Dave Webb:          00:03          I'm Dave Webb and you're listening to RecruiterCast. Thinking about going out on your own? Hold up real quick. On this episode we are going to explore what it really takes to go out and on your own.

Jimmy Hurff:        00:16          You're a contractor, or you own a small business. You know there's three core elements. There's, you know, there's the production, the marketing and the finance. There's like, what kind of drew us into the business ownership status and being an entrepreneur was that we, we wanted to, you know, kind of have a little bit of control over our own destiny.

Dave Webb:          00:35          That's Jimmy Hurff, co-founder of BrightMove an applicant tracking system based in St. Augustine Beach, Florida. I've known Jimmy a long time and he wasn't always a software engineer. In fact, he went to college to become a mechanical engineer and did get his degree in mechanical engineering. So after working for some companies around Jacksonville for a couple of years, we realized that there was a big gap in the staffing industry and we started our own staffing company. Now. That's where Jimmy and I started learning about going out on your own. It was not easy. There's a lot of tough times and tough conversations we had with ourselves and with each other and with our families. As we started tweaking our business model for the staffing company, we looked for software that would help us solve some of those problems and there was just nothing that did what we wanted it to do.

Dave Webb:          01:20          Being software engineers, we knew how to write the software so we did. That might be the greatest or worst decision of our life. I'll let you know in the future. Not sure yet. That really brings us up to the parallels between running the staffing company and running the software company and what we've learned over the past 25 years working together and with other people is that a lot of the pitfalls that we come up against are the same across all industries and all companies, all entrepreneurs experience the same thing. So in this episode we're going to dive into some of those things, why you may or may not want to start your own business and what to expect. So at least unlike Jimmy and I, you know what's coming, you can be prepared for it. You can have the tools ready and hopefully your chances of success will be better than ours.

Jimmy Hurff:        02:05          No, that one out of eight businesses are actually gonna make it, which means seven out of eight aren't. And you know, we, we hope to be in that one, that one, one eighth sliver of the pie. But there's a lot that aren't and you know, so if you're in the seven eighths, you're definitely not rich cause your company kind of failed. It didn't even, it didn't even make it, you know, the, the one eighth that did survive. Some of those are going to be great companies. Some of them are going to be mediocre, some of them are just going to be barely surviving.

Dave Webb:          02:34          Did you catch that? Only one out of eight of you are going to make it. And that's one out of eight. Some of you will have miserable existences as a company that just hasn't yet failed, but you probably will - trust us. Now, Don't let us get you down. We don't want to discourage you. At least know what you're up against so you can be prepared for the battle ahead. The unicorns of Silicon Valley are called unicorns for a reason. They are rare. Very rare. Chances are you're not going to be one.

Dave Webb:          03:03          ...And Neither am I. I'm okay with that. I'm not here to stifle your dreams. If you really think you can do it, go for it. If you have that next big idea, go for it. Just be aware of your odds and keep those in mind as you're planning your business and setting out on your own. Make sure you have a backup plan and a primary plan. Any plan. Don't go into it with no plan at all or you will fail. Today we are going to tackle five common e-myths of going out on your own. The first one is that congratulations, you started your own company. You're rich now. Number two is since you're rich, you don't really have to do any more work again. Other people are going to do that for you. Number three, obviously you started your own business because you worked for a boss and you could do a better job than he or she was doing. So can you really? Number four, you're running a business. You don't need all that fancy org chart and planning and all those boring meetings that you had at your last job. So let's see how that works out with no plan or no employees. And then finally, this is probably the biggest one, is that since you're now doing what you love to do, you're going to be able to do it all the time. And this kind of ties right back into the production marketing and finance side of any business. So you won't be able to do production 100% of the time. And if you want to, you're going to have to find someone else to do the finance and marketing for you. Here's one last thought from Jimmy.

