[00:00:00] Welcome to The PEO Podcast, where we interview industry leaders to discuss all things PEOs from compliance to technology, to client relations, and everything between. I'm your host Andreas Deptolla.  

And the PEO model was such a game changer that they honestly and frequently credit this model of PDO and the people involved with it.

[00:00:24] That's literally changing. My life and the life of those that were affected today, we are excited to sit down with Jason Randall. Jason is the CEO of Questco and has worked in the PEO space for a number of years. We will be discussing his journey and the industry leadership and what it's like to work with a private equity.

[00:00:45] Okay.

[00:00:49] So there isn't one, one question I like to, to ask you is. Is there any fun fact about you that maybe even your team at Questco doesn't know about you. [00:01:00] Andreas. I'm not sure how fun it is. I would say it could be fun. I, I, I'm a pretty big fan of pop, pop culture. And despite my increasingly advanced age, I, I know quite a bit about, uh, whatever the latest TV shows, movies, music, all that other good stuff.

[00:01:13] So I think a lot of the team would be really, really surprised to hear that unless, uh, unless we're joking around and I can pull that up, um, uh, obscure references that established my really lame street credit in the moment. Any movie recommendations here, fall for the audience. Anything that like you watch recently and say, Hey, this, this was really impactful.

[00:01:31] And softball, I would say is not a movie, but a TV show that relates to a movie won division is pretty spectacular and I'm not a big comic book kind of guy. Um, and even without that, I just felt the story was just so resonant deals with loss and isolation and all these things that, uh, are well beyond, uh, you know, sort of the superficial level.

[00:01:52] That that you might suspect. And it was just really well done. Really enjoyed it. Excellent. That's to just some, to, to, [00:02:00] to the PEO world. Um, tell us about your career journey, how you started and specifically how you ended up in the PEO sector a really long and winding road and intersects with PEO only more recently.

[00:02:13] So in real broad terms, I went to school, uh, and, and had my bachelor's degree. And accounting, uh, worked as a CPA for an international firm for a couple of years, and then I've always had the entrepreneurial bug. So I had a couple of businesses, um, direct mail advertising company and a pizza restaurant, which in retrospect was probably a better fun fact than what I gave that I can throw.

[00:02:33] I mean, pizza and always felt a little under-skilled relative to the, the magnitude of those challenges. And so that led me back to school to get my MBA at Northwestern, the Kellogg school more immediately after that I had, uh, A combination of consulting roles, role on wall street briefly, as well as a few years that I spent as a director of brand marketing for, uh, a story, a privately held large company called merits, uh, based in St.

[00:02:58] Louis. And this is a company [00:03:00] that really focuses on human potential and incentives and motivation, and it really. Gave us a lasting sort of aspect to my skillset of really appreciating people, how to get incremental effort, um, and, and really how to inspire and really how to build a, a spectacular organization.

[00:03:16] So I left merits actually, because my brother Mike had a incredibly fast growing company, uh, in the tickets space, the ticket marketing space. And this is we're we're at this point talking ancient history, right. So it kind of have to let. Uh, set some context that in the, in the mid odds, right? So 2005 ish, it was a time when the internet, when you didn't need to have an established brand to Excel, uh, being found in the search engines.

[00:03:41] And so my brother was, and is an absolute genius at marketing to those conditions. And so we very quickly, uh, he, he had built a website that was getting a million unique visitors a month. And more business than could be handled. And he asked me to come over, uh, as the first CEO of that company to really professionalize the organization and build [00:04:00] the mechanisms that we need to, to grow.

[00:04:03] Um, to the extent that outside capital was relevant to have those kinds of conversations. I really set the stage for that business too. Excel. And it was, uh, an amazing rocket ship of a ride. We were an Inc 500 list. It was a 500 list at that point in time, uh, three years consecutively, and really as, as leaders of one of the fastest growing businesses in America, that brought some unique challenges.

