John Corcoran 15:40
And then you just from there, how was your plan for getting clients?
Barry Shulman 15:44
Well, I did work seven days a week for almost a year, just networking and cold calling. And, well, unbeknownst to me, there was no one in the valley, doing corporate communications and public relations, executive search, it was mind blowing to me. They were all coming to New York, which is, of course, how I got my West Coast clients. You know, I remember taking some clients from here, on subways for the first time in New York, you know, they didn’t, you know, they just thought they were coming to us for the search services. So I got some really big clients early on. And then once you start to get big clients like Apple or Oracle, Levi Strauss, General Motors started to work with me just because of the network and people it just snowballs.
John Corcoran 16:43
And it probably helped that there wasn’t much competition at that was not.
Barry Shulman 16:49
I mean, it was nascent. I mean, I didn’t know what a database was when I moved to California, quite honestly. And the software that I bought to manage my contacts was garbage. Yeah. But everything just kind of fell into place.
John Corcoran 17:04
Did you? Was there a sense? Was there any sort of feeling at this period of time that you are on the precipice of this becoming a major behemoth? You know, Silicon Valley over the course of the next 2030 years becomes a huge force worldwide?
Barry Shulman 17:22
You know, yes, but not in a believable way. I mean, to me, it seemed like it was just being held up by rubber bands. I mean, it just didn’t seem like it had legs, because it was so amorphous. And people were talking about doing things that were just so ridiculous. And yet, they were scaling, you know, all of a sudden, yeah, I remember dealing with a candidate who had just left a big high tech PR firm. And they were working out of their house, and I was trying to recruit them into a company. And I’m talking to this candidate, and I just said to this candidate, you know, why are you even getting a job? Why don’t you start your own agency? And they were like, Well, no, no, no, no. Well, can I just tell you that, you know, seven years later, that person maybe was eight, started a PR agency, I helped her hire at least 15 or 20 people more? Probably, I don’t know. And she sold that agency for many, many millions of dollars. And that is not an isolated story. Yeah. So it was an image, but it was hard. You could not know that it was going to be like it became a house of cards. Right. the.com bust was, you know, what I kind of thought would happen.
John Corcoran 19:01
And was your business just going gangbusters before? the.com Bust. What was that? Totally? What was that? Like for you?
Barry Shulman 19:08
It was a horror show. I made the classic mistake of becoming tech oriented. You know, I signed a $22,000 a month lease on an office. That was no problem. I mean, I was clearly able to pay that. You know, and have several recruiters working for me. And it was great. And then all of a sudden, in a matter of 10 days, I lost every client every dollar of income. And I was sitting on a million dollar lease. Wow. Yeah. Wow. So it was pretty, pretty brutal.
John Corcoran 19:45
How long did it take after that to recover?
Barry Shulman 19:49
It took me about five years to get back up to a place of profitability and Comfort and an ease, you know, to build the client base back up again. I mean, the people remained but everyone was skittish. Right? I mean, you can’t live through that. And not be. But, you know, talk about the golden molasses. I mean, you learn a lot. I mean, I always say that Silicon Valley years are like dog years, you spent 10 years in Silicon Valley, you look like you’re 100.
John Corcoran 20:35
Yeah. Yeah. And so after that happened, did you diversify, then because tactically, I have all your eggs in?
Barry Shulman 20:45
Yes, yes. Yeah. You know, that’s when the management consulting really kicked in. Because it became clear to me that most of the people who were in positions of power in terms of managing people had no idea how to do that. No, I had no idea how to structure teams, everyone was kind of just guessing and feeling along if some organizations have best practices, some organizations got it done, did it better than others. But there will always be people who had their pie in the sky, who were willing to forgo certain processes and systems that you just can’t. And when you’re especially hiring people and organizing teams and putting structure in place, right.