Jimmy Hurff:        04:28          Good tax help, good accounting help and good access to legal advice. Really. I mean, you know, good agreements, having good agreements in place with your with your customers is important. When you are an employee of a company, especially big companies, I mean there's a lot of those, you know, I guess perks or or you know, benefits that you might take for granted as an employee that you, you become aware of and they can, they can be a little bit shocking, especially early on in your business ownership.

Dave Webb:          04:59          I'm Dave Webb, CEO and Co-Founder of BrightMove. For over 25 years my job has been to learn all of the ins and outs of the recruiting industry and then write the software that makes it all happen. I know who to talk to and what to ask them. We had the information that you cannot get anywhere else. So get ready to learn the secrets that will give you an advantage as a recruiter, job seeker or business owner. It's time for RecruiterCast.

Advertisement:      05:26          Recruitercast is brought to you by BrightMove, the most innovative applicant tracking system built with both the recruiter and candidate in mind. Learn more at brightmove.com.

Dave Webb:          05:38          Hey everyone, welcome to RecruiterCast. Today, we have my longtime friend, Jimmy Hurff. Jimmy, can you tell our audience a little bit about yourself and our shared history?

Jimmy Hurff:        05:46          Hey Dave. Yeah, nice to talk with you man. Good to good to hear your voice and looking forward to the chat today. I guess the story kind of goes like this. We've known each other for awhile. You know, we, we've known each other going all the way back to seventh grade and I guess it was in the, the early nineties. You and I decided to get together and start doing some things as we were growing into, you know, our professional lives and have been working in the technology space since since back in the early nineties. I still do that today. Really enjoy trying to help people leverage technology to do things more efficiently and you know, make their lives a little bit easier. So I'm a computer nerd is the way I introduce myself and I like to try to help people solve problems with technology.

Dave Webb:          06:35          And you're really good at it. I can tell you that I've known you for a long time and you have a reputation that proceeds you as a great technologist and a great problem solver and a great innovator. That's really kind of why I wanted you to join me today. Both of us being entrepreneurs, both of us being in business together for some time now. I think you get some of the same questions that I get and that's that people are always asking us about what do they need to do to start their own business? They're like, Jimmy, you have five Lamborghinis. Why do I have to do to be more like you? They need tell them that those are all rentals. They're not really yours. We usually try to warn them and say, you don't want to do this and you're just about to start a life of punishment for yourself and those you love. You and I being nerds, we both know the statistics. About 5% of businesses succeed and about 5% of those ever make it to $1 million in revenue. What would you add to that if you were giving advice to someone who asked you if they should start their own business today?

Jimmy Hurff:        07:34          And that's a great topic. So, you know, when you and I started talking about this, I was really excited about the content, you know, the e-myth content or you know, the, the myths, what are the myths? And you know, you're right, there's sort of a perception that small business owning is glamorous and exciting. And you know, there's a friend of mine, I remember one time we talked, talked about how all of his employees in his small business thought that he'd just had a money tree out back. You know, you could just, you could just go take money right off the money tree. So I think there's certainly some, some myths that are out there and look forward to talking more about it with you today. You know, I think one is just to try to help those that are thinking about, you know, they've got some passion or some energy or some idea that they want to try to take to the next level. Maybe try to share a little bit of, you know, some of the lessons that you learn along the way as being a small business owner. What it's like, you know, where you might try to,uyou know,utake into account what kind of adversity or you know, impairments or you're going to run into and that during, I think that was really why I was looking forward to talking with you today.

Dave Webb:          08:37          No, I, I agree and I think we should jump right into it. First of all, people might be saying, what does this have to do with recruiting? And our story is that we went to school, we got degrees in computer science and engineering respectively. And then we went right into the workforce as contractors in the IT world in the late nineties. Then we went into business for ourselves as a staffing company and then pivoted toward a software as a service company providing applicant tracking for staffing companies. And that's kind of where we're still at today. I think a lot of people that start doing contracting quickly realize that they almost have to start a little mini business for themselves to handle a contracting relationship, commonly referred to as a 1099 or a Corp to Corp. Could you tell us a little bit about what those employee relationship models are?

