Featuring: Jeff Wanner

Join me on Jeff Wanner's career journey, starting in Ohio, stumbling into owning a business in North Carolina and finding love along the way.

Check out Jeff's Journey Line here.

Transcript

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Kim Minnick (00:01)
Hello and welcome to Journey Lines, the show answering the question, how did they get there? I am so excited to introduce today's guest, Jeff Wanner. Jeff, how are you today?

Jeff Wanner (00:12)
I'm wonderful, Kim. Thanks for having me.

Kim Minnick (00:15)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's kick it off as normal. Tell me a little bit about what you're doing today, personally, professionally, and holistically.

Jeff Wanner (00:23)
In that order or can I can I bounce around like my ADD is going to do naturally? Yeah, well, my my little girl turns four tomorrow, so that's super exciting on the on the personal side. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, we're super excited. We're we're gonna be taking her to Disney when I say we I mean, my wife is going to a mama mama bird that one with with a friend and another daughter into a little mommy daughter.

Kim Minnick (00:26)
however you feel. Yeah, give it to word vomit.

Happy birthday.

Jeff Wanner (00:53)
trip away that my daughter does not know about until tomorrow afternoon. So I'm expecting that that'll be a very big celebration. Yeah, yeah. So we're super stoked about that. On the on the business side, I just I mean, this time of year in my industry just ends up being a go go go minute by minute of things that are happening from a production perspective and client maintenance perspective. So it's one of those where there's not really a lot of extra minutes.

Kim Minnick (01:00)
That's a big surprise.

Jeff Wanner (01:22)
in the day. Yeah, not a discretionary minutes. But yeah, so it's been good that we brought down a CRO that was super excited about that was kind of a long game play for us that started probably two years ago and finally came to fruition about about a month ago. So very excited about that. As the company evolves, I think that ultimately I

Kim Minnick (01:23)
in the day.

Jeff Wanner (01:47)
and does any business, you end up doing everything for everything for a long time until you start finding people that you can build around you that share your vision and cultures and values. And I'm very excited to be bringing him on board.

Kim Minnick (02:01)
How exciting. And we actually met because of your business. You are the CEO over at PairPEO. Do you want to just give the audience a real quick, like, two -second overview about what PairPEO is?

Jeff Wanner (02:13)
Yeah, I'd say that I think that the most refreshing thing about us is that we try not to. Well, I say try not to. We don't push PEO. We actively help people not buy it when it doesn't make sense. We find that I used to be in a direct rep seat in the PEO space where you're trying to pipeline everything and convince yourself why a deal makes sense over and over again, ignoring the 20 reasons it makes zero sense.

So we're kind of the voice of reasons for clients that are interested in PEOs but don't want to spend a ton of time on a hard sale and really focus on whether or not the math makes sense, the business case makes sense and help them get to the know quicker instead of spinning their tires on something that's just going to cause frustration.

Kim Minnick (02:54)
Cool, kind of like an objective third party that can really help manage your employment organization, if you will.

Jeff Wanner (03:02)
Yeah, I think that the PEO industry has a lot of warts on it. And I think that if clients are aware of those warts and still want to move forward, then they can walk into a very productive relationship. But historically, people are buying all of the warm and fuzzies and not being shown the warts. And when they find out about the warts after a big payroll transition, it just feels like a very big hostage relationship. So when I started the company was really meant to help people know what they're buying and

understand what they're buying and ultimately walking away when it doesn't make any sense.

Kim Minnick (03:36)
Well, on behalf of HR professionals everywhere, thanks for preventing us from being held hostage. And with that, I've got your journey line in front of me. I'm so excited to dive in. Maybe start us off, tell us where we're at in time and space. I see you're making a move. So kick us off, where are we at?

Jeff Wanner (03:41)
You're welcome.

Yeah, do you me to start at the beginning of the journey? Where are we starting when it comes? Yeah.

Kim Minnick (04:01)
The beginning of your journey line, yeah. you've got just, yeah, kick us off at the start.

