Welcome to the Growing EBITDA Podcast, where
we unlock the doors to management and technology
insights in the middle market. Join us as we
explore innovative strategies to drive revenue
and EBITDA growth, interviewing industry leaders
and technology experts. Whether you're looking
to streamline operations, understand the latest
tech trends, or lead your company towards exponential
growth, you're in the right place. Stay tuned
and let's grow together. Welcome back, everyone,
to the Growing EBITDA podcast. Mike, it's great
to be back with you. I thought maybe this week
we would let you pick the topic. What's on your
mind? Well, myself, just like all of our listeners
out there, I think are sitting on the edge of
their seats in anticipation for this week's topic.
We're going to talk about interim management.
So grab the popcorn and get ready. We're going
down that rabbit hole. Who doesn't want to talk
about interim management on a Tuesday? I mean,
we definitely do. Since you picked the topic,
I guess I do. Let's get into it. Let's do it.
So reason why everybody's talking about talent
shortages, which I don't, you know, a lot of
people describe that as a trend. Like, oh, it's
been really hard to find talent lately. I'm a
little bit more than 20 years into my career,
and I feel like that trend has been coming up
for. 20 consecutive years. So it's definitely
here to stay, but we're going to spend a little
bit of time today talking about maybe how to,
how to address those shortages from not the full
-time hire perspective, but from the, from the
interim side of things or fractional side of
things, maybe depending on who you're talking
to or depending on what kind of role that you're,
that you're, that you're talking about. Yeah.
And that, and that makes sense, Mike, because
I think You know, you and I get involved in a
lot of transactions and we see that sometimes
there's talent gaps or folks leave after the
transaction happens. It's not like that role
goes away. It's not like, hey, we don't have
a CEO for the next three months. We're just going
to shut down business and we'll resume back.
The business keeps having to run. So that makes
sense. If you think about it, management teams
tend to be fluid. You know, you find some businesses
that have the same management team for 15 years,
but that's exceedingly rare. I think these days
probably find that more. some family owned businesses,
privately held businesses than you do private
equity backed businesses or larger publicly traded
businesses. And given the fluidity of some of
those teams, you're going to have people coming
and going. And sometimes, you know, you've got
folks you can promote from below the person who's
leaving, whether they're being pushed out or
they're choosing to leave on their own. Many
other times you're going to look to the outside
and recruit somebody in house or use a third
party recruiter. to help fill those gaps. But
sometimes that can take a while. And sometimes,
you know, you might have a role, plant manager
comes to mind, right? If you've got a 200 ,000
square foot manufacturing facility and your plant
manager leaves, somebody's got to run that plant
every single day. Somebody's got to make a lot
of decisions on a daily basis to keep that place
humming. And oftentimes that, among other examples,
is a good opportunity to bring somebody in quickly,
right? Now, sometimes it can be challenging to
find those folks. if they're not at the ready
and already in your Rolodex. But we'll talk about
that in a little bit more detail. Yeah. So I
guess, I don't know, maybe there's something,
it seems like you have some things in mind. Maybe
there's a question you have for me that we can
start with to kind of warm it up. And then we'll
turn the back half over to you since you kind
of had the topic thought today. Yeah, let's do
it. Let's talk. Let's dive in a little bit deeper
here. So in your experience, why is interim leadership
such a strong play during this, in my opinion,
20 -year talent shortage that we've had? It has
a little micro gap of 20 years of talent. I think
one of the things that's challenging is anytime
you come into a new situation, the ability to
ramp up quickly is a challenge. Because the business
has been running, let's pretend, use your 20
-year example. The business has been running
for 20 years. Things have been happening for
20 years. There's a lot of tribal knowledge.
There's a lot of things that have been done.
That interim leader that comes in. Usually you're
going to recruit very strong folks. So I think
maybe to talk a little bit about the persona
of an interim leader, because we work with a
lot of them, is someone with a lot of industry
experience. They've been doing this for a while,
and they're usually on the stronger side of being
able to manage talent and get things done. So
you think about this business is moving very
quickly for 20 years. I got to bring this individual
in and have them ramp quickly. I think that's
a nice meeting up of the two talents, because
there is obviously going to be a little bit of
a gap while you learn, but bringing someone in.
Number two is the idea of flexibility. So maybe
I don't want to pay 40 hours a week for the individual.
I can use them less. Maybe I need someone that
can come in for a little bit to get me through.