Jimmy Hurff:        09:31          Yeah, so, you know, maybe a little bit too about the model. You know, I think you kind of went there a little bit, but when you're an individual like a contractor or you own a small business, there's three core elements. There's the production, the marketing and the finance. There's like what you were talking about, what kind of drew us into the business ownership status and being an entrepreneur was that we, we wanted to, you know, kind of have a little bit of control over our destiny. And we had this thing that we could do, which was working as technologists. We had that, that was our sort of our production role. So like, how do we, how could we leverage that?

Jimmy Hurff:        10:08          How can we use that skill, that God-given ability to, you know, to do something for ourselves and for our families? And so we went out there and we started, you know, running a business as contractors and as technologists. And we realized that was the production side of things, right? That's, the making the widgets. That is programming the computers or running the technology. Well, there's the other parts of it too. The salesmanship side, like finding the jobs to work on, and then the finance side, the bean counting. Right. And I think what you were talking about was the finance piece, the 1099 and the W2's and how, you know, is there a reason to, to pick one or the other and fundamentally like why, why somebody would go and do the leg work of setting up a 1099 relationship is really around tax implications.

Jimmy Hurff:        11:03          Like can as a business owner, can you get some benefit for yourself? Can you pay less tax? Can you provide a more tax efficient structure that you're operating within in order to take more money home. And so 1099 is one way to do that. So when you're in a situation where you're an employee of a company, where you're a W2 employee of a company, you and your employer basically split the employment tax that you pay to the federal government. Whereas in a 1099, you're wholly responsible for all of it because there is no employer. You're the employer and the employee in 1099. And so what, why would somebody go to the lengths to try to convert into a 1099 status? Well, when you're an employer or an or an employee of a business you don't really have the ability to distribute profits from your organization.

Jimmy Hurff:        12:01          You don't really have the ability to take those profits 'cause you're just paid a paycheck. Whereas when you're the owner of the company, you can actually distribute to yourself in a different tax structure and have different tax implications around employment tax. So those mechanisms, and I guess one thing I probably had to say, you should probably work with a CPA or an accountant that really understands all the implications of the right structures, like what kind of corporation given your state would be the right one for you and given your business. But generally those differences, you know, between like a W2 and then like a 1099 revolve around who, who has to pay the tax on the job that's done.

Dave Webb:          12:43          Definitely get a spreadsheet out in the beginning. Look at the whole picture, talk to someone who's done it before and you'll save yourself a lot of headache and heartache.

Advertisement:      12:54          Recruitercast is brought to you by BrightMove, the most innovative applicant tracking system built with both the recruiter and candidate in mind. Be sure to check out BrightMove on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn at BrightMove. Visit us on the web at brightmove.com.

Dave Webb:          13:11          E-Myth number one: Once you start your own business, now you're rich. What do you think about that, Jimmy.?

Jimmy Hurff:        13:18          That's true, right? I mean like we're rich now. No, it is definitely an E-myth and there are a lot of glamorous stories out there. You know, you think of some of the Silicon Valley folks that have gone out there, you know, Mark Zuckerberg or the Steve Jobs. I mean, you could run through a list there and it would be great to see those folks and you're like, man, it would be awesome if I could [do that], if that could be me. Well that's a very small percentage of the population, right. But, in talking, especially with venture capital folks and incubation,the types of investment firms that make investments in very early stage businesses, the reality that they'll share with you and as an entrepreneur, what's probably in our heads is not even close.

Jimmy Hurff:        14:11          I mean, venture capital folks know that one out of eight businesses are actually gonna make it, which means seven out of eight aren't. We hope to be in that one eighth sliver of the pie. But there's a lot that aren't and so if you're in the seven eighths you're definitely not rich 'cause your company failed. It didn't even make it. You know, the one eighth that did survive, some of those are going to be great companies. Some of them are going to be mediocre and some of them are just going to be barely surviving. So there's definitely not a once you start your company, you're rich equation. I wish that were the case, but that's, that's just not how it works.