Jeff Wanner (04:06)
Where does this, where did this start? Yeah. Jeff is a, an Ohio native that branched out to, Charlotte, North Carolina, about 10 and a half years ago. and I moved down with two buddies, that we were planning on, you know, we were in our early twenties doing the whole bachelor thing in a new city, swiped right on my wife. the first person I met on Tinder was my wife and the only person I've met on Tinder is my wife. So I ruined the boys club almost immediately.

Kim Minnick (04:32)
Amazing.

Jeff Wanner (04:35)
I moved here in January, met my wife in early March. Yeah, yeah. definitely, yeah, bait and switched my buddies that we moved down here. One of mine is actually my like, technically like a COO to my operation now he's been with me for three and a half or two and a half years. And my other has turned into my fractional CFO. So we still get to be friends, work together and all the fun things that we envision when we move down here. I just

Kim Minnick (04:40)
Real quick, real short bachelorette life or bachelor life.

Jeff Wanner (05:06)
I just started a relationship whenever they took another seven or eight years before they ended up walking down the path. So anyway, that was the journey from Ohio to Charlotte. And when I moved into Charlotte, I know you are from the Carolinas, you understand this ecosystem is a lovely place to live, to grow, to put your roots down and raise a family. And I was selling for a

value -added reselling a technology space out of Ohio, very like lovely mom and pop family type of operation that I really felt connected to. And as soon as I moved to Charlotte, you know, became the stepchild that they didn't really want to hear from unless it was revenue related. And so I felt like all of the intrinsic emotional attachment to that job, it kind of evaporated overnight and knowing that I wanted to. Yeah.

Kim Minnick (05:59)
was that job in Ohio and then you were, okay, so being, I mean, this was before remote work was really a huge thing. So you really did kind of like disconnect a little bit, huh?

Jeff Wanner (06:10)
Yeah, yeah. So I basically opened up a new office down here for them and I was 24th time and I was just trying to ingrain myself in the entrepreneurial community here in Charlotte. And and then by happenstance, as I was kind of hitting this point where my intrinsic motivation was minimizing, I was becoming disengaged from kind of all of the relationships that really sold me on that employer. And disparity had found me. So it's a big, you global or

you know, countrywide, PEO, Enterprise, Corporate America, I no idea what PEO was, which is 90 % of the people that hear that acronym don't know what it is. And then I kind of went apathetically into the interview because I was still kind of like, okay, I'm on an island here by myself, I'm in a new city, I kind of have a ton of autonomy, but just didn't have a ton of connection to my employer at that point. And knew I wanted to kind of branch out my personal brand here in Charlotte, not knowing what ultimately I'd want to create over time. And, and just happened to take that first interview and

And I remember after I started to understand what they did in some rudimentary context, I remember being very excited for the second and third interviews and trying to actually go gain employment. And that was my position into the PEO environment and understanding that ultimately there's a lot of moving pieces that come into it. There's a lot to learn. And so I maintained that journey with them for four years, but

Really after two years of being there, I knew that there was a better way for people to buy what I was trying to sell them. A lot of our industry is being bought for the first time. And when people are buying stuff for the first time, they don't know what to ask. They don't know what kind of concessions are available. And when you can really get on their side of the table and make sure you're coaching them through the process and helping them make a good decision that ultimately you'd make yourself, that feels a heck of a lot more sustainable for

my mentality of building my personal brand, then just smiling through my teeth and enthusiastically selling something that I didn't believe was a really meaningful fit for the client.

Kim Minnick (08:19)
That's so interesting because I feel like, especially maybe early career sales folks, that might be a bit of a goldmine, right? You have a whole swath of potential reach outs or contacts who actually know they need what you're selling, but don't know what they don't know. So I imagine that can be really lucrative, but also maybe a little, to your point, conflicting about helping those early buyers.

Jeff Wanner (08:38)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of it comes down to, again, like,

You can do one of two things in corporate America, you can put your head in the sand, smile and say we had the best thing ever and believe that and spew that colloid everywhere and sleep well at night doing it or you can be speculative like I was and say, am I really a good fit here? And what ended up happening was that I would walk in the typical sales process in the direct sales model for the PEO industry is really a three meeting process. You know, it's it's a lot of value depth and it's really withholding pricing for

as long as possible to make sure you're developing enough of relationships that they don't basically slam the door in your face when you actually show them a price tag. And I would go into my conversations and basically start talking pricing day one with my audience because you're getting in a car, you're spending a lot of time with them and you don't want to waste your time, you don't want to waste their time. And so I'd find myself talking to a prospect that could be a good fit for in disparity, but knowing that the pricing was going to be way too expensive.