[00:04:24] And when I came on. To there. One of the things that we immediately identified, we'll professionalize the business, competing for talent with the likes of Austin, Texas, competing with the university and with Dell and with Google and these, these large prominent employers there for the same kind of tech talent we needed to up our game from the HR perspective.

[00:04:42] And that led us to the PEO model. And through some relationships I already had. Uh, the PDO we chose at that time was, was a Insperity. And, uh, it was really a wonderful relationship that helped enable our growth because the things that PEO provides those centrally is, you know, providing the [00:05:00] product so that the benefits were there for our people and to get that on parenting and, and for us equally important was the practices as we had all these people that.

[00:05:07] You know, we, we had grown an organization almost by accident, and that was time to get intentional about the culture we wanted and how to enable what we were looking for. And the PEO model was such a game changer that I, they honestly, and frequently credit this model of PEO and the people involved with it.

[00:05:24] It's literally changing my life and the lives of those that were affected. So that, that was, uh, w we were always called upon because we were fast growing and in a sort of uniquely, uh, ticketing, uh, always gets a lot of attention. So we got national media anyway. And one of the things we were always asked to be a testimonial, a role, uh, basically promote the PEO concept.

[00:05:43] Uh, to customers and always was happy to do so. It's that led to a certain evangelistic point of view in terms of the model. So when we were, when we exited the company, my brother decided to retire, move up by you in Colorado and spend all of his days avoiding bears and mountain lions as he is, he runs a hundred mile [00:06:00] races.

[00:06:00] I took it in a different direction, did some independent consulting for awhile, and then was ended up recruited back to the industry by some, some close, close content, like blog of friend that's at Insperity. To really help. Um, re-imagine the building of the sales effort around the larger clients, what was called their mid-market clients that had at least 150 work site employees.

[00:06:20] And that effort was amazing. It was very get to work with absolutely exceptional managers and people in Insperity are still among my closest friends, just a wonderful organization, but, uh, in late. Uh, 2017 and early 2018, uh, the custodial ownership, the private equity firm approached me with really an offer that was just too tantalizing to pass up.

[00:06:39] And that was the chance to take some of the things I learned about a great culture and the things I had learned about running a great PEO and really know that as a senior leader, as a CEO of quesco. And so I came over in early 2018, just celebrated. My three-year anniversary and it's been quite a ride from this side of the table, having gotten to appreciate that.

[00:06:57] So tell me the rest of the industry and the ecosystems and the [00:07:00] people. And it's just such a wonderful place. Thanks for, for sharing this incredible story. I'm sure there were many, many lessons learned on, on that, uh, way on that journey. Now being CEO of Questco, what is one thing that you wish you would have known, like, you know, previously that would have helped you in your job right now?

[00:07:20] It's it's hard to limit it to one, right? I think there, I'm constantly learning in this job constantly getting better if you're not, you're not paying attention right. In terms of everything that comes in front of you. But if I had to really focus on one thing that was imparted on me, that I wish I would have just embraced sooner.

[00:07:35] It's this notion that earlier. And in your career, it's often that the technical skills that can provide distinction. So if you're in a finance role, how are you at actually reconciling numbers or providing insight around, you know, financial variances and things like that. But as you advance these technical skills while still relevant, uh, certainly in conversation, but becomes exponentially more important is your ability to handle the [00:08:00] people side of business and getting to that sort of.

[00:08:03] Acumen and call it unconscious skill and inspiring people and motivating them and understanding them is just so critically important. And that's something that I wish everyone would realize sooner in their careers and get a chance to exercise early in their careers. Cause it's just so important later on.

[00:08:21] So maybe to piggyback on that, um, what is your view on, on leadership? What advice would you give somebody specifically that that is navigating now, uh, appeal at any kind of organization in these uncertain times right now? So there are a lot of different ways that people can lead an organization. And so I'm not finding that my, my way would be the only way or even the best way for many people.