Dave Webb:          14:50          I think that's very well-said. E-Myth number two: Now that you've started your own business, the fun begins and you really don't have to do any more work.

Dave Webb:          14:59          Now we won't mention names, but we have some mutual friends who have come up to us just elated, two o'clock in the afternoon asking us if we want to go out and grab a bite to eat. And we're like, sorry, we're working. Why aren't you? And they said, "Oh, I'm in business for myself now. I'm done for the day." I can't remember the last time I got off of work at 2:00 PM but let's talk about the myth that once you go into business for yourself, like you don't even have to work anymore.

Jimmy Hurff:        15:26          Yeah, no, I guess one thing too is that, and this might be a blessing or a curse, but like I think if you want to be an entrepreneur, you are an entrepreneur and you're a workaholic. I think that's a great combination. Now whether, everybody, their significant others or families agree with that, that's probably different. But yeah, the two o'clock in the afternoon getting off thing. Yeah, that sounds nice. Here's the thing, if you want to be in business for any length of time, there's a very simple rule that I can share. You have to make more money than you spend. And if you can do that, if you can generate more income than it costs to run the business, then your business is going to continue to exist. But, if you make less than you cost, then you're going to go out of business and it happens every time. And it sounds pretty silly, I think, you know, obvious, right? But,he thing is usually when it's two o'clock and you're knocking off and you're going to go out and see your buddies or do whatever, do the thing that's not the production aspect of your business, unless you've been very smart in the design of your business, you're probably not generating any income at that point so you're in the costing side, right? And so if you do too much of that, if there's too much expense and not enough income, then you're going to go out of business. And so I guess I certainly am impressed with those kinds of business owners and the ones that are really smart and they figure out how to get their company and their money to work for them. So even when they're sleeping, you know that you have to see that in the business model. That's not just a function of being a business owner. It's generally if you've come up with something that's somehow unique or differentiating that enables that. And those are, those are the creative success stories that make the Zuckerbergs of the world. Uit's, it's not just inherent to being, you're own business owner. In fact, usually when you see that, and I think what you were talking about, the knocking off at two o'clock and going in and just kind of, you know, I'm a business owner, I can make my choice. Usually those businesses end up falling off or failing later.

Dave Webb:          17:40          You're exactly right. It's gotta be built into the business model. It's not a function of where your check comes from. It's a function of how your revenue comes into your business and whether it comes in 24 hours a day or eight hours a day. If your revenue comes in eight hours a day because you're out there working then cutting out early definitely impacts your revenue and it's not going to be a very fun journey after that. Even in those businesses that plan on that scalable business model, that recurring revenue that happens even when the lights aren't on at the office, that doesn't happen right at the very beginning of the business. It takes a long time to build that up.

Jimmy Hurff:        18:15          Yeah. Absolutely. I would say that, you know, sometimes you have to even pivot into that. Like you might stumble across a business model that, that meets that as opposed to setting out from the beginning with that in mind. Be open to those when they arrive 'cause they're definitely magical.

Advertisement:      18:30          Be sure to check out RecruiterCast on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn at RecruiterCast.

Dave Webb:          18:37          So we've all had this next thought, Jimmy, and I've heard you say this out loud, even in inappropriate situations, but the third myth is that your old boss was dumb. This is going to be easy. Anybody can do this. And so the next logical step is I'll just start my own business doing the same thing as the place I'm working now. I'll just quit today. Hey, I'll quit right now. And I'll just start doing this myself tomorrow. So I know you mentioned production, marketing and finance, and if you work at an organization, chances are if your boss was into the production and that was his or her passion at the beginning, they probably haven't done that in a long time. And that's because they're doing a lot of other stuff in the marketing and finance aspect of the business. Kind of put being the boss into perspective and the way the role changes and the respect that that position kinda deserves, especially if your paycheck is getting to you every Friday.