I would tell them to go talk to my competition and tell them, kind of coach them through it as a W2 employee with disparity. And I'm like, well, I like doing this. It's not a sales relationship. It's more of a collaboration with the clients to get the outcomes that they're ultimately looking for without spinning their wheels on things that don't make sense. And so that was kind of the birthing of the idea. And then I realized I could turn it into a business. And, and then it just had took me two years to creep up to that cliff edge. And my now wife after, you know,

Kim Minnick (09:53)
Yeah.

Jeff Wanner (10:17)
after our five years of Tinder courtship, said, need to do, she's like, you need to do this now. And I was coming up on 30 years old. So it was March 7, 2019. When I launched, were going to be married on June 14th that year. And we were very excited, soon to be parents in that journey. So,

Kim Minnick (10:22)
I love that.

Jeff Wanner (10:44)
She's like, if you wait on this, you know, we're likely going to have way too much things, anxiety related and financially related that are going to cause you to just stay inside of this corporate system. And it just came to the point where I'm like, okay, if I do this now, if it doesn't work out, I can always go back and be a W2 employee somewhere. If it does work out, it's going to provide an outcome that allows me to be autonomous and be dad whenever I want to be dad and call it quits for the day when I need to be there. And

Kim Minnick (10:49)
Mmm.

Jeff Wanner (11:14)
block off my calendar for my daughter's birthday. And so we did the live off of the teacher salary for about 18 months before we were really paying ourselves anything to kind of get the business where it needed to be. And luckily, we've accomplished what we set out to financially. And mama has been able to be mama and hung up the teaching.

second graders through Zoom during the pandemic to be a full -time mom and is absolutely obsessed with that role in our family and what she provides for us. And it's really just turned into the outcome I couldn't have painted a better picture of to this point.

Kim Minnick (11:57)
Yeah, what's interesting in your journey line is you kind of have in sparity as a low point and actually like taking that leap to be a business owner as a low point. Actually how we met, I think I was lamenting about owning a business on LinkedIn and you randomly reached out and had promised and I'm seeing them, but had promised better days ahead. So I'm curious about, you know, how that roller coaster was of

Jeff Wanner (12:14)
Yeah.

Kim Minnick (12:26)
starting a new journey, starting a new life with a partner and a child, but also like making these big scary leaps, leaving your job, starting a new company, casually on the edge of a pandemic you didn't know about. What was like the first two years of your business?

Jeff Wanner (12:39)
Yeah, yeah, no. Yeah, I'd I was so.

I was so excited by the pull plug. know, like that initial jolt of enthusiasm was rather abundant. And that really kept me in a great head space for those first nine months. If you think about like my typical disparity journey, I mean, really for four years, all I was doing was networking, meeting people, understanding their problems, understanding how things fit together, connecting people, a lot like we did.

virtually when I first reached out to you. so, I didn't, I probably talked about my business to 50 entrepreneurs that I considered friends before I started my business. And the amount of support that was pouring out of them when I pulled that plug gave me immense decision confidence that I was doing the right thing and that I was going to see this through in a super positive way. My biggest lows were really the pandemic.

you you go from being someone that's out present in front of people all the time to working from home with a newborn and trying to virtually network the best that you can and trying to get the same type of fulfillment out of it was was the biggest struggle for me. As you know, being an entrepreneur, you're lonely on an island by yourself and with your own things that can kind of spiral you in a negative direction and not having the

face -to -face interactions that pull me out of that every day was probably the biggest challenge that I've experienced through this journey. And ultimately what ended up happening is it turned into a big accelerant for my industry. It turned into a win for my company. But at the onset, it turned into a very challenging like head space where I just didn't have that ability to have people in my ecosystem bringing me up every day with the restrictions that were in place.