[00:08:45] And so I, I guess a side point for what I'm about to say is that it's really important that you lead it in a style that's authentic to you. And also that you are selecting an organization or building one it's authentic to that sensibility. So, you know, in other words, what might work for an [00:09:00] old line command oriented organization might work.

[00:09:02] Are less well for a more entrepreneurial fluid situation. And so just matching up your role to that requirement is critically important, but that's all for example, right? I guess for me, the right situations involve those that really enable a leader to me to embody servant leadership. But I, I am not particularly caught up in a whole lot of trappings of this title or this position.

[00:09:27] I feel I have a platform with which to inspire others, to support them with resource with. Emotional support and with understanding. And so this concept of service, leadership, embeds, absolutely everything that I do and that we do at Questco because the other part of this is once you're a servant leader, you're able to more fully lean into the concept that it's not about me.

[00:09:46] It's that it's honestly not about me. It's about the people we serve. And in the most broad view of that sentence, it's not just the clients that we serve, or there are people in the work site employees, but there's another population to serve. And that's our people at [00:10:00] Questco. So I'm, I'm constantly asking what can we do for this team?

[00:10:03] W where are we falling short? How do we meet their expectations? And by doing so we can stay true to our values. And that gets us through challenges and opportunities alike. And I think it's the most central concept of, uh, w what has made Questco successful. It seems like in your view, the, that the people element is really at the core.

[00:10:20] You know, what recommendations can you give to the audience to attract and retain the best talent in the PR industry, true understanding of who you are and who you aren't. And being able to speak to that brand voice. It's very easy to get advice around, you know, having an employment brand. And I think that's an important concept.

[00:10:37] And I think it's also important that that brand is authentic to who you are. That's the essence of branding is it's not something that's put upon or inflicted on you by a consultant or an influential party or what you think might sell it's that that's true to you. So that's where I really take this.

[00:10:52] All this is be authentic and I, everything comes from that. I want to shift now a little bit to the [00:11:00] broader industry, right? The broader PEO industry. And what kind of trends are you seeing right now? What are the big topics that you and other CEOs are considering? Well, there are a lot of smaller points that might vary by region or the focus of the PEO.

[00:11:14] Um, I think something that's universal is that our, our clients and our potential clients are becoming more familiar with our industry and more sophisticated in the way they approach the decision to join a PEO or to stay with the PEO. We find the questions. In many, many areas to, to imply, to suggest. And, and in fact, demonstrate a lot of knowledge about the way we do business that might not have been the case, uh, in years past, you know, how do you handle section one 25 items?

[00:11:43] I'm not sure. I, I would have heard that 10 years ago. We hear it with some routine today as just one small example. So whether it's about the service offerings, the benefits offerings, the technology that people are getting more sophisticated in that. And I think. That's a wonderful thing, uh, as a [00:12:00] PEO, as long as you're embracing it, right?

[00:12:01] If, if you were trying to sell by having dominance over information. Probably not going to work all that well for all that long, but when we, uh, go into things collaboratively with transparent pricing and a fundamental respect for the process and the people involved it does. Okay. But I think that is a huge change as a sophistication.

[00:12:22] And, and w what do you do to stay relevant as Cresco? Right? I mean, uh, what, what kind of channels are you looking into an audit to, to stay relevant, to understand since, uh, the right trends in the industry. So how we stay relevant is a slightly different question than how we grow our relevance and our presence nationwide.

[00:12:43] And so I guess I had to address that in two parts. The first is staying relevant for long time. Costco legacy clients, uh, Costco for four years, did an amazing job of serving a, uh, a clientele that was, um, you know, headquartered outside of Houston, uh, is, is, [00:13:00] is Costco. And, um, the clientele consisted of a lot of.

[00:13:03] Blue collar businesses, uh, heart and soul type operations and serving them well, as they would define it, responsive service, really strong safety and workers' comp programs and, and a good working knowledge of that kind of business. So my mission was to not only retain that core competency organization.