Jimmy Hurff:        19:31          Yeah, I mean, I think it's easy to say, your boss is dumb. Right? Like I would have done, she would have done different, or he would've done different than I than I would do, you know what I mean? Second guessing decisions, right? A lot of times when we question a decision, it's because it somehow has an impact on us and adverse adverse impact. Right? So like my boss said to do X and because of that I have to now do Y. And because of that that impact to me, their decision making was dumb. I mean, that's a lot of times why we recognize a decision is bad. I mean, I'll be honest with you, somewhere out there in the world, the world's dumbest boss exists. I mean, there's a, there's a continuum, right?

Jimmy Hurff:        20:15          Then, somewhere out there in the world, there's the, the world's best. And you know, I think one thing that's common across all of them with respect to their employees, their organizations that they lead, you know, in terms of their, you know, their hierarchies and such is that you as a, as a subordinate to your leader, you don't know what all the factors that are weighing into their decision are. I mean, there's things that you may have visibility to that's a feature or characteristic of a decision that they're making. And then there might be 10 other things that you just don't even know are happening. Right. It could, they could be personnel related, they could be budget related, they could have been in a product related, politically related. Organizations, especially those that are of any size are generally pretty complex organisms and because of that, there's the complexity, just it makes decision making even harder.

Jimmy Hurff:        21:13          It's also pretty easy to sit - what's that saying, hindsight's always 20, 20? You know, of course I would've done it differently had I known that that was going to burn me when I put my hand on the stove. I mean, that's how we learn a lot of times is through mistakes. But dumb, dumb bosses. I mean, like I said, somewhere out there, the world's worst is out there, but you know, there's also an element of leadership and responsibility that I think we might take for granted. And a lot of times you don't even realize that's the case until you actually get into that person's shoes. You know, there's another element too, you know when we talked about production, marketing and finance. The doing the work production, like the making the widgets or the marketing side, the selling, the widgets and then the finance piece would be the accounting aspect or keeping track of all the widgets that were sold.

Jimmy Hurff:        22:12          Usually, as you progress in your career, you go from being a widget maker to being the boss of other widget makers. You kind of go up the production side of things. And a lot of times your boss may have formerly done the job that you're now doing and the reason why your boss is now doing the bossing of the widget makers is because he was, or she was really good at it. Just because you're a good widget maker doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be a good boss of other widget makers. And so, you know, we presume that those skills will translate, but they don't. They don't always. And so, you know becoming the boss of widget makers andtrying to manage other widget makers, that in itself requires evolution and some people are open for that and others aren't.

Jimmy Hurff:        23:00          So I guess what I would say there is that, you know, your boss is dumb and anyone can do that. If that's sort of the question will not only do you need to, you know, just because you're a really great widget maker, you also ought to think through what it's like to manage other widget makers and what kind of skills that job requires. It might not be exactly the same as what you're doing today.

Dave Webb:          23:24          I couldn't agree more. And then many times those skills don't translate, especially in particular industries. There's a lot of soft skills and management problem solving with a computer that doesn't talk back to you is a lot different than problem solving between two human beings who are furious at each other and going after each other's necks in the parking lot is not for everybody. And I have a lot of respect for the people that say I don't want to have anything to do with that. Just let me put my headphones on and get back to work.

Dave Webb:          23:52          E-Myth number four: Who needs that organization stuff when you're in charge? You obviously know what you're doing. You just started a business.

Jimmy Hurff:        24:03          Yeah, I mean there's a balance there for sure. I mean like bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy. Nobody wants that, you know? But you know, I think especially if you have a team or even multiple layers of a team, organization is really a communication mechanism and say, how do you, how do you take this, this group of people and try to focus them onto one or multiple important initiatives and tasks? And, you know, generally speaking, I guess in my experience, what I'd say is that most people want to try, they want to bring value.

