In the latest episode of the Servant Leadership Library podcast, Nicholas Paulukow, CEO of ONE 2 ONE Inc., sits down with Ryan Clark, co-founder of PeopleShare, to explore the journey of transforming a small staffing firm into a national powerhouse.
Ryan’s story is a compelling example of how grit, vision, and unwavering commitment can drive success in even the most competitive industries. In this episode, we’ll dive into key takeaways from their conversation, offering valuable insights on leadership, scaling a business, and the power of betting on yourself.
Watch the episode above or listen over at Spotify. Make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next great servant leader’s story!
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Episode Transcript
Nicholas Paulukow
All right, all right. So welcome, dear listeners, to another exciting episode of the Servant Leader’s Library podcast. I’m your host, Nicholas Paulukow, the CEO of ONE 2 ONE Inc., a managed IT and security firm. And today, we’ve got a show that’s going to make you rethink everything you thought you knew about leadership and success. Joining us is the incredible Ryan Clark, a man who, back in 2005, didn’t just dream about starting a staffing firm—he co-founded PeopleShare, a national powerhouse dedicated to placing candidates in light industrial and administrative positions. With a vision sharper than a tack and a determination that could move mountains, Ryan has transformed PeopleShare from a modest two-person operation into a staffing juggernaut boasting 260 employees and a staggering $200 million in revenue.
Ryan’s story is one of grit, talent, and unyielding commitment to helping others achieve their goals. His ability to recruit the best talent for every opportunity has been a cornerstone of PeopleShare’s rise. So sit back, relax, and get ready to be inspired by the man who proves that with the right vision and a lot of hard work, anything’s possible. So let’s dive into the mind of Ryan Clark today and discover the secrets behind PeopleShare’s phenomenal success. Ryan, welcome. What do you think about that intro?
Ryan Clark
Wow, I’m—I’m like ready to get this going.
Nicholas Paulukow
I’m excited. I want to know if you’ll come over to my house and introduce me to my kids.
Ryan Clark
I’d be more than happy to! I’ll make an audio clip for you so you can put it in your Bluetooth speaker. Yeah, they think I’m an idiot, so if they listened to that intro, they’d be like, “Who are they talking about?” But, uh, yeah, thanks for the grand entrance. I’m a little blushed right now, but I appreciate it.
Nicholas Paulukow
No problem. We’re excited to have you, Ryan. You know, since the listeners don’t know you, why don’t you give us a little bit about your personal history and what led you to running PeopleShare?
Ryan Clark
Sure. Believe it or not, it goes back to when I was working a temporary job in college.
Nicholas Paulukow
This is 1991?
Ryan Clark
Yeah, 1991. The economy was very tough at that point, and I’d listen to my dad come home every day, and I knew when his car hit the driveway, he was going to be asking me, “Hey, what’d you do today? Did you get a job yet?” And, you know, I’m…and, uh, he said, “Why don’t you go down to the temp agency that my company uses?” So I ended up going down to a company called TAC Worldwide, which got acquired, you know, many, many years ago. But I still remember the name of the company, and I just remember this guy being like a broker on the phone. He had multiple lines ringing—”Hey, let me see if I can get you here, get you there.” So he was kind of the man about town. So I’m 20 years old, but I’m watching this guy work the phones, and I said, “You know, that’s a wicked cool job.” And, you know, getting out of college, I didn’t really have any usable skills—I didn’t have an engineering degree, I wasn’t pre-med, uh, any of those things. So the only thing that I could do, the only usable skill that I had, was the grit—you know, you mentioned that in the intro. That’s one thing I will give myself credit for, is, uh, you know, I’m gritty, uh, sweaty, you know, I’m willing to do that. So, uh, you know, I just kind of morphed into the staffing world. I got connected with, uh, the third-largest staffing company in the world and worked for them for a few years. But, you know, I found that I was really good in corporate—corporate employee—until I wasn’t. And then it dropped off the table, and I’d run my mouth too much, and I just realized that, you know, I could do this better than, you know, one of these big conglomerates. Like, you know, the person working at McDonald’s or Burger King—it’s a good company, but I felt like I could make a better burger than they could, right?
Nicholas Paulukow
Yeah, I like it. That’s amazing, right? We talk to a lot of entrepreneurs, and it kind of—I was laughing because kind of my journey, I got really frustrated in corporate America, right? And, um, you know, I started developing a software that we ran at our company 20 years ago on my lunch hours, right? I started paying the programmers, like, “Yo, I’ll buy you lunch if you start teaching me,” right? And I’m like, “We gotta get this party started; things are passing by.” You know, you gotta love stories like that. That’s awesome. It is grit, though, man. The teachers always told me, “Man, you’re the hardest worker,” and I’m like, “I don’t have to be a genius, I just have to work hard,” right? That’s what you’re saying.
Ryan Clark
Yeah, precisely. Yeah, I didn’t even think about it that way.
Nicholas Paulukow
That’s pretty amazing, kind of like a broker, right? Like, you’re constantly trying to connect people to other people.
Ryan Clark
Yeah, yeah.
Nicholas Paulukow
Wow. Well, you know, as we kind of get into, uh, the podcast—it’s a lot about, like, servant leadership—so, like, give us an understanding: What do you define servant leadership to be? You know, how do you feel about that? How do you implement that in your business?