[00:13:21] But to grow it, to become more relevant to it, to a different audience that might value things like, for example, comprehensive medical benefits or more robust technology, more, more fully, uh, even the nature of HR advice changes as you go into more white collar sectors, different aspects of the continent country and so on.

[00:13:38] So my mission at Questco was to broaden and deepen the service offering, which, which. Took quite a while. And I don't know that we'll ever be totally there, but we're, we're much closer. And then part of that was just building a world-class Salesforce, but again, take that message to our prospects and, and, uh, ultimately grow the business.

[00:13:57] So that's been, my mission is to reflect the [00:14:00] broader audience for which PEO is a, a wonderful, compelling concept, and then build the team, the processes, and a product that can support it. And I'm sure as a CEO, like the there's so many opportunities every day that come across your desk, right? How, how do you make the decisions, what to execute on and what to focus on and to align your team around?

[00:14:22] So I love the phrasing of that question because it kind of acknowledges like for many of us that, that, that lead an organization like this. There are probably more good ideas than we have time and ability to execute on it. Right? So the question is fundamentally valid right now and what are the best things?

[00:14:33] And so what you have to first do, it was acknowledged this point, right? That you may not be able to focus on everything. And I don't know about your inbox as a leader, Andreas, but mine is constantly full. Fill with invitations to alter my agenda right there. There's something else that I should be taking a look at in many cases, that's certainly valid.

[00:14:50] But so I think that starts with a clear understanding of what the priorities are for the business. This can be elusively challenging to, to obtain, but are you trying [00:15:00] to grow? If so, how. And then you can focus your efforts on the things that really you believe are closest to these high priority items, because there's always an opportunity to take a fresh look at a brand new ancillary item that comes down the path or so on.

[00:15:14] So getting an understanding of what you're really going for which, which in our case is sustainable double digit growth. Well then what are the avenues by which to achieve that? And that helps me prioritize. The answer is still a little vague. So I guess going one level deeper on that, it's like, okay, well, if we prioritize sales growth, as a key thing, does this invitation, does it, does this opportunity that's in front of us, whatever it may be.

[00:15:36] Does that track to that or does it not? And I find myself all the time saying, Hey, this is an awesome idea. I would actually love to take a look at this. It's probably going to be nine months. And, and telling that to, to the counterparty, if it's somebody outside of the business, that that's the right answer.

[00:15:51] If you don't exercise that strength as a senior leader, you will find yourself in CIT shiny object land, where instead of being disciplined and mission focused, you're just all over the [00:16:00] place. And, uh, it might be great that you incrementally increased or improved saying or disability offering, but you might've done that at the expense of a much bigger bogey.

[00:16:10] That was right in front of me. He didn't have time to execute. So hopefully that's a helpful perspective. I think so. Right. And I think a lot of leaders struggle with it's the same thing, right? It's it's about, there's so many opportunities these days, what you execute on. Right. And what do you say no to.

[00:16:24] Right. In order to, to stay focused on, on the key initiatives. And you mentioned your journey in the industry. What have you seen since you entered the industry? What kind of changes have you seen? How has the industry developed as a whole? There are plenty of people that might be better equipped to say, yeah, Someone that's been operating a PEO and for three, the same video for decades might have a different perspective on this for, for me, what I'm most excited about is it's, um, this is not an industry where you need have a hundred thousand work site employees to be relevant and, uh, to, to be compelling.

[00:16:58] But, um, you know, [00:17:00] we're, we're firmly in the mid size, uh, in terms of our work site, employee accounts, big enough to hit departmentalize and all that. Um, so w what I see is that. With the technology we have available and the service offerings we have available and the right talent we have available, we can win business from even the very largest names and stay relevant to those that might be with the very smallest names I want that, that customer intimacy.

[00:17:23] So technology and business operations processes allow us to break the false choice. You can, you can get to know your customers well and really understand them, know their birthdays and all the things that people associate with the, with a small company and still have the scale and the offerings and the general.

