Jordan Tallman on using YouTube to Educate Travel Nurses About Stipends

Anthony Codispoti (00:00)
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 Jordan Talman. Jordan is the founder and CEO of Wayward Medical Staffing. Founded in 2020, this Phoenix based company focuses on helping

travel nurses and allied healthcare professionals connect with rewarding opportunities. Jordan received his degree from Arizona State University and previously worked in healthcare recruiting, which prepared him to launch his own company at the height of the pandemic. Thanks to that experience, he understands the importance of treating healthcare providers with respect and care. As a result, Wayward Medical was recognized as top rated healthcare staffing

for 2025 by great recruiters. Today, we’re going to explore the origin of their motto, small agency, big heart, zero BS. But before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Ad Back Benefits Agency. Hey, if you run a business, you’re likely stuck in the cycle of rising insurance premiums. You’re paying more, but your team is getting less. And many people can’t afford coverage at all. We do things differently.

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Results vary, but the consultation is free. See if you qualify today at addbackbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest today, founder and CEO of Wayward Medical Staffing, Jordan Talman. Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Jordan Tallman (02:06)
Yeah, definitely. I actually might need to use your services, man. I’m in the process of ⁓ finding new insurance. So we should definitely chat about this after the call or on the call. Just let me know where the right place is, Definitely, yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (02:17)
We’ll leave the focus on you for today, but afterwards you and I can connect on that for sure.

So let’s get into your story, because in 2018 you spent a year, one year as a technical recruiter, and then in 2019 you spent one year as a medical recruiter. So you had some experience in recruiting and even specifically some experience in medical recruiting. But I’m curious, George, what gave you the confidence to start your own business after

such a short period of time in the industry.

Jordan Tallman (02:49)
Man, confidence was a, I don’t know if I had enough. I guess I had confidence, I did it, right? I think I had courage more than anything. Like I was really scared. I didn’t think that I would be able to do it, but I just took action during the fear, which was like a really tough thing to do. I remember there was like a week after I left my company, quit my job, where was just paralyzed. I couldn’t even work. I was just like stuck on the couch, like, oh my God, I don’t think it’s gonna go well.

And then I kind of snapped out of it and was like, I’m going to stand in of my computer for 16 hours a day, sleep for eight hours. And I’m just going to like, try to make this thing work. Right. And I figured out what kind of some of the needle moving activities were. And eventually I trimmed it down where I didn’t have to work very much at all. And it kind of goes in cycles, man. Like when you own your own business, it’s not the same as like, when you go to work every day and you work eight hours and you can’t wait to leave. ⁓

It’s not the same when the business is yours and the opportunity, the potential for money, income, your dreams, your vacation, whatever is on you. ⁓ The motivation just changes so much, man, and you can’t wait to work. So if anybody is out there thinking about starting a business and you’re intimidated by all these guys online saying, man, I worked 17 hour days, blah, blah, blah, I grind so hard, ⁓ you’ll want to grind. It’s like you don’t have to brag about it. You will enjoy the grind.

⁓ Because your incentives are just different.

Anthony Codispoti (04:20)
Right. And

I think especially it’s easier to engage in that grind once you get a little bit of momentum, once you taste a little bit of success, you’re like, ⁓ now I’ve got an idea on how to do this. I want to do more.

Jordan Tallman (04:32)
Yeah, definitely. was, I mean, why I guess I had confidence to start my own business. I had been doing this for two years. So I knew how to talk to clients. I knew how to recruit candidates. And so I just needed to go find my own clients, my own candidates. I did it on my lunch break. Don’t tell my company, but I did it on my lunch break and I was kind of at a crossroads. I started my company during COVID. So was kind of a huge gold rush, so to speak, unfortunately. mean, no, was…

Not that great for everybody else, but in our industry, there’s a lot of money flowing around. The government printed a bunch of money. They gave it to the hospitals. The hospitals gave it to the nurses. ⁓ And so we were able to go out there, or I was able to find contracts on my lunch break. Just made a few phone calls. Everyone said, yes, we need nurses. Come help us out. And then was at a crossroads where I was going to fail at my business, and I was going to fail.

at my work, was gonna get fired because I wouldn’t be focused on either one of those things, right? I would just be 50-50 in both. And yeah, I wasn’t gonna make money at either one of them. So I found myself looking at, where am I gonna put my focus? Where am I gonna put my attention? And I went all in on…

on my business and it’s been five coming up on six years here now. So ⁓ it was definitely a good decision, but scary as hell, man. I definitely will say that.