Or maybe I'm a business that just want a large
client and I need to put a person in the seat
that's my CRO so I can put this CRO in front
of a large retailer to win some of that work.
You have that ability to use those interim executives.
stabilize the business, get it where it needs
to be, and either roll them off, use them more,
or roll them out of the organization. So it gives
you a little bit of flexibility, whereas hiring
somebody, you know you're locked in for a bit.
And then there's this last one. This happens
a lot in the IT space for us, which is this specialized
expertise side. So I really need someone who
can be very good at doing this thing and going
deep into this. So let's go for an example that's
outside of IT, procurement. I'm working on a
new product. I need to really start to source
from a new nation, or maybe we see it today with
the tariff exposure, right? I need to look at
secondary sourcing. How do I bring somebody in
that's maybe at the procurement level, maybe
a procurement manager, procurement director,
that's going to come in and handle this multi
-sourcing project for me, lead it because they
have in -region expertise, they have a deep understanding
of what needs to happen, take us through that
change curve, and come in and make that happen?
I could decide to make that a full -time role
after. or not use them after I figure this out.
So I'd say that specialization side is important.
So really, Mike, I'd say that flexibility, speed,
and specialization would probably be the three
buckets I would say are most common. What do
you think? Yeah, I mean, I think the only thing
missing there is while speed's important, a lot
of times you get caught off guard by some of
these departures, right? So yes, it's speed.
to impact, I think is what you're kind of referring
to with some of your commentary. Yes. And that
speaks to the person's experience and expertise
and their ability to hit the ground running.
Right. But I also think about it through the
lens of if somebody has an abrupt departure,
right. Some people pass away, unfortunately,
right. Some people suddenly change jobs or have
a life issue or career change, you know, and
sometimes you can have. less than two weeks notice
for, for key roles in the business. So I also
think about speed from the perspective of I've
got a business issue. I need that plant manager
back to my example. I need somebody there next
week because we're about to go live on this,
you know, three year project that we've been
working on to launch our next greatest widget.
And my plant manager just left, right. And that's
the plant that we're going to make all these
new, these new widgets. And so, you know, I think
about it from, from speed, from that perspective,
right. How to, how to fill a gap quickly. that's
critical to executing your operating plan. Well,
I mean, it seems like you have some ideas on
some of these roles and we've kind of danced
around it by using some anecdotal examples. Maybe
let's take a brief pause and have you kind of
drill into where do you see interim management
making the biggest difference and what are those
roles? Yeah, I think first, I want to clarify,
in my opinion, the difference between interim
management and fractional. employees, right?
So when I think interim management, I'm thinking
about a key managerial role, and that could be
down to the controller level, right? Or the general
manager level or plant manager level. I'm definitely
thinking about at the executive team level, right?
CEO, CFO, COO, et cetera, VP roles. When I think
about fractional, oh, and by the way, on interim,
I'm thinking about, you know, it may be part
time, but I'm thinking about something that by
definition is an interim solution to a longer
term business need, right? Where if you're a
$300 million industrial manufacturing business,
you need to have a COO. And if your COO abruptly
departs and nobody internally can backfill them
on a temporary basis. let alone a permanent basis,
right? Because we're talking about interim. So
everything we're talking about really is temporary.
If you don't have somebody internally who can
backfill them for three to six months while you
find a long -term solution, that's when you need
that interim solution. And the interim solution
could be from the inside, right? But it also
could be from the outside. Whereas fractional,
again, my definition is we have a need in the
business, could be a temporary need. It could
be a long -term need. But we're choosing as an
entity not to have that capability on a full
-time basis in -house. So the example there might
be same $300 million industrial manufacturing
business wants to explore how to embed AI into
their dumpster. So who knows, whatever it is
that they make. They might go out and seek a
fractional technologist to come in a day, a week,
a week, a month, maybe full -time, but for a
period of time. to advise them on that. That's
not really kind of how I think about interim
management. I think about interim management
as critical roles in a business that are required
to keep the business running in some capacity.
That you don't have a solution for in -house
today that you're likely recruiting for over
time, but you need that temporary solution, that
interim solution. Where we see this most commonly
is probably in the finance and accounting departments.