Ryan Clark
You know, I don’t know if this is the classic correct answer here that you’re looking for, um, because I’m not sure that I know the classic definition of it, but here’s how I look at leadership: I was always working hard—the grittiness—because I felt like I had a responsibility to the people that came on board. And what I would say to people all the time is, “Hey, uh, Frank, Sally, you know, whoever, welcome aboard. Today’s your first day on board, and listen, I just want to say more than anything, thank you for joining our company, because, you know, we’re a small company, and there are a million other choices out there in the staffing world or outside of the staffing world.” So I just—I just felt and feel—current tense—I feel like I have a responsibility to feed these people. I mean that euphemistically, you know? I feel like I’ve got a responsibility to keep these people employed, and as costs rise, we want to make them more money. And I’ve always said to people, “Hey, I can’t change your personal life, I can’t change your health, I can’t change your relationships, your family, your children, but I can affect your paycheck in a positive way.” And that’s what I feel like every day—I feel like I’ve got people depending on me. I learned this—this, uh, I know it’s a little bit trite, but I’m going to say it anyway—I learned this from, uh, one of our leaders, and she would always say, “Hey, I feel like every day I’m the mama bird leaving the nest, and I gotta bring back, uh, the worm for the baby birds.” I know it’s a little, uh, cliché or trite, but, you know, when she said that, I’ve used that phrase 4,000 times since then. I love it.
Nicholas Paulukow
I love it. You know, that’s just kind of the heart, though. It sounds like the culture that you’ve instilled, right? It’s about kind of like building other leaders—it’s just about taking care of each other, right? And, like, helping each other succeed. You know, as you kind of went into building your business, right, like, everybody does it differently, but, like, is there anyone that kind of inspired you? How did you determine you were a leader, right? Like, a lot of the people that listen to podcasts are like, “Well, I’ve done a job so long, that just must mean I must move into leadership,” and we learn very quickly that that’s absolutely not true. But it sounds like, from a young age, you had this bug that you were able to get people to follow you. How did you do that?
Ryan Clark
Well, I don’t know. I suppose you are correct, but I never felt like that. I never, uh, you know, I had confidence in certain areas of my life—uh, you know, my ability to play hockey or water ski—like, I knew what I was somewhat good at. Leadership? I wasn’t sure that I was ever good at it. And I always tell people that leadership is like poker, in the fact that it takes five minutes to learn it, but it takes a lifetime to master it. I feel like I’m always learning and making mistakes with leadership, but I never felt like I was really good at it. So maybe in a way that kind of inspired me to, you know, to read more. And, you know, I look at so many other leaders, and, you know, Tony Robbins—you know, I think you asked about, you know, kind of influencers, and there wasn’t one influence—there were 15 of them, 20 of them that I picked up. But, um, you know, Tony Robbins and his passion—I guess I assimilate the most with him because I don’t know that he’s classically trained. I don’t know that he’s classically—he’s just out there going. He’s a baller. He’s a baller. He’s doing, you know, 180 miles an hour, you know, full tilt all the time, and that, to me, is inspiring. But it’s not classic.
Nicholas Paulukow
Oh, it’s not, right.
Ryan Clark
Yeah. So, you know, I guess if there’s somebody that’s inspired me or I felt like I could emulate, that’s probably it. I felt like I could at least emulate what he does—just pure passion.
Nicholas Paulukow
Yeah, I like the energy. Most of us have a lot of energy that are in our roles like that. Sometimes we scare people that don’t have that energy, right? Like, we inspire, or we scare—I think it’s—or that’s just me, right? But I think you’re key to say what you said, right? Like, I’m a full believer in having mentors, right? So I got a gentleman right now that I was part of a group of—he retired, a really high-powered CEO. And I said to him one day, I said, “Man, I just really don’t feel like, you know, I’m always second-guessing myself.” And he goes, “Man, I want to tell you—the day you stop doing that is the day you should stop doing it.” And I’m like, “Why?” He goes, “Because we all, that want to improve, feel like that every day.” And I was like, you reminded me of that when you said it, right? Like, you’re like, “Am I really good at this or not?” But, you know, that’s what makes us great, I guess, right?
Ryan Clark
Yeah, that, uh—you know what I call it? It’s healthy paranoia.
Nicholas Paulukow
That is true.
Ryan Clark
When you get, you know, you kind of sit back on your laurels, and you think you got it—you know, you got it beat. Yeah, that’s—you know, your mentor that said, “Hang it up”—that’s the time to hang up the cleats, is when you think you’re better than everybody.
Nicholas Paulukow
Yeah, that’s great. You know, when you were talking about, uh, kind of, like, as you moved up and you kind of learned from these, was there any, like—I mean, were there other business owners in your family? Was there any places that you might have seen this, or is this something that you just grabbed onto on your own? Right? Like, your dad was like, “Go find a solution,” and you went and really found it.
Ryan Clark
I’ll tell you—yeah, there are zero entrepreneurs in my family. You know, my dad was an educated guy, uh, you know, but not real high level in business. And, you know, I think most of my family—immediate and extended family—are just work, just for that paycheck, and do things on, you know, in their personal time. There’s nothing wrong and nothing right with that; it’s just the way that they chose to do it. And, uh, and they’re probably a lot better balanced than I am—I’m a little too, you know—like, I think the phrase earlier was, you know, “I inspire or scare people.” I think I’m on that side—I’m so far on one side that, uh, you know, maybe my life could be a little bit more balanced. But yeah, I just, you know, I wish I could say this statement that was really, really inspiring and this great story, but I just saw how other large companies—since I worked for two, but now I work for three publicly traded, uh, companies, you know, pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical, you know, in the staffing world—and I just saw how these huge companies did it, and I just saw a gap. So I don’t think I was any, you know, entrepreneur from the womb—I’m a serial entrepreneur, I had my own company when I was eight years old. That ain’t me.