[00:17:41] Go to market strategy that allows competence at all levels. And I think that's a dynamite combination. It's increasingly available to more of us in the industry. And I think that's an incredibly exciting thing, not just for our industry, but for the, the, the, the markets that we serve. Um, I would also say that [00:18:00] unmistakably technology comes to the forefront front here.

[00:18:03] Uh, when I became a PDO client in 2005 and came up pretty a tech business, we don't a lot of tech savvy people on staff, maybe a glance at the PEOs technology. It really wasn't central to the buying decision. Whereas now, even a company that has say 30 work site employees, they're going to want to go deep in that technology.

[00:18:19] There's always a demo often they'll interact with our accounting and want direct GL interfaces. They're more concerned with. The ancillary offerings and how they integrate. And I think it's overall raising of the bar is a very good thing for us because it shows that we're, we're providing more value, but it also is a challenge to meet that standard.

[00:18:38] And I think one other thing that that has to be said is, you know, as a record this in March of 2021, or coming off of a, a solid year of living in a world with COVID and I believe COVID, well, you know, the, the, the ramifications of what we've experienced, the pandemic will be felt for generations. One of the things that's becoming readily apparent and was, it has been for some time [00:19:00] is that those that had support of a nature that we provide.

[00:19:04] We're situated much, much better than those that did not. And maybe that that's discussed often the term in the context of a PPP loan access or something like that. But I think it's way deeper than that. I think that it's, it's the difference between having a guide on an unfamiliar path and not. And I believe that it's valued by an increasing segment.

[00:19:22] The marketplace it's like, wait a minute. We were, we were exposed because we don't have a valued HR partner, uh, to lead us through this. And because virtually every issue related to this pandemic would eventually hit the desk of HR. In some capacity. We have an amazing opportunity at the back end of this to really, we we've shown our value.

[00:19:40] We have our case studies and I think the value we provide with a small business and mid-sized business community. Is even more apparent now. And I think that's an incredibly exciting thing looking forward for the industry, you know, hopefully, you know, at the end of the pandemic here, right. Specific scenes coming out or whatnot, what do you anticipate as you [00:20:00] know, the impact afterwards?

[00:20:02] Right. How do you think will sales change, uh, after the pandemic, uh, you know, in office work, um, what do you think will be some of the lasting impacts that we'll see as a business world? Little hard to know what's what's a lasting, right? And I think the predictions could look pretty silly, maybe even a year from now, but certainly an issue that we all had to re re-examine is, well, how necessary Syria, as a certain geography for anyone teammate, whether it's a sales long-held beliefs around well, salespeople need to be.

[00:20:33] Close to clients, uh, so that they can call on them physically. Is that true? Does a service team have to be physically located in the same spot to provide excellent service, fundamental questions? About the way we operate the business? We're forced on us by necessity. And now they bring some interesting possibilities.

[00:20:49] We found ourselves very, very nimble in the mobile environment and able to take care of clients. And I think that has lasting impacts that we will need to continually re-examine. But I think it's all really good that, [00:21:00] um, you know, we've been able to hire much more remotely with many more roles than we would have assumed a year ago.

[00:21:06] And it's been tremendously successful. I think the, the other effects, I think might be a little slower partner to maybe realize around what does this work even look like? What do our clients value from us? What do they expect from us in terms of, you know, I, I know we've gone deeper into supporting the CPA of our clients than I ever would have anticipated under normal core circumstances.

[00:21:28] So as there's something there there's something to the offering. Uh, that we need to shift from a service, uh, servicing perspective, as well as what, what are the implications, the more brass tax conversations, but what does this do to our hard costs of benefits providing and the, the risk factors of that, uh, due to some interesting unprecedented developments in terms of the health profiles of our customer base.

[00:21:48] So I think there's a lot that will take some time to sort of unwind and I think. The only way I can responsibly capitalize on this as to have an open mind pay close attention, [00:22:00] because I think there's a lot of positive growth that they can come to every player in the industry by being more flexible, more remote and more customer centric.