Most businesses can get by for a few weeks or
a few months without without that plan manager
many firms can get by without a vice president
procurement for a couple of months because oftentimes
some of the stuff that those folks are going
to be working on is a little bit more long -term
in nature or it's kind of easier to kind of self
-regulate on a day and and kind of weekend and
week out basis Whereas the financials, you got
to report those every month. All the executives
need direct and prompt visibility into what's
going on in the financials of the company. So
oftentimes, you'll see significant demand for
temporary interim accounting and finance professionals
because once your site controller leaves or once
your CFO leaves abruptly or you've exited them.
It's not like you can wait six months before
you close the books for that plant or for that
consolidated P &L. Every four weeks, your banks
most likely are going to want to see what's going
on. Your CEO is going to want to see it. Your
board is going to want to see it, etc. So that's
probably the area we see it most commonly. We
work a lot in private equity too. And I assume
a number of the folks listening are going to
know this to be true. But just in case you don't,
the single highest turnover role in... private
equity -backed businesses, especially as they
transition for the first time to become owned
by a private equity fund, the single highest
turnover role is not the CEO. It's actually the
CFO. And there's a huge industry around interim
CFO solutions because oftentimes it's the first
time a company's ever had debt on its balance
sheet. And maybe they've already been owned for
a little while by a private equity fund. And
even if that's the case, because there's oftentimes
a lot of leverage in relatively small businesses
in the grand scheme of things, the banks They
want those financials every month. They want
to understand. The board wants to understand,
right? So as soon as you have a finance professional
leave on their own accord or pushed out by the
new ownership group, you'll often see a lot of
interim folks. And I think a lot of people think
about interim management. They think about interim
CFOs, maybe an interim controller. And there's
a huge industry ecosystem, a lot of specialist
firms that kind of pure play, just put those
people into those types of situations. Where
we play. On the Trivista side, where we've helped
a lot of clients is on the interim operations
leadership roles. So, you know, maybe not quite
as critical to reporting the financials out every
month, but go back to my $300 million industrial
manufacturer, kind of hard for a company like
that to live six months without a COO, right?
Or pretty difficult to run a 200 ,000 square
foot manufacturing facility, maybe five states
away from the headquarters without that plant
manager, that general manager running that facility
on a daily basis. In other cases, you just may
find that you just need a particular part of
the business that needs some immediate experienced
hands to come in and help you fill a gap. So
we see a lot of kind of interim COO roles, interim
plan managers, interim director of ops, VP of
ops, head of procurement, VP supply chain. And
obviously, all those roles are focused on. keeping
the business running and obviously less focused
on keeping the financials up to date, which would
be the interim CFO route. Sometimes, and we see
this kind of, I would say if, you know, for every
interim CFO type role we see in the market, we
probably see for every 20 or 30 interim CFOs,
we might see one interim operations position.
And it's probably a similar kind of step down
into other functional leadership roles. You don't
tend to see interim commercial leaders very frequently.
You don't tend to see a lot of interim HR leaders.
You'll see a lot of fractional HR type resources
out there. But those many companies, particularly
in the mid -market, will deem themselves capable
of kind of getting to the full -time hire without
having to bridge that gap with an interim solution.
So certainly, finance and accounting is kind
of the number one biggest chunk of the market.
so to speak operations is probably a distant
second and then everything else is kind of a
distant third now i should point out we should
talk about the ceo for a minute very frequently
are you gonna you're gonna have an interim ceo
in particularly in mid -market businesses it's
not quite as high of a turnover role as the cfo
and obviously we're talking about a role as opposed
to an entire department when you think about
accounting and finance There's typically one
CEO in a $300 million business. There might be
20 finance and accounting professionals, of which
maybe five are in leadership roles. So on an
account basis, you're going to find far fewer
interim CEOs. But that's also an important role,
right? You may think that, hey, the board may
decide the CEO isn't the right person or the
CEO left or died or whatever the case may be.
And if they think it's going to take a while
to get the right person, they may very well bring
in an interim solution. Yeah, that's very helpful
and educational. And by the way, I really liked
your first part of that discussion because I
think even in my description, I conflated the
two between fractional and interim. And so just
to play that back for everyone and for myself,
Mike, I took some notes as we often do on the
cast here because I think we educate ourselves
just as much as we hopefully are educating our
listeners. So interim, I took these notes of
it's full -time, usually temporary. They're focused
on continuity or crisis management, and it's
a typically reactive need. For fractional, it's
usually part -time, longer -term type thing.
They're mostly focused on strategy or scalability
alignment. And then the last one, it's a proactive
solution and less reactive like the interim.
