Building a People-First Staffing Business: A Journey Through Challenge and Growth with Jolene Tate

Intro  

Welcome to another edition of inspired stories where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes, how they’ve overcome adversity, and explore current challenges they’re facing.

Anthony Codispoti (09:57.953)
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast, where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Cotaspodi and today’s guest is Jolene Tate, a 20-year franchise owner of HQ Direct. They are a premier nationwide staffing agency who connect businesses with the talent they need while fostering professional growth and opportunities for workers.

Jolene Tate (10:32.718)
Hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (10:54.441)
Whether you’re a business looking for a superstar to get the job done right, or a worker searching for a better way to find a job, HQ Direct is your partner in building a stronger community of work. Jolene’s franchise covers Tennessee, Arizona, and Indiana. She received both her bachelor’s and her MBA from the University of South Florida, and is a member of several professional organizations, including the Arizona Builders Alliance, the Greater Nashville Hospitality Association, the Association

Jolene Tate (10:56.853)
you

Jolene Tate (11:23.182)
Thank

Anthony Codispoti (11:24.565)
General Contractors of Tennessee and Entrepreneurs Organization, EO. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Ad Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cash flow by implementing one of our proprietary programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible.

To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefitsagency.com. Now back to our guest today, franchise owner of HQ Direct, Jolene Tate. I appreciate you making the time to share your story today.

Jolene Tate (12:06.936)
Thank you, I’m happy to be here and excited to talk to you.

Anthony Codispoti (12:09.897)
So before we get into how you got to HQ Direct, just give me a little bit in your own words, Jolene, of what HQ Direct is and what you do there.

Jolene Tate (12:19.884)
Okay, we are an on-demand staffing company. We’re a franchise. That’s the high request direct side. I also have another brand called Trade Corp, which is our skilled trade staffing division. And I’m the CEO and franchise owner. And I got here, that’s a whole nother story that we’ll get into whenever you want to hear the whole story.

Anthony Codispoti (12:42.837)
So, did you always have a background in the staffing world before you got involved with this particular franchise?

Jolene Tate (12:52.152)
So when I was in college, I worked for a brief time for a professional placement staffing company. And that was when I was in Florida in my last year of my graduate program. And when I moved to Tennessee, I came to work for a company called Ready Staffing, which was a day labor construction staffing company. So I really right out of college, that was my first job, which is actually really the same company I’m with now. I worked for a company.

then had a chance to buy into the franchise. So it’s really been the same company for about 24 years. I’ve just been the franchise owner of that company for 20 years of it.

Anthony Codispoti (13:28.125)
Okay. So before we came live with the interview today, you’re telling me there’s a little bit of a rocky road for you before you got started with this, something about a personal bankruptcy. Maybe take us through that and explain how that kind of led you to all of this.

Jolene Tate (13:44.75)
Okay, that was actually within the middle of business. So I actually bought the franchise. I had the opportunity to buy into the franchise in 2004. And so I was building up the business and doing great. Started with one location in Nashville, Tennessee, continued to grow to eight locations in Tennessee. And 2008 happened. 90 % of our business was construction and literally overnight the lights just went out.

So within six months, I shut down five locations, laid off half my staff. I took on all the leadership roles. I had to lay off all the middle management, upper management. And I went a year and a half without paying myself. I had also just gone through a divorce. I had to file personal bankruptcy. was getting the company on mortgage on my house, credit cards. And I filed personal bankruptcy. I did make it through that. And I was able to pull myself out of it and then continue to grow the company.

where we now have 14 locations. So it was a struggle for several years, but we made it through.

Anthony Codispoti (14:48.211)
Yeah. So let’s dig into this a little bit. For those people listening who don’t realize or forget, in 2008, there was a huge financial crisis. And basically there was no cash to go around. Banks weren’t making any loans. so construction was one of your big industries. And they rely on loans to front the work that they’re doing. And without the banks making those kinds of loans, new building just ground to a halt.

Jolene Tate (14:56.567)
Mm-hmm.

Jolene Tate (15:13.274)
It just literally, yeah, the lights went out overnight is how I explained it. I’ve never seen anything like it. It really was crazy. I mean, we went from a perspective, a perspective of like how many people were sending out a day, like on job assignments, we went from sending out, you know, within our locations, about 1000 people a day to like 150 people really within a couple months period, it just everything just shut down. And then on top of that, you know, customers didn’t have the money to pay us but there I had to write, you know, lot of write offs of customers not being able to pay us because they’re in

Anthony Codispoti (15:18.997)
Thru note.

Jolene Tate (15:40.546)
hard financial positions and then there is no new work going on. So it was, we had to make quick changes.

Anthony Codispoti (15:46.427)
And is this what all led to the personal bankruptcy? Because if your clients aren’t paying you and you’re still trying to pay the folks that you were placing there for work, that cash dries up pretty fast in that kind of a model.

Jolene Tate (15:57.004)
Yes, yes. Yes, well then also just to fund the business to pay my employees, was getting a mortgage on my house, maxing out credit cards, everything I could do to keep the business going and that was with laying out, shutting locations down, laying people off. just to, I was funding it myself and obviously not paying myself for about a year and a half, close to two years. So there was no money coming in, but there was a lot of money going out.

Anthony Codispoti (16:20.871)
And in the midst of this, you said you also were going through a divorce. So your business is grossly contracted. You’re going through a divorce. Like any one of these things, and then filing personal bankruptcy, any one of these things are enough to bring somebody to their knees. Like how are you sort of taking all of these punches at the same time and not just giving up?

Jolene Tate (16:24.376)
Mm-hmm.

Jolene Tate (16:35.916)
Mm-hmm.

Jolene Tate (16:43.424)
It was difficult. I did go through a lot of counseling on how to manage the stress and I learned some skills that helped me really segregate, you know, all the different levels of stress and the things that I needed to do and just how to stay focused. Also, I was in my early, early thirties, so I had a lot more energy. mean, I was, I was probably working about a hundred hours a week some weeks because, you know, I had to let go of all the positions, but I was doing everything. I was doing the payroll. I was, I was doing all the management positions. So.

yeah, I just, I just made it work. I pushed through it and, know, staying positive is the biggest thing I can always say. Like when there’s, when there’s adversity, just stay in positive and praying every day that you’re going to get through it. You know, that’s the only thing you can do. Take it one day at a time and the train needs to keep pushing forward. So.

Anthony Codispoti (17:30.751)
So you mentioned therapy that was helping. It sounds like maybe you’ve got a little bit of wiring for just perseverance and just dust yourself off and keep going. Were there other sources of strength for you during this difficult time?

Jolene Tate (17:34.222)
Mm-hmm.

Jolene Tate (17:43.586)
Mm-hmm.