Anthony Codispoti (06:00)
Take us back to that moment where you’re working for another company, you’re gainfully employed, and you make the decision to start moonlighting on your lunch break.

Jordan Tallman (06:11)
Yeah, well, I, what do I want to start with this story? This is a good one. I, that year made 120 grand. So it was the most money I’d ever made. The year prior I’d just started recruiting, I made 60 grand. That was the most money I ever made. I bought a car for $7,000. It was some old beater. It had already been like in a car accident and stuff, but man, I was so glad that I bought my first car. I think I started my company when I was 29 years old, right?

So I’m kind of 28. And I just realized when I went and I made Six Fingers for the first time in my life, and I loved my boss and I loved the people that I worked with, but I hated working for someone else. That’s when I realized it. Before that, I had been fired three times in a row.

and way more times than that in general. And I just thought like, oh, this boss is an asshole. I gotta go find a company that’s a good company. But it turned out when I found the company that I actually like, that it was just, oh no, like this whole system isn’t for me. I need to go do my own thing. I kept finding myself not appreciating or liking any of the decisions that leadership was making and thinking that I knew better and I did know better. So I went out and I tried it for myself and…

Now I’m making all the same decisions that the leadership was making, just because I said to do it, not because they said to do it. it was kind of a, it took me a long time to figure out that, know, 10 years almost, right? To realize that the corporate world just says it for me and I needed to go out and do my own thing.

Anthony Codispoti (07:48)
What were you doing to get fired so many different times?

Jordan Tallman (07:51)
I was just an asshole, honestly, man. I was pretty good at my job, sales, right? I would make sales, but I cared about the clients probably more than the business because that’s, I interpreted it as the clients were paying me. And so I needed to, the clients were my boss. And if my boss said, do something different, I would roll my eyes, begrudgingly maybe do it. ⁓

but most of the time I would just do whatever the clients needed. there’s like an argument there you should do. I’m trying to think of like a specific thing where that would have occurred. Dude, I had a drinking problem. I would drink all the time on the weekends. I would like black out. It was really, really bad for a long time. But when I started my business, I made, I don’t know, five or six placements in kind of my first month.

I just had a really good week, dude. Everything was coming together and I was like, you know what, dude? I’m gonna party. It’s a Thursday. I’m my own boss. I don’t need to work on Friday. I’m killing it. So I’m gonna start drinking tonight. I’m just gonna get so hammered. I left my phone outside downstairs. I went upstairs just completely out of it and my nurses needed me and I wasn’t there for them. I lost three out of the five nurses that I had hired.

and I lost all the progress. It was terrible. I was not there for the customer. I wasn’t there for the client. was disgusting behavior, honestly. And that was a real crossroads for me in that moment, because it was like, well, do we want this like fun lifestyle business? Do you want to build like an actual business? Like, what are we doing here? And then I decided to stop drinking. I haven’t really drank in probably 20, 21, it’s like four years now. I’ll have the…

occasional like I walked into a Cameron Boyk party was like a Memorial Day party and everyone’s like taking shots and they’re like, hey, do you want to have a shot? And it would have been like a record scratch. And like everyone turned their head if I said no, I’m not going to have a chance to even just be like Mr. Boring. So like I did one shot, whatever. We’re having a good time. But I just say that to demonstrate that I have control over alcohol. But

I hate it when people treat you like, you go to a party, they’re like, you don’t drink? Can I drink around you? And it’s like, dude, I’m not like fragile, man. Like, I just don’t like drinking. What’s up?

Anthony Codispoti (10:16)
So

was it a pretty instant change in your relationship with alcohol after that one incident where you blacked out and you weren’t there for your team? Okay.

Jordan Tallman (10:25)
Yeah, I mean,

it took some therapy, definitely, but it was the motivating factor, number one. And I had known for a long time, I don’t like my drinking, I’m not a huge fan of it, but it felt good and I had fun, so I’m just gonna keep doing it. And then that moment was like, oh no, what I really wanna do is my business.