[00:22:09] Jason. I want to go back to a point that you made earlier. You talked about the fact that, uh, Cresco is piggyback, right? Private equity back. What kind of impacts that private equity has for the PEO industry? Right. What else? Certain changes that you have seen in the industry since P money came in. So my entire time as a CEO of a, of a PE backed PTO as obviously had had the private equity flavor to it.

[00:22:35] So again, there might be some people that can really balance the, you know, before the sector had as much PE interests, but certainly unmistakably financial buyers are a part of our world now, and I believe will remain. So I would say it's a, it's a very good thing, but a very, it's a, it's a nuanced sort of thing.

[00:22:52] I, I think you can expect organizations to generally concentrate in an environment like this. There will be more acquisitions and, and. Players will [00:23:00] will get larger while there will always be a place for sub 5,000 work site, employee PEOS. I think you will find more of us lettering up to a larger size because that's w that's what's rewarded by this marketplace.

[00:23:11] And it also suggests perhaps that we're we're at the, uh, well, we, on the consensus point in terms of acceptance by the market, uh, this, this capital is very comfortable making. Really large, uh, splashy investments in the space. And so I think our moment has arrived. And, uh, so were some of the legitimately legitimacy concerns or the governmental relations concerns of, of the last generation of PTO operators while, while still certainly relevant in some individual cases, uh, our, our ability to interface with large sophisticated capital and to build.

[00:23:45] Organizations have requisite sophistication that becomes a part of a skill set that may have been absent or neglected in the past. And that certainly has ramifications  owner owning or operating a PEO right now is [00:24:00] you, you, you may ignore it. It may not be for you, but you can't, uh, you can't deny its impact on, uh, you know, our aggressiveness about going after business and going after competitors as the leader of quesco.

[00:24:12] How is it on a day-to-day basis to, to be, to be walking with the private equity company? Short answer is it's. Better than I could have hoped for stepping into the role. And a lot of that has to do with that. I feel incredibly fortunate to have partnered with a private equity organization that truly values the human beings that work for our company.

[00:24:32] I don't take that for granted ever. And we also have a really healthy, collaborative, open environment that maybe even blurs the line. You know, sometimes there's a, there's a traditional ownership function. I am very comfortable sharing deep into our operations. And so we have a very healthy, uh, ongoing dialogue.

[00:24:47] That's very organic and I think that's probably peculiar to our situation, but certainly something that I appreciate and would recommend to others as kind of a best in class operating model that we're very, very collaborative. [00:25:00] The communication is excellent on both sides. I also think it's important to acknowledge that even the decision to take private equity money, if, if that's something that you're not currently to the judiciary, it is, it is a lifestyle decision.

[00:25:12] More than a financial decision. You know, we're, we're a company that also acquires others. So I've seen this firsthand repeatedly, someone that might've been the founder or an early, early partner in a PEO that's basically had their, his, or her kingdom for a number of years. The decision to take private equity changes, the accountability behaviors that are involved there.

[00:25:31] I think it's a very difficult thing emotionally to just flat out. You didn't have a boss now, now you have a boss, but even, even more than that, you also have. Procedures there, there, there are other people that have a voice in the operation. And it's one thing to kind of hear that. And it's another thing to live that I come from a background where accountability and clear communication was second nature to me as, as, as an executive with larger organizations.

[00:25:55] So it's a rather straight forward aspect of how I behave. I find it much, much more difficult [00:26:00] for many others to kind of adjust to that lifestyle. And something should be very carefully considered as how you and how your team would react. If suddenly there are different reporting structures. If there isn't just one person through whom decisions flow through, but, uh, being part of something larger than the, than the smaller organization was previously is a choice.

[00:26:20] And that choice has consequences. I think it's really important. To flesh this out, all this really comes back to having a lot of Frank conversations during your own discussions with private equity firms about the lifestyle post-close and what that looks like. So for somebody in the industry that is evaluating that option and thinking about taking on PE money, what kind of criteria to select the right partner?

