the easiest way to get grace is just over communicate. Hey, this is what happened. And it was my intention to be here on time, and I'm grateful and happy that I'm here now. But business happens, right? So it's good. So, let's talk about get clear? Why was Get Clear created? And are we supposed to get clear with ourselves, get clear with our clients, get clear with our audience? Just give me some backstory so I know how clear to get with you.
Crystal Ware 0:03:15
Well, we can get clear on anything and everything, but I really created this podcast because I wanted to speak to the woman that I once was, knowing that I was made for more, that there was a deeper calling. Inside of me. And that while I was very successful and had a lucrative six figure career, I was doing all the things that I wanted to do. And I really did love my job and my career. I knew that there was more out there. At some point in life, you need to see the example and a case study of what you're thinking that you want to do to know that it is possible. And that's why I wanted to create this podcast, so that I can, one, share some motivational tips, practical tips for people, but also bring on other entrepreneurs, other business owners, other people that have pivoted in their career. Done. Something outside the box. All different shapes and sizes and looks of a career so that people can really understand what is possible for them too. And that's why I really wanted to have you on, because your story is so amazing, and I just think it is a shining example of what people could do. So that's really, in a nutshell, why I wanted to have the podcast and why I bring on entrepreneurs and business people like you.
Jeremy Jensen 0:04:28
Excellent. So you shared one thing that really resonated with me, and it's basically you wanted the example to show that something was possible.
Jeremy Jensen 0:04:40
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:04:41
And I'll bring it back to, like, whenever I was a little kid growing up in a leaf with a single mom who had me at 16 years old and a little brother, right, who's seven years younger, he's actually our operations manager. But I remember as a little kid thinking, wow, $100,000 a year. If I just made $100,000 a year, I'd be get I'd be rich, right? If I lived in that house right there that cost $300,000, oh, my gosh, we're rich.
Jeremy Jensen 0:05:14
Right?
Jeremy Jensen 0:05:14
And so we kind of limited ourselves to what we thought the apex of success was, because those were the only scenarios that were in our peripheral vision.
Jeremy Jensen 0:05:27
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:05:28
When I moved into the $300,000 house and became friends with the people that lived in the $600,000 house, it kind of elevated the vision and the goal and what I thought was achievable. And I think one of the challenges that that creates is when are you ever happy?
Jeremy Jensen 0:05:44
Right?
Jeremy Jensen 0:05:45
You live in a $2 million house today, and you wonder, if we just had that beach house, if we just had that mountain house, right? And so I do want to at least make the listeners aware that if you constantly set new goals and you achieve them. You need to give yourself a little pat on the back and stop and smell the roses before you just create that bigger goal.
Jeremy Jensen 0:06:11
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:06:12
And I think that's one of the traps that I've recently fallen into is that by society standards, I'm very successful. But because I'm only a product of the sum of the ten people that I hang around with, guess what? Those ten people are more successful than me whenever it comes to entrepreneurship and wealth building. And so I need to make sure that I stay humbled a little bit and stay grateful for what I've got.
Crystal Ware 0:06:36
Yes. And there's so many points in there that I resonate with and where to even start. I would say first and foremost, that is such a good point, Jeremy. And one of the things that I like to talk to women about or just people in general, and what I've historically talked to in my corporate life as a mentor and with the people reporting to me, is when we get clear the starting point, the nexus, where we want to begin is to ask ourselves, what is our goal? We need to also revisit that because like you indicated, that can shift, that can change. But at the end of the day, we need a goal, a vision for our life that's not necessarily tied to monetary or material goods. And when we understand that, then we can say, am I fulfilled now? Do I feel successful? Until I worked through that process, I was always chasing at one point when I just started the business and I wanted to know where I was going, why am I doing this? My husband is super successful. What is it about growth and change and reaching to the next pinnacle? That really moved me and what it came down to was that I wanted to have enough money and material capabilities that I could share with all of my family and that I could give as much as I wanted to give to charities, to churches, to things of that nature. Because like you, I'm from a very working class background. I really thought the two story house, if somebody had a two story house, they must be rich. And as I know now, you could have a two story house that is only like 1600 sqft.
Jeremy Jensen 0:08:16
Have you been inside the loop? Everything's four stories now. Yes.
Crystal Ware 0:08:20
I would have really thought these people ware millionaires. These people are so rich. Because where you come from, I mean, I had 1000 square foot house with one bathroom, but I had a friend with a bigger house who loved my home and never wanted us to sell it because it was such a happy home. All of that is true. And the point that I like to make is that we just have to have some grounding point or other ways. We are, like you said, always chasing. We can always continue to shoot for the stars. We can always look to grow, but as long as it's not going to hold us back in our happiness and our fulfillment, that's where I don't like people to get on that track of just more and more and more. More is not always better. More is great. It's great to achieve. I'm very competitive. But at the end of the day, are you happy with yourself? Are you happy with things? Are you happy with today?
Crystal Ware 0:09:12
And I know as a leader, those are the things that you are worried about feeding into your people. So tell us. I really want to know. You didn't start out here. You didn't start out being handed your own business. You didn't start out with this great starting point in life. How did you get to be here?
Jeremy Jensen 0:09:32
Wow. I mean, there's a long answer and there's a very short answer. I think that I'll give a medium sized answer okay.
Crystal Ware 0:09:42
And then I can ask more questions.
Jeremy Jensen 0:09:43
So I grew up, as I mentioned, kind of in the ghetto. There were two qualities that you needed to develop in order to survive, literally, in Leewood, one in a leaf Texas, you either needed to learn how to fight or you needed to learn how to talk yourself out of any situation. So I became the talker. Right? And as we know now, shoot, there's engineers, there's scientists, there's all these Stem majors that are the builders, but it almost seems like the very successful uber entrepreneurs are great marketers, they're great communicators.
Jeremy Jensen 0:10:22
Right?
Jeremy Jensen 0:10:23
And so that was a very valuable skill set that I developed at a very young age. And so I was also smart. I often compare myself to the movie Goodwill Hunting, right. Where I think he was a construction worker, but he's a genius because it just came natural, and it was one of those gifts that he really didn't ask for, and so he really didn't put in the hard work and the effort that he needed to put in in order to become monetarily successful in his career.
Jeremy Jensen 0:10:59
Right?
Jeremy Jensen 0:11:00
And so I made a lot of lazy, selfish decisions at a young age. Didn't finish college. Became the youngest restaurant general manager of the year I'm sorry, rookie of the year in the Pizza Hut system whenever I was 21 years old. Did that until I got fired, right, for taking shortcuts and the easy way out. And then ended up finding business to business sales. Made $100,000 at 23 years old, working for a reseller of DirecTV and Dish Network. Ended up getting fired from that job, too. Got referred into an HR consulting firm where I did inside sales and Lead generation. That was a lot of fun. And that exposed me to an industry where it was recurring revenue.
Jeremy Jensen 0:11:49
Right?
Jeremy Jensen 0:11:50
And so imagine selling a bunch of DirecTV, getting 2020 $5 in commission per unit, but you might sell ten a day, right? That's a pretty good day. Now, going into an environment ware, you only might sell one or two deals a month, but that's yielding $10,000 a month in recurring revenue, right. $120,000 a year. My commission might be $12,000, not just $25.
Jeremy Jensen 0:12:16
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:12:16
And so seeing that B to B would produce the highest return on my time investment, because I think when you're an individual contributor, that's really the most valuable asset is your time.
Jeremy Jensen 0:12:28
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:12:29
So did that for about a year. The bottom fell out of the economy in 2008. I ended up working for a recruiting firm for about a four month stint. Learn how to charge recruiting fees, why somebody would buy supply and demand. And then I ended up starting my own recruiting company when I was 25 years old and had four months of recruiting industry experience. And so it's funny, right? Whenever you talk to experienced professionals, they think they need five years, ten years, 20 years before they have the confidence to go out and hang their own shingle, right? Hey, if you're good and you understand what your target market is, and you have some technical competency in that space, the clients want people that can solve their problems. They don't give a shit if I went to Harvard. They don't care if I went to Yale.
Jeremy Jensen 0:13:25
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:13:26
What's your fee and are you competent? I think that was one thing that I found out very early on. I was just better than the competition.
Crystal Ware 0:13:35
Wow. I mean, it is really, truly amazing. And so if you don't give yourself enough kudos for that, I think to have the courage to do that at 25 kudos to you. I mean, truly, that is amazing. And I think you hinted at something that is so important that I also reflect on now as a more mature lady, that sometimes what we don't know is the best thing of all. You don't have the fear of failure because you don't know what you don't know, and you just go and do. And I've seen that a lot now that I see people that go early and go hard and they do amazing things because you don't have all of life experience, the jadedness to hold you back or make you feel like you're not good enough, or that you have impostor syndrome. My husband was the same way when he decided that he wasn't going to be super successful playing baseball, he was going to be a baseball agent. And he went out, knocked on all these doors, got a job, and was in the black right away. Also at 24, 25 years old, making money for the company, which is being a sports agent, is unheard of. But because he had the confidence, like, I can do this, I see these other people doing it. What's special about that? That he just made it happen, and then you build up the skills along the way. And if we could remember that, as I don't want to say middle aged, but mature people.
Jeremy Jensen 0:15:02
I am 39 years old, okay. Before I'm technically middle aged.
Crystal Ware 0:15:08
Well, I like to think of Middle Ages. Really? It's like 55 now, right? Like, I'm going to live to be 110, so 55 is some years away. But if we could help people see that and have the confidence, have the courage to do that now, when they do have some experience and even more skills to sell, it would be amazing. But seriously, kudos to you for going out there and doing that. What made you want to start your own business, other than seeing what the end game could be, right?
Jeremy Jensen 0:15:38
Yeah, that's a great question. So, really, it was probably my ego and the fact that I didn't have a college degree. If I was sitting there with an MBA or a mechanical engineering degree, I could have been seemingly successful benchmarked against my peers just through work ethic and time.
Jeremy Jensen 0:15:59
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:16:03
Since I didn't have that bachelor's degree, I knew that the only way that I could achieve my goals in life, right, whether it be being a millionaire before I was 30 or buying a red Ferrari or buying one of those big custom houses that I would drive by every day on Kirby Drive.
Jeremy Jensen 0:16:23
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:16:24
These ware, all goals. As a very young professional, I knew that I was going to be inhibited in corporate America because I didn't have a degree.
Jeremy Jensen 0:16:32
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:16:33
So that's what gave me the confidence to go out and start my own business at such a young age. But I'll also give my fiance at the time we're divorced now, but we were married for over nine years. My ex wife, she was a petroleum engineer, six figure earner whenever we got married. Georgia Tech dual major, chemical and biomedical engineering. She had a stable income.
Jeremy Jensen 0:16:57
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:16:58
And actually encouraged me to take the leap of faith. And if I'd started out slow, she said, she got it, right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:17:05
I have it.
Jeremy Jensen 0:17:05
We didn't have two mortgages yet. We didn't have three kids yet. Our fixed expenses were very manageable on her salary. Now, fortunately, that first year, there was some success.
Jeremy Jensen 0:17:16
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:17:17
And then it was really in that second and third year that we really took off, business wise.
Crystal Ware 0:17:22
Yeah. Well, that's great that you're very transparent about that. I also lead with that in my story, is that I didn't have to be concerned about financials to leave a lucrative career to start my own business, to start the podcast, or to lean into all the things that I'm passionate about. But I also am quick to tell people as a person from a really working class background, I will find a way, and you can, too. So it does help that you have some stability and income, but for people that want to start a business or want to do something different, go to work for themselves, be in consulting, whatever it may be, you can do that with the right plan, with the right tenacity and investing in yourself. People, you see these memes, I don't know if you've seen them. I've seen them. I feel like maybe it's that confirmation bias because it's in the back of my head, I'm seeing it more. But talking about, you bought a new car, great. You bought a new house, great. You're going to college, you're investing in that, great. You're buying real estate, great. But if you invest in yourself as a person, whether it's taking a course to better some technical skill or starting a business, people always throw up a red flag, like, what are you doing? This is risky. And really, it's like, why?
Crystal Ware 0:18:47
If you can't bet on yourself, who's going to yeah. Who's going to have the courage to do that?
Jeremy Jensen 0:18:51
It's funny when you talk about investing in yourself. And we have a Vistage coach. I'm an entrepreneur's organization. I have a business coach, I have a life coach and a therapist.
Crystal Ware 0:19:03
Yes.
Jeremy Jensen 0:19:04
If that's not the definition of willing to invest in yourself, I don't know what is.
Jeremy Jensen 0:19:10
Right?
Jeremy Jensen 0:19:10
But it's saying, hey, I might be strong in this technical competency, right. Building boolean strings on LinkedIn, facilitating 30 minutes job order intake calls with hiring managers. But anything that I've ever really done in life, whether it's hire a COO or invest in a new VP of sales, I haven't done it before. I was an entrepreneur when I was 25 years old, and by definition, I am not qualified for the job that I have today.
Jeremy Jensen 0:19:38
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:19:39
And so, like, surrounding yourself around people that are smarter, faster, more experienced, and they're not necessarily telling me what to do, but they're providing a forum to help me process my own thoughts and prioritize my initiatives.
Jeremy Jensen 0:19:55
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:19:56
And then what they're doing is they're helping me achieve my own goals that I've clearly outlined and defined.
Jeremy Jensen 0:20:02
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:20:02
And they're giving me the confidence to make decisions quicker. Does that make sense?
Crystal Ware 0:20:06
Absolutely.
Jeremy Jensen 0:20:07
Yeah.
Crystal Ware 0:20:07
And that's so important as a leader. And one of the traits that I figured out early on with super successful people is they're not spending a lot of time on menial decisions. They make quick decisions. They are quick to understand the high points of what they need to know to make a decision. And I think that is such a difference maker in going for good to great. That's one thing that I struggle on personally that I have to remind myself all the time is like, what am I spending time on? Why am I doing too much research on something that's going to be let's call it $100 decision versus $100,000 decision? And those are the difference makers. So the fact that you are building that to help you grow is really important. And that is one of the pieces. I think that is a huge yeah.
Jeremy Jensen 0:21:00
Let me give you an analogy, right? Because don't get me wrong, when you make quick decisions and you're impulsive like that and very risk tolerant, 1020 percent of the time you make the wrong decision.
Jeremy Jensen 0:21:11
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:21:12
And so if we were to say, like the Tortoise and the Ware or something like that, the race, if we say the conservative steady Eddie is going to walk 26.2 miles at a walker's pace, he's not really going to get super tired. His feet are not really going to start blistering. Maybe, but it's going to take him, I don't know, 24 hours. Not literally, maybe 6 hours, 5 hours, right. But the person that sprints, sprints quite often, they're going to have to stop, put their hands on their knees because they're fully winded. They need to stop for a water break, maybe eat a banana to loosen up those muscles, right? But then they go right back to sprinting. That's the analogy that I'll utilize with regards to the swift, quick decision making. There are some things that set them back, but in the long run, moving swiftly is very important to achieving your goals. It's funny because we talked about risk tolerance and we talk about your husband. You went to law school, you said. Right. And what does your husband do? He's a sports get. Is he also an attorney, though?
Crystal Ware 0:22:25
He's actually not.
Jeremy Jensen 0:22:27
But it's funny because there's two types of people who I found that really aren't the best entrepreneurs. And number one, it's attorneys, right? They might be good practitioners, like a physician or something along those lines, but then also engineers as well. But when you look at how they are formally educated, attorneys have to look at everything that could go wrong. Engineers have to do front end failure analysis. They have to run models on everything that can go wrong. What is the commonality around successful entrepreneurs? What could go right? Optimism, glass half full. We don't overanalyze the 50, 60 things that could go wrong. We're almost overly confident in our skills and capabilities. Right. And that's why it's important to have a CFO or a COO or a GC that can keep us grounded. Otherwise the visionaries are just floating in outer space because we're on cloud nine all the time.
Jeremy Jensen 0:23:32
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:23:32
But I think that's one thing for maybe early career people that are considering maybe, do I want to go get that engineering degree, do I want to go to law school?
Jeremy Jensen 0:23:42
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:23:43
I would much rather encourage those individuals to start consuming content that can create a very positive abundance, mindset to increase their risk tolerance, that can mitigate the fear that they have, and then just have them jump into the deep end.
Jeremy Jensen 0:23:59
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:24:00
Because what's harder to do? Quit your job where you were making half a million dollars a year as a W two employee for your last employer, or quitting that 65K job, right?
Crystal Ware 0:24:13
Yeah.
Jeremy Jensen 0:24:13
What's harder to do? I would be willing to say it's the 500K job, too, because you're already successful by 99% of society standards.
Crystal Ware 0:24:23
No, it's one of the most proud things, because by nature, I'm not a risk tolerant person. I'm not a big risk taker. I am more of a steady Eddie. But when you realize that there is something missing and you want to do something else, you have to make a change. You have to see what is holding you back. And that's what I realized for myself. And I joke and call it I didn't have golden handcuffs, right? I wasn't a seven figure person, but I had, like, silver handcuffs. It was enough money that you look around and you're like, oh, my God, what am I doing? Why am I letting this go? But at the end of the day, when you know that you can do more and as you started off talking about being a recruiter and being an individual contributor, your time is what you're making. It's the same if you're a lawyer, if you're any kind of employee, really?
Jeremy Jensen 0:25:17
Provider?
Crystal Ware 0:25:17
Yes, all of it. If you want to scale and see a bigger endgame, you have to build something else. You have to build something more. And that's what I really realized. And I attribute some of the ways that my former employer, which is a French oil and gas company, that the way they looked at stuff, right. France doesn't necessarily have a huge reserve of oil and gas, but yet they started one of the top oil and gas companies. That's pretty entrepreneurial. That's pretty outside the box. So some of the things that I learned while working there, I really attribute to giving myself that ability. Coming from a working class background, you're just not around entrepreneurs. You don't see that. And so, yes, when people come to me and ask me about going to get a master's, going to law school, doing these other things, I am quick to tell them, really think about what is your end goal. If you want it as a building block, if you want it to teach you the way to think about the world in a different way, it can be really useful. If you want to build a business and be working for yourself and creating something, maybe you don't need that, why waste the time? There's an opportunity cost to everything.
Crystal Ware 0:26:30
So I also really wanted to know how you built a successful business. You jumped up pretty quickly in revenue and building and growing the business. How did you then take it from a multiple million dollar revenue to building it to $10 million in revenue? Because the early phases aren't easy. I don't want to pretend like that's easy. It's not. They've got other challenges.
Jeremy Jensen 0:26:59
That was the hardest thing to do was was building it to a million. It took me six years to hit a million dollars in revenue. Six years.
Crystal Ware 0:27:10
And how many employees did you have?
Jeremy Jensen 0:27:12
Now we do a million dollars a month.
Jeremy Jensen 0:27:14
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:27:14
Isn't that funny?
Crystal Ware 0:27:16
Well, that's scaling, everybody, that's scaling.
Jeremy Jensen 0:27:21
When I did a million, I probably had five employees plus me. And last year we had 31 employees and did ten point 83 million in revenue. And so when you look at the revenue per person, that number skyrocketed from $200,000 revenue per person to $350,000 in revenue per person.
Jeremy Jensen 0:27:43
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:27:45
And it's just continually top grading, getting better talent, getting better clients, getting more acute with the types of job orders that we wanted to work on. What was our unique selling point, what's our mission? What's our vision? What are our values? Are we quick to fire clients that violate those values? Are we quick to hire or, I'm sorry, fire people, our own internal employees that violate the values? I think that that was critically important to our growth and success, is having clarity around that mission, vision and values. And then once you know the road that you need to take and the destination of where we're going, then it's just a matter of pouring fuel into the gas tank.
Jeremy Jensen 0:28:31
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:28:32
And how fast can we get there? Right. But in the beginning, you don't even really know.
Jeremy Jensen 0:28:36
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:28:37
Like, which road are we going to take, where are we going? Well, I don't know. We're going to go wherever the market tells us to go. But when you have clarity around that, then you can eliminate the white noise and really focus.
Jeremy Jensen 0:28:48
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:28:49
So you may say today, how long have you had your business?
Crystal Ware 0:28:53
It's been about two and a half years.
Jeremy Jensen 0:28:54
Two and a half years. Right. I'm just going back to my two and a half year mark. And so I don't really know your business intimately. Well, I'm familiar with the property and casualty insurance space, but right now you're probably taking referrals.
Jeremy Jensen 0:29:11
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:29:12
If I have a $10 million construction company, or 100 million dollar transportation company, or a 20 person law firm, I'm willing to take that lead. But when you have clarity around for us, it was like about the seven year mark where we said and I'm just going to use an analogy to translate to your business. I only work with construction companies that do over 50 million in revenue.
Jeremy Jensen 0:29:37
Right.
Crystal Ware 0:29:38
Yeah.
Jeremy Jensen 0:29:39
When you have that amount of clarity, you can get very acute with your branding, your marketing, your digital presence, what events you go to, your commentary on, your podcast, your paid advertising on your pay per click ads, the people that you hire that have definitive relationships in that space. What's that going to do for your business? If you only focused on construction companies over 50 million a year in revenue, what could that do?
Crystal Ware 0:30:09
Yeah, I mean, you would have the ability to get really deep, really skilled, really technical, and then you can leverage your time better because you aren't chasing your tail around the entire you're not.
Jeremy Jensen 0:30:22
Just taking what falls into your lap.
Jeremy Jensen 0:30:24
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:30:24
And, you know, this is profitable. And when. You start to have those same conversations and you intimately know your clients problems. That's whenever you become a true resource and value added problem solver, not just an insurance carrier or an insurance commodity person.
Jeremy Jensen 0:30:43
Right?
Crystal Ware 0:30:43
Well, and that's what I always, when people do ask me about law school and what value that brought. It really taught me to ask the right questions. And that is where it's a huge difference maker in being that advisor and that partner, not just a commodity and a service provider. You are going deeper because you ask the right questions to understand. I take my clients and I know you do this as well and I will help them find other resources if I have connections just going that one extra step. But you have to understand what they're dealing with. And like you said, when you're in a certain marketplace regularly, it's easier for you to just understand what the leadership is dealing with because you've seen it over and over and over. Most of the problems that business owners have, especially in the mid market space, are not unique. Everybody have the same problems, including me. So it's easy to understand that. But you also have to ask the right questions, which is really important. And I know you guys do that really well with your clients. So as you grew into this, what were the challenges you experienced with being a leader and kind of figuring out how to lead an organization and not just you and one or two people?
Jeremy Jensen 0:32:00
Well, I think that I'm still in the process of learning how to be a leader.
Jeremy Jensen 0:32:04
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:32:05
One of the things that I personally did was I identified three things, right? What are the things that I am great at?
Jeremy Jensen 0:32:14
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:32:16
And then breaking that up into two different areas that I love to do great at and love to do. I'm going to focus on that. What are the things I'm great at that I don't really like to do? Okay, let me hire someone to do that. I think as solo entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, we tend to just do everything that we're great at, right? But I might be the best financial analyst in the business. I might be the best at doing data analysis on certain things. But if I don't really enjoy it and it's not a money making activity, then I can train somebody else to be great at it.
Jeremy Jensen 0:32:53
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:32:53
And then the third thing is what are the things that I'm not great at that need to be done?
Jeremy Jensen 0:32:59
Right?
Jeremy Jensen 0:32:59
And so those are the things that were critical to our success in me becoming a great leader is I went out and found people that ware better than me in this one specific area.
Jeremy Jensen 0:33:11
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:33:11
And instead of trying to hire people that ran a 360 desk is what they call it in my industry, or people that ware fully sustained entrepreneurs that can generate their own leads, that can have client relationships that can find candidates that ware also technology savvy. I decided that I was going to break up our delivery team into four different areas. And what that did was it allowed people to become experts at one specific function.
Jeremy Jensen 0:33:41
Right?
Jeremy Jensen 0:33:41
And so I'll just use an example. A really good business development person is a completely different personality profile than a really good account manager, right. One requires fearlessness quick start, the ability to twist arms, the ability to generate leads through cold calling. That's what a good business development person does.
Jeremy Jensen 0:34:02
Right?
Jeremy Jensen 0:34:03
Now obviously there's relationship salespeople, those are called solution sellers, right? But then a great account manager has really strong follow through, great problem solving skills, great relationship building skills. But they're not going to pick up the phone and make 500 cold calls a week. So how can we separate that into two different functions and put the people in the right seat on the bus to where the account managers couldn't do it without the business development people and the business development people couldn't do it without the account managers. Does that make sense?
Crystal Ware 0:34:33
Absolutely.
Jeremy Jensen 0:34:34
And so putting people in a role where they could naturally excel and then what that did was that increased productivity and profitability because they didn't have to slow down and turn this off in order to try to barrel through what they thought was tough work, right? And then that increased profitability and productivity and it created stickiness with our clients. Because their relationship wasn't really just with one person, it was with the whole client delivery person, the business development person, the account manager, the recruiter and the executive over that business unit. The clients ware more sticky and more importantly, the employees are more sticky because they can't go out and start their own practice because they've been spoonfed all of these resources and tools and people around them.
Crystal Ware 0:35:27
But even more important, they're happy because they're working in their zone of genius and they probably don't want to leave. When you have people working on what they're really good at and they enjoy doing. If you're forcing somebody to do cold calls that doesn't like it or you're forcing somebody that's a real people out there social networker to do all this paperwork follow up exactly. They're going to be unhappy doing those things anyway. So when you allow people these opportunities to really focus in on what they're good at and what they love, then they're just really waving fans at the.
Jeremy Jensen 0:36:01
Organization and they're excited to come to work on Monday, right. It's not something where they're like watching the clock can't wait till it turns 05:00.
Jeremy Jensen 0:36:10
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:36:11
And it doesn't mean that okay, if you're not a great cold caller, you can't be a good business development person. Right. Because there's different ways that you can generate leads. Some of the best BD people in the world are digital marketers that have never made a cold call in their entire life. Can they generate leads?
Jeremy Jensen 0:36:28
Right?
Jeremy Jensen 0:36:29
Of course. But they've got a skill set that 95% of the world doesn't have. And I think that that's very important to become successful at. Whatever you want is figure out what organically comes very natural to you and sell it to someone who has a lot of money.
Jeremy Jensen 0:36:49
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:36:50
Because the time value analysis becomes different. If our core demographics as a recruiting firm are, we sell to law firms and we sell to wealth management firms. Those are two areas where they've got a lot of meat on the bone. They would rather have a great employee and pay them whatever it takes to get them, as opposed to, I'm just going to pick on, I don't know, a manufacturing company that they may be more motivated by. Hey, our ceiling is 80K for this person. Well, why? This guy could do the job of two people. He's only 100. Your labor yield is going to be much higher. Well, we have three other manufacturing people, and they get paid 80K. So we're just going to pay him on time and grade, not on his actual talent level. Isn't that unbelievable to see?
Crystal Ware 0:37:39
But you see that a lot. You see that a lot. And I think in Houston, where the job market has remained pretty strong, I don't know how those people get by, to be honest, because there ware a lot. One of the things I love to talk about is transferable skills. And so when you're in a job market where there's transferable skills and there are industries that you can move to, you cannot stick by this. Well, that's what we pay so and so. It's just ridiculous. Yes, you need to pay quality, and at the end of the day, the turnover is going to cost you anyway, so get the right person.
Jeremy Jensen 0:38:16
Yeah. Well, it's funny because I don't think that it's a good recipe for success to just go out and have a bunch of A players.
Jeremy Jensen 0:38:24
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:38:25
And the reason why is because you got to look at your A player as, like the home run hitter on a baseball team.
Jeremy Jensen 0:38:31
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:38:32
We can't go give everybody a $40 million a year contract. It's just not feasible. You have to have your role players, your B players, the steady Eddies that show up on time and get the job done. But if you have all A players, I mean, it's embarrassing to admit, but it's like when that promotion becomes available, there has to be a clear, definitive standout between one and one A.
Jeremy Jensen 0:38:59
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:39:00
If everybody is a stud, you're going to be letting some people down.
Jeremy Jensen 0:39:04
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:39:04
Because there's only one opportunity to get that promotion. And so I do think that business is founded on a lot of those B players, to be quite honest. The ones that breathe the core values, but they're not overly great innovators or creators.
Jeremy Jensen 0:39:23
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:39:23
Because there's only a finite number of roster spots of those people that we could have on the team.
Crystal Ware 0:39:28
Yeah, you got to keep the pyramid for a reason, right?
Jeremy Jensen 0:39:31
Exactly.
Crystal Ware 0:39:34
I also formally worked at a company where it was more of the top heavy and it was just a very competitive environment. I mean, you just had people running and gunning at the same time. When you do have that, you have turnover too. So turnover comes both ways because when you don't get the promotion and you feel that you're the top person, you're probably going to start looking for another job.
Jeremy Jensen 0:39:54
You know, it's funny because I've been recruiting in oilfield services for many, many years and your big French company has been a great source of ours, I'll tell you, because they do have high expectations with regards to quality and service and educational requirements.
Jeremy Jensen 0:40:12
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:40:13
And if that guy doesn't get the promotion to the senior VP of Cameron right after the acquisition, well, hey, guess what? He's going to go be the senior VP at Neighbors. And that's perfectly okay because the system runs the company and the people in an enterprise level organization keep the system going. It's really in the small to mid size space where an individual contributor can create huge ripple effects in the organization.
Crystal Ware 0:40:43
Yeah, absolutely. It's a lot different when you're talking about small and mid sized business and you're talking about the large or extra large because some carriers it's funny, you always think of small, mid and large. Well, in the insurance space, some carriers give you four categories and you have the extra large, like the majors, a Walmart or whatever. Sure. A lot of people because a large.
Jeremy Jensen 0:41:06
Company could be 10,000 employees. Well, guess what? Amazon has 480,000 employees. They're not in the same category as Pros software.
Crystal Ware 0:41:16
Exactly. Well, on that, one of the things we kind of dance around a little bit is what's important in your business is networking. What I think is really fascinating and I'd love to get your feedback on, is how do you see challenges? There's so much benefit, right. The Internet technology has democratized to some degree the ability to learn and grow outside the boundaries of like where you and I grew up. You see what other people have. You see what other people are doing, even if you weren't in that bubble. At the same time, there are challenges to all of technology and people being stuck behind a desk, stuck behind their phone. You really thrive on networking. How do you see Gen Z and Millennials challenged for networking? What can they do to kind of push themselves more out there because your network is your net worth. I totally and utterly believe that and I wish I had known that sooner. But you have really nailed that.
Jeremy Jensen 0:42:22
So that's a great question and I don't think I'm going to give you the answer that you want to hear. So what are the purposes of networking? It's to build three things to build trust, to build rapport, and to establish credibility.
Jeremy Jensen 0:42:36
Right?
Jeremy Jensen 0:42:36
That's what I believe. That's the purpose of networking. And so in the old days, I needed to shake a lot of hands. I needed to develop some level of intimacy with the person across the table on being open, vulnerable inquisitive all those things that it took in order to build trust and rapport.
Jeremy Jensen 0:42:57
Right?
Jeremy Jensen 0:42:57
And then I needed to answer questions or know the right people in their space or at least have the right client base to establish, hey, we are credible in the space where I'm telling you that I deserve business referrals.
Jeremy Jensen 0:43:12
Right?
Jeremy Jensen 0:43:13
So that was the long answer of how we did networking in the past. How we do networking today is very different. And I think that we're in this shift of the people on the other side of the table who are the decision makers, right? If I'm still selling to an industry where it might be Gen X, older millennials, or even baby boomers that are the ones making the decision of the vendor that we want to utilize, I have to utilize the old school strategies to build trust, build rapport, and establish credibility. But when you look at selling into arenas where it is the younger millennials and the Gen Z who are making the decision, they're building trust and developing rapport through social networking. I'm literally not kidding. Whenever I started an Instagram in January of 2019, I had zero followers, right? And I utilized the same strategies that I utilized in order to build my LinkedIn network to over 45,000 followers. To build my instagram presence and whether people had known me, whether people had ever met me in Houston, if they followed my social media persona. The restaurants that I went to, the bottle service that I paid for, the people that I posted who ware credible in their spaces, it developed a narrative in their mind to say, hey, this guy is well respected. He's well networked. He's obviously very successful because of the types of things that he's spending his money on, right? To where that was an effective networking strategy from a social development standpoint. On what I was trying to accomplish whenever I was a single guy, even though I'd never shaken these people's hand one time in my entire life, but that was effective networking because I was building trust, rapport and establishing credibility. Does that make sense?
Crystal Ware 0:45:15
Yeah. No, I love that.
Jeremy Jensen 0:45:16
B to C cell in a B to B environment. I think that we could still establish it in the very same way. It's probably different channels. So instead of Instagram, it might be on LinkedIn, right? Or it might be through other mediums. On how that industry consumes content, whether it be through cherry shows or things of that nature. But I think as long as those three things are being accomplished, that can be an effective networking strategy.
Crystal Ware 0:45:44
So for people that may be listening on the younger end of the spectrum, looking to grow in whatever industry their chosen profession is in, do you think that LinkedIn is even more important than ever? Do you think it's still growing and there's a lot of value there? I mean, I know you've been on LinkedIn since probably the very beginning, or close to it, but if we can build up our networking and our presence in the way obviously LinkedIn is much different than Instagram. But do you think that that really is a place that people should be spending time regardless of industry and personal branding?
Jeremy Jensen 0:46:23
So I would say that the answer is no. And I think that it's very important to understand who is the person that you're trying to establish trust, rapport and credibility with. Because if I'm selling Custom Closets, right, and it may not be wise for me to produce that content on LinkedIn, right, but it might be wise to pay, I don't know, J. J. Watt, to give him a free closet for $50,000 to say, can we do a walk through of the closet whenever it's built? And then you post it on your social media, right? Does that make sense? Oh, well, shit, if this closet company is good enough for JJ. Watt in the city of Houston, well, they must be the best because he can afford to use anybody. Does that make sense?
Jeremy Jensen 0:47:16
Right?
Jeremy Jensen 0:47:17
And so I think that it's really just important to understand what is the product or service that you're selling, who are the target demographics of the people that you want to sell to? And then what resources and strategies should I utilize in order to build trust, rapport and credibility? And so for me, I have a B to B cell, right? I don't sell custom closets. We are a direct hire search firm for companies in the energy, industrial, manufacturing, and technology space, right? When I look at the decision makers, the VPs of HR, the Directors of Talent acquisition, and then still sometimes the decision is made by the VP of Operations, COO executive VP, et cetera. Those folks in a B, two B environment are on LinkedIn. So it's important for me to establish credibility, build trust and rapport on there. Does that make sense?
Crystal Ware 0:48:05
Yeah.
Jeremy Jensen 0:48:05
For you, property and casualty insurance. Those individuals are on LinkedIn TikTok. They may not be there, but I'll tell you five years when all the 21 year olds are now 26. And if they were, good, because we know they're very impatient because of instant gratification, those 26 year olds that are A players are going to be the VPs of Administration and the directors of HR that are the decision makers for you. So it's very important for you to get on the forefront, to start establishing credibility while they're 2021 years old.
Crystal Ware 0:48:38
Yeah, well, and that's what I have found as being a late to life instagram person, having only just recently got on there is that in the video module. There's a lot. Now, I talk about it more in the context of building yourself up, figuring out where you want to go in the context of Get Clear podcast, and not necessarily on my technical insurance skills. But I can tell you, I can sum up what I'm talking about on LinkedIn in 32nd Real on Instagram, if I wanted it to be focused on insurance or if I thought there was a marketplace on insurance. So I really do think that the value of video marketing and self branding, because your vibrancy comes out in a way that can't necessarily come out in words. And really, until I got on there, I probably would not have realized what a resource that could be for people. So to your point, if your buyers are on Instagram or TikTok, you can leverage that. And honestly, it might be even more quick to pull out your phone and record yourself than creating essentially a mini article. That's what you're writing on by analysis.
Jeremy Jensen 0:49:49
And then when you look at people's learning styles as well with a video, you've got visual, you've got auditory, and you've got kinesthetic, right? If they're jumping to certain areas, it's so funny. Okay, I've started to produce short reels to LinkedIn, right? The other day, I was going to lunch at a restaurant here in town, and there was a guy walking about, I don't know, 40ft in front of us. And then I saw him just stop and he waited by the door. And when I walked up, he goes, you're Jeremy Jensen, right? And I said, yeah. He goes, I follow you on LinkedIn. We've never met, but I just want to say I really like your videos. I could have asked that guy, what was your favorite video? And he would have no idea. He just knows I come up in his feed all the time, so surely I must be good at what I do, right?
Crystal Ware 0:50:43
I'm a recruiter.
Jeremy Jensen 0:50:44
He knew that. So if he was at the roundtable, at his company, in a board meeting, and they ware saying, hey, look, we need to confidentially replace our Director of Human Resources, does anybody know a good recruiter? That gentleman might have raised his hand just because of familiarity, right? There was rapport, there was credibility. Maybe trust hadn't been built yet, but he was at least willing to have the conversation and vouch for me, right? And so I think that as we look at lead generation strategies and how do we develop our brand and position ourselves, it's very important to recognize that we need to be consistent about producing content in a multichannel medium, right? Videos, text, showing up in person at events, not just dominating one specific medium.
Crystal Ware 0:51:32
Do you encourage your employees to be present and create content like that as well for their own personal branding, for their improved engagement with clients? Or do you just lead by example? Do you guys talk about that here?
Jeremy Jensen 0:51:48
Yeah. So, honestly, my employees don't like posting to LinkedIn, especially videos. And I think it's because a good lead for us is an employer that's willing to spend a $50,000 recruiting fee to find a new VP of sales for their recently private equity funded technology company. All right, that's a huge fee, $50,000. And so whenever they retain our services, we're looking for something very, very acute. They may say it needs to be a female who's led sales teams of six to 15 that understands AI digital transformation, that went to a public university, that worked her way through college, and she's single with no kids. I mean, that's the extent of what a client will tell us of what they need. So what our recruiters do on a daily basis is they build a definitive candidate pool of, let's say, anywhere from 30 to 50 people. And then they cold call, cold text, cold DM code, Facebook message these people to try to just say, hey, look, let me tell you about an opportunity. But whenever they post to LinkedIn, they get so many people that say, I'm looking for a job, I'm looking for a job, I'm looking for a job. And so, unfortunately, they're almost scared to post to LinkedIn because they think that it's going to bog them down and pull them into the weeds. And then they just want to focus on calling those 30 to 50 people. Does that make sense?
Crystal Ware 0:53:23
Yeah.
Jeremy Jensen 0:53:23
Right?
Jeremy Jensen 0:53:24
And so it's kind of a catch 22, because when you are seen by a lot of people, you will get engagement. And so it's very important to where you have a clear messaging on what it is that you do, to where you say, hey, I focus on companies that have 20 million in revenues, and above that are construction companies or transportation companies or robotics companies, manufacturing companies that have very high premium.
Jeremy Jensen 0:53:52
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:53:53
Because then you're not just the one stop shop person for everyone.
Jeremy Jensen 0:53:57
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:53:57
Does that make sense?
Crystal Ware 0:53:58
Yeah, absolutely.
Jeremy Jensen 0:53:59
So there is an aversion that they have to putting their face on video. To be quite honest, I used to have the same aversion. Maybe because my skin wasn't as clear as I would like it to be, maybe because I wasn't at the weight that I was whenever I was in college and I didn't like the way that I looked on camera.
Jeremy Jensen 0:54:18
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:54:19
Well, what happened was somebody brought me on their podcast, posted me, and I ended up getting all these words of affirmation, oh, Jeremy is so smart. Can I reshare? Oh, wow. They're not saying that I'm fat. They're not saying that I have acne.
Jeremy Jensen 0:54:36
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:54:37
And so I quickly found out that, hey, look, if maybe you're not the best version of yourself, that's okay.
Jeremy Jensen 0:54:45
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:54:46
But it's about consistency. It's about volume. It's about the quality of the content. And maybe 10% of people self select out because you didn't record in, but the whole 90% that stay around that consume your content twice a week, three times a week, once a day, those people develop a very deep relationship with your networking persona.
Crystal Ware 0:55:10
Yeah. And I think it can have that's. Probably what held me back from Instagram for so long, is that I just didn't want my face to be out there in that way. It really was. You've got a great face.
Jeremy Jensen 0:55:21
What are you talking about?
Crystal Ware 0:55:22
Thank you. I had this fear that you're going to grow into this influencer type space, and I don't know how I'd feel if somebody walked up to me at a restaurant, like you said, and recognized me. That's my kind of fear. But I realized that in my purpose and my passion in helping people and getting to the core and sharing my experience and my belief and what other people can do, you do need to have that personal connectivity. And so I will attribute that seeing your content to a large degree oh, really? Is what really made me think, okay, maybe I should do some more video. Maybe I should step out there a little bit and just ignore if there is any naysayers. Because at the end of the day, it's about what is going to help you get to where you're going. There are going to be naysayers. There are going to be people that have something negative to come back. No matter how perfect things are, no matter how great your content is, no matter what you're doing, there's always going to be negative people in there. And to get to a great place, to a level of success, to achieve whatever you want to achieve, we have to be able to turn blinders onto that and build a little bit of.
Jeremy Jensen 0:56:33
A test look at the most successful people in the world. I mean, Elon Musk has a lot of haters of haters. Jeff bezos right. That's right, everybody. Bill Gates might have far fewer than them, but I guarantee you there's some haters there. Excellent. Well, I'm glad that you're doing it now because it's good content.
Crystal Ware 0:56:54
Yeah. Well, I have so appreciated everything that you've shared with us. I just have a few more questions that I kind of wanted to go through to help people if they are feeling stuck right now. What do you think has helped you stay motivated to propel yourself forward for all these years?
Jeremy Jensen 0:57:15
So I think that we go through seasons of life on things that we prioritize. I know very early in my career, I was so focused on buying the house that I wanted, the cars that I wanted. I got married. I had three kids.
Jeremy Jensen 0:57:32
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:57:32
There were all these milestones, and I poured a lot of time and attention on that.
Jeremy Jensen 0:57:36
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:57:37
And then in the next season of life, I was building my business.
Jeremy Jensen 0:57:41
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 0:57:43
And okay. I got to hire a VP of Operations. I got to hire a director of sales. I've got to top grade these individual contributors. I need a new office. I need this. And whenever I look at the last three years, kind of like post divorce, taking a look in the mirror and realizing, holy shit. On the surface, I should be the happiest person in the world. I've achieved my business goals, my income goals, beautiful wife, three children, great house in the suburbs. Why am I unhappy?
Jeremy Jensen 0:58:16
Right?
Jeremy Jensen 0:58:16
And so one of the resources that was very important for me to secure in January of 2021 was I hired an executive life coach of somebody that I visit with once a week. And then for about an hour and a half, we just go deep, right? There's about twelve different facets of life that we look like. And in the beginning, it was a lot of, like, discovery. What's important to you? Why is it important? Because if, let's say, spirituality is certainly one of the twelve components of life, but on an importance level, it may only be a two or a three, then, okay, we can push that to the side. That may evolve into a six or a seven at a later date.
Jeremy Jensen 0:58:55
Right?
Jeremy Jensen 0:58:55
But it was, okay, how am I as a father, how am I as a son, a spouse, a leader, a learner, a creator, right? An investor? All these different facets and then really being very intentional about, okay, this week we're going to tackle this, right? And then developing a plan to create swift, meaningful action. So I'll just give a brief analogy. If okay. Whenever I first started working with my coach, I really short up my relationship with my ex wife, and it's better than it's ever been. Then I focused on my relationship with my brother, then my mom, then my COO, then my employees, all these things. And so finally it gets around to health. Well, I can't go do CrossFit.
Jeremy Jensen 0:59:48
Why?
Jeremy Jensen 0:59:49
Well, because I have a torn ACL and I have a torn labrum. Okay, well, schedule the appointment. You need to have surgery. If you're telling me your goal is to live a fitness centered life and to lose 65 pounds, and that's holding you back from achieving your goal, then you need to do it right now. So my executive life coach was basically my accountability partner. He's much younger than me. I'm 39. He's probably 31, 32 years old. But he provides structure, empathy. He's inquisitive. He's an immaculate notetaker, and he checks in on me every other day to make sure that I am doing every single thing that we planned out to do. He's the accountability partner that I needed to achieve my own vision. I didn't need someone else telling me what to do. It needed to be my idea. So I think that that was very, very critical for me to achieve my success.
Crystal Ware 1:00:47
That's amazing. And I would share that for a lot of professionals, a. Coach like this could be extremely useful. I also work with a coach, but I also say if you feel like that is not in the financial budget, you can grab a friend. I'm sure you know somebody. I have been that friend for many people. You have to hear the hard things sometimes and people don't always want to hear it. That's the problem. But if you really want to grow, you have to be prepared to hear the hard things. What is holding you back, Jeremy? Is it your fault that you cannot do and achieve your fitness goals because you are not taking care of the actual problem? Go take care of it. Sometimes people don't want to hear it that you have made decisions that are not aligning with your goals. If you want to achieve them, sometimes it's just easier to have the excuses. And a coach or an accountability partner, a good one, is going to push you out of there and say, here's a mirror, this is where you're going wrong.
Crystal Ware 1:01:44
And I think we all need that. Nobody here is Jesus, right? Nobody here is perfect. Then we all can improve on things and that's what a life coach can do. But I do think there's also resources for people that may not find and then there's executive coaches in all budgets of life. But I strongly agree with that. The last question I wanted to ask and just kind of touch on is another thing that we hear about with leadership, entrepreneurship, business owners, is having the time to do it all. How have you been able to reprioritize to have the balanced life that you want? And it may not always be imbalanced, so sometimes that's a tricky word to use, but you know what I mean.
Jeremy Jensen 1:02:27
Absolutely. So whenever I was building, right, I was the one that was doing it all, working 70 hours a week, checking my emails at 839 o'clock at night, whenever I probably should have been giving my kids a bath and tucking them in and reading them a book.
Jeremy Jensen 1:02:43
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 1:02:43
And so it really caused a lot of stress on my life at home because I was frankly spending far too much time building my business.
Jeremy Jensen 1:02:53
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 1:02:54
And so once I had the disposable income to invest in, okay, I need an internal recruitment manager, I need an operations manager, I need a marketing director, I need a chief operating officer. What really gave me that work life balance that equated to the level of happiness that I've secured today is delegating. And elevating was very important right. Knowing that, hey, look, if these folks can only do it 80% to the ability that I could do it if I did it myself, but I have ten people, that's 80% times ten, that's 800%. I can only ever give 100%. Does that make sense?
Crystal Ware 1:03:40
Yeah.
Jeremy Jensen 1:03:40
So it's like, okay, if my work is at 95, well, that means 5% is only being devoted to personal.
Jeremy Jensen 1:03:49
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 1:03:49
And so it was a matter of which levers do I pull? Because I'm only one person. And so delegating and elevating was very important. One of the challenges that it's posed is when you've reached my level of financial security and I'm used to just buying what I want. Oh, we need more sales. Let me go buy three salespeople.
Jeremy Jensen 1:04:09
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 1:04:11
In your relationships at home. You can't do that. You can't just oh well, here's a Louis Vuitton bag. We're good now, right? No. It requires intentionality around seeking to understand, having empathy, giving them a very safe place to voice their concerns, being coachable.
Jeremy Jensen 1:04:31
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 1:04:31
Those are the characteristics that equates to success, I think, in your personal relationships.
Crystal Ware 1:04:37
Yeah. And I will add to that that being a type A working mom, having a super type A busy husband, running his own business, it's not about the time you're spending. It is about the level of connection and the ability to really be present in that time that I think is the most influential part. I mean, my love language is definitely quality time, but I don't need to see somebody every night for 2 hours. And that's not realistic. We have to be realistic on what our goals are. But even if you're having 30 minutes or sometimes my husband and I will go get coffee after we drop off the kids and sit in the car sipping our coffee for 25 minutes before he goes to the office. And I go to my office and we will download for the day or just have a 15 minutes snuggle and chat at the end of the day, it doesn't have to be this overwhelming thing.
Jeremy Jensen 1:05:30
Is that a synonym for something?
Crystal Ware 1:05:31
Snuggle? Yes. I'm not a super touchy person. He likes to hug and be snuggling. Oh my God, so is my husband. I had to really learn. I'm like I gave all my snuggles away to the kids, man, I'm out. But you got to save something for your spouse. And it's something that's so important to me because no matter how great our relationship is, that's always something I love to talk to people about because I also feel like I can always improve, we can always do better. What are other people doing? What have I learned in all these years that I could share with other people? Because at the end of the day, we are made for connection, we are made for community. And whether that is you have a spouse or not, you need a community around you. And that's really important part. And when we forget about that and we have laser focus on our business, that can be to the detriment of our health and our long term wellness.
Crystal Ware 1:06:24
So I'm just really important to me and I always love to hear about how other people have kind of chewed into that. Especially if you hit some road bumps along the way. So the last question I would have for you is if you had a friend that called you today and said, jeremy, I'm not happy with my career. What is the 32nd mentorship that you would give them to get them kind of straight on realigned with life and looking at where they want to go and how to find ultimate happiness and satisfaction?
Jeremy Jensen 1:07:01
Well, I'm not in the business of finding ultimate happiness and satisfaction for people. I'm not a performance coach or a mindset coach. I'm a headhunter.
Jeremy Jensen 1:07:10
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 1:07:11
And so I like to find people that are really good at their job and poach them from our client's competitor and bring them to do the same exact job at our client.
Jeremy Jensen 1:07:24
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 1:07:25
So that's what I'm an expert in. But I'll give you an example of something that was brought up to me this morning. So I'm in a group chat with the Entrepreneurs Organization, and somebody said, hey, look, a friend of mine, she's been at Investco for 23 years. She just got laid off this morning. She's distraught. She doesn't even know the first place to look. And so I'll give that advice, if you don't mind.
Crystal Ware 1:07:50
Yeah.
Jeremy Jensen 1:07:50
So what I told her was, I said, the first thing that you need to do is you need to go through your LinkedIn messages. And if you don't have a LinkedIn, you need to create one. But you need to go through all the messages that you've gotten over the last two years. Because if recruiters were reaching out to you, it means one of two things. It means they have clients in your space and they recruit for people like you.
Jeremy Jensen 1:08:18
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 1:08:18
So I get referrals all the time from people looking for opportunities. But it's like, we don't really recruit for staff accountants. We might only get two of those searches a year. Or HR Managers or XYZ. Oh, are they a partner level attorney with a $3 million book of business? Yeah. Refer that to me. We got them.
Jeremy Jensen 1:08:36
Right.
Jeremy Jensen 1:08:37
But the point that I'm making is, go to the people that have reached out to you in the last three years. Start engaging with them. Don't be embarrassed that it's been nine months since they messaged you and you haven't even logged into LinkedIn. Say, hey, my apologies, I was gainfully employed at the time. My situation has changed. Is your client still hiring? I would love to talk to him about this opportunity. Obviously, that job has been closed most likely if it's been nine months, but their client should still be their client. Does that make sense?
Crystal Ware 1:09:10
Yeah.
Jeremy Jensen 1:09:10
All right, so number one. Number two, you need to reach out to everybody that can vouch for your work ethic and technical competency.
Jeremy Jensen 1:09:19
Right?
Jeremy Jensen 1:09:20
And so usually it's former coworkers, former bosses, former direct reports, and then you need to phone call them or text message them. Email is going to get ignored. Everybody that gets an email, first thing that they assume is this is a mass message. That's just the way that we're wired nowadays, right? This is a mass message. Hey, I'm currently looking for an opportunity. If you know of anything, please let me know.
Jeremy Jensen 1:09:45
No.
Jeremy Jensen 1:09:46
If I get a call from anybody that I used to work with and then they follow up with a text message because I didn't answer and they say, hey, it's been a while. I'm not sure if you've heard yet. Investco just did a round of layoffs last week. Unfortunately, I was a casualty. Wanted to get you on the phone. I see that you ware at Superior Energy Services, and I would love to talk to you to see how you're liking it over there and just catch up. What's the probability I'm going to ghost that person? Does that make sense? It was a phone call and a text and so networking with people that can vouch for you. So instead of posting to LinkedIn or sending an email blast or something to that effect, being very intentional about Navigating. With that close network, it might only be ten people, but if you spend meaningful time with every one of those ten people, they all should create another two or three different tree limbs for you to navigate down. Does that make sense?
Crystal Ware 1:10:49
Absolutely.
Jeremy Jensen 1:10:50
All right.
Crystal Ware 1:10:50
No, I think that is such a practical tip and something I'm going to slot in some of the information that I have for people, too. I love that. I honestly would not have thought about that, but I get recruiter calls all the time, so or on LinkedIn, people are messaging me, so that that is.
Jeremy Jensen 1:11:09
You'Re not looking until you are right about that.
Crystal Ware 1:11:12
Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, that is incredible, and I just wouldn't have thought of that, so that's awesome. I love everything that you shared. I love everything you're doing. I mean, I just think you are a business case study. You are someone that could go and just teach an entrepreneurship class, and there's just so much that people can learn from you. So I will share all of your LinkedIn, your Instagram, all your website, everything. Is there anything else you would want people to know? Do you have any projects coming up? Anything else that you would want to.
Jeremy Jensen 1:11:46
Promote or know about? We're launching our own podcast here at Encore Search Partners, and it's going to be called The Path to Success, right? Where I interview people in person here in Houston that are successful in whatever the field that they're in. They might be an Olympic athlete, they might be a corporate executive, an entrepreneur, an amazing teacher, teacher of the year, three out of the last four years. But I want to develop deep, meaningful connections with people that are successful because I want to increase my social circle.
Jeremy Jensen 1:12:20
Right?
Jeremy Jensen 1:12:20
Because there comes a point in time whenever you're wealth building to where the money isn't really the most important thing anymore. It's about the relationships. And I think that I'm probably going through a midlife crisis to where that's really where my effort is at right now, is the relationships, the path to success. Keep an eye out.
Crystal Ware 1:12:41
I can't wait to hear about it. And I know that I have several people that I would be happy to connect you with on there because that is what it's all about, people. It's connecting. If you don't spend time connecting, then you're going to stay stuck. You got to get out of your box. You got to get out there. Believe me, I was in Jeremy's LinkedIn inbox multiple times, finding connections, saying, this guy is so interesting. This guy has so much to offer. We've got to talk to him. And don't take no for an answer. Get out there and do it. Not that you told me no, but when people do, I'm not afraid to keep going. That are the difference maker that people have to see if you're successful, just like you. I'm sure you had no's along the way. You keep going.
Crystal Ware 1:13:21
You build the relationship, you find ways to connect, you find ways to network, and that perseverance is going to get you successful. So thank you so much. There's so much clarity that you've brought to the audience and your time has been a blessing. I can't wait to talk to you more and see your continued success.
Jeremy Jensen 1:13:40
Thanks.
Crystal Ware 1:13:41
All right. Thanks so much, everybody. Thanks for listening, tuning in. If you loved what you heard, it would mean so much to me if you shared it with your friends. Tag us on social media so we can give you a big shout out. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on Apple podcasts. If you want more, head on over to the website where you can learn all about what we do to serve and support.