Jolene Tate (17:48.686)
You know, that’s a really good question. Some other sources of strength, you know, I think just keeping yourself physically well, mentally well. So, you know, I’m really big on, you know, people always ask, how do you manage your stress? I get up every morning at 4.30 and I work out my time from 4.30 in the morning to six o’clock in the morning is my time to, to clear my mind, workout, meditate. I have to set myself up for success with that every day or my day isn’t successful.

I have to get in that positive mindset, you know, taking care of your health, sleep, know, surrounding yourself with people that are in the same mindset. I’m in the entrepreneur organization, which I joined in 2010, thankfully, because it’s the people that I’ve met in that group. If you’re not familiar with the organization, it’s a global organization of entrepreneurs. I’m in the national chapter and the Arizona chapter, but I’ve made some, some friendships, lifelong friendships, and we have meetings every month with eight people that are in a forum.

And it’s a very confidential, safe place where you can come and talk about the struggles that you can’t talk to with your friends that aren’t entrepreneurs, such as how, you know, going through bankruptcy, how to make payroll, these things that other entrepreneurs understand. So those have been, you know, being in that forum and that entrepreneur group has really been, I can’t imagine where I’d be if I didn’t have that support system.

Anthony Codispoti (19:08.307)
That’s fantastic. And I think you hit on something really important there for people who are entrepreneurs. And if you don’t have a similar kind of network where they’re like minded people that you can open up to, like you said, in a safe space and be able to vent, get advice from, be able to rely on them. I think that’s just incredibly helpful because there are people don’t if you’re not a business owner, if you haven’t been through some of these things, you don’t really understand kind of like

Jolene Tate (19:18.286)
Okay.

Anthony Codispoti (19:37.843)
like being a parent. Like, if you’re not a parent, you can understand, you can look and say, yeah, kids are challenging, et cetera, like I get it. But once you become a parent, like you understand it all on a whole different level. And it’s the same kind of a thing. having that support is helpful. Yeah. And so, the habits that you developed, you talked about the working out and the meditation in the morning.

Jolene Tate (19:39.978)
Mm-hmm.

Jolene Tate (19:45.322)
Yeah. Yes. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

Anthony Codispoti (20:03.551)
Were these habits that you had in place before things got really dicey or was this something that you found yourself having to structure because of the challenges you were going through?

Jolene Tate (20:15.15)
I’ve always had somewhat of that, but when I really started to, when I started going through therapy, when I was having, you know, the world was caving in around me with, you know, the 2007 was, a divorce, 2008 was the, you know, the major recession and the construction industry going bad. And then, you know, filing personal bankruptcy in 2011, all that stuff compiling together during that time is kind of when I really started focusing on myself, how to manage stress. And so that’s what I made it really, I’m very routine person. So.

That’s when I really made it part of my, it wasn’t just like random going here and there working out. was like every morning, 4.30, this is your time, this is what you do, this is how you start your day. And that’s really, it really is amazing how that really helps with my stress level and also with the sleep, sleep being important along with, you know, working out and taking care of yourself.

Anthony Codispoti (21:03.209)
Well, I think we’ve just found the silver lining to all of that disaster that you were working through is now coming through the other side of it. You’ve got much better routines that, even though things are going much better, there’s still stress every day. There’s still challenges that come up. And now you’ve got a system to better deal with those things.

Jolene Tate (21:17.021)
yeah.

Jolene Tate (21:23.04)
Right, right, absolutely.

Anthony Codispoti (21:25.137)
So let’s get back to the business a bit and talk to me about, because we’ve got TradeCorp and we’ve got HQ Direct, tell me about how each of those businesses sort of complement each other. Who are your primary targets for each of those?

Jolene Tate (21:27.96)
Okay.

Jolene Tate (21:33.091)
Mm-hmm.

Jolene Tate (21:41.134)
Okay. So with High Request Direct, which is the brand that I’ve had since 2004, that we just celebrated 20 years with that line of business in August, that line of business is construction, light industrial, and hospitality. So our target business, all commercial construction. So if you drive into any of the big cities and you see the cranes, those are our targets. We could provide general labor, operators, carpenters, electricians.

those type of roles on those positions. And then we deal with a lot of auto auctions. So if you see an auto auction, require a lot of drivers to drive the vehicles through the lanes during sale day. That’d be an example of some kind of a role that we would have. We work with a lot of the recycling facilities with people standing on the line doing, know, kind of the blue collar work, sorting those type of positions. And then on the hospitality side, if you see any kind of big convention center, we can do roles such as bartenders, cooks,

people that are customer service, those types of things. So it’s a lot of blue collar work that could be on demand labor where maybe they just need it for a special event or they need it for a job site cleanup on a Friday, or it could be that they’re wanting an employee for us to kind of screen them and then eventually do attempt to perm placement with them. On the trade corps side, we just started that division in June of this year, and that is strictly MEP contractors, so mechanical, electrical, plumbing.

providing the roles for those jobs. And those positions are usually, if on a short term, would be a shorter term, be around two months. And then more of a long-term attempt to perm. A lot of times companies would want us to screen them and kind of work them for three to four months before they put them on their payroll.

Anthony Codispoti (23:23.743)
So specifically for TradeCore, I’m curious why clients come to you to fill these positions if these are kind of longer term placements. There must be some, obviously some kind of value add that you’re putting in place where, you know, it’s much easier than them going to do this on their own.

Jolene Tate (23:41.58)
Yeah, just, you know, we do the background tests, the drug testing, the skills testing. We also can do some of the training if they’re required to have like an OSHA 30 training, we can do that. So that’s a headache that we can take away from them. And also, you know, someone is great at an interview and maybe even the first day on the job. But once you work them for two and three months, you really get a taste for, you know, how good this employee is and if you want to make that investment as a long-term employee.

So it gives them a chance to really trial people and they don’t have to deal with it. If they work for a week and they don’t like that employee, we’re the one that consults with that employee and lets them know that they’re no longer needed on that assignment. So they don’t have that stress of dealing with that.

Anthony Codispoti (24:20.441)
that last point especially was a great one. Yeah. I could see that being a huge value add to a company who’s they’ve made a lot of bad hires in the past and they have to go through that pain and the rigmarole of, you know, letting that person go and being concerned about, know, any legal ramifications. Whereas, you know, with you, you’re almost like a, like a, I don’t know, like a dating service where, you know, they can, they can try before they buy kind of a thing. So

Jolene Tate (24:23.5)
Mm-hmm.

Jolene Tate (24:38.69)
Mm-hmm.