Jimmy Hurff:        24:40          They want to try to help. They want to be successful. They, they want to understand what the rules are that they need to operate within in order to be successful. And when you you say, I don't want to have an organization, you're basically saying, I don't want to have any rules I just want to let it kind of be a free for all. And whereas an organization inherently, it's like you started to create some concept, some, some structure around rules. Now I'm not talking about role power over people. I'm not saying like, just because I'm a certain place on the totem pole that should give me the ability to be less than most inhumane to you or anything like that. That's not the message. The message is sometimes you need to have a decision making authority that has delegation and both up and down. When you're in an organization that's entirely flat, you're trying to find some way of making decisions.

Jimmy Hurff:        25:37          Consensus is hard. Getting to consensus can be very expensive and take time. And so you knowwhen I think about like organizational structures, generally what that allows you to do is have a formal set of rules around how decisions get made and how ties get broken. And I guess there's another side of it too. If you think about it like I'm the CEO of a company and I've worked in companies very much that are like this I think of them as being very hypocritical. Uwhere you have the CEO and the CEO's position is I want a real flat organization. Like I don't want there to be a bunch of organization structure and I don't want there to be a lot of politics, but that's real easy to say when you're the CEO because you're the king or the queen, right? You're sort of in charge of all decisions eventually get made by you or, the ties can be broken by you. But at the same time, if you have an org that's made up of a lot of individuals, some that have different levels of talent and skill, experience, you can unintentionally move towards more of a mediocrity sort of a model because you've made all of your people equal even though they really aren't in terms of either skill or ability, you know, or experience. And so, u,at can actually be I think defeating and, and also bias cause you're like, "Well, I'm the king, I want a flat org. But at the end of the day, if a decision comes across my desk, I'll just make it the way that I want to anyway." It's sort of hypocritical and I've never really seen it work well,

Dave Webb:          27:09          No, I haven't either. But it is very prevalent, especially in small businesses and startups. It's not always intentional and it's not always malicious. And you made me think of a time I was, I was very miserable in what I was doing. And I called you and I kind of described the situation and you listened for a long time and then you said very calmly, "Dude, you have to delegate this stuff to somebody. You know, you can't do it all." And it's not that I didn't want anybody else to do it, it's just that I wasn't actively doing it. And like anything, if you're not focused on setting it up so that you can delegate, you're just going to overwhelm yourself eventually. And employees are gonna leave if you're not giving them stuff to do or if they don't have the autonomy to make decisions and affect change. So I, I'm a big advocate of getting an organization in place as soon as possible. Even when you hire that first employee, draw a line and say, this is the org chart, you report to me and this is what you're going to do and this is what I'm going to do. And then it just breaks the ice and it makes it a little easier to fill it in after that.

Jimmy Hurff:        28:16          Yeah. I mean, if again, it's the rules, the rules of the game. I mean that's the thing about organizational structure, you know, it's about what are the rules, right? Tell me what the, tell me what the rules are. Tell me what the objective is and then let me go out and solve that problem. I mean, people like to bring, like I said, like to bring value and want to solve problems. And if you can help articulate to them what success looks like and help them know what the boundaries are, they're gonna, you know if they're the right people, the right teammates, the right colleagues, the right employees are going to go out there and do that. And then you have to recognize them when they do. But a lack of clear setting of expectations, a lack of defining what those rules are, the rules of engagement. I think that's just setting yourself up for failure.

Dave Webb:          29:03          E-Myth number five: I love doing X now. I can do it all the time, full time without any interruption. My life is great.