Did I kind of capture those correctly? It's your
own notes, but did I capture your own thoughts
correctly on here? Yeah, and I think I'm sure
people have examples that'll... contradict my
experience. Yeah. But yeah, you know, you're
spot on. You see a lot of, you know, there's
a big fractional marketing bench out there, right?
A lot of independents, a couple of small firms,
but that tends to be something that does a lot
of fractional. You don't tend to see a lot of
interim chief marketing officers. You don't tend
to see a lot of chief marketing officers in a
hundred million dollar, $200 million business,
especially an industrial one. But yeah, spot
on. I think, I think about interim. And kind
of use 80 -20 principles here, right? Like 80
% of the time, interim is going to be reactive,
filling a gap. It's a continuity issue. Whereas
fractional tends to be proactive, outsourcing
of a capability not deemed to be core to, you
know, having in -house. Yeah, that's really helpful.
And I think I've mixed those terms up. So we
support a lot of groups with VCIO services. And
I'm sure in those moments, I've probably said
interim. in there. And, and I guess if I even
look at the definition of the word, I've probably
been using it incorrectly. So I appreciate a
good, uh, education. By the way, I'm happy to
give you an English lesson after the, uh, after
I read it, I'm like, crap, this is a, and I do
love how great my buddy Bezos, let me open my
phone here. I'll, my buddy Bezos send you a dictionary
so you can start to educate yourself. How's that
sound? I do love how you wove in a you're incorrect
in your examples into your answer, which is great.
It's always good. Yes, I would say I took that
fractional knowledge and I'm going to apply it
in the interim. But I appreciate it. Okay, well,
just like I'm getting some serious value out
of this, maybe we could talk about how do kind
of organizations, or even in our case, sometimes
PE funds, because sometimes they're the ones
that are reaching out. How do I make sure I get
a win by bringing these folks in? Because obviously
it's not cheap. You and I both know that. It
sometimes can be very wrong and a misfit. How
do I figure out that win and make sure I'm structured
and prepared before I bring this individual in
or even attempt to? Yeah. So I think that for
starters, being realistic about what you're trying
to achieve is really important, right? Where
I've seen a lot of people do this wrong. is they
say, hey, listen, I need to go hire a new whatever
the role is, right? Let's just use COO as an
example. I need to go hire a new COO because
my current one left or I kicked them out or her
out or whatever the case may have been. And they
sit down and they start scoping it out with the
executive recruiting firm. And they say, hey,
there's all these traits and characteristics
and industry experiences that we want. Go find
them. executive search firm says, great, need
three to six months. And the board's sitting
there going, well, geez, I don't have three to
six months, right? Like I want that person and
fine, I get it three to six months, but what
do I do over the next three to six months? Because
I got to keep the lights on. I got to keep continuity
front of mind here. Where I see a lot of people
go wrong is they simultaneously go looking for
an interim solution that looks like their full
-time solution, but they want that tomorrow.
And if it was that easy, you probably could just
find your long -term solution tomorrow, right?
But it's not. And I think that Being honest with
yourself about what you're trying to achieve.
This is a stopgap, which by the way, the price
tag associated with this, which oftentimes is
a multiple of what the full -time hire might
cost. This is expensive, right? So I think a
lot of people try to be very thoughtful about
it, which you obviously need to be thoughtful
about it, but you kind of can't overthink it
at the same time. You kind of got to go, listen,
this is a stopgap. I don't need. the best person
in the world, because it's unlikely that you're
going to find the best person in the world on
the very first try by next Monday when you need
them at some critical client meeting or whatever
the case may be at that site to go run it. So
just being realistic about what you're trying
to achieve and what the minimum viable capabilities
and experience set of this person should have.
I see a lot of people go to their network and
say, hey, who in my Rolodex, former executives
that they've worked with, maybe at prior businesses
or that they've come across. We see a lot of
people kind of go there first, which sometimes
can be the solution. Another solution is going
to firms, you know, obviously like TriVista,
who specialize in certain niches, right? So don't
come to us for, you know, hey, I've got an interim,
I need an interim. software developer right we
don't have any of those in our uh you know in
our in our rolodex but hey i need an interim
coo vp of ops vp supply chain go call somebody
who's got a broad network who's already in this
business who already places these kinds of candidates
on an interim basis who understands the the business
model And who's got a deep Rolodex of folks that,
you know, you say, hey, I need a person in this
geography. Maybe it's very site specific role.