Jolene Tate (24:43.446)
Yeah. Swipe left or right. And they can, we have a lot of candidates so they can just keep moving through them. And we have a, we have a database, a portal where if they have a certain role, they could, we can send them a link. They can look in the portal to say, okay, here’s your, here’s, we say here’s top 10 candidates we’ve selected. Look at that. And we can send them, we can set up an interview or we can send them to your job site for you to trial them out. And it’s really been a great compliment with our higher quest direct side, because a lot of the same companies we were providing labor for.

some of these electrical contractors, we provided labor for them, but we didn’t have the system set up to be able to do the skilled side. So we hired a team and a separate division that really focuses on actually calling on some of those same customers, but now we’re able to, on the trade corps side, we can provide the skilled workers. And then on the higher quest direct side, we can provide if they just need like the general labor cleanup, just manual labor type positions. And so we actually do have some clients where they working with both of our brands, which is great.

Anthony Codispoti (25:42.463)
So for the Trade Corp side where you’re actually validating their skills, what does that process look like?

Jolene Tate (25:49.042)
It depends on what their skill set is, if they’re a carboner or if they’re an electrician or if they’re HVAC. there’s an actual, in the interview process, our recruiters will walk them through a test of questions and then what you’ll lead them through. The next questions, if they’re qualified and through that process, we find out based on what they’ve told us verbally, if they’re qualified and if they pass that test, then they can go out to the job site and then we’ll see if they can do the job at hands-on as well.

Anthony Codispoti (26:16.123)
Okay. So it’s sort of like a, not a written test per se, but like a, here’s a problem and tell me how you’d solve it. And then you get to actually put them on a job site and see how they do hands on.

Jolene Tate (26:22.135)
Right.

Yes. There are several questions that you can ask the different trades and if they don’t know the answer to these specific questions then they may not be qualified. So that’s the first part of it. You sometimes people might test well on paper but then when they get out in the field they may or may not know how to do the job. So both sides are really important.

Anthony Codispoti (26:32.522)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (26:41.341)
Yeah. So, Jolene, tell me about both of these companies, Tradecourt and HQ Direct. What sets you apart from your competitors? What do you guys do differently or better?

Jolene Tate (26:48.504)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that’s definitely our culture and a lot of companies talk about culture and they have their mission statement on their website. But we are really, we live by our core values and that’s why we have a good retention rate for our internal employees and for our field team members that are working out in the field. We don’t just talk about our core values, we live by them. You know, we do, I can list some of the things that we do but we…

We do a of, weekly award for our field team members. We have a call it a boom program where we recognize them for doing things out in the field that exemplify our core values. And then we’re always doing like cookouts and we do a Thanksgiving meal where we recognize people on social media. were out in the field. We always giving things away to tell them, thank you. And then on our internal side with our internal employees, we have like a kudos program where.

we can give if you’re going to see another employee that’s exemplifying one of our core values. It’s an app where you can buy, call it like a, I’m old school. call it like an internal MySpace page where you’re able to, to, so you can put fun memes on it. Yeah. Yeah. but you’re able to like, our whole company has it and everybody has like a bucket every month of how many kudos points they can give away when they see tell a coworker, thank you. Or,

Anthony Codispoti (27:59.433)
You just dated both of us.

Jolene Tate (28:12.908)
you know, or if you or if you someone has helped you with something or you just see them exemplifying one of our core values, but the points are all linked to dollars. So then they can cash them in and there’s like Amazon cards or Uber Eats cards or all these things. So everybody is always, you know, wanting to get those kudos points, but it’s something that we do every day and we’re linking it to our core values. And, you know, we do a lot of outreach in the community where we’ll volunteer for things together, which, you know, our core values, we positive effect lives. We’re working with.

You know, we are a felony friendly employer and we believe in second chances, third chances, fourth chances. So, you know, some of our jobs don’t, don’t allow that, but a lot of our jobs, you know, are, are okay with, with that. And so we get, we work on, we give into the community, helping people find employment that would normally be underemployed or sometimes employers won’t give them the chance or they wouldn’t have the resources to figure out how to even reach out to those employers. So we’re.

We’re big in part of just giving back to the community, doing things together as a team to give back to the community, constantly doing things out in the community to volunteer. We have a lot of community partners. We have a, in all of our branches, we have, which is 14 locations, we have a community corner. And in that community quarter, we have a resource board and every market is different depending on what resources are out there. But we have a whole board that has, you are you going through domestic violence?

Are you going through, know, do you need food? Is there a food pantry? Do you need somewhere to sleep because you might not have a home? So we have a whole resource board for each area that we’re in where they can find all these resources. And then in addition, we have, in every branch, we have these bins and they will have, hygiene items, work boots.

clothing, if you need jeans for a job site. And we have these bins and they’re just open to you if you need it. We donate things there and we refill it sometimes if it’s winter, it might be socks, hats, jackets, and they can come in. There’s no fee for it. They just take what they need. And we have those in every one of our branches. It’s pretty uniform and that’s called our community corner. So those are just a list of a few things. I mean, I could go on, but we really live.

Jolene Tate (30:21.73)
by our core values and you can see that just come to our office and talk to our employees and you know we’re living by them every day not it’s not just a statement on our website.

Anthony Codispoti (30:29.557)
I loved all of that. The part that I really want to hone in on is felony friendly employer. Because I think that there are some people who might hear that and initially bristle at that. I want to be around that dangerous element. I was fortunate enough to have a guest on recently who has a nonprofit staffing agency that they’re involved with and they do something similar. She really helped to open my eyes to

Jolene Tate (30:45.773)
Mm-hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (30:58.803)
the importance of this because as somebody has finished serving their time for a mistake that they’ve made, and they’re coming back out into the world, the average person doesn’t realize how difficult it is for them to reintegrate and why that leads to such high recidivism rates, right? People end up back in prison so much because by and large, majority of these people, they want to get back to life.

Jolene Tate (31:14.766)
Mm-hmm.

Jolene Tate (31:18.594)
Mm-hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (31:25.983)
They want to get a job, they want to earn a living, they want to find their place in the world again. And that’s not easy because they’ve got a felony on their record and a lot of folks won’t employ them. And so they get frustrated, they get down, they get depressed, they get desperate, and that leads to bad outcomes. And so to hear that HQ Direct is focused on this and helping these people where possible find employment, I think is great.

Jolene Tate (31:37.858)
Mm-hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (31:54.323)
I’m curious to hear more about how you kind of found your way to that.

Jolene Tate (31:54.86)
Mm-hmm.

Jolene Tate (32:01.218)
Yeah. Well, really, so yeah, we work with a lot of transitional housing, halfway houses, and some of these people, may, they may not have a felony, but they may just need a second chance. They may have, you know, had a drug problem, an alcohol problem, or maybe they’re in a halfway house transitioning back from prison. So there’s so many different things, but how I kind of led into that is kind of a little bit of the story on how I got into wanting to be part of this type of staffing.

So when I went, when I was in college, I got my degree in psychology and, psychology and social work. And I realized when I graduated with my bachelor’s degree, there really wasn’t a lot of money to be made in that area. I really love helping people. And that was my passion. But the, the job that I had, during college was, I was making more money than I was going to be making with my degree. So I think I should have done a little bit more research when I was, you know, 18 or 19, but.