Jimmy Hurff:        29:15          I love to do X. Actually I do love to do the production part of the business. Just don't get so wrapped up in that only that you forget about the other elements and maybe you'll be blessed and you'll be able to say, you know, I've got somebody that I can count on full time to do the marketing or to do the finance, you know, the bookkeeping. Even though you might have somebody dedicated full time to do that, you still have to participate in that segment of the business operations. Somebody's gotta feed back to the marketing people and feed back to the finance and keep the sales people and the marketing people working together. And the only person that can do that is the business owner in a small business. They have to stitch those teams together and make sure that they're not only working well together, but but, but holding each other accountable and delivering. And that's what business ownership's all about. It's not just whatever the production piece of the business is.

Dave Webb:          30:11          It really boils down to this. Not everybody is cut out to be a business owner and that's not a bad thing. Like some days I wish I didn't have to own a business. I wish my personality would let me clock in and clock out from nine to five and then I could just be happy, but that's not how my brain works. And it might not be how yours works either. If you have trouble finding happiness and peace working for somebody else, give it a try, but at least be aware of some of those pitfalls and problems lurking around the next corner. Listen to some other podcasts out there about being an entrepreneur and starting your own business. See which things that Jimmy and I have talked about today kind of align with other people's opinions. Chances are we're not all spreading disinformation about starting a business and we've been through it and we genuinely want to help people succeed because that's kind of where we're at in our lives. Think about a business plan now. Don't make a business plan for how you're going to be a a Silicon Valley unicorn in 10 years. Focus on what you're going to do today. Focus on what you're going to do in the next 30 days like you can't have a one year old business until you have, until you've survived the first 30 days. Cash flow is key. Know where your cash is going to come from. Pad your receivables. You're not going to get them when you think you're going to get them. Be very deliberate, intentional about who's going to do the different sides of the business. Who's going to do your finance? Who's going to do your marketing? Who's going to do your production? Trust me. If no one knows about your product, it doesn't matter how great it is. No one's going to buy it because they don't know about it.

Advertisement:      31:42          Recruitercast is brought to you by BrightMove, the most innovative applicant tracking system built with the recruiter and candidate in mind. Learn more at brightmove.com

Dave Webb:          31:56          Jimmy, now we've got a couple of questions for you. What was your most awkward interview and why?

Jimmy Hurff:        32:01          I've been on more than one interview where I was told by the hiring manager that I was not absolutely not qualified for the job. You know, in fact, one guy told me one time, he's like, man, I really like your resume. I just don't think you did all this stuff. So that was kind of an awkward, I was young at that point. And you know, it's interesting when you, when you're going for an interview and your resume, you're very vulnerable and you're trying to, you're trying to sell yourself, you know, I don't think I was dishonest on my, on my interview, but the guy looked at me, he said, man, you got like 40 years of experience in this thing and you just graduated from college last year. How's that even possible? I guess recognition of that in hindsight, I kind of smile a bit. And now as I've gotten into more into the hiring manager side of things, I see a lot more frequently now how much anxiety and I guess just nervousness that going and interviewing can bring. So interviews are always a little bit awkward. Every one of them.

Dave Webb:          33:04          What was your first job ever and how old were you?

Jimmy Hurff:        33:07          Simple question. My first job, I think of these two guys that I worked with as a young man, I was in the eighth grade and I worked for one of my football coaches. He was obviously a teacher and spent a lot of time around young people and as a physical education teacher in Jacksonville, Florida he had three months off in the summer. I worked with him and he had a business that he installed shallow wells and and sprinkler systems. So as an eighth grader whatever that is, 15, 14, 15 years old. I think, I think I had to be 15 at the time, but I was basically either digging ditches for an installation of sprinklers or helping plant shallow wells into the soft sand in Florida and Jacksonville and help people put in irrigation systems in their backyards.

Dave Webb:          34:02          And I'll add a fun fact to this. You did that for a few years. One of the summers after either high school or after our first year of college, Jimmy was doing that and I was cutting down pulpwood all day and we used to meet up at night just exhausted and have a competition to see who was the dirtiest. Thank God those days are long gone where you have to like prepaid with gasoline to get tar off of you before you then take a regular bath to get the gasoline smell off.