Kim Minnick (14:43)
How have you found, I mean, I think you're a great digital networker at this point. What was some of that journey like, like getting over that hump of I can't go see my clients? Did it open up your book of business a little bit? Was it harder? I'm just curious.

Jeff Wanner (15:00)
It just changed what I thought of what I needed to do from a business development perspective. Cause if you're coming into it from an disparity lens where you're used to these three meeting models, like you're really just replicating a version of that, that has a little bit more of a collaboration built into it than, you know, big fluffy sales pitch. And so for the first year before the pandemic, that's what I was doing, getting in the car and seeing clients. And then when the pandemic hit and that wasn't an option anymore, I realized that we can have a very

collaborative relationship through zoom. So basically turned into a way for me to manage a much bigger and broader funnel with zero real diminished returns into the outcomes for clients. So it kind of pivoted what I was expecting is that I don't need to be sitting here in their office, convincing them on something I need to get to. I need to get the points faster. I need to get things through quicker and ultimately make sure that whenever we are coming back and showing something that we're endorsing, it's something that we would do ourselves. And so

I'd say that it just changed the way that I could manage pipeline in a very productive way that I thought was, I thought that was the wrong way of doing it until I realized how much more effective I can be if I'm in a quarterback position working in a Zoom environment. Now I still sprinkle in a ton of networking. I'm a big personal brand guy. I love being around people up here in their journeys and where they're at inside of their businesses, way I can support them.

Because there's a ton of people that supported me in my transition from Ohio down here and even more that supported me and brought me up during my transition into entrepreneurial ecosystem. And so I try to pay that forward as much as possible and help people find their traction and not run back to corporate America. all that I feel like that's the biggest failure I find is when people, you know, get in and they get hit those lulls and then they end up just taking the easy path back to employment. Because I know if they can see it through.

that eventually they'll turn themselves into something that they would never go back to corporate America for once they hit a certain point in the business. So I try to make sure that they hit that point as quickly as possible if I can allow for it.

Kim Minnick (17:13)
Yeah, something I really appreciate about how you frame starting your business. You talk about the amount of people you pressure tested the idea with, kind of this board of directors for yourself that you were working with, all of the support that you had, how you had to see the pot of gold beyond going back to corporate, because it is kind of sometimes a dark and scary path, speaking from experience. And there's a lot of folks probably in your

ICP profile, a lot of HR folks who have gone out independent, starting a new business and didn't get that opportunity to pressure test ideas and are learning how to network and how to sales, how to sales, how to sell. Any advice for those, how to sales? I gotta learn how to sales. Any advice for those folks or thoughts?

Jeff Wanner (17:59)
I like that. How does sales? That's a good.

Yeah, I feel like there's no one way, right way to do it. think that I had a lot of things built into my favor being in like the SMB consulting space as a W2 employee and being mindful that this was eventually going to be my journey. And then basically give myself 24 months to execute the success of that journey on day one. I don't think many people are sitting on the fence about doing something for 24 months. So

I certainly wouldn't tell somebody to wait 24 months, start building everything right now and then do it as I certainly should have done this, you know, you know, much sooner than I did. I didn't need to pressure test it and be so anxious about it as much as I was. But I find that, you know, at the end of the day, like you're looking for people that are talking to the same audiences as you that you can make referrals towards it. They can obviously return those referrals back to you whenever it's appropriate. It creates a much more.

collaborative room that you're walking into every time. It's not like you're convincing somebody that you're a good person, that you're authentic to what you're saying, and you're not just trying to push some product down their throat. And I find that I've gotten to a spot where, like everything in my funnel happens to referral and it always has like I've always just been work, work the personal brand work the networking community and work the entrepreneurial community as much as I possibly can.

And eventually this acronym is going to come up in those ecosystems. The PEO acronym obviously isn't coming up every single day, but when it does, it's a natural thing for people to be able to say, this is, you should talk to Jeff before you do anything. So I'd say that the biggest thing for solid foundational networking is getting as niche as possible. Make sure that people know exactly what you want to do.

who you want to talk to and like, and the more specific you are, the more likely you're going to hit. The more general you are, the more likely you're going to have sure you'll have some referrals, but it's probably going to be to work that you don't want that you're not the most

Kim Minnick (19:54)
Mm.