I think the job that I got offered with my bachelor’s degree was $8.50 an hour. And that was several years ago. And I was making $50,000, $60,000 a year in the position that I had that didn’t require a degree. So that’s when I started looking at, my mother is a psychologist, so I was going to follow in her footsteps. I started looking at the school that was involved and I didn’t really want to go to school for six or eight more years to become a doctor and really do that.

I started looking at what could I do and that’s I got my MBA and decided I was going to go into business. And so I kind of fell into the day labor side when I went to work for ready staffing, because when I moved to Nashville, that was like the first job that I found. had really, I didn’t know anything about construction. And, but I just, I wanted to go to work. I graduated and I didn’t, was spending, was faxing out my resumes and not getting a lot of bites. And they were the first ones. They hired me the first day that I walked in. I said, okay, let me try this. And I actually loved it.

And so working in the construction industry, I was, you I met all these people and that really is, you know, the office that I was working for was downtown Nashville in a rough area when I first started and the people that were coming in, those were the people that we were serving. And so, I really became, became fond of like hearing these stories. you know, obviously there’s some stories that aren’t great and they aren’t, they don’t always have a happy ending, but even if one out of, you know, a hundred of them, you know, people that come in that maybe they’re homeless.

Jolene Tate (34:27.47)
They had gone through whatever challenges and we had, we had taken a chance on them, put them on an assignment. They worked their way up to a supervisor, eventually become, you know, full-time employee with this company and then walk back into my doors and say, Hey, thank you for giving me a chance. I was homeless. I now have a car. My I’ve got my child back. I’m in a home. I’ve got a full-time job with benefits. Just hearing one of those stories for all the bad ones that we go across. It just, from the very beginning, the first time I heard that it.

It just took my heart and I knew I wanted to help people in that way. But it’s also a very lucrative business. So I was able to fulfill that need where I really love helping people, but it’s also lucrative. it works out that way. So it’s a great business to be in. Yes.

Anthony Codispoti (35:08.149)
Everybody wins. So obviously, you know, folks who are looking for a second chance, whether it’s coming out of prison, you know, a homeless situation, you know, former drug or alcohol problem that they’re battling. You know, these folks aren’t going to fit into every kind of company, every kind of role. But for those employers who it might be a good fit for and they’re listening and they’re like, I don’t know, I’m not like, what would you say to them?

Jolene Tate (35:27.118)
So.

Anthony Codispoti (35:36.137)
to sort of allay the common fears that come.

Jolene Tate (35:39.338)
Yeah. you know, obviously there are some positions, you know, we, we don’t, we don’t send, you know, our felon people that have felonies on every single assignment. doesn’t always make sense for certain situations, you know, like an airport project or like an, a military base, there’s certain security requirements where, know, we just really can’t get past that. And I understand that. But what I will say is a lot of our employees that are living in a halfway house, they’re some of our hardest workers. They just really want someone to give them a chance and.

I mean, I really, if I look at all the people that have come through our doors and the ones that have come from halfway house and they’re really just trying to get on their feet, they’re motivated, they’re drug free, they get tested regularly, they want to get their families back. So they have that motivation that just a regular, someone just walking in our doors don’t always have. So they’re just very motivated and great people that just want another chance. They just want to get back in society.

Anthony Codispoti (36:32.373)
These are folks who really in one way or another have lost it all. And they’ve hit that rock bottom. And so when they get a new opportunity, boy, did they treasure it. Boy, do they value it. And they’re going to work really hard to keep it and protect it. Yeah. That’s a great story. I understand you have kind of an unusual method of stress release. Tell us about

Jolene Tate (36:37.454)
Mm-hmm.

Jolene Tate (36:45.144)
Rice.

Right, yes.

Jolene Tate (36:54.063)
Thank

Jolene Tate (37:00.832)
Yeah. so you asked me how I dealt with stress and amongst the journey of, finding ways to deal with stress. I also mentioned that I’m part of the entrepreneur organization. So, we were at a retreat and one of my forum mates had on his bucket list that he wanted to go skydiving. And I really had no desire to do that nor had I ever had any desire to do it, but I’m a team player. And so, you know, I said, I’ll do it with you. And so the group there’s.

Eight of us in our group, think only five of us agreed to do it with him. And so at the end of our retreat, we all went skydiving in Tullahoma, Tennessee. And we had a little Cessna 182. This was 10 years ago. And I was terrified. I don’t think I opened up my eyes. It was a tandem jump. got, then, but when I got to the ground, like you’ll learn in skydiving, people either say, yeah, that was awesome.

I never want to do it again or yeah, let me let me get back up there the second isn’t the most common and So when I landed I was like even though I had my eyes closed the whole time and I was terrified I was like I want to do that again. That’s amazing And so my friend was done that that had the bucket list done He loved it, but he was done and so I went four weekends in a row So this back to the same place doing a tandem jump every Saturday for four weekends in a row and the the tandem instructor that I had said Joey you really should

take this class and get certified, you can do this. And I’m like, there’s no way I could like be responsible for my own life under a parachute. And like, there’s just, this is too much. But by the time I did my fourth tandem jump, was getting to see how the training worked and learning a little bit about it. I said, okay, I’m gonna, I’m gonna get certified. I’m gonna learn how to do this. And it’s just a challenge. I’m always wanna challenge myself. And so I went through, there’s a classroom setting and then you go through a series, it’s AFF training where.

Anthony Codispoti (38:34.377)
Ha ha.

Jolene Tate (38:54.702)
you jump out with two instructors that are holding you because you have to learn how to fly your body in the air. It’s a, it’s a skill. Like you see the indoor wind tunnels. That’s, are all training mechanisms used to learn how to control your body. Cause when you’re, when you’re dropping at 130 miles an hour in the air and you’ve got equipment on you, every little movement of your body can put you into a different spin. And so you have to learn how to control yourself. It is yes. Yes. Yes. And so through the AFS training, you start off with two instructors.

Anthony Codispoti (38:59.925)
Mm-hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (39:14.111)
So it’s a balancing act that you’re trying to accomplish.

Jolene Tate (39:23.682)
You have a very large parachute as a training parachute because that gets to the ground slower. It’s kind of easier to control. And so they start off with two instructors holding you. You do a few jumps like that. Then there’s one instructor and then eventually over 25 jumps. If you pass each level successfully, then you’ll get your first certification. There’s different levels of certifications and what kind of wind you can jump in.

you know, what size parachute you can fly in, what kind of conditions you can fly in, whether if you want to land on a beach or, you know, there’s all these different, there’s so much to it that I never knew until I got into it. So at first I was just wanting to challenge myself to see if I could actually do this. And I did it. And then I found out that there was competitions. And so I got into, which I’m a very competitive person. So I traveled all over the country, working with different coaches. I was on different teams.

And, just really enjoyed it, but what I really enjoyed the most, so when I was on the teams, it was a four day weekend. So you would train once a month with, with, with your team. And we traveled all over, it’s just wherever the best facility was. a lot of them were in Arizona, which, ELO Arizona is one of the best facilities, which was kind of what brought me to taking over those locations out in Arizona. And so Thursday morning, you know, we’d meet early in the morning and you have, you have two rigs.

you really jump back to back. You leave your phone, your phone is nowhere near you, and you’re just 100 % focused on your jump and your safety. And so, you know, I also learned a lot about visualization during this training process. So you get on the plane with your teammate, you’re visualizing your jump because there’s so many different moves that you make. So it’s about a meditation of visualizing. And then when that door opens, it’s just like this peaceful feeling of just that air.

and you’re just the level of focus. I mean, you have to be safety aware, you need to be focused. I mean, you’re jumping out of an airplane. And so just that moment of jumping out and then doing that dive with your team, focusing on all the moves, it’s just, you’re just really living in the moment. And then when you separate and you pull your parachute, it’s just nothing but peacefulness and looking over, you’re above the ground, looking at the scenic views.

Jolene Tate (41:39.054)
And it’s about, you know, a seven or eight minute parachute ride where you’re flying your parachute down to the ground, which is just, it’s one of the most peaceful things. And you know, there’s no phones. You’re living in the moment. There’s no stress. It’s just peace. And so it got very addicting. So I got really into the competitive skydiving. And so when I was doing my training camps, we would do that from Thursday to Sunday. And so you, you do your jump, you fly your parachute to the ground, you land.

You throw that to someone to pack it for you and then you put on your second rig and you get right back on the plane. So it’s over and over and over all day for, know, depending on the weather, it could be eight to 10, 12 hours where you’re doing that all day. And then they also have like an Eloy, for example, they have a wind tunnel. So then you can go and practice your moves in the wind tunnel with your team, which is also, you know, there’s no phones. You’re focused on your moves. You know, you’re just, you’re just living in that moment and in a focus.

state of mind when you’re not thinking about work, you’re not thinking about the stress of payroll. You’re just thinking about what you’re doing at that moment. And so I did that for several years. And then I actually have, I’m paused right now. I won’t say that I’ve officially retired. I still have all my equipment. But when I met my husband, although I had known him before, but when we decided to get engaged and start trying to have a family, I did temporarily put it on hold.

So something about being a mother, just right now can’t get myself to jump out of a plane, even though it is very safe. And it’s also the time commitment now with me traveling for work so much. My weekends are dedicated to my son, a hundred percent. And so I just, if I want to get in it again, I want to be in it more than just a random here and there. So those are some of the reasons why I no longer do it, but there’s a special place in my heart and I hope to get back in the sky one day when the time is right.

Anthony Codispoti (43:25.727)
So competitive skydiving, I’m imagining that there’s a few of you that jump out and you’re making different formations, you’re holding each other’s hands or feet or am I correct? Like, know, paint a visual for us.

Jolene Tate (43:37.558)
Yeah. So it’s really like a, it’s really like a dance in the sky. So, there’s, what I competed in was four way and eight way. there’s on a four way team, there’s five members. There’s the four people that are making the, the connections. And I say, doing the dance. And then there’s your, your person that’s doing the video that’s flying on top of you, you know, documenting the video, because that’s how you, you document to be able to submit what you’ve done. So, right.

Anthony Codispoti (43:56.863)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (44:02.037)
Cause the judges aren’t on the ground watching what you’re doing from above. They’re going to review the tape later.

Jolene Tate (44:07.52)
Right. Yeah. So on the, on the four way skydives, you have 35 seconds from when your, your foot leaves the last person’s foot, the first person’s foot leaves the plane and the videographer is kind of on the outside of the plane, kind of flying above you to watch, to document everything. But there’s several different connections that you can make swinging each other around. you know, there’s a lot that you can do and you get a draw. So in a competition, you’ll get 10 draws and there’ll be four to five different formations that you need to make.

And then you get scored on that and each jump you’ll get a score and then you’ll get a score at the end of 10 jumps. that’s how you compete in the four way and the eight way competitions. And there’s so many other things. There’s wing suiting, there’s parachute different competitions. So I never knew until I got in it, but there’s so many different disciplines.

Anthony Codispoti (44:52.639)
There’s a whole other world out there. You know, I think about the show, Dancing with the Stars, they should have jumping with the stars. That might be one that would be fun to tune into.

Jolene Tate (44:54.443)
There is.

Jolene Tate (45:01.39)
I haven’t looked at the American Association of Parachutes Association for a while, but when I was in it, I think there was about 30,000 people in the United States that were certified to fly with their own parachute. And of that, think 13 % were women and all those people don’t compete. So the competitive world is a really close knit community, which I surprisingly, there’s a lot of entrepreneurs that are involved in that as well.

Anthony Codispoti (45:24.389)
Mm-hmm. So.

Anthony Codispoti (45:30.685)
Well, and I’m guessing that they they probably find a similar kind of release to what you described, right? Like business owners like brains constantly going like even when you leave work, it’s like, I’ve got to solve this, I got to do that tomorrow, I to call this person. You’re worrying about the conversation you had earlier today that didn’t go well. And like you said, when you step out into the plane, like you’ve got to be really focused on what you’re doing, because this could be dangerous if you’re not paying attention, what’s going on. And so it turns everything else off.

Jolene Tate (45:53.014)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Anthony Codispoti (45:59.795)
and keeps you hyper focused on just here, just right now, the present moment. Yeah. And so you got into, so you got into this and because of somebody in EO that wanted to do it and all the time that you were spending out at one of the premier facilities out in Arizona, that’s what sort of turned you on to opening locations there, starting a franchise operation, the state of Arizona.

Jolene Tate (46:03.402)
Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes, it’s beautiful. Mm-hmm.

Jolene Tate (46:13.976)
Mm-hmm.

Jolene Tate (46:19.256)
Okay.

Anthony Codispoti (46:26.717)
What led you from Tennessee into Indiana? How did that one?

Jolene Tate (46:30.926)
So actually, Arizona did have some established franchise. A couple of those were other franchise owners that I purchased those from. And because I was spending so much time on Eloi, when I found out that that was an option for me to buy those locations, I thought that was great because I’m already out here a lot for skydiving. I love Arizona, so this is a good fit. then so a couple of those locations I purchased and a couple of them I opened.

Indiana was a situation where there was two locations, a franchise owner that had been there for several years and he was ready to get out of the industry. And I had actually, I I’ve had other locations, Florida, Kentucky, over the years, I’ve kind of taken some locations, opened them, you know, sold them to other franchise owners. And I had kind of get told myself after having my son that I was not going to take on any other States besides Tennessee and Arizona. I was just going to focus on those, try to minimize my travels so I could be home more.

And then this opportunity came up with a franchise owner that wanted to get out. And it’s only a four and a half hour drive from Nashville, so I kind of made an exception that I just took that one on. So I bought that one about a year ago from another franchise owner.

Anthony Codispoti (47:37.053)
And you talk about having multiple locations in different states. I’m assuming it’s helpful to have a physical presence close to the clients that you’re targeting. You know, it’s not just like a licensing thing, maybe where you need a license for the state of Indiana. It’s like, Hey, we’ve got a lot of clients in Indiana or in Bloomington. And so we want to make sure that we’re there so we can go and visit them and be a physical presence in person.

Jolene Tate (47:46.104)
Yes.

Thank

Jolene Tate (48:01.91)
Yeah, and so there’s a lot of staffing companies now that are going to strictly just the app base, but that’s not our model. are our employees. We want our branches to be a home base for them. We also interview in person. You know, we give them their safety equipment needed for the jobs. We do a lot of different celebrations and things like that. So our it’s important that we have branch physical branch locations where our employees are.

And then as far as our customers, we visit our customers in person. If we have a large order, one of our staff members is on site checking employees in. So we’re still a firm believer in the one-on-one in person. A lot of our competitors have gone to just the app. There’s not really a person, there’s not that personal touch. And so that is something that also sets us apart.

Anthony Codispoti (48:48.477)
And I think having those physical presences has got to help with your culture a great deal, right? Hard to build a culture with your full-time internal team members, as well as the folks that you’re placing at work sites if you don’t have that regular physical interaction with folks. And all of the extra services that you’re providing to your temp workers.

Jolene Tate (49:06.914)
Right.

Anthony Codispoti (49:11.113)
you know, the boards that you talked about where, hey, there’s resources if you need some housing help, if you need some food, if there’s a domestic violence issue, like, those are things that you couldn’t accomplish if it was just, you know, technology that’s connecting them through an app.

Jolene Tate (49:25.038)
Right, right. And then in addition, how we connect. there’s, one part about having that culture with being there and like in person. But then another part of our culture is connecting all of our locations together. And one of the things that we do for that is we do a daily huddle every day at nine 11 central time. It’s just a 10 minute check in where a member from each branch checks in on how they’re doing, you know, what their positive was from yesterday and what’s the one thing they’re going to accomplish today.

and it brings everyone together. It’s a 10 to 15 minute call. And so that’s another thing that we do too in our culture to connect everyone, not just at the local level, but within our franchise group.

Anthony Codispoti (50:02.953)
Did you say that the meeting is at 9, 11 central time every day?

Jolene Tate (50:06.934)
Yes. I think when I, when I established the time, figured, you know, nine, nine 11, no one’s going to like that’s a very important time. Nine one one, nine 11. So I want it to be a very specific time that everyone will remember every day.

Anthony Codispoti (50:12.585)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (50:19.015)
Interesting. I like that. So you met your husband. So you went through a divorce earlier. Then you met your husband. You guys decided to get married, start working on having a family. You were already very busy with a career. I’m going to assume that that created some friction or some tension within yourself about, man, how am I going to divide up my attention here?

Jolene Tate (50:21.006)
Mm-hmm.

Jolene Tate (50:41.934)
Yeah, it definitely has been a mindset change. you know, I was, you I have, I’ve devoted my entire life to, to this business. This has been my, my first child is the business. And, you know, part of the reason for my first divorce was I was not focused on my marriage at all. I was, you know, working 80, 90 hours a week, and that’s all I cared about. So I learned that from my first marriage. That’s my takeaway. And, you know, so it was a mindset change.

with first, you know, committing myself to another marriage that I was going to make it a priority. And so as much as I, as much as I possibly can, when I get, I usually get home when I’m in town at five o’clock, I put my phone away, my laptop is closed and I don’t open it up again until I’m back in the office or start working the next day. I never did that up until I met my, until my husband and I got together. So it was definitely a mind shift change. I was before, you know, on my computer till nine, 10, 11 o’clock at night, even when I got home. And so.

And then when we had our son, you know, it’s even more important that I do have limited time with him because I travel. So I really make it that I’m in the moment with him, not looking at my phone, not doing, you know, laugh unless there’s a building’s on fire. There’s something that needs my attention. really, you I make a conscious effort to give him and my husband all my attention when I am home and to cut that, to really make a hard stop that I try to be home by five o’clock when I’m in town.

Anthony Codispoti (52:06.621)
Yeah, know, Jolene, you and I had to reschedule this interview once because the first time slot that we had, your son was sick and you needed to be there with him. And, you know, obviously on my side, happy to accommodate that kind of a thing. I’m a parent myself. I get it. Are there times though where that kind of prioritization becomes difficult for you?

Jolene Tate (52:14.145)
Mm-hmm.

Jolene Tate (52:23.851)
Okay.

Jolene Tate (52:31.998)
It definitely does. I can think of something recently around that same time that I, that I had to reschedule with you though he had been, he just started preschool. he’s got everyone goes through it, all the germs, all the sickness. was something different every week. And I was actually working in Chattanooga and I had to, I had to leave, to come, he was already sick when I left and, I went to work for a couple of days in Chattanooga. was there doing a sales blitz.

which, know, I try to participate in those as much as possible, but I can’t always be there for the whole thing. In the past, I would always participate for the whole time, but I had to make the decision to, know, he had a fever and he was asking for me and crying. So I, I left early. I said, sorry, everyone, like I got to go home and take care of a sick, a sick child. And I’ve got to, I’ve got to need you to handle it without me. And so that’s a really hard, hard decision.

to make, but sometimes, you know, it’s easier when I’m local, when I’m out in Arizona and he’s here in Tennessee, that’s harder because I can’t just drive home, know, Chadnick is two hours away in a car. So can’t do that as easily when I’m out in Arizona. And then also I try to as much as I can, I used to travel every single week. I’ve tried to minimize it to it’s just one week during the month. I can always do that when things come up unexpected, but I really try my hardest to make that happen. When I’m out in Arizona, I’m gone for five nights, which is difficult.

When I’m local, try to, you know, two to three nights, four nights, if I’m in Tennessee or Indiana. But it is, it is challenging, especially when I’m gone, you know, back to back weeks and he’s on the phone. He tries to give me hugs through the phone. He’s three, so he doesn’t understand. And mommy, I want you here. And I’m just like, just take my heart out, throw it out, run it over with a tractor trailer and shove it back in. That’s what it feels like. So.

Anthony Codispoti (54:05.237)
Thanks

Anthony Codispoti (54:14.805)
Any advice for any other professional women listening that maybe are dealing with a similar kind of what we might call mom-guilt? You’ve got these different priorities and it’s tough.

Jolene Tate (54:27.645)
I mean, only going to be, the thing I keep telling myself is only going to be this age for a very short period of time and it happens so fast. So just to make that the priority and you know, we’re showing them work ethic. understands, even at three years old, know, I don’t know if he thoroughly understands what work is, but I’m trying to teach him that, you know, I’m at work and here’s what mommy’s doing. You want these things, we have to make a living and this is how you do it. So I think he’s being exposed to good work ethic.

And, you know, hopefully that’ll be instilled in him by what he sees and I’m an example for him. Those are the things, the mantras that I tell myself when I’m having this mom guilt. And just really, I think making that conscious effort. If I am gone for four days when I’m home, I’ve also changed my schedule where I’m home on Fridays. If I work a half a day at home on Fridays, on Fridays I’m able to take him to school and pick him up early. And then we start our weekend where it’s, you know, just us and my husband and he’s at home.

Anthony Codispoti (54:58.773)
I’m

Jolene Tate (55:20.684)
We really just making sure that that time we are together is really intimate and special and not we’re looking at my phone and laptop during those times.

Anthony Codispoti (55:29.589)
That’s so cool. Jolene, I’m curious to hear, you have a great perspective on this question that I like to ask a lot of my guests. A lot of people are telling me it’s still a pretty tight labor market. so it’s hard to find and it’s hard to hold on to good people. What are some things that you’ve tried or maybe some piece of advice that you could give to people in terms of how to locate and then once you’ve got them, how to hold on to good folks?

Jolene Tate (55:58.252)
Yeah, I think there’s two different perspectives. We have our internal employees and then we have our field team members that are more white collar versus the blue collar. So there’s a little bit different perspectives. But on both sides, the biggest.

is referrals. So what we have found is that when someone refers someone that they know, that they’re usually going to be a better hire than someone that we’ve hired through, like as a recruiter or something, something like that. also offer a pretty, pretty nice bonus for someone that refers someone that actually works with us on both sides for the field team members and the internal employees. And then having our culture that we have.

is really big and we take it very seriously. there’s, we get cancer in our, in our internal team, we get rid of it quickly. So if someone doesn’t have a good attitude, they’re not treating others well, they’re not positive. They’re not, you know, they’re negative. Those things we don’t tolerate. And so it’s really important that someone told me when I was much younger that be slow to hire, quick to fire. And we really live by that. So if there’s someone in our, that’s within our team that is not living by our core values, you know, we don’t let that.

hang around because that’s how you lose your good people. And so, you know, that’s one thing where, you know, we do have a lot of long-term tenured employees because they know if there’s challenges like that, you know, we’re going to either going to fix them or it’ll be changed. And then just, you know, we take care of each other and, you know, I think people that work for me know that I genuinely care and I’m always going above and beyond to do things for them as a team. And like some of the things I mentioned that we do in our culture, like with our kudos and our boom, boom awards.

And, you know, we, we all the different, when I traveled to all of our markets, I work one-on-one with our employees. I take them out to dinner. go bowling, but I’m out there. Like I’m not just sitting in the ivory tower. I’m out there working in, you know, on the streets, in the field, like getting my hands dirty. So, I think that is a company that people want to work for when they see that kind of leadership as well. and then with our field team members, the people that are coming in our doors in our culture, I don’t, if you’ve walked in our door and you’re homeless or you’re, you know, you’re.

Jolene Tate (58:08.674)
You’re you’re living in a halfway house. We treat you the same as if I walked in the door. So we, you know, we welcome them. We welcome these people in, we treat them well. You know, we show them our community corner if they need it. We ask them, we really take time to ask them, you know, what can we do to help you? What kind of job are you looking for? You know, what are your goals? Like we really sit down and talk to them, not just treat them like a number, like we really care about them. And then we recognize them. have pictures on the wall. You know, we recognize them on our social media and we talk to our customers about them. So.

We really care about our employees and I feel like they see that by the way we treat them.

Anthony Codispoti (58:43.029)
Hmm. That’s good. You know, we’ve talked about this a little bit. You you went through the bankruptcy, right? And and so you came through that. And now the business is even stronger. You’re in a better place. And you know, going through all those challenges, you kind of recognize you knew before for sure, but it really highlights the importance of keeping an eye on that profit and loss, right? You know, what’s the bottom line for the company? So I’m always curious to hear from successful business owners.

Jolene Tate (58:51.086)
Okay.

Jolene Tate (59:07.484)
Mm-hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (59:12.809)
you know, things, maybe creative things that you’ve tried to kind of move the needle. I think of two levers that we can pull and one is, you how do we boost up sales? And the other one is how do we decrease expenses? That’s how we can get that profit line to move. I’m curious to hear in all of your years of experiences, the ups and downs that you’ve had, some maybe creative things that you’ve tried on one or both of those levers that you found has worked.

Jolene Tate (59:28.545)
Mm-hmm.

Jolene Tate (59:37.516)
Yeah. Well, one of the things that I tell my team is when we’re down and you know, that bottom line number isn’t looking good, is sales cures all. So really the biggest, but there’s not a, in our business, there’s a few things that we can control with as far as our operational expenses, but sales cures all. So, you know, we just need to get the sales up. I’m a sales oriented person. And so we have very structured sales blitzes that we do. And we organize like how we’re going to get out there and how we’re going to push sales.

And so I’m constantly involved in that process. we are restructuring it based on every market, things that we do for our customers. But when numbers are down, we step back and how are we going to push sales? What are we going to do to push sales? And so that’s one piece. the piece of operations with our business, really don’t have a ton of expenses that we can really control, like our safety equipment. Those are things that we need them on the job.

The only thing we can really control is payroll and our leases. what we try to do is we try to do short-term. We own a couple of buildings, but in some markets we do short-term leases. So we can be flexible to move if we need to, to a different facility pretty easily. And then in some of our markets, such as our Middle Tennessee market, we’ve been able to cut expenses on payroll by when times kind of shifted where they’re not as busy. have Nashville. Nashville is our hub in Middle Tennessee.

And then we have Clarksville an hour away, Murfreesboro an hour away, and Columbia an hour away. One thing that we did to cut expenses is we, before we had hours of 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. in all locations, we made Nashville our hub. So we have someone that works in our office from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. in our national market. But in our other, our other line offices, we cut those to shorten hours and then we roll the phones.

So we’re able to have one person in each of these offices instead of two to three people and kind of using Nashville as the hub to manage the other locations so we can cut payroll on those other locations. That’s one thing that we did a couple years ago.

Anthony Codispoti (01:01:44.766)
Clever. like that. Jolene, any particular mentors or books, other types of experiences that you would call out as being particularly helpful to you?

Jolene Tate (01:01:57.774)
There’s so many books. I should have thought of what the…

Dysfunctional teams, what is the name of that? I’m losing the, I think that guy’s name right now. You know which book I’m talking about.

Anthony Codispoti (01:02:14.003)
I’ll look it up while you’re thinking about other ones.

Jolene Tate (01:02:16.11)
Yeah, and we won’t use that one. Let’s just say, really, I know I’ve said this already, but the entrepreneur group and having that forum and that safe place has really helped me in the relationship that I’ve made over the past 15 years within that group. There’s, you know, we have the group that we meet four hours in a very safe setting every month. But in addition, when we need a resource or we’re going through several different things, if it’s a legal issue or, you know,

a payroll issue or a software issue, we have a network in our national group of 380 entrepreneurs that are in our group that you can shoot out an email to like our group server and you can get those referrals or even if you need an experience share, hey, I’m having this problem. Has anyone in the group of 380 entrepreneurs ever dealt with this? Can you give me a call? So having that resource of that group of the entrepreneurs locally has really just been saving grace for so many different things that I’ve been through.

Anthony Codispoti (01:03:13.545)
Was the book that you were thinking of, The Five Dysfunctions of a Teen by Patrick and Joni? Yeah.

Jolene Tate (01:03:17.12)
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I highly recommend reading that. And actually when I was in skydiving, was actually reading that for my team because there’s so many interesting, the team dynamics that are in your skydiving team. So that’s what drew me to read that book with. And I was like, this applies to everything with just teams as well in your business.

Anthony Codispoti (01:03:41.033)
What’s something you wish you could teach a younger version of yourself, Jolene?

Jolene Tate (01:03:45.966)
Wow. I really wish that the perspective that I have now on the work-life balance and shutting it off, I had that when I was younger because I did not have that, which led me to working really, really hard and too much and not thinking about myself and taking care of myself until I was a little bit older. So I wish I could have that perspective of taking care of myself and yeah, self-care and you know,

Anthony Codispoti (01:04:12.607)
Take care.

Jolene Tate (01:04:16.287)
kind of shutting it down at a certain time.

Anthony Codispoti (01:04:19.219)
Yeah, so important. Jolene, what kind of growth plans do you have for the companies? Or are you kind of comfortable where you are and you got enough going on with the family and the size of the business as it is? How do you view things?

Jolene Tate (01:04:32.406)
Yes. So right now we are really growing our new Tradecourt brand, which we just started in June, which that is in all of our locations. Building that team up, getting the technology in place that can make us successful for that is something that I’m really focused on right now. And then just continuing, I don’t have any plans right now and opening any other new locations, but just continuing to build the team that we have and continue to get stronger in the markets that we’re already in.

So no growth plans in any other markets at the current moment. And I’m really focused on, like I said, shutting it down if I can at five o’clock and focus on my family. So I’m not looking at going out and doing anything crazy right now because I’m really focused on my family.

Anthony Codispoti (01:05:17.215)
How does AI fit into the picture for your business?

Jolene Tate (01:05:21.4)
Great question. There’s so much and what Avenue we’re learning. It’s like drinking out of a fire hose right now. I’ve been trying to go to as many workshops and learning from as many people, but we can use the tool such as just chat GPT for some of our marketing. don’t rely on any AI. We still have the personal element, but if you need a brainstorm or you need to kind of get something started, we do use AI for that a little bit on our marketing side.

I’m learning more about that. It’s just crazy. Like what you can do with AI. There’s a lot of AI applicant tracking tools that I’m learning about. We’re not using any of those yet. There’s AI for scheduling. haven’t, haven’t tapped into that yet. There’s a lot we’re still learning. We’re not using a ton of it yet, but I really know that we need to learn more and get on the bandwagon because that’s the wave of future.

Anthony Codispoti (01:06:14.109)
Yeah. So you’re not using it yet to comb through the massive volume of resumes that you get applicants.

Jolene Tate (01:06:22.444)
Now our software has some tools in there that helps us, we’re not using AI for that.

Anthony Codispoti (01:06:28.125)
Okay. Jolene, I’ve got one more question for you, but before I ask it, I want to do two things for those listening today. If you like today’s content, please hit the like share, subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. Jolene, I also want to let people know the best way to get in touch with you. What would that be?

Jolene Tate (01:06:45.486)
You can find me on LinkedIn as well.

Anthony Codispoti (01:06:51.807)
Jolene Tate. So last question for you, Jolene. I’m curious, you’ve got great perspective having been in the industry for 20 years. What do you think are the big changes that are coming in the next few years?

Jolene Tate (01:07:05.302)
Yeah, a couple of different things there. It is challenging that as far as trades, it’s a dying area. There’s a lot of people that are in retirement age that are in the trades and not enough people going to trade school, which is a great career. I’m always strongly encourage the young to think about getting in a trade school. And then as far as you talked about AI, there’s a lot of

staffing companies that are, you know, they’re getting rid of their brick and mortars. They’re getting rid of a lot of positions. They’re using AI and apps. And so I do think, you know, that is definitely a big something to look for in the future. That’s not what our plan is right now. We’re, you know, we’re still old school. We like to be in person and make those relationships and, you know, talk to people on the phone and face to face. So, you know, but that is the wave of the future. We are seeing that.

Anthony Codispoti (01:07:56.333)
Say a little bit more about the issue with the trades. People retiring. Why do you think young people aren’t getting into these fields?

Jolene Tate (01:08:05.4)
You know, I just don’t think it’s, you know, it’s, it’s been sought after as like a sexy career, you know, but there, there is, you know, you can get in two years, you can get a great, you can learn a trade, even sometimes as little as a year and make, you know, a career with the company and have great benefits. But I just don’t think that that’s pushed enough in high school or in our society. It’s looked at as, blue collar and, not, not a great career, but there’s so much opportunity in those fields.

Anthony Codispoti (01:08:32.563)
Yeah, I have a good friend who’s a plumber for a number of years. And he went to college graduated college, and there was sort of that same stigma for him. Before somebody finally said, hey, learn a trade, you will, you will never go hungry. And he’s like, man, is that true? He’s like, I got people wanting to give me money all the time, because I know how to do something that they don’t. This is valuable, it will continue to be valuable.

Jolene Tate (01:08:48.098)
Yeah, absolutely.

Jolene Tate (01:08:57.078)
Mm-hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (01:08:59.309)
If you’re worried about how AI might impact a number of white collar jobs, I think we’re a long ways away from a robot being able to fix a pipe and unclog a toilet and install a drain and any of those things. So, okay. Well, Jolene, I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Jolene Tate (01:09:11.547)
Right, right. Yes. Yes, absolutely.

Jolene Tate (01:09:23.452)
Thank you for having me. It’s been nice talking to you.

Anthony Codispoti (01:09:26.345)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories Podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.