Anthony Codispoti (10:48)
So there was some therapy involved talking through maybe some of the things that were kind of driving you to to that behavior. Were there other things that you did to help you reframe that relationship that you had with alcohol? Or was that the primary driver? Like, I don’t know. Did you do like a like a program, like a 12 step or anything like that?

Jordan Tallman (11:09)
Yeah, I’m actually really proud of that. So I didn’t do any 12 step programs. I didn’t do anything but therapy. I’ve been talking with my therapist. I’d already been engaged with him just for, I don’t know, probably a year at that point. And then I brought to him like, hey man, this alcohol thing. I know I’ve been saying I don’t like it, but we’re gonna stop it. ⁓ And I cried that day, dude. I cried my eyes out and my therapist was like, I believe you. Like, you’re gonna do this.

And it was tough, man, because I leaned on the alcohol anytime something was difficult or I was feeling inept or whatever that those, you know, there’s lots of those feelings, especially when you’re starting a new business. You don’t know what’s going on. ⁓ So, yeah, I was leaning on that a lot. And yeah, I just I found other ways of coping. found more healthy. I go to the gym now. ⁓ I left a lot of weight. So, yeah, I’ve just found other ways, but I’m really proud to have done it on my own.

and not been, I just don’t like the 12 step program, man. You have to like, announce that you’re an alcoholic to everybody in your life and you gotta always be an alcoholic for the rest of your life and this is like your story. And that’s why I’m like, wanna tell everybody, yeah, I can have a shot of tequila and not turn into the Tasmanian devil, right? Like, it’s okay.

Anthony Codispoti (12:22)
Yeah. That’s fascinating. So let’s go back to sort of those early moments where you are deciding to start your business. You’re finally at a company that you enjoy. You enjoy the people you’re working with. You love your boss. But it still doesn’t feel right. You’re like, ⁓ the problem isn’t that I’m working with idiots. The problem is that I need to be on my own. Like I’m a I’m an alpha. I need to drive this.

And so you’re like, okay, I’m going to stick my toe in the water and I’m just going to start making some calls on my lunch hour. Yes. This is kind of how the thought process went. Yeah. And then, ⁓ at what point did you make the decision that, listen, I, I need to go and do this on my own. Had the pandemic hit already.

Jordan Tallman (12:58)
Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah, so the pandemic kind of helped actually because I mean, obviously the industry was booming,

I worked at Springboard Healthcare where we specialized in travel nursing. So it’s 13-week contracts. ⁓

and then you build a book of business, right? And so you have to keep flipping these travelers into new contracts. Well, we specialize in the cardiac cath lab, which is non-invasive heart surgery, and it’s an elective procedure. So you can elect to do it, you can elect not kind of like a boob job as an elective procedure, right? A little more important than a boob job, some would say. So when the pandemic came around, being an elective procedure,

All of the contracts that we had got canceled just in one fell swoop, like one week, boom, my whole paycheck was just like out the window. And we found as a company, not me, the sales team found some contracts in New York because that’s, you know, where all the, not to be too dark, there was hospitals with piles of body bags to the ceiling, right? Like there were footprints all over the body. Yeah, it was.

Anthony Codispoti (14:16)
It really exploded in New York City at the

beginning.

Jordan Tallman (14:19)
Not

good. was scary as hell. ⁓ I sent out 10 nurses from some of local hospitals ⁓ in Arizona, Banner, and respiratory therapists, ICU nurses, stuff like that. And I met them at the airport. We did a Native American ritual and blessed everyone going out there. And these guys are real cowboys, man. They were like, yeah, we’re gonna go to the front lines here. We wanna save people. We wanna help out.

And honestly, like they don’t even give us the right protective gear at our jobs. If we’re going to be in danger, we might as well make a couple of bucks for it. Like these guys are awesome. And it’s like, let’s go for it. So they went out there. I think they were making like $5,000 a week or something. And the top, I I think it was like $10,000 a week when the real hype of the pandemic came around. was incredible what was happening and nobody died. Nobody from my team died. Everybody did okay.