Jeff Wanner (20:09)
excited by. I think that that's, and it's just a byproduct of my industry that allowed me to be very nichey just because of the acronym. So I think that that's probably my biggest coaching is that the more you network, the more specific you are, the more you're going to get the leads that you're looking for.

Kim Minnick (20:25)
I love that. It all kind of comes down to, and this is something your business does really well, make it easy for the buyer. Make it easy for them to understand what you do. Make it easy to understand the cost. Make it easy to understand the value. Amazing.

Jeff Wanner (20:39)
Right. And make it easy for your network to understand where that fit is. So it's really just about cutting through a lot of the fluff at the end of the day. Because I think a lot of people, the biggest mistake they make when they go out in the business, they try to be everything to everybody because they need to find revenue. And maybe after six months and stuff, you're going to start being really aware of the things that you want, the revenue that you want, and the clients that you can really impact that really juice you up.

Kim Minnick (20:56)
Mm.

Jeff Wanner (21:05)
that's just as much of this is that you want to see the impact that you're creating and know that you can fulfill it. And so then, you you end up dialing back, I don't want this stuff, or you farm those things out and refer to people that do get juiced up by the things that are ultimately withering you away.

Kim Minnick (21:20)
Yeah, I love it. I love it. So pair PEO launches, we're in a high point. And then things change as life does, as seasons come along. You became a daddy and your desired work -life balance changed. Say more.

Jeff Wanner (21:39)
Yeah, no, I'm as enthusiastic of a daddy as you're ever going to talk to and became a girl dad first, a boy dad second. And we are hoping that 2025 will be another addition to the family. So whenever.

Kim Minnick (21:57)
That's a lot of fingers and toes.

Jeff Wanner (22:00)
Yeah, yeah. Well, mama bear again, like I tell her if you're a know, she's the CEO of the household and she's the one that's owning the brunt of the responsibilities during the workday. I had to I had to buy an office because when my daughter started realizing that I was home, she wasn't going to let me work and that was probably around the 18 month mark. And now it's like I have a clear separation but I also have a very big itch to get home.

every day. So like I'm a 5am wake up in the office by 630 after I get a workout in. I stopped, I started doing afternoon workouts. And then I realized that driving by the gym when my daughter was a mile away from it that my daughter won nine times out of 10. So I was never disciplined at all. So I had to just basically shift and say I'm going to be a morning person and then I can get home and be a a present father from four o 'clock on through bedtime and

Kim Minnick (22:48)
every time.

Jeff Wanner (22:59)
And I'd say that that's been the biggest thing I've been challenged with through scaling is trying to find a way to remain in operating in like leaving my work at work. Cause as you scale, end up inheriting other people's problems and you want to solve them for them so they don't get frustrated and go through some sort of doubts about their employment with us. So I'd say that that's a thing I value the most. And when I started the company, I'd say it was largely around autonomy.

and making sure I was recommending and doing things that I would do myself. And that's something that I have been able to maintain. But as you hire people, you have to sacrifice some autonomy to make sure that you're being a contributing factor towards their success and not just trying to maintain the beautiful work -life balance that we've been able to achieve.

Kim Minnick (23:29)
I was recommending and doing things that...

Yeah, I appreciate that. think, you know, particularly in your business, I imagine there are peaks around open enrollment or, you know, parts of the year. And it is hard to find that work -life balance, especially on the cusp of success. Like, if I just do a little bit more here and a little bit more, and I love how you've like rethought about designing your life to make sure, if I go to the gym in the morning, I won't skip it and I'll be home on time.

Jeff Wanner (24:16)
Yeah, and I'll be super productive once I get to the office. So it ends up helping out in many ways, but it took a long time for me to accept that I was going to be going to bed at 10 10pm every night. And so I had the ability to get up at five and be able to commit to that, that piece of the pie. But it's been a super important piece to me. And, and again, it's just one of those things that as you kind of grow a company, you just don't know what you're sacrificing as you grow a company.