Jimmy Hurff:        34:32          Those are two dirty jobs, that's for sure.

Dave Webb:          34:35          Yeah, they build character real fast and they teach you real fast that it's time to find something new to do. All right. So here's kind of a trivia question and I'm going to give you a job description. You're going to try to guess the job title. Well, this one's appropriate for this podcast, chief cheerleader.

Jimmy Hurff:        34:56          That's gotta be the CEO of a small business, the president of small business. Right? I mean, that makes sense to me.

Dave Webb:          35:04          Exactly right. And you're the first guest to actually guess the job title word for word or in this case letter for letter.

Jimmy Hurff:        35:12          Yup. That's the job, that's for sure.

Dave Webb:          35:15          All right, Jimmy, before we go, I'm going to kind of let you close it out as the guest. What are the top three pieces of advice that you'd like to share with the audience?

Jimmy Hurff:        35:24          Yeah, I mean, it's probably just a bit of maybe a restatement of some of the things that I've already said, but I do think that having a good banking relationship, a good finance relationship makes everything easier when you're trying to start a business. I mean, especially those in the very early phases. Most businesses fail because of being underfunded. And so trying to find ways not only to manage your money but like sources of income, sources of revenue, that probably sounds obvious, but good banking relationship, good finance relationship without, without the money, you ain't got no business. So that's, that's one. And I think that probably sort of dovetails into some of the other financial, you know, professional service, good CPA, good tax accounting. I mean we kind of hit on this or kind of group that all into one.

Jimmy Hurff:        36:11          I guess the other thing is you gotta be willing to put it all out there, work as hard as you can, but don't be afraid to pivot. And to try to go other different directions. Don't get so locked into your idea that you get fixated and you can't change directions. Cause if you don't, if you don't evolve, you're not going to exist. So be open to pivoting, but work hard to get there and you know, 'cause nobody's going to care as much as as you do and you can't expect somebody else to come in and fix it for you. And I guess a third thing, and I kinda maybe group up a couple of little ideas here together. At the same time I work with people that you like to work with customers and, and business partners.

Jimmy Hurff:        36:54          Life's short. I wanna you know, it's, it's, it's too short. Don't spend a lot of time working with people that you don't like working with. Don't spend a lot of time working with customers you don't like working with. If you find yourself in a a toxic situation either with a customer or business partner or team get out of it. I mean make change. Life's too short for putting up with stuff like that for a long time. So I don't know, those would probably be my top three. I guess I could go probably another 15 or 22, but I'll just leave it at that.

Dave Webb:          37:24          That's perfect. So on that note, if anybody wants to get in touch with the Jimmy, what's the best way to do that?

Jimmy Hurff:        37:30          Yeah, I mean through my, as a cofounder of Brightmove, I'd love to hear from you guys through our, through our website brightmove.com and, and I'm also on all the forms of media, Jimmy Hurff @Jimmyhurff on Twitter and I'm on LinkedIn and all that stuff so you can find me out there.

Dave Webb:          37:47          Okay, well that does it for this episode of RecruiterCast. A big thanks to my good friend Jimmy Hurff. I know he's busy and it's hard for him to take the time to kind of break away from what he's doing and talk with me and we really appreciate him hanging out with us today. We hope you learned something from our discussion and we hope you take it into your day to day activities, whether it's your home life, your work life, or any life at all.

Dave Webb:          38:07          Remember to hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. We are at RecruiterCast. The old trusty website is still the best source for all of us. Recruitercast.com we have forms for you to submit. Questions, requests, guests suggest new topics, all kinds of good stuff. Heck, you can even call us. 904. 525. 8134. Thanks for listening and happy recruiting.

Dave Webb:          38:35          Recruitercast is an original production produced and recorded in St. Augustine Beach, Florida, and is hosted by me, Dave Webb. Our executive producers are Andrew Seward and Heidi Green. Original music by Dave Webb and Andrew Seward.