Nicholas Paulukow
Yeah, you were solving a problem.
Ryan Clark
Yeah, yeah, I think I started the company when I was 34, 34, 35—yeah, I guess I was 35 and had always worked for publicly traded, uh, uh, large companies. So this was, you know, my first and, I don’t know, maybe my only foray into entrepreneurial, uh, you know, ventures.
Nicholas Paulukow
It’s one heck of a feat. I mean, that segues into kind of my other discussion, like, with PeopleShare, right? Like, you went from two people to 260—that’s a powerhouse, right? Like, what’s the secret sauce to scale like that? Not many people get to that level—of one, revenue, and two, employees. So, number one, congratulations, and very impressive. And number two, you know, what’s the secret sauce? Like, tell us some, some positive or horror stories, whatever it may be, to kind of help us picture how you got through that.
Ryan Clark
Yeah, well, thanks for the compliment, and, you know, I’ll say, you know, there’s never one factor for your success, but I would say the main factors were, number one, I had a—he’s no longer with us, he’s physically alive, but no longer in the company—I had a great partner, and we had tremendously complementary skills. He was—I was the doer, and I was literally, not figuratively, literally pounding on doors, you know, going up, and that was my—that was my bailiwick, as I, you know, I was just out there driving revenue. And my partner at the time was much more strategic than I was. So, um, he was much better on the accounting and tax and finance side, and I was, quite frankly, a better recruiter than he was. So we just had complementary skills, is one thing. Number two, everything that we did, we had a long-term vision. So if we could pick up, you know, we had no money in the beginning, if we could pick up a little bit of revenue, but it was outside of our vision, we had the discipline to say no, we’re not going to do that, right? And I would say, you know, the third thing that we did well is we overfunded our company. So a lot of people say, “Hey, if you could hire the best sales rep in the world, or the best software, or the best whatever it is, would you be successful?” And they always say, “Oh, yeah, absolutely.” Well, why aren’t you doing it? They couldn’t afford it. So, you know, there were people out there that, you know, making X for a salary, but the best people were making X plus 20 percent. Yeah, we went out and hired those people. We went into debt as a company. We were hiring the people that were 20 percent above market rate, 20 percent better than the average. So our costs were so much higher. And, you know, to this day, we’re paying probably 20 to 30 percent above market rate for our business development folks. But, um, I’d say that that’s probably been the third key to our success.
Nicholas Paulukow
Oh, that’s great. That’s good to hear and good to understand. I think also, kind of from your perspective, did this growth happen all organically? Did you do any acquisitions? Like, you know, what was the format of the growth?
Ryan Clark
Yes, we grew all, like, organically for the first, let’s see, uh, for the first nine years—100 percent organic. And then, um, we financed, uh, one acquisition, I think, about nine years into our company. And it was a very small acquisition—like, I think we had enough change in our pockets and our sofa to pay for this first. It was—it was pretty small. Um, I think it was maybe seven million total in revenue, so it wasn’t a big enterprise value. But then we got acquired in 2016. Okay, and so a private equity company—I mean, they’re ostensibly just a bank, and all they want to do is borrow money and buy more houses or buy more businesses. So yeah, then we went on an acquisition spree in 2016 through 2022, when they owned us for about that six years. I think we made three or four acquisitions. So, you know, we’re tracking for a quarter of a billion this year.
Nicholas Paulukow
Yeah, that is impressive. But a lot of that has been through acquisition.
Ryan Clark
Right? Yeah, that’s amazing to hear. I mean, that seems to be a lot of the journeys for a lot of organizations. A lot of people in our business are in the same, right? The PE guys are coming in, and they got their five-year run, and they’re hitting you hard. And it takes a specific type of owner to be able to carry on the journey of a PE firm, relevant to who they are. So kudos to you, that takes a—it’s a whole different level of, uh, running your business when they get involved, right?
Ryan Clark
That—that’s the understatement of the millennium. You know, a different way. And we’re just like, “Hey, does this person look good? Do they sound good? Yeah, make them an offer, and just write the check.” And, you know, the private equity company that we’re affiliated with—it was a very, very tough adjustment. It’s like, it’s going from having no parents, and you’re 16, 17 years old, and then all of a sudden, your, your father is a, you know, five-star general, and he’s cracking down on you, and you’re like, “Whoa.” You know? So yeah, just running for, uh, maybe 11 years of just all the decisions—100 percent ownership was ours. And then, uh, you know, um, and then—but they really did professionalize us.
Nicholas Paulukow
Yeah, they have amazing skills, I’ll tell you. It is interesting. It is also interesting in how they manage debt. So sometimes I wonder how those calculations work, you know? But, uh, it—it is a heck of a ride. Well, congratulations on that. You know, as you kind of grew at that scale, right? I mean, that—that’s—that’s—that’s hustling, right, in a small amount of time. How did you go about building, like—like, we hear from a lot of leaders, man, I struggled to build a, you know, a middle management or like, uh, you know, different levels. Tell us how you accomplished that in such a small amount of time. Like, what—what systems did you put in play, or what was your sauce for that?
Ryan Clark
Yeah, you know, I don’t mind bragging about my salary here. My first first year, I, uh, I was—I was taking home $35,000. You know, not married, no kids, and my mortgage was 870 bucks a month, you know? So I remember those days. And my partner’s salary, he, uh—he—he had a lot more experience than I did, but his salary wasn’t much more than that. So we were just eking by for the first, uh, maybe two, three years. And then after we started to become profitable, we were putting 90 percent of the profit back into the company. So I think that that was our key to being overfunded—was we were underfunding our own paychecks.