John Corcoran 21:35
And I imagine that’s a tension a lot of times the clients you’re working with, you know, because a lot of times what got them to become the success that they are, whether it’s you know, Google or Facebook, or Apple and any of these companies, a lot of times they they were scrappy kids in a garage, literally or figuratively, doing things differently, and then eventually they grow up. And so is that a challenge sometimes to try and get them to formalize their operations is a challenge to get them to be more grown up, you know, in terms of their hiring.
Barry Shulman 22:10
What I found was quite simply saying to anybody in the C suite, or any executive, look, if you do it this way, you can either this is going to happen, or this is going to happen. But if you try doing it this way, then these are the things that can happen. And that was it. Like just almost like a cafeteria style meeting, like just telling people, you know, this is what I’ve seen happen. And this is how it’s gonna go. Now, if you try putting these systems and programs in place, then you’ll see for yourself, and that was kind of it. It was everybody’s light goes, the light bulb goes off. It’s like, wow, I don’t want that to happen, or I need this to happen. Mm hmm.
John Corcoran 22:57
So I know now in terms of the work that you do now, there’s a number of different things you do. And you also have talked about what keeps a business owner up at night, some of the top talent issues that they’re concerned about everything from recruiting, to interviewing, onboarding, you know, things like that. Let’s talk about that. Especially, you know, now as we record this in mid 2024, what are some of the different areas in which companies are most concerned with right now?
Barry Shulman 23:31
So, you know, you make a good point about 2024. The technology now is so amazing. I mean, it’s 2024. Like, we’re in the precipice of AI, taking over all over all demographics. So in the past few years, the technology around assessing people and workplaces has been a total game changer for hundreds of 1000s of companies globally, and you know, every imaginable industry and language. So several years ago, I was recruited by what is the country’s if not the world’s largest and most widely used workplace assessment tool, it’s called Predictive index. And so I hadn’t heard of it before. Most people have not, even though they have a huge installed base, like I said, globally. And the science is such that we can in a matter of minutes, measure a person’s natural drives, as well as determine what the behavioral and cognitive drives are. They’re required for any kind of role. Uniquely, not off the shelf like All CEOs all CFOs have to have a pattern that looks like this and all operations people have, they’re all different. And once I, you know, once I came to understand through practical application that the perfect resume can be a nightmare. If their drives their behavioral and cognitive drives are not in alignment with the rest of the teams, or the goals for the role. Once I learned how true that was, and that there was actually a way to assess these things, everything just kind of fell into place for me in terms of being able to avoid mistakes. You know, when I’m training people, I say to them all the time, if you’re sitting in the parking lot, and you look over to the left of the strip mall, and you see somebody opening the door, to walk into Starbucks, what do you think they’re doing in John, what’s your what’s your gut tell you they’re doing going to get a latte, right? They’re going to get a beverage of some sort. But in reality, that person is lost, and they’re going in for directions, or they’re going in to use the bathroom, or they’re going in to use the internet, or they’re going in to meet a blind date or to get a newspaper or get a sandwich. You see. Companies, managers, owners, companies are constantly guessing. I tell you how many times I have people say to me, Oh, I read people really well, I can tell them some of these Bs signee. If they’re going to be a fit, I just know it, or my gut is telling me, you know, statistically, we get it right, somewhere between 60 and 40% of the time. And I know that’s true. Because, look, I haven’t done replacements on, I spent hours with the candidate. I used to spend hours with the candidate before I would even introduce them to the client. But you see, we’re all guessing. And now we don’t have to guess anymore. And I’ve done that predictive index. And it’s remarkable. I recommend everyone to try it out.
John Corcoran 27:10
It’s, it’s almost uncanny, I think, because, you know, it doesn’t take that long to fill out you. You answer some questions and pick some words, if I remember correctly. And then it spits out a response. That’s uncanny. Like, it’s really amazing.