But I got a decent commission check off of that a couple months in a row. And then they all got canceled and didn’t need to continue after their 13 week contract. And then they were just like, I want another $5,000 week contract. You don’t have that? Well, I’m not. I’m not going work for you then. But there were other companies that had them. And so it was this weird, weird mix. I started from, I was doing good with the book of 20 nurses. They all got canceled. I sent 10 people over to New York.

They end, I’m at zero again, I’m looking at the, there’s like a sales scoreboard in the bullpen at our office and I like made it to the top and I’d only been there for a year and I was like, dude, I’m like, I’m pretty good, I’m doing all right, man. And I looked at my paycheck and I looked at the scoreboard and there was a comma missing on my paycheck and I was like, dude, that’s a lot of zeros that I’m missing there, man. I wonder, like if I did this for myself,

could I get in some extra, could I make that extra comma, you know? And that was kind of like the start of me trying to figure out like, well, maybe this is, not only do I not fit in to this kind of environment, but maybe there’s a pot of gold on the other side of this rainbow.

Anthony Codispoti (16:31)
So when you say you were missing a comma, had they short changed you?

Jordan Tallman (16:35)
no. So I just, the revenue that I brought in for the company was different than the commission check that I made. So six figures compared to seven figures, right?

Anthony Codispoti (16:45)
Got it. Okay. And so the pandemic hits up and to the right, you make the decision that you’re going to go off on your own. And then things slow down at some point, right? Like I’ve talked to lots of folks in staffing, but medical staffing in particular. And at the beginning of the pandemic, business was up and to the right, just an explosion that nobody had ever seen before.

And then as we started to return to some kind of a new normal, ⁓ not only did it level off, but like overcorrected. What was your experience like during that time?

Jordan Tallman (17:23)
Yeah, I a lot of times say we’re so small that we’re not seeing the macro trends. We’re trying to grow to be a big company that would see the macro trends. But what happened? To me, what happened, I as a new entrepreneur put all my eggs in one client basket because they needed help and had plenty of money. And that client was also a recruiting company who just needed my some extra help basically.

And then with that extra help, didn’t need it anymore. I had built my business on helping them and they were just like, yeah, see you man. Like get lost basically. And so I had to, I had hired a team to service this client and the team wasn’t able to, I didn’t train them cause I didn’t know how to do anything but service this client. So when we were like floundering to get more sales, I was the only one who was able to get any more sales and I couldn’t.

Anthony Codispoti (18:18)
You’re the only one who had sales

experience at that point.

Jordan Tallman (18:21)
Yeah, exactly. And so I had to let go of my whole team basically, except for like somebody in my credential department, the administrative side. And yeah, that was really tough, man. I was like, I felt like I made poor decisions that affected other people’s lives. And man, don’t want to have to fire people because I messed up. I want to fire people because they messed up. That sucks, man. So that ⁓ was a big pill of responsibility that I had to take. ⁓

uh, built another team since then and you know, we’re, doing well, but I think my first year we did when I, when I started by myself, a million dollars in revenue, which like just barely like crossed over it by like the last week, got a couple extra bucks in there. And then, uh, year two, I hired a couple of people with a 2.5 million. Uh, and then I, we’ve been growing. I think we, what’s, uh,

Anthony Codispoti (19:14)
Nice growth.

Jordan Tallman (19:18)
Once that client did away with me, we stayed at 2.5 million, but then we’ve made another jump since we built the team to about 4 million. And this year we’re looking to do 10 million. So I’m very excited about that. Looking to excuse me, looking to get recruiters in place so that we can, I think it’s just a, a butts in seats. I need more people dialing the phones, more people building relationships. And that, that’s really it. I’ve got plenty of jobs. We just gotta put the people together.

Anthony Codispoti (19:45)
So here’s the part I wanna understand, when you lost the one client that you had, you go into the next year and you still make the same revenue. How did you guys pivot so quickly?

Jordan Tallman (19:56)
It’s a really good point. I missed like a very key part of that story, right? Well, I did the, this was like the scariest time, dude. I was crying. was like going, had a personal trainer at the time. I was drinking all the fizzy waters, a thousand fizzy waters a week, dude. I was spending so much money on fizzy waters. And,

Anthony Codispoti (20:12)
That was like a source of comfort for you. Okay.