Nicholas Paulukow
So—
Ryan Clark
Yeah, so I—I was, you know, at a really, really low salary where we had, uh, all the entry-level people—recent college grads that we were hiring in our first two years—that were all making more than I was. Yeah. And, you know, to my partner’s credit, uh, who’s much more of a visionary than I am, he said, “Listen, man, we agreed that we’re going to pay ourselves these salaries to build the long-term future of the company. All, you know, it will all work out for the best in the end.” And it did. But, you know, first three years, they were very, very lean.
Nicholas Paulukow
Yeah, it is rough. I remember myself—I had—I had owned a company, sold it, worked for, uh, a Fortune 100 company, and I’m like, “This is enough.” And then I’m like, “Hey, listen, let’s start this company with zero dollars,” right? And, uh, it went—I went from a six-figure salary calling my wife down at the beach and said, “I’m done. I’m starting my own thing. I’m out.” And she’s like, “Huh?” Like, “I’m not even home.” And I’m like, “I’m doing this.” I negotiated with my employer to pay me 12 months of benefits. So—because I was married and had a kid on the way, and I’m like, “All I want is benefits.” And they agreed. They paid me. And, uh, now they were a big, big conglomerate. But I left—I made $18,000 the first year. I was like, “Oh, that’s gonna be fun.” But you didn’t really pay attention to the numbers, you just used grit, man. You just kept going.
Ryan Clark
Yeah, and so I—
Nicholas Paulukow
Related to yours—
Ryan Clark
Yeah. Being a good decision, did your marriage survive?
Nicholas Paulukow
It totally survived. Yeah.
Ryan Clark
Wow.
Nicholas Paulukow
All right, so you—you kept it all together. And, well, before we got married, her dad owned a company. And I said, “Listen, you know what you’re getting into. You see I’m already nuts. So if you’re buying into the nuts, then great. If not, it’s not gonna work.” And then she joined a portion of the business, and it’s pretty successful herself. So that’s been unique, you know? I don’t see her much during the day, but—but, uh, that brought a different level—being in the business, going, “Oh.” But it was hard, because when we decided, we said, “Hey, we might be making tons more money, but when the kids are around, we’re gonna see their games and events. And if we—we would—we would, uh, spend all the time during the day, come home, have dinner, do their events, and start working at eight till two in the morning, and then cycle through.” I can’t do that anymore, but you just figured it out. So there’s not many people I run into that have the—that ran with the same grit. So congrats. I love that. That’s awesome.
Ryan Clark
Yeah.
Nicholas Paulukow
I would always get frustrated when people are like, “Man, I can’t live on the six-figure salary I have.” And I’m like, “Dude—huh? Like, don’t even talk to me.”
Ryan Clark
I can’t—I can’t—another key to success in business and in life is living beneath your means.
Nicholas Paulukow
Yeah, you’re right. Absolutely. Paying that debt off.
Ryan Clark
Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that. You know, as, um, you know, kind of decision-making has come about, you had to make a lot of key decisions, right? It sounds like you had a really great partner. You didn’t really say, though, like, where’d you meet your partner? Was he a friend? Like, was he a colleague? Was he somebody you worked with? Like, how’d you pair up to find such a successful teammate?
Ryan Clark
That’s a great story, so I’m—I’m actually glad you—you asked it. So he and I were, uh, we’re colleagues at a publicly traded staffing company. And one day, he was walking by my office, and I was on a call, so I couldn’t, you know—I couldn’t let him in. And—and he kept on pacing back and forth. I think he paced back, uh, past my office, you know, six times in a matter of 10 minutes. So I knew it was something urgent. So, you know, I—I called him in and, you know, put that call—I—I think I was on a workers’ compensation call, and nobody was going to miss me—68 people on the call. I just put it on hold. I said, “Hey, what—you know, what’s going on?” He said, uh, “You know, I’m—I’m really tired of—of, you know, the company that we work at being so bureaucratic, and, you know, it takes months to make a decision.” And—and, uh, he said, uh, “You know, I—I think that if they don’t roll out this decision quickly, I’m wrong.” I said, “Wow, that’s, you know, Dave, that’s a—that’s a wicked strong statement to make at your level.” And—and he said, “You know, I’d start my own company.” And he had—he had, uh, he had founded his own staffing company, uh, years and years before and sold it. I said, “You know, I—I would do this again.” And I said, “Hey, you know, I—I’d love to do it too. You know, we work great together. Why don’t we write a business plan, see if our goals are aligned?” So we were both kind of thinking about it at the same time. It was serendipitous timing. And, uh, and we—we left this publicly traded staffing company on the same day and went out to, uh, we got office space out in King of Prussia, and we had no cubicles, no nothing. Um, and, uh, yeah, folding chairs.
Partnership—partnership was, you know, was great for the 18 years he was in the business, but, uh, he’s fully retired and—and, uh, and—and enjoying his golf game.
Nicholas Paulukow
Wow, that’s awesome. I mean, you know, we hear a lot of stories—I’m part of Vistage, an executive CEO group—and 90 percent of the time, people with partners don’t have that same experience you had, right? Like, they have it for a small amount of time, and then we see, like, one person scale higher than another. So, like, what was your secret to, like, keeping that relationship strong? Is it just because you ate your talents, or like, nobody ever got into a disagreement of, like, “Man, Ryan, you know, I’m making—I’m making all the sales, what are you doing?” Like, there were never disagreements. I’m sure there were disagreements, but—
Ryan Clark
You know that we had a little, uh, check mark up on our wall. I think we had 2,785 dust-ups in our—in our career. We were two stubborn, driven, uh, you know, hard-nosed, uh, passionate people. So, oh, we—we had our fair share and then some of—of conflict. And, you know, it’s funny, you know, you think about us being professionalized, and, you know, our—our senior partner at the private equity company is a, you know, Harvard-Dartmouth guy, and—and all the forms and the—and the analytics. We just came up with a system that if we disagreed on an item, I would say, on a scale of one to ten, “Dave, I’m feeling like a nine that we go left.” And he’d say, “Well, I’m thinking about going right, but I feel like a seven, so you win.” So that’s how we—that’s how we did it. And I’ll tell you, it’s just like any partnership—father-son, husband-wife, uh, uh, you know, business partner—it takes work. And, uh, yeah, and—and we worked through our issues and—and, uh, and had tremendous success. So, uh, it was worth it. But yeah, the—the—the most, uh, utmost respect for, you know, for—for Dave and—and—and what—what he did and his incredibly—I came from pretty humble beginnings, but his were much more humble than I, uh, you know, than my—my background. And so I get a ton of respect for him.
Nicholas Paulukow
Well, congratulations. That’s a—that takes a lot of, uh, you know, work to keep that relationship rolling for 18 years.
Ryan Clark
Yeah, we’re like, uh, like Hall and Oates, but without, uh, the lawsuits back and forth. They’re in the news lately—a partnership that created such, you know, iconic music, you know, for many, many, many years. But, you know, like, like most, uh, partnerships, they don’t—they don’t end well, or, you know, they—they either never get off the ground or, you know, end in acrimony. But, you know, uh, we did.
Nicholas Paulukow
All right. Yeah, that’s amazing. And, you know, we’re talking all of these wonderful things that have happened. Tell us some areas maybe, uh, that you could educate those that are going through this journey right now. Like, “Man, I wish I wouldn’t, you know, I’d never do that again.” You know, like, “Oh man, I had all these great things happen, but, you know, if I would have learned this sooner, it would have made it, uh, easier for me in my business journey.” Do you have any stories of that effect?
Ryan Clark
Yeah, I’ll tell you, you know, when you—when you go to the, uh, when you—everything in life is a gamble, right? You know, what kind of car you buy—it’s a gamble. You know, you do your research on things, and, you know, you go to the casino, and you know that you’ve got odds that are against you. So why would you go there? But if you’re—if you’re doing well and you believe in yourself, and with your will and your grit and your work ethic, you can win most days. Why didn’t you bet bigger on yourself? So, you know, we had an opportunity in, uh—I don’t know what year it was—but to take out a bigger line of credit, uh, you know, maybe, maybe a three—three, four million dollar line of credit to go and open ten offices. And we said, “You know what? We’re always gone, you know, kind of debt-free, and not—not gotten it into, you know, uh…” And—and I wish we had. You know, a three million dollar line of credit to go—go and open an office costs about 300k to open, so we could open ten offices overnight. And, you know, uh, the rate that we’re borrowing at was good, and—and, you know, we came up a little shy. We did fine, but could we have been, you know, an eight trillion dollar company had we gone into debt? Maybe. So, you know, you know what they say about hindsight, but I—I do feel like we should have taken a few more chances. And as, uh, as Bill Gates, uh, famously says, “Success is a really bad teacher.” So, uh, I don’t know. I—I think that we, at times, came up a little bit shy, and we should have gone into deeper debt, because what are you betting on? You’re not betting on your car. You’re not betting on a casino. You’re betting on yourself, and you can control your, you know, uh, your production. So that’s—that’s the only regret that really sticks out, but it is a regret.
Nicholas Paulukow
Yeah. How’d you—how’d you guys, as you scaled, find your lieutenants? Did you—did you—did you run with a—a kind of a flat organizational structure? How’d you build it?
Ryan Clark
So, you know, every year, we would have a—we would update our five-year business plan. And we knew, and we had it into the day, like August 1st, we were opening our office in Westchester, Pennsylvania. And then we didn’t even know how that was going to be—going to be going because it was three years before that. But we knew on this first, um, or, you know, whatever the beginning of that fourth quarter, uh, we were going to open this office October 1st. So we knew that we had to go out and recruit that person because we had a whole Gantt chart. We had a whole timeline. We had—we knew that we had to hire these people to stay on pace with our business plan. So we just—it sounds, uh, cliché, but it’s really, you know, it’s fundamentals. It’s beating the bushes. We’re asking everybody. We’re just out in the community. Um, we were figuring out who our best competitors were, and then we were taking their best people. Like, we were running into one particular staffing company time and time and time again, and, you know, “If you can’t beat them, join them.” So, you know, we just made a phone call to this guy and—and brought him over, and he’s still with us today, going on—going on 16 years, and one of our most successful people. But, uh, you know, we had another woman that, uh, I—I—I—we paid a recruiting fee to get her, and, um, he said, uh, “Yeah, unfortunately, this woman, her name is Jane Maury, she said, unfortunately, she just got a promotion, just got a raise, and she’s thrilled with her current company, so she does not want to interview with you.” And I said, “I never asked her to interview with me. I asked her to broker a meeting because an old dinosaur, being me, in staffing just wants to buy her a cup of coffee and chew the fat on being in recruiting in America, geopolitics, you know, whatever. Set me that meeting up.” So I went out there and, you know, two hour, two and a half hours later at a Starbucks in Bucks County or wherever she was at the time, um, you know, she’s—she’s with us now 12 or 13 years later. But just figuring out who the best competitors are and—and scooping them, you know, just going out there getting.
Nicholas Paulukow
What was your, like, you know, your pitch, right? What was the pitch? That you’re paying them that 30 percent more, or what—what was your vision? Like, what vision were you selling to them to get them to get them to move?
Ryan Clark
Yeah, so—you know, when you’ve got a vision and you think that that’s what’s important to them, I think salespeople just naturally blurt that out. Say 30 percent—in Jane’s case, money wasn’t important to her. She’s a very holistic, you know. So I—you know, in that case, and I think in all of our cases, we’re really probing people. You know, what is important to you? What do you wish that you had? What are you looking to avoid? And—and we were small enough at the time that we could contour a package. So I—I—you know, this is—this conversation only happened, you know, 12, 13 years ago, but I can remember it like it was last week. She said, “I don’t want to drive to Delaware. You know, I don’t want to drive through the city of Philadelphia and go to Delaware. I want to build my own team, and I want to make this kind of money.” And I want—and—and there was a fourth kind of quirky request, but I said, “Well, Jane, if—let’s just play the ‘what if’ game—we could go four for four and give you everything that we—that you want. Would we have the premise to have a deeper conversation?” And, you know, I boxed her in. “Yeah, I guess so.” “Great. We could do all four of those. Let’s sit down next Tuesday at two. I’ll put everything in writing for you.” So we were—we’re kind of riverboat gamblers back there. The problem with that is eventually that doesn’t scale, and you can’t just be doing that with, you know, 255 people. “Hey, I’ll write it up.” Yeah, you know? So—but I think that that was our, uh, what I call our go-go years, where we were just, you know, riverboat gamblers and—and just, you know, going with a gut feel. Certainly our gut feel could only take us so far, but that’s how we did it.
Nicholas Paulukow
Oh, man, I’m—I’m thinking of, like, “Wolf of Wall Street.” Like, that’s what I’m thinking.
Ryan Clark
The cubes are looking like, you know, “Wolf of Wall Street,” but a little bit more ethics than that. All right? No, uh, no drugs in the office. You know?
Nicholas Paulukow
Yeah.
Ryan Clark
Yeah, you know, that’s—that’s another thing that just kind of brings me back to a question that you—you asked me earlier is, you know, we just—we always did the right thing. There’s a lot of ways to cheat business, and there’s a ton of ways to cheat in staffing and—and playing with your numbers and playing with workers’ comp and—and doing some, you know. We always did things the ethical way, and ethical you make more money, but it’s just a short-term strategy that doesn’t scale either, right?
Nicholas Paulukow
I agree with you. I think, uh, you know, hearing—because you’re like the recruiting master, right? So—so tell us, uh, the listeners, like, what’s the most outrageous thing somebody has done to get a job with you? Knowing that you’re a recruiter, they want a job at your place. What have they done? What’s the most outrageous thing they’ve done?
Ryan Clark
Um, well, I don’t know if this answers your question, uh, it’s a little bit of a way. Uh, the most outrageous thing we did, and it ended up getting somebody a job—we interviewed a young woman for an executive administrative assistant job, and—and we asked her, “Hey, what—what was the reason that you last left your last employer?” And she said, “He was crazy. And I know it’s easy to say the guy was crazy, but he picked up a chair at a meeting that I was in, and he threw it, and it stuck into the drywall.”
Nicholas Paulukow
Oh my.
Ryan Clark
And, you know, he just went nuts and, you know, started throwing things off. And so I—I just couldn’t work in that environment. And I—you know, of course, you know, I said, “Okay, no problem. I understand that’s, you know, uh, you’ve assuaged any of my, you know, concerns about leaving for a, you know, uh, a non-important reason.” So immediately I said, “Well, just so we can make sure that we can avoid this person in the future because we don’t want to do business with them, what was his name?” She gave up the name right away. That was my next phone call. And I said, “I—I understand you need an executive admin.” So we got that person that way. Uh, ABC, and you’re always selling, baby. I was a little embarrassed by that one, but, uh, you know, it ended up working out okay. And, uh, I think he might have just been having a rough day.
Nicholas Paulukow
Well, you know, we—we talked about kind of you and your partner kind of building PeopleShare, and that’s amazing. You know, as you started to scale and have a significant amount more employees, you know, how did that change for you as, like, a leader, right? Like, I mean, it sounds like, I mean, you’re—you’re involved, you’re in it, you’re—you’re making it happen. But you mentioned earlier, like, right? “We can’t touch all 260 people the same way.” Like, what—how did you keep the culture of the organization, you know, moving at the same level it was when it was small?
Ryan Clark
I don’t know that we always did do that. Um, I think we tried to do that, and we did a reasonably good job of it, but we only learned through a bunch of missteps. Like, we really screwed up a few times. And—and before in—who—it sounds simple, but it’s the basics. You know what wins football games? Tackling and blocking. Blocking and tackling, and not turning over the ball. That’s it, right? So, in business, it’s communication. So I just remember one time where we ended up hiring somebody that was going to take over a portion of somebody else’s territory in sales, and, you know, turf wars—you understand how—are very territorial, and we didn’t communicate that. And that ended up creating a firestorm. And, you know, putting out this fire, and backing up and—and—and, you know, and we learned a really valuable lesson from this just to overcommunicate. And then we had multiple locations, and so it was really tough. But I would say that, uh, the—the biggest thing to—to maintain that culture was just to be hiring based on only culture. And this is a question that I ask people in training: “Hey, you get a résumé in here, and he’s got a, you know, he or she’s got a great job history—went to undergrad at Harvard, Stanford MBA. He looks great, a perfect tie. Is he a fit for you?” And everybody says, “Yeah, that’s the guy you want to hire.” And the answer is, “I don’t know. Does he fit it? Does he fit our values? Does he have that sense of urgency, that teamwork, that passion, uh, reputation?” Those are our four values. So I think that a lot of times we lost our way by hiring a great person, but he or she wasn’t a cultural fit, and it came back to haunt me.
Nicholas Paulukow
Oh, I agree with you on that one. I’ve, uh, I’ve experienced that many times, right? It’s the—it’s the desperation call—I wouldn’t even say that. It’s like, “Hey, we—we’re scaling, we need to hire.” And you’re absolutely right—one person, though, can really rip an organization that’s living on core values up.
Ryan Clark
It’s a—you can have one big cyst just kind of grow. You know, and I’ll tell you, you know, HR people will tell you that when you have a turnover, it’s two and a half times their salary. Um, but in my opinion—I don’t know if that’s accurate or not—I think it’s incalculable the damage that you do to the existing people that say, “Man, who—who—who the heck did you hire here?” And then that causes other good people, you know, the opposite of the magnet effect—it causes them to go the opposite way.
Nicholas Paulukow
Yeah, then you’re losing that good talent. That—that’s amazing. You know, if you—it sounds like you got a lot of energy and you’re pretty passionate. So I need to ask this question: What’s the craziest idea that you—you and your partner had to grow the business?
Ryan Clark
So it’s an idea that came out around the same year that YouTube came out. We’re watching a video on the Rolling Stones or, you know, a dog jumping in a lake, and we said, “Hey, um, why can’t we put that on YouTube and put a person’s 30 or 60 or 90-second video interview of them asking three behavioral-based interview questions?” And we did it. So that was a—a little crazy and a little outrageous, and that worked. Another idea that we had that was, you know, that was a complete flop was, uh, we would set up a P.O. box in every different city that we possibly could to say that we’re in that city and, you know, kind of block a couple people from non-competes or competitors going into that. And—and I think that idea was probably mine, uh, uh, you know, we’re paying $110 for a P.O. box to say we’re in the city and, and, you know, would lock people up, but, you know, that was a—that was a stupid idea.
Nicholas Paulukow
That’s a good—you know, all the ideas are good. You just have to make sure that you figure out real quick it doesn’t work, you know? Right?
Ryan Clark
Yeah, yeah. It brings me back to a memory when I worked prior to MapQuest years ago—before going to IPO. The CEO came into all of us and said, “Listen, we’re going to grow to have people in every state by the end of the quarter.” We’re all looking at him going, “We’re going to open offices in 50 states, you know, 49 states?” And I gotta tell you, that guy, Ollie—and this was before remote work, right? Like, I mean, this is the 90s.
Nicholas Paulukow
Oh, yeah.
Ryan Clark
And he’s like—he’s like, “Yo, we hired people in every state. They’re going to work from home, send their crap to their house. We have sales reps in every state. We’re selling everywhere.” And we were like, “Wow.” Like, now today that sounds like, “Well, you just get somebody on Teams and have a good day,” but it was impressive to see that. Then it took us to scale, then to IPO, um, because we were everywhere.
Ryan Clark
That’s phenomenal.
Nicholas Paulukow
Yeah, and what was crazy is then everybody knew everywhere you traveled, like, “Hey, you guys are in that state,” and we were like, “How?” Like we would—and—and just because of that, just the recognition that there was a human being there, everybody thought we, like, owned that state, you know what I mean?
Ryan Clark
So that’s cool.
Nicholas Paulukow
That gave me a memory back—that you’re—I love it. Oh goodness. Well, you know, could you give us, as we kind of wrap it up a little bit for today, you know, other leaders or other people, kind of, that are—that are as gritty as we are that are trying to get into, you know, fulfilling their dreams, do you have any advice for them? You have anything that, uh, any encouragement or anything that you would say as they’re starting to do that in the world today?
Ryan Clark
Well, I—you know, I’ve never met a leader that has, you know, hired and unfortunately had to terminate people that ever said that they terminated somebody too early. Out of billions of people that have been terminated, they always had a leader or a manager that needed to make that tough decision, and 100 percent of the time it was too late, or it was later than what they wanted to be. And I think that the best advice that any of us has been given has always been very simple advice. It’s not profound. It’s not the theory of relativity. It’s your basic advice. And, you know, a leader once told me this advice: If you think you have a problem, you do. So don’t, you know—make quicker decisions. But, you know, we were successful, but we lost millions of dollars by not pulling the plug. And I think that a big thing for the leadership that changed for me is I was very—I don’t know if the word is “sympathetic” or “empathetic”—and didn’t want to cut that person’s legs off and their, you know, their paycheck and their benefits. And—but then somebody—a leader, um, actually just more of a personal friend, but he’s very good at what he does—said to change your mindset to not being, “I’m cutting somebody off at the knees. That is—that is awful. That’s vicious.” To, “You are just being kind and compassionate to the other nine people, you know, out of a 10-person company at the time—the other nine people. You’re being compassionate because they’re not pulling their weight. And that person that you’re cutting, they’re not happy in this marriage either, right? And just be really graceful, um, to them on the way out.”
Nicholas Paulukow
Mm-hmm.
Ryan Clark
So that’s—
Nicholas Paulukow
Great mindset to—”Man, I’m—I’m gonna—I’m gonna cut somebody off at the knees”—versus, “Hey, I’m just being kind to the people that are here, and I’m gonna help that guy on the other side.”
Ryan Clark
Yeah, that’s great advice. I think, uh, we all kind of have done that, right? Because we’re like, “Hey, you know, we’re trying to scale, but it’s good enough for now,” but it’s really not, right? Like, we have to—because when we scale, it’s only going to exacerbate, right? And so I—I think I heard a quote the other day that goes, “Many times, leaders care more about the person’s success than they do.” And so when you’re doing that, that’s not helpful either, you know?
Ryan Clark
Another quote that—can I share one other quote?
Nicholas Paulukow
Oh, absolutely.
Ryan Clark
And—and it’s from, um, I don’t know if you know the author, uh, Tim Ferriss, who’s written “Nine Minutes on Monday,” a ton of books, right? But he’s a real, uh, he’s a really interesting, uh, guy. And—and, uh, so he’s just not a fastball down the middle. He’s—he’s—he’s pretty out there. And his—one of his famous quotes is, um, “You can usually judge a person’s success in life by the amount of difficult conversations that they have had.” And it took me a little while to process that quote, but it really makes sense. I mean, to have successful relationships in business and personal—whatever you’re doing—you—you know, if you have surface-level talks, “Hey, how’s the weather? It’s not the heat, but the humidity,” all those—you know, people exchange banalities all day long, never get to the heart of it. But having those tough conversations—that’s how you get a real relationship.
Nicholas Paulukow
Yeah, I agree with you. And I think—I think a lot of leaders that we find out that are trying to, like, become people leaders realize, “Well, if I’m just nice to them, I can coach them through it.” And in reality, people want to be told, “You know, great, you did a great job here, but this is where you need to improve. Let’s get this moving,” right? And—and it really astonishes me every time. I’m like, “What is not clicking, you know? We’re not here to be best friends. We’re here to be friendly, but we’re here to get a job done, too.” And it just, uh, boggles my mind sometimes, you know?
Ryan Clark
You just nailed an epidemic that we have in our country of leadership—that, “I want to be friends with that person. If they like me, they’ll do what I ask them to do.” Yeah, but that’s not doing yourself, your company, or that person any favors. You need to develop people.
Nicholas Paulukow
Yeah, you’re absolutely right. It’s interesting you say that, too. Uh, I was, uh, doing some study on generations, right? And how, like, each generation has their own piece, right? Like, uh—and—and we get to kind of the—the different generation of millennials and whatnot. And the one day, um, our team was doing an interview, and the person was like, “Well, you know, not really, uh, not really employed. My wife works, you know, and, you know, it’s a question of, like, what’s the urgency of your—of your search?” “You know, if I like it, I don’t.” And I’m like, “Wow, man, when I grew up, if I would have said that, my dad would have punched me in the mouth,” right? Like, like, “What in this world—what is happening?” But then we saw the next generations past them. Then it changed, right? Like, it was interesting to me just so quickly, but it blows my mind. I’m like, “Who taught you?” Like, “If you’re thinking it, great, but that’s not really gonna get you a job.” You know, he’s like, “I don’t understand—I’ve interviewed so many times, and I really haven’t gotten a job.” I’m thinking to myself, “Self-awareness isn’t top on your head there, is it?”
Ryan Clark
Yeah, what’s today, June 13th? “Hey, do you think I could start after Labor Day?”
Nicholas Paulukow
You know? “I mean, the weather is just perfect this weekend, you know?”
Ryan Clark
Oh, God.
Nicholas Paulukow
Well, you know, Ryan, as we kind of wrap up, what—what parting comments, uh, you know, feedback do you have for the listeners?
Ryan Clark
Well, you know, I—I don’t know that I do have any, uh—you’ve asked some, you know, really salient questions. You know, I—I’d probably just repeat myself by—by saying this, but, you know, I—I would—I would say just really two keys to success: number one, keep gambling on yourself. Keep betting on yourself. Stay out of the casino, where the odds are stacked against you. And—and keep on betting—betting on yourself. Hmm. And making those tough personnel decisions. You know, leadership is something that takes a lifetime to master, right? And you’re always getting better at it. But what’s the number one thing a leader does? It’s the people selection. It’s getting the wrong people off the bus before you can get the right people on the bus. So trust your gut there. Every manager in the history of management has done it too late. Um, so it’s just a variance of how bad you are. Sometimes it’s a day too late. Sometimes it’s years too late before you make that—but do it as quickly as you can and make those—make those sad decisions.
Nicholas Paulukow
Well, I love it. I love it. Well, you know, on that note, that was—that was epic. So thank you, Ryan, and that wraps up another enlightening episode of Servant Leader’s Library. I’m your host, Nicholas Paulukow, CEO of ONE 2 ONE, and it’s been an absolute pleasure diving into the world of leadership with the man, the myth, and the staffing legend, Ryan Clark. Ryan, your journey from co-founding PeopleShare in 2005 to building it into a national staffing powerhouse is nothing short of inspirational. Your vision, expertise, and sheer determination have not only driven PeopleShare to incredible heights but have also set a shining example of what true leadership looks like in action. To all our listeners, if Ryan’s story doesn’t make you want to conquer the world one light industrial administrative position at a time, then I don’t know what will. Remember, it’s not about just growing a business; it’s about fostering success and opportunities for everyone involved. So thank you for tuning in, and don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this podcast with anyone that needs a dose of leadership wisdom and a pinch of cheeky inspiration. Until next time, keep leading with heart and serving with purpose. This is Nick Paulukow, signing off from Servant Leader’s Library.
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