I need somebody in this geography with about
25 years experience. They have to have led teams
of 300 people in a heavy industrial manufacturing
environment. Right. Somebody like that can quickly
go to a network and get you some some viable
candidates. So I think a being realistic about
what it is that you're looking for and not going
to look for like. a purple polka dotted llama.
Cause you know, those don't, those don't, those
don't exist anywhere. You know, just being realistic
about that from the get go, tapping some resources,
like some firms who do this for a living and
help businesses fill these gaps is a, is a key,
key second piece. I think having a clear mandate
for the person once they show up to, right. And
being realistic about how much change do you
actually think somebody can drive in three months,
right? Like being realistic about, is this, am
I looking for somebody who can provide continuity?
Or am I going to try and take that person who
I'm asking to help drive continuity and then
do a bunch of change management? Right. And I
think you can only do so much change in a couple
of months, especially in certain roles. Like
oftentimes I encourage people wait to do the
change until you have the full time person, like
bring in the part time person, bring in that
interim resource, that steady pair of hands to
make sure you don't have more departures, to
make sure you ship product on time, to make sure
you're talking with your customers in the right
way. But don't try and boil the ocean. Don't
have somebody with a bunch of experience come
in and then all of a sudden give them 20 other
things that you think that you want them to do
and change and dilute their ability to impact
the business in the way that you originally intended,
right? So I think that's key. Also empowering
them, right? If somebody is going to be an interim
COO, don't bring them in and call them a consultant
and then expect the entire team to rally around
their leadership, right? You have to empower
them. to make decisions, just like you're going
to have to empower your full time person to come
in and do that. Now, you oftentimes are going
to vet a full time person. more than you're going
to vet some of these interim resources. And that's
why it's important in many cases to try and seek
out a firm that does that, fills those kind of
roles for a living, because hopefully and presumably
they've done an extensive amount of sector -specific,
role -specific vetting and reference checking.
Maybe they've worked with this individual in
the past. Those are all kind of good things to
have done because, again, we're talking about
interim stopgaps, right? Oftentimes in a very
abrupt environment, an executive leaves. you're
trying to find a solution in a matter of weeks.
You don't have time often to go through lengthy
interview processes across the board and the
executive management team, et cetera. So I think
just being realistic, having that clear mandate,
not overburdening them with projects that are
going to dilute their impact on keeping the lights
on and keeping the operation running is key.
And then also just making sure that you're upfront
with that person about the timeline and, you
know, the expectations and the deliverables.
And, you know, making sure that they understand,
which they often do, it's an interim role. If
they're the right person, they should get this,
that they're not the permanent person that you're
looking for, right? That you're going to be looking
for someone and you may, in fact, want to engage
them in the search in some capacity because they're
going to have very unique insights into the business,
the culture, the needs of the organization. They
may be able to help you tease out whether or
not your long -term fit, your long -term permanent
hire is going to be a good fit or not. Yeah,
those are really good, I think. I really like
two parts. Number one, they're not a consultant
that's coming in, so they're not going to have
this superpower to have a lot more free time
compared to the previous group. That's a really
good one. And then I think the thing that's interesting
to me while I was listening to you... Some of
those tips are good for just your current employees.
Be transparent, be upfront, give them clear directive.
Like it's a lot of the stuff and, and you know,
you can't just assume that you treat that any,
any different. So I really like that. Well, I'll
be honest with you, James. One of the things
that we find is, and this obviously assumes you
get the right person in, in the interim slot.
But one of the things that we have found over
the years, when we've dropped interim managers
into our clients' businesses, the client comes
back and says, wow, like. They've had a profound
impact. Like we really like this person. Oftentimes
they'll try and hire him. In many cases, it's
like, well, that guy lives in Florida and your
site's in Seattle and it's three stops to get
there and he's not moving. Right. So he's not,
he's not your, he's not going to be your full
-time guy, but oftentimes we'll have clients
say like, wow, how did you get, how did they
get that much done in two months? And a lot of
the times it's because the other leaders in the
business were smart enough, not. to overburden
them with things that weren't critical to continuity
right so rather than getting that person caught
up in a bunch of recurring meetings that don't
add a lot of value right you're just kind of
letting them go and execute and they're just
highly focused so some i think that your point
that you were making is like hey some parallels
here some metaphors some lessons to be applied
to maybe other permanent roles in the business
well some lessons to be applied to that role
in the business too right let your people stay
focused on the right things don't bog them down
and things that they don't need to be involved
in and sometimes magic happens have you ever
Filled an interim role for a business? Not in
a kind of formal way. I think I've acted in interim
roles kind of more informally in some of the
businesses that I've been involved with, particularly
some of the ones that we've invested in over
the years. But not formally, but some of our
partners have and we do a lot of. Yeah, it's
the reason I asked that, Mike, because I think
I'm more used in it. in a fractional perspective
than an interim perspective. I think a lot of
times I was a, now that I have the definitions
correct, I was an interim CIO for a carve -out
for a business. So SpinCo needed to stand alone
and they needed an IT leader to sit there for
four months until the strategic took them over.