[00:26:45] Uh, would you suggest write in a framework? Yeah. I think my comment would be if you're singularly focused on the highest, multiple, the absolute largest number of dollars, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. As long as you appreciate the choice that you're [00:27:00] actually making, which is that that may not be the thing that, that drives the most success for all stakeholders.

[00:27:06] And they will be, uh, let's keep in mind that private equity deals typically have some function of an earn-out or a payment that's at risk. Later in the process based on how the business will perform after the, after the deal is made. My insight to this question, is there sort of a boiler plate, a kind of sentence around, Hey, it's not just our money as a PE firm.

[00:27:24] It's all the support we provide. I think what's most important is a philosophical alignment because the nature of that support to one, one person, some of you may. It seemed like just meddling or, or wildly unwelcome to someone else. So I think partnering with an organization that really gets you, that, that isn't aligned with where you want to take things where you have a common vision, that is the road to a much more successful relationship than if you gloss over these issues.

[00:27:49] I can tell you that our and our own diligence process, when we are the acquirer, we spend tremendous amounts of time on this cultural issue, because our, and again, it depends on what your purpose is. What's your, what's your plan [00:28:00] is. But we, we, we would acquire an organization with the intent to hold on to 100% of their employees of the acquired companies, employees, because that's what we ultimately believe.

[00:28:10] We're buying, not a customer lists, not, not, not the products or strategy where we are buying these people and the relationships that they have and the capabilities that they bring. So as such, we spend a lot of time on the fit issues to know where, where we're strong and where we're weak. And that is, that is probably what I pound the table on the most is.

[00:28:26] Are you, are you thinking through these issues on a detail person by person level and prepared to deal with the consequences? And that should take up at least as much of your mind share as the, as the financial dimensions of the transaction, unless your goal is just to sell and walk. And then there may be some different factors at play, but whatever, know what your motivations are and know what your goals are and make sure the firm is aligned with that, because this is not something to leave to chance or to, to fuzzy conversation.

[00:28:52] It will come back up. That alignment of, you know, the philosophy or core values very much resonates. Right. [00:29:00] Uh, I think that, that that's a really interesting or important foundational point for really any business transaction. You mentioned there are things to gain from that relationship, maybe outside of the cash expertise, support, what are some tangible things that, uh, somebody could gain from a, uh, relationship with service P.

[00:29:21] It really depends on the firm, your partner with it. They may have some, some expertise in house. And so like, for example, if you're looking to scale the business through your own organic growth, if there's someone on your board that has done that in a way that you haven't, um, that's a really interesting perspective.

[00:29:36] Now there were things like that, that individual doesn't know about the domain you've inhabited, but they will have some really interesting outside perspectives to share and possibly some relationships to help along the way. I would say something else has been really important to us is, you know, we, we have a really strong team financially Equest SCO and at the same time, We were not purpose-built for a lot of what if analysis [00:30:00] on various things.

[00:30:00] So we're able to, at times tap into private equity resources to help refine and get to a different level of sophistication around our growth model and the assumptions. And, you know, you asked before Andres, what does COVID mean for you? Well, we can model out a quest go. The sensitivity of various clients.

[00:30:17] Uh, and we were able to get there faster by using PE firm resources that do more, very deep, uh, assumptions based modeling in their own shop. So just a couple of examples, day to day, having a board that is supportive of, of direction also will yield a lot of sounding boards, right. That, um, here's someone that you can talk to that has a different perspective that might've.

[00:30:39] Same something similar 12 times in the past, and you can tap into a deeper expertise that is directly incented to help. And I know I get a lot of value over each of the points that we brought up here. Thanks for listening to today's episode. Don't forget to subscribe and visit us@PEO-podcast.com to learn more.

[00:30:59] I'm Andreas Deptolla, and this is The PEO Podcast. We'll see you next time.