Barry Shulman 27:26
So what I’m saying is that it’s 2024. The science is unbelievable. And it actually gets better every year. So interesting. You know, you do not tell? I tell companies all the time, just you don’t have to be guessing anymore.
John Corcoran 27:43
Yeah. And so when you discovered this, what was that reaction? Like for you? You must have been like, Oh, my God, I can’t believe what I found here.
Barry Shulman 27:51
Right? Well, it was a game changer. Not only for me, it made me love my work again, because I don’t know what the average lifespan of the retained executive recruiter is. But I’m pretty sure it’s not 30 years, and I was into 30 years. I was really ready to kind of up the game a bit and do more interesting consulting. And so now, you know, I’ve got clients who do a little bit of everything. And so it’s so much more interesting now. And I, you know, I was at the EOS retreat this past weekend, and I met people who do all kinds of different things. And the problems are the same. It’s the problem with, you know, the CEO, or the CFO or the operations person or the salesperson and these two don’t get along. And I don’t understand why we haven’t moved the bar and X amount of time, what would have happened, it’s the same thing. Everybody’s saying the same thing. But now, we’re literally able to figure out what’s happening.
John Corcoran 28:54
And so I imagine it’s kind of like becoming mandatory for you, like we will use this tool, or else I’m not helping you.
Barry Shulman 29:02
Well, it’s like everything else. Right, exactly. So I’m not interested in doing searches for any companies that are not using data and analytics, because it’s in my life. Now. It’s not fair to the candidate to bring them into a dysfunctional organization, if it is an organization where people are not known to each other. And like anything else, you know, they are there. There are people out there, who and there are lots of assessment tools, believe me who have different types of backgrounds. My background just happens to have been growing up in New York and in Silicon Valley, and I saw certain things happen. So that informs how I do what I do. But there are other people that just do sales or just do finance. See.
John Corcoran 29:53
And this is a tool that’s not correct me if I’m wrong. It’s not just for recruiting new hires to an organization, correct?
Barry Shulman 30:01
Oh, yeah, this tool is how to manage them, coach them, retain them, how you inspire them to grow. And, you know, you kind of set it at the top of the call to how it helps you optimize your talent.
John Corcoran 30:18
Yeah, yeah. Really cool. What? As you look forward to the future now, Barry, what will get you out of bed? Like, what are you most excited for right now?
Barry Shulman 30:29
Well, I have to say when clients say to me, and I hear it, if not weekly, certainly monthly. And usually more than once, this has really been a game changer for us, the work that you’re doing with us, the aha moments that we’re having, when you’re talking about why things are happening, why people are behaving the way they are, why this group is doing so well. And another isn’t that’s very motivating to me. I mean, I love that. I mean, you know, I’ve always liked telling people what to do. And I’m always very nice about it. But at the end of the day, to have people listen and come back and say, you know, this is going to double my income, or more is, it’s pretty rewarding.
John Corcoran 31:19
Yeah. And to see teams form and gel and then create amazing things that no one could predict before as we got to be amazing as well.
Barry Shulman 31:29
Right? I’ve gotten to the point right now, where I also know that not all business is good business, like everyone can’t be a client. And it does take a certain degree of enlightenment, if you will, to say, Oh, I might not know, I might not have all the answers. Or I might need to dismantle everything that I’ve built in the past year and redo it. Yeah. Right. Like not everybody’s willing to do that. Yeah. You have to be willing to accept that.
John Corcoran 32:02
But very, this has been great. Where can people go to learn more about you and connect with you and learn about your business?
Barry Shulman 32:08
Yeah. So shulmanassoc.com or barry@shulmanassoc.com. I would love to talk about anybody’s problems and how we might go about tackling them.
John Corcoran 32:30
It was great to hang out with you at the recent EOS San Francisco retreat. We appreciate you being a strategic alliance partner for the chapter. And thanks so much for sharing all your wisdom and your ideas here today.
Barry Shulman 32:44
Thank you for having me, John.
Outro 32:46
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