Jordan Tallman (20:14)
Yeah, I loved it. I was trying to lose weight.

I was losing a lot of weight. It was a great time. And then the business, the wheels fell off, right? And I’m like going to my personal trainer like, dude, what do I do? I can’t make any more money. Like tears coming out of my eyes, right? ⁓ And so I stopped spending any money. No more personal trainer, no more fizzy waters, no more water, like water bottles, nothing. I’m drinking water out of the faucet basically, right? ⁓ I am standing in front of my computer 16 hours a day.

freaking out just doing recruiting anything I can, every phone call that I can to make sure that this happens. Hindsight 2020, I didn’t have to go like monk mode like I did. I was just like freaking the freak out. I could have just been fine, but just focused on recruiting a little bit more. I think I’m the number one needle mover for me in that time on why we stayed so successful. Not only just that commitment to staying from the computer, but I took a trip to my…

potential clients that I had been talking to. I met them all in person, signed contracts. We do a lot of business in Montana, so just going out there and shaking hands and kissing babies, that was the move that I think in our industry most people are just doing phone calls, text messages, and they’re just blowing up these hospitals and coming in and seeing them in person, knowing the places that we are working with, we’re sending nurses to and having that.

personal relationship with them. I visited multiple times because it was so successful. ⁓ That was the key to success there is relationships.

Anthony Codispoti (21:47)
And so were you visiting the places that you already had relationships with or you were going to places that you had not yet done any business with to forge and start that relationship?

Jordan Tallman (21:57)
It was both. It was new and some clients that were not necessarily mine, but the company that I was working with worked with them, but they vaguely kind of knew of me. So I went in there and said, Hey, I’m this guy. probably don’t know who I am, but I wanted to introduce myself. We’d love to do business with you. And I probably signed 10 or 15 contracts on one trip.

I went to Billings, Montana and then drove all the way to Missoula, back and I just hit every single hospital to and from on the way there.

Anthony Codispoti (22:32)
And what was it that you were telling them that was so compelling? mean, 10 or 15 on one sales trip is pretty incredible. Not just, hey, let’s talk or let’s keep the conversation going, but to get that many contracts signed, you were doing something right.

Jordan Tallman (22:40)
Yeah, I

Yeah, that’s a good, I’ve never thought about that, man. I appreciate that. I did do pretty good that trip. ⁓ I mean, I think there was some people that just kind of knew of me. The ones that didn’t know me. I think it’s industry specific, honestly. Montana travel nursing in general, there’s an insane shortage. There’s not enough nurses for the amount of jobs that there are. So that’s why there’s a travel nursing industry.

⁓ Montana is an extremely, it’s a large state, but extremely sparse. There’s only a million people in the whole state. It’s like near the size of Texas. So it’s the middle of nowhere. And to drive four hours, the middle of nowhere to show up and say, Hey, I’d love to work with you. I do this thing. I think went such a long way in people’s minds because I was separating myself from the rest of the competition who are just calling them.

not really giving a shit, hey, smile and dial, whatever, click, I don’t care. ⁓ Me taking the time to go out there and meet people. One of the guys literally was like, man, you’re flying here in person? Yeah, sign the contract right now. I gotta set contract same day.

Anthony Codispoti (23:52)
you

incredible. ⁓ Have you employed that strategy in other parts of the country where maybe there isn’t that geographical challenge and maybe more of your competitors are visiting in person?

Jordan Tallman (24:09)
Yeah, I tried it in Phoenix where I’m from and it just was like a fart in the elevator, man. It did not go over well at all. Everyone was like, out of here. They don’t care if you have donuts or cookies. Like we’ll accept them, but also you can leave now, right? So that was not that successful. I will say I just moved to Missouri and there’s a lot of critical access hospitals out here, hospitals in the middle of nowhere basically. And that’s like our bread and butter. That’s our niche. Montana’s critical access.

There’s, I don’t know.

Anthony Codispoti (24:40)
hospitals

that don’t have a lot of population density around them to support the workforce that’s needed. Is that kind of the… Okay.

Jordan Tallman (24:48)
Exactly. Yeah. Thanks

for the context. Yeah. So critical access, if you picture a town of 800 people where there’s not even a doctor that lives in town, right? They’ve got to pay extra money just for a guy to visit three days a week or whatever. Right. So we import nurses from other states and towns basically. And so here in Missouri, there’s a lot of that critical access, middle of nowhere hospitals. And I’m going to be doing a, you know, driving around, doing the same thing here pretty soon.

Anthony Codispoti (25:18)
Okay. In Missouri. Is that why you moved there was to take advantage of the opportunities there?

Jordan Tallman (25:25)
I wish I was that adept of a salesperson and businessman. We moved for my wife. Her family’s from out here. She grew up out here. ⁓ We’re trying to build a family right now. So working on our first baby. ⁓ yeah, hopefully, well, not hopefully, also we’re gonna sign some contracts and we’re just gonna make whatever work work, right? So that’s where I’m at.

Anthony Codispoti (25:52)
So how does what you’re doing now look different than what you were doing a few years ago at the height of the pandemic?

Jordan Tallman (26:00)
Yeah, the bill rates are a lot lower. Everyone’s charging or everyone’s paying a lot less as much as I would want to charge more. we’re the unit economics have really flipped on its head in the travel nursing industry. The nurses want, you know, they got spoiled. They are making five, $10,000 a week. Everyone says there’s these memes online. Travel nursing is dead, dude. This shit sucks now. And they’re all complaining and reasonably so. mean, I

probably be one of those guys knowing how much of a shithead employee I was. I’d definitely be saying the same things that they are. So we’ve had to figure out, I mean, most of the billion dollar players in our industry are offshoring, right? They’re taking everybody to the Philippines, India, and they’re really decreasing the unit economics because there’s just an insane amount of margin pressure, right? The margins are decreasing.

Anthony Codispoti (26:53)
So they’re going to the Philippines

and they’re finding nurses to bring over here to work.

Jordan Tallman (26:59)
So yes, that is one of the strategies for sure. think some of the recent government’s policies have kind of flipped that. And I don’t know if it still makes a ton of sense for them to do that. It sounds like it can be pretty expensive. ⁓ Still yet to be seen TBD. We’ll see how that turns out. But the Philippines and India, not just nurses are getting from there, but they’re taking the recruitment team, their credentialing team, their administrative offices. ⁓ They’re paying, you know,

five, seven different people in India for one ⁓ local American recruiter here. there are, from what I’ve heard, a lot of the recruiters offshore make more submissions. They have a lot more activity. They’re smiling and dialing a lot harder and they are making less placements. So there’s no like relationship there is what that tells me. So.

I think they’re saying like…

Anthony Codispoti (27:59)
Top

of funnel looks bigger, bottom of the sales funnel not so healthy.

Jordan Tallman (28:03)
Exactly. Exactly. So there’s just like a piece missing there. what I, my strategy, cause I’m not a billion dollar player and I honestly, think the customer service struggles massively. mean, not only is there the language barrier, but there’s also just a culture barrier where you’re, you’re expecting a service to be expected to be helped in a certain way. And it’s just, it’s a different way out there.

There’s just a mismatch there. Maybe you can cross that bridge at some point with great training. I haven’t seen it done yet, but it’s a tough problem to solve. The problem that I want to solve though is not decreasing the unit economics on that side. I want to keep the customer service really high. I think that’s as a small business where we can out-compete the other company. But if we’re doing that, like we won’t make any money, right? So we have to figure out how we can.

decrease or improve the unit economics in another way. And so I’m still early on into this plan. I’ve got, you know, some things that are coming around here, but I’ve started a YouTube channel. It’s very early on. It’s my, ⁓ my first crack. I’ve got like five videos up there. They’re all right, but I’ve, I’ve engaged in how to, how to build something on YouTube to, build trust. And basically the strategy that we’re employing, I w I want to build a fandom.

I want people to appreciate what we do. And then if you want to work with us, you don’t have to, but you can click the link below and check out our website, right? So we want to drive traffic this way instead of paying for, I mean, all of these Indeed and Vivian and, you know, there’s all of these companies that are driving lead flow and they are incredibly expensive. I hear all of the different, ⁓ my peers and other companies complaining about some of the,

wild practices that they do. They’ll charge 60 % more than they’re supposed to in a month and it’s your duty to go in and actually dispute all of the different charges. I mean, you gotta hire somebody specifically to do that, right? That’s wild. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (30:08)
Wow, that’s shady.

So do you not use any of these platforms like Indeed?

Jordan Tallman (30:17)
I, there’s a couple of trusted ones in the travel nursing industry. use TNS that’s been by far my favorite. know the owner shout out to Oliver Fekens. ⁓ I, one of my favorite entrepreneurs of all time, Oliver Fekens, ⁓ just ethical. His team loves him. I’ve been, I’ve not, I’ve not seen a better run business and the results that I get from his leads are excellent. ⁓ you have to use some kind of different strategies. A lot of people just think, well on indeed the candidate applied to my job. And now.

should get the, ⁓ his leads are a little bit more cold, so you have to do cold strategy leads, right? Like that’s the name of the game. So you just have to realize that that’s name of the game and then play that game and you’ll be successful, no problem. ⁓ So I think a lot of people don’t realize that until they start figuring it out. So wanna get the word out for there, there’s different kinds of leads, you gotta use different kinds of strategies to engage with those leads. So I use TNS, big fan of them.

And I’m forgetting what the initial question was, because I had somewhere to go and it’s just gone now.

Anthony Codispoti (31:20)
I kind of lost it too. ⁓ we were talking about, you know, the do you use any of these platforms for your own recruiting? Because your strategy you’re thinking now and it’s still early days is hey, can I use those platforms less by sort of drawing my own audience in by putting out really useful content for them?

Jordan Tallman (31:42)
So inbound is the instead of doing cold calls outbound I want leads to come to us and so how can I make something so interesting helpful useful that people will watch our content and not just like I don’t know goofy tick-tocks about here’s my day at the office right like there’s this large knowledge gap in our industry with travel nurses they’re on reddit they’re on Facebook groups and they’re complaining every day about getting screwed over

by some travel nursing company and how a travel nursing company is stealing their wages. And it’s, mean, this has been going on for years, right? So there’s a gap. A lot of these travel nursing companies are billion dollar agencies. They’re not, it’d be really crazy if they were actually stealing, right? I think there’s just a knowledge gap and I can improve the nurses’ lives if I can help them close that knowledge gap so they can stop guessing and start winning.

Right? So I want to pull the curtain back on how everything works and just do that. I’m doing that every day in my, like, I’m talking one-to-one to candidates and teaching them how it works. This is what it like my everyday talk track. I’m just going to apply that to videos and then do one to many instead of one to one.

Anthony Codispoti (32:48)
Hmm.

So where do you think the

knowledge gap is? I’m assuming that most of the, are they W-2 employees or are 1099s? Okay, so is the gap that they don’t understand that is a W-2 that you need to take out payroll taxes and social security and all that stuff? Is that where the confusion’s happening?

Jordan Tallman (33:04)
We’re all dubbing Sylvia.

Well, there’s a, I don’t know if you’re familiar with stipends at all for travel nursing. There are a lot of different, yeah, there are a lot of different industries. So there’s a non-taxable stipend that you get for traveling somewhere outside of 50 miles from your home. So if you’re staying the night somewhere else and it’s not very, it’s very, what is the word? It’s hotly debated.

Anthony Codispoti (33:21)
Yeah, but go ahead, explain for our audience.

Jordan Tallman (33:43)
The 50 mile rule, even what I’m telling you right now, it’s just kind of like ⁓ the rule of thumb, so to speak, that a lot of agencies use. There’s so much nuance that goes into this, different court cases and documents. It’s a nightmare even for the agencies to keep up with. And so it’s tough for them to train their recruiters to tell the nurses what’s going on. And so it’s this game of telephone with, you start with this like super nuanced, crazy document, and then it goes like 17 other places. And on the other side pops out a pissed off travelers.

Right? ⁓ And so the stipends are basically, if you’re more than 50 miles from your tax home, then you qualify for a traveler’s stipend. And you have to kind of stay the night. There’s a couple other things, but we’ll just, that’s where it’s at for basics. And that non-taxable stipend is really great because instead of me paying you a hundred bucks an hour, I can pay you 50 bucks an hour plus the other 50 bucks in non-taxable stