Unlocking Entrepreneurial Success with Jill Chapman

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the HigherHer Podcast by Talent Collective, presenting conversations with inspiring women in talent and get ready ladies.

[00:00:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Because this is the last time you're going to hear a man's voice on this show.

[00:00:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Welcome everybody to our latest episode of HigherHer, Our Podcast by Talent Collective.

[00:00:19] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm Natalie Stone's one of the co-founders, and here with me today is Christa.

[00:00:24] [SPEAKER_02]: My co-founder say hello, hello, hi, everybody.

[00:00:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And we are so excited today to bring our guest Jill Chapman to the podcast, Jill and I actually have some long-time history of working together previously at InSpaarity.

[00:00:45] [SPEAKER_02]: When I had my briefstint living in Houston, Texas, but I was really excited to invite Jill to be on our podcast because Talent Collective's podcast is all about conversations with inspiring women,

[00:00:57] [SPEAKER_02]: and talent, and Jill over the years inspired me so much she had experienced beyond my years.

[00:01:05] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what I was thinking, I was kind of your pseudo manager, what did I know you had so much more experience.

[00:01:12] [SPEAKER_02]: But we're kind of like two-piece in a pot.

[00:01:14] [SPEAKER_02]: We decided to put together LinkedIn Live podcasts together, we worked on projects together, and just built a really great friendship.

[00:01:22] [SPEAKER_02]: So I wanted to bring you on and really highlight your story because there's so much cool stuff that you've done over the years.

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_02]: So without further ado, I'd love to introduce you Jill, and have you share a little bit about your background.

[00:01:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, thanks, Nat, and those were such kind words. I appreciate it so much.

[00:01:37] [SPEAKER_01]: We did have a lot of fun together when we were building all those new and different ideas that we had for corporate talent acquisition.

[00:01:44] [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I'm Jill Chapman. My role now is working with Early Talent.

[00:01:50] [SPEAKER_01]: So the great here comes naturally and it's kind of time in my career to get back, right?

[00:01:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And so ushering in this next generation beyond professionals into our organization and just into the work world.

[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_01]: So we're working a lot with our interns, both our high school and college interns, and then with people who are possibly making career changes, right?

[00:02:10] [SPEAKER_01]: We consider early talent anything zero to three years of experience. So we have a lot of people who may be stepped out for a little bit more coming back, and so they kind of qualify for that monocurs well.

[00:02:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, like I said, the gray here comes naturally. That's because I had a lot of years in talent acquisition. So yeah.

[00:02:30] [SPEAKER_02]: That is a great segue. I actually would love for you to tell the story when I actually met Jill, she was semi retired or I don't remember what you were calling it that time.

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_02]: You had already had your recruiting career, you had started an agency.

[00:02:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Can you tell us your story about how you kind of got to that point of wanting to do your own thing and having it be acquired and.

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Right. So yeah, so you know I am not sure that there's anybody who wakes up and says I want to be in staffing. That's that's what I want to do.

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And maybe maybe there's more so now, but back in my time, that wasn't a thing. You just kind of fell into staffing.

[00:03:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And so like many others, I fell into staffing. And it was still kind of new and unique at that time.

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_01]: We had gone from using staffing agencies like a replacement for vacation replacement or something like that to where it was actually a line item in a lot of budgets who people were planning.

[00:03:31] [SPEAKER_01]: To augment their staffs with folks that would come in in a seasonal type situation. So the industry was changing it was a very heavy time for those of us in the industry and I had an opportunity and I took it.

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was a large because a sorority sister had been she graduated a year before me. She got into the same company doing the same sort of thing. I was like, hey, she can do it.

[00:03:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And and then the rest is history and that was a large international organization. So it was very lucky that I kind of kept my teeth in a strong organization that had a fantastic training program all the good stuff right.

[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And and with that organization I was able to work and merge those in acquisitions.

[00:04:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And so you know, kind of made me think I started meet all these people who own smaller agencies and that sort of thing as a possibility at some point in my life.

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_01]: But I always said to self, I was like, self, you ever do something like that? You're going to and you sell. You're going to drop the keys on the desk and turn around and walk away because I watched as we acquired other firms.

[00:04:39] [SPEAKER_01]: The changes, the dynamics you know of that was my baby. Now it's their baby and you know, it's just not it's not the same. So fast forward through some experience and I had an opportunity to purchase an existing firm in my hometown.

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's in had an awesome awesome experience. But had grown to a size where I was either going to need to take on some additional investors or something was going to have to change because we were just that big.

[00:05:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And and had an opportunity to sell into another organization, a much larger regional firm and stayed with the organization. What did I say?

[00:05:26] [SPEAKER_01]: I was supposed to drop the keys and turn around and walk away right? Didn't do it.

[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_01]: But then this opportunity had an disparity came just based on some friends and relations because I had been staying in it and again that's kind of a weird feeling.

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And so it was time to like do whatever's next and whatever next was like I had no idea. And was presented with an opportunity here at an disparity never looked back. So it just happened to mushroom and into what it is now and I had an opportunity to bring in the early talent and our organization was volunteer at first.

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_01]: So I was working with a team of about eight and then we got pretty good at it in this volunteer thing and we see the writing on the wall here at inspirity that that is what's next for inspiration. So we made it we made it real and started a work group that's dedicated to early talent.

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh my goodness so so many thanks for sharing your story Jill. I'm going to use a corporate term or phrase that I've been hearing a lot lately. Let's double click.

[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_01]: So I think you're easy time. That is so 1924. I'm so stupid. It's 2024.

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_03]: So let's double click into your agency time. I think there's a lot of people out there right now. A lot of women in TA just TA professionals who have been laid off.

[00:07:08] [SPEAKER_03]: Many, many times in the last couple of years and I started their own thing and we're having me have always had an agency and are really struggling right now because of the market.

[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_03]: So I love to hear from you if you did anything during your ages years something maybe like unconventional that you tried either as a way to lower costs or to increase sales.

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah so okay so you're taking me back for a minute because this is this has been it's been a minute since I was there but you know it really it's not for the faint of heart right it seems easy from the outside to do something like running in an agency but.

[00:07:54] [SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of ups and downs. One thing that I would recommend to somebody who's thinking about this is really playing with that idea of doing both temp and perm at the same time because it seems like when ones up the other one maybe is is.

[00:08:08] [SPEAKER_01]: You know a little bit behind and so it kind of levels everything out and it makes a whole lot easier. I think to plan and predict and to keep cash flow kind of running the way that you would like to so really encourage that kind of you know kind of playing both in to get some middle if you will but.

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_01]: I will say that I attended to work more in that in the tip side of the business because that was you know where I had cut my teeth and then would have people that were.

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_01]: That were doing the direct tire placements for us but.

[00:08:44] [SPEAKER_01]: You know really the way that I was able to grow my agency and we did we did a great job of growing.

[00:08:52] [SPEAKER_01]: We're named all these kind of lists and all this kind of stuff and but one of the things was just my involvement in the community.

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't go out and knock on doors and do a lot of hard sales right and sales calls like that. It was a matter of working through this committee doing volunteering here.

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Being engaged over with this organization or knowing these people were taking my.

[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Sure, certification or teaching the term certification classes and that's sort of thing.

[00:09:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And I would it was a slow it was a slow roll. I never expected that I was just going to go close something and then you know make the deal right away.

[00:09:31] [SPEAKER_01]: I hadn't I had some patience and was able to build up a business just based on relationships.

[00:09:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And that was what it was all about for me is making relationships with those people who could either help me to meet the right people or were the right people all together.

[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_01]: So I would I would really lean heavily on the relationships that I build in the community, right and and that was probably the secret sauce for all the years that we were together in my staffing agency was the relationship so we were able to build.

[00:10:05] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, if you have those relationships you don't have to sell like you said which is oh my goodness so so wonderful so congratulations on building a thriving business based on that that's amazing.

[00:10:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, yeah.

[00:10:19] [SPEAKER_02]: I want to actually triple down I think that's another.

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_01]: You're clicking now or we're clicking now.

[00:10:26] [SPEAKER_01]: We're clicking now.

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I know that we're.

[00:10:29] [SPEAKER_02]: This is this question we did not prepare for but as you were talking about like temp and how to basically diversify your agency.

[00:10:38] [SPEAKER_02]: I think so many of our agency members and many of them actually are founders or solar panors or they're like operating as embedded or fractional.

[00:10:49] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not sure if you've heard of this kind of like new age term it has some temp like vibes to it but it also has like interim consulting.

[00:11:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:00] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm really curious about your thoughts on kind of this movement towards.

[00:11:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, at least we're seeing it here in the Bay Area a ton right it's like so many layoffs so we don't necessarily need full time hires but maybe there could be a case.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_02]: But it's for a fractional or an embedded employee whether that's a fractional embedded recruiter or.

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Chief revenue officer, CMO, etc.

[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just curious about your thoughts because a lot of our members who run traditional contingent firms are thinking about.

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Do I offer both do I just move completely that way do I go retain what do I do.

[00:11:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, so if you were in.

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I can't be doing it now because I mean quite frankly let's be real.

[00:11:48] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a sexy way to describe what we were already doing anyway right and and so yeah heck yeah I would be offering that.

[00:11:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Keeping a bit of quality people that I could just move from place to place and then they come back around if if that was the case, you know it doesn't mean that you're elevating the kind of talented bringing into your organization usually.

[00:12:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, to work in these fractional or temporary or contract or whatever you want to kind of how you want to name the gigs but absolutely I would buy into that.

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Buy into that because you know a hundred years ago I read a book by Daniel Paine is called free agent nation and I have that book is old now.

[00:12:28] [SPEAKER_01]: But you know that was what he was predicting really at the end of the day in that book was that we would have these really large organizations that would have good people people, but that you would just be placing the people in project type gigs.

[00:12:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, you know and then moving people around has needed so I definitely would be all in it.

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_01]: I was always looking for that kind of thing like if could I offer you know this kind of you know disc certifications and things like that that would augment you know what we were trying to do on the on the staffing side.

[00:13:02] [SPEAKER_01]: You know that's the cool thing I think about being an entrepreneur is much you've broken one plane it's so much easier to do this and do something else and add another another another element another product another service to what it is that you do it's just taking that first step and getting involved right.

[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes. Thanks for letting me go off the cuff.

[00:13:23] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, absolutely all right well this is going to be our last question here.

[00:13:29] [SPEAKER_03]: So I left you here for me then in tea for a long time if there's maybe story you can remember maybe it's a fun story or just a really great candidate story as someone you placed.

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_03]: Just something really memorable that comes to your mind.

[00:13:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there were so many great placements. I mean you know those moments where you know that you change somebody's life and and so there's a lot of those luckily a lot of those.

[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Of course some of the ones that you tend to tend to stick out to are the ones that were maybe less successful for one reason or another or you know just something because there's no predicting human nature right.

[00:14:07] [SPEAKER_01]: So some of those kind of stories I can keep you up all night with that I used to keep an envelope of all the crazy that would happen and then you know and I was like one day I'm going to write a book one day.

[00:14:18] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to talk about all these these episodes that we experienced but somewhere that that folder is somewhere still and and I'm pretty sure that the stories that years may change but the stories may stay very much the same right.

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Some of the things that people will will try I would like to leave on this note and I don't know if this is just a word for somebody but all of a sudden it became very important for me to be able to save this.

[00:14:46] [SPEAKER_01]: But I see a lot of you know of recruiting organizations recruiters, you know kind of clutching their pearls around this idea of ghosting still and I happen to us you know from time to time.

[00:15:00] [SPEAKER_01]: But I want to say that some of that has a little bit to do with how we handle ourselves as staffing and T.A. professionals right.

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_01]: If we're not willing to pick up the phone to talk to the people and to answer their questions which is our job number one right.

[00:15:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Then I don't know why we're so surprised when something like that might happen and so I think this is a profession that we're in.

[00:15:28] [SPEAKER_01]: We are professionals and so I think we have to keep that front and center because I think that some of the.

[00:15:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Some of the ways that we've handled the past is going to predict our future if we don't if we don't keep in mind that we are professionals first.

[00:15:46] [SPEAKER_03]: I wish I had kept an envelope full of those stories because I too and Natalie worked 10th and so I think.

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER_03]: A lot I mean recruiting in general there's going to be all those stories but I think with 10 you get a little more of the crazy.

[00:16:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's the reason people couldn't go to work you know or just sort of let in some of the phone calls that you would get.

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_01]: You know about why they can't or can't be there what's going on in their lives but this is this dates me right now because I doubt you guys either view to remember the show but there was a show called Murphy Brown and she would.

[00:16:25] [SPEAKER_01]: She always had a temporary working at her as her EA or whatever and usually the first call was like what was going wrong by the the tip couldn't come into the office.

[00:16:37] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm like man, I could just be that all day long with with reasons why people couldn't go to work definitely we actually at one point sent out some of our employees on my team was.

[00:16:49] [SPEAKER_03]: I think that's a really good like smooth like to just would go find any like she was this person did not show up and it was like this major concern and she was like calling like the police department she was calling like hospital like.

[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_03]: It was great we actually had someone go to this person's house for like a well check alone the check and yeah it was wild times but very.

[00:17:14] [SPEAKER_03]: Awesome gel but I feel like we can talk all day long.

[00:17:19] [SPEAKER_03]: We're gonna wrap up now but we're gonna listen to our news.

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you and say hello.

[00:17:24] [SPEAKER_01]: So on all the social media platforms probably the most likely is going to be on LinkedIn and it's chill.

[00:17:31] [SPEAKER_03]: Alright well thank you again this conversation has been so so fun we appreciate you coming on and sharing all of your wisdom and hopefully we'll get to do it again.

[00:17:43] [SPEAKER_03]: So to all of our listeners remember to like and subscribe and then you can also find this podcast on any of your channels in order YouTube and see you next time.

[00:17:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.

[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.