Cause once you start it, it's all you, like, you know, frankly, you know, if you're creating a future mess for yourself, you know, if there's a problem that you're basically causing and you can decide to either, or you can decide to make that problem and know that you have to fix it in the future. Or you can decide that you're just going to avoid those problems altogether and make sure that you don't have future fires that you're going to have to put out. And as you start bringing a team together, you got to figure out what kind of let go of, cause the

clients aren't buying pair PEO at that point, they're, they're supporting Jeff Warner. and the more I get removed from just being a producer in the company, the more I have to accept that I have to let my people extend our mission vision values to our audience and continue to be mindful of, we creating a future problem or future mess in being honest about whether or not a deal really makes sense for a client.

Kim Minnick (25:39)
I love that thinking about growth and scaling, which is the high point of your journey line. You do start thinking about, what can I give away? And now they're not buying from Jeff, they're buying from PairPEO, they're buying from my sales reps or someone else. So really interesting to think about how that grows. And it sounds like you're scaling your culture really well, you're encouraging employee relationships outside of work. Say more.

Jeff Wanner (26:08)
Yeah, yeah, no, again, like I, tell people all the time and it's also comes back down to even like when you're getting out of college and the career you pick, like you don't realize how important that decision really ends up being, you know, as a 22, 23 year old coming out of college. let's say you get a first job offer comes in recruiting.

you're going be 35 and most likely still recruiting. you don't realize how much it's challenging to kind of reinvent yourself even early stages of your career. And so I always like to, you know, be able to be a sounding board for people that are at that stage and just making sure that they understand that whenever you make these decisions, it's really not a 22 year old decision. It's probably one that you need to envision yourself in in perpetuity, or you need to envision what your business is going to be was what I usually tell.

figure out what your business is going to be because that's going to be what's really going to juice you up. Work's not going to feel like work anymore. It's going to feel like you're really building something for your future and your family's future. And a lot of times 22 year olds aren't thinking about that. They're thinking about, you know, your money and, and, and doing the things that I was doing at 22. So they may not want to hear it. Yes, exactly. All I know if Tinder's around anymore, I'm sure it's been displaced by something much more, much more sustainable.

Kim Minnick (27:19)
Moving to Charlotte and swiping right on Tinder.

Jeff Wanner (27:31)
But yeah, no, it's again, I feel like what I really get juiced up about is following other people absent like this industry that we are, you know, obviously this way that we make money in the way we create impact. get way more intrinsic motivation out of supporting people like you that are making that first leap. It really does give me a lot of fulfillment to watch people take that first step. And then obviously our generation is abundantly more.

Kim Minnick (27:31)
I hope so.

Jeff Wanner (27:57)
inclined to do that. And I think the generation behind us is more inclined to never get the W2 addiction, which is even more rewarding. Because that's the hardest thing to actually do is go zero revenue for yourself and bet on yourself to build something and see it through, which is just a it can be a long stumbling journey and, and any kind of encouragement that those people can get can go a long way. And all it takes is just a little bit of thoughtful effort. So if I've ever having a bad day, all I want to do is build up

other people because it just makes me feel better about, you know, ultimately the impact I'm creating.

Kim Minnick (28:33)
Feel similarly I call myself a gratitude gremlin like I do nice things and the unintended Consequences something nice happens for you, but like it makes me feel good So my little gratitude gremlin likes to come out and do the same You talk you mentioned and I'm gonna nerd out on some HR stuff for a second you talked we've talked a lot of

Jeff Wanner (28:44)
Right.

Cool. Don't get out of my head.

Kim Minnick (28:55)
We've talked a lot about W -2 employees. I think we're seeing a large shift of folks going out on their own and doing their own sort of cobbling together employment or revenue or income. As a professional employer organization, do you think the laws maybe need to update about how we think about engaging with workers? Does it need to go beyond W -2?

and contract, should we open that up or? I don't know.

Jeff Wanner (29:28)
think so. I think that at the end of the day, we're living in a system that's probably been built for hundreds of years. Yeah, whatever. It's okay. Again, like at the end of the day, like there's always a need for disruption. And obviously, you're seeing a lot of this in the in the gig economy stuff that I feel like our generation, the generation after us, because it gives you built in autonomy. I think a lot of people, young professionals, especially in new parents, they're going down that journey, they're looking for autonomy as much as anything.