But that was a pretty light duty. But I think
most of the time... I spent on the fractional
side. And I think it might be interesting to
get some perspective. Maybe we can find someone
in our network that would come talk to us about
being an interim. Because I think the other angle
I think is interesting here, Mike, as you were
talking is, because our listeners, so we get
the analytics on our listeners, are typically
mid -market business, mostly executives or PE
folks. I think the inverse of this that I think
is interesting is, if I'm at a business today,
and I know the business is about to transact,
and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to go forward,
type thing for me could be an interim role somewhere.
Like if I'm a COO that's currently doing a business,
I'm thinking about trying to slow down. And it
might be interesting to have a conversation and
get someone on to talk to us about, hey, you're
considering what your next role is, maybe trying
to get in this interim. I guess a bit of a hamster
wheel because it does change. But this interim
space is interesting and maybe getting someone
on the line to talk about it. I know a particular
person from Florida that when you said Florida,
it made me think about it. Having them come on
and talk about what it's like to be in that role
and how folks can be in that. Because number
one, we always need good sourcing because we
need folks in to be able to send folks out. And
number two, it might be helpful to educate some
of our listeners. Yeah, absolutely. You know,
I think the other thing that you're jogging my
memory on now is. Just my experience. So even
though I haven't done a lot of interim roles
personally, I've placed a lot of people in interim
roles over the years, helping clients. Sometimes
it's been with some of the full -time consultants
on the TriVista team. Many of the time it's people
from our broader network that we're dropping
in. And one of the things that I think some people
get right and some people don't get right is
When people see the price tag on interim, oftentimes
it's very off -putting, right? So if I'm used
to paying a plant manager, I don't know, let's
just pick just round numbers for example purposes.
If I'm used to paying my plant manager $100 ,000
a year and I go out and I'm like, listen, I need
an interim solution while I look for this. I
know it's going to be hard to fill this role.
It's going to probably take me six months. When
they get interim solutions to come through, I've
seen a lot of people. Find somebody from their
own network. Oftentimes it's somebody who like
lives in the town, was a brother of a guy on
the shop floor, whatever the case may be. And
it's like, oh, well, on a run rate basis, this
person's more like 130 grand a month. That's
not that bad. So yeah, let's drop that person
in and see how they do. It's really just a kind
of a continuity thing anyway. That's kind of
like the cheap route. Like there's a little bit
of premium to going with that person on a part
-time basis. They're optimistic that they'll
get back to that 100 grand level when they find
the full -time hire. many times we've seen folks
come to us and others like us who provide these
kind of services in certain niches and they're
like well wait a second i was paying a hundred
grand on a run rate basis this is like three
hundred thousand dollars right like i can't afford
that and i think this is kind of one of those
things where you kind of got to be careful you
know tread carefully here Oftentimes, you get
what you pay for. And I think you just got to
be really serious about how critical is the role?
How much of a leader do I need in this seat,
right? Which would be very different at the COO
level, maybe versus like an assistant controller
level in a business. And recognize that if you're
going to go to some of these outside firms who
are going to help maintain a Rolodex for you
such that they can drop somebody in in relatively
short order. and be accretive to you and valuable
to you in the selection and placement process,
you know, that you're going to have to pay for
it. Because certainly you get the wrong person
in, in a critical role, right? If you need to
hire an interim solution, it's probably a critical
role. Don't go cheap. Because at the end of the
day, it should be a very short -term thing. It's
typically an adjustment to the financials, right?
So just be thoughtful about cheap is not always
your friend here, right? Yeah, no, great point.