Kim Minnick (29:33)
around 1938. Yeah.

Jeff Wanner (29:57)
And so I feel like there's definitely a way. And I've obviously toyed around this with my own company when I'm bringing people in and helping understand what I'm kind of a weird employer because I often offer options. Like here's the three different ways you could work with me. Do any of these seem like, let them, let them decide what's important to them and where they envision success and what's comfortable for them. Cause everyone's got different expense equations. Everyone's got different healthcare issues. Everyone's got different chapters of their life that they're turning.

And it's foolish for me to think that I'm going to hit the bullseye. So I've kind of taken what I do in the PEO space and turned it more into how I envision scaling the company in a way that is meaningful to each person that joins the company.

Kim Minnick (30:42)
I think we need, I love that idea of offering different types of engagements. I hope more people hear that and I hope more people take that as an idea. Jeff, that brings us to the end of your journey line. I'll ask you to predict the future now. Look into your crystal ball. What do you hope is next?

Jeff Wanner (30:51)
Yeah.

What do I hope is next? As a guy that consumes chaos abundantly, so I hope that my wife would agree with me. My son would not agree with me. I hope we have a healthy baby girl in summer of next year so that I'm not trying to be a three kid dad in my selling season, ideally. On the personal side, that's probably what I'm mostly hoping for. And ultimately.

Boy or girl, I don't really care at the end of the day. My little boy would certainly probably enjoy having a brother more. My energy would probably enjoy a nice little sweet girl. But anyway, we will table that piece of the pie. But what I see is that more and more people are, I look at our industry and the net promoter score for the industry when it's bought direct is atrocious. And it really emphasizes all the things I'm talking about.

Kim Minnick (31:33)
course.

Jeff Wanner (32:00)
overselling, ignoring flaws in the proposals and really emphasizing the small, the wins that they want to show when it comes to a direct sales effort. I find that the broker channel should be multiplying and it is multiplying in an aggressive way. And I'm very encouraged by that because clients that get into this industry the right way and are coached through it and not just the way that they go into the industry, but the way that that journey evolves over time. Cause the other day companies may make sense for one PEO at five employees and they may make

sense for a different employee or a PEO at Tenon Boys. It's really meant to be a long -term engagement between my company and our clients. And if other brokers share that, I really feel like the net promoter score of our industry should curve dramatically. And eventually, I think our whole industry will be bought through brokers, people that are helping people buy it, just like healthcare brokers do, just like P &C brokers do. Everything that touches PEOs outside of payroll for the most part is a

brokered industry solution. So I don't see a reason why the PEO industry as a whole shouldn't be something that's concierge style where they're helping people buy it instead of pushing a product down their throat and living off of a sales quota that generally is going to cause unethical behavior by salespeople that are trying to hit numbers that make them excited, but ultimately cause very bad experiences for the client on the backend. So.

If you want me to vision cast forward, I would expect that that will happen over time. Now it's all corporate employer, so it won't happen overnight, but I'd say hopefully in the next 10 years, at least 50 % of people are buying PEOs through people like me that are really helping create a transparent outcome that they can buy into. even with the warts and knowing that in the front end and walk into something that they know they're buying instead of being sold something that's got a fuzzy picture at best.

Kim Minnick (33:54)
Yeah, it feels good to have somebody on our team on the HR and corporate side, especially dealing with brokers. Anything we missed, anything else you want to shout out while we're here?

Jeff Wanner (34:07)
I don't think so. mean, unless you, unless you have something you want to team me up for, but no, I don't have anything else to lay on you at this point. Just to get, really appreciate the opportunity to be on here with you. And I appreciate to be your East coast cheerleader as you've kind of gone along your journey and really, really glad to see that you're, you're still embarking on it. And hopefully I've been at least a small contributing force to your mindset, if nothing else.

Kim Minnick (34:35)
For sure, I think you've been a great, loud cheerleader and you've also cheerleaded some of my side projects like Fractional People People. Really excited to have a friend of HR. And with that, that's all we've got. Jeff, thank you for sharing your journey line. If you're interested, check out the description below, click the link, you can review his journey line and we'll see you next time. Thanks so much.