Yeah, and just for our listeners, I think you
meant 130 ,000 a year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So,
cause I would make that a $1 million plant manager,
which by the way, for a million dollar plant
manager, whoo, imagine what you could produce.
Hey, all right. Well, long list of long line
of plant managers signing up to that role. I
got a pen right here. I got a pen right here.
I figured it out. Yeah. Back to our earlier episode,
GPT, my way to success. All right. I can plant
plants. All right, let's wrap up with some trivia.
I looked it up just based on some of the conversations.
You said something around the folks being temporary.
It kind of struck something, so I just quickly
GPT'd a question. How long does an average executive
search take to complete was my original question,
but I'm changing the question. I'm going to spice
it up because you made that comment. What percentage
of interim executives are hired to be in that
full -time role, I think is a better question.
You know, I bet you it's like you want to think
it's high, but it's probably not all that high.
I'm going to say 8 % to 12 % somewhere in that
range. Pretty dang close, man. We'll give you
a quarter point for that. A quarter point. A
whole quarter point. Yes. Well, you gave me half
a point last week. So you're 1 .25 to 0 .5 is
our score right now. But it's roughly 20 % to
30%. So it's interesting. And by the way, so
GPT gives you copious amounts of context anytime
you search for anything, right? And it came back
and said it shows that they're not just bridging
the gap, that they can also become part of the
solution. I think that's a low percent, but they're
quoting that's a pretty high percent. So I think
a lot of times I expect people to roll. So yeah,
23 % of the people you bring on in interim role
could become your FTE. Yeah, I mean, I think
to me, I think it probably varies widely by interim
role. There are an industry type. I bet you it's
kind of all over the map, right? So if you go
to like the plant manager example, oftentimes
you'll get into a small town. in the Midwest,
in the Rust Belt, where the facility that needs
that plant manager is the largest employer in
town. Next closest industrial employer may only
have an eighth of the number of headcount, right?
So you may immediately have to be looking pretty
far away, right? You're going to have to extend
that radius out pretty far to find somebody with
the right skill set who also happens to be available,
who also is going to pass your criteria. And
in many roles, you're going to be flying folks
in. Certainly, the higher up you get, the more
difficult it is to find folks in the immediate
geography. Oftentimes, there's a lot of travel
involved. And a lot of those folks, if you think
about like an interim COO, a lot of times you're
going to be talking about folks who are in their
late 40s, 50s, 60s with the kind of experience
that you need to drop them in. A lot of those
people are. they're not moving, right? So yes,
your plant may be in Seattle or your business
may be in Maine, but they might live in Florida,
Texas, Southern California, right? So mapping
that out oftentimes is kind of just a hurdle.
It's not a hurdle to send them in temporarily,
but it's a hurdle to get them on the team full
-time, even if they are really, really great.
It certainly does happen though, right? You can
incent them. A lot of people can be convinced,
but a lot of people can't be convinced. Right.
So whereas I think in some in some interim roles,
particularly in accounting and finance, that
tends to be a very geographically driven business.
So, for example, if you need a controller. an
interim controller in San Diego, there are firms
that are San Diego based or have offices in San
Diego that just do finance and accounting placement
work. So the conversion there from interim to
full -time is probably going to happen a lot
more frequently because they likely have resources
who are already there because nobody wants to
pay five grand a week in travel expenses to bring
in a controller who they're only paying $85 an
hour to come into that interim role. So it's
just a little bit different. Yeah, it's definitely
not a high, high percentage of interim to full
-time conversion. No, that's great context. I
think one of the things I walk away from in today's
conversation is it's something that I should...
Look for more and talk about more because it
is an offering that we have, frankly, and it
sometimes falls to the bottom of the sort order
when we're talking with clients. We're so focused,
back to my two definitions, on really making
sure I get them right. We're so focused on that
fractional side that I think the interim side
is something that I need to bring into my lexicon
more and discuss with our clients. I appreciate
the context today and walking us through it.
It was really helpful for me, at least. I walked
away understanding more and some ideas for future
episodes. Great. Happy to help. All right. Well,
thanks for tuning in to Growing EBITDA, folks.
I appreciate it. Feel free to subscribe. We always
like when folks do that. And we look forward
to catching up next time. Thanks for tuning in
to this episode of Growing EBITDA. If you liked
this episode, hit subscribe or follow us on LinkedIn
for updates. Got a topic you'd like us to cover?
Drop us a message. We'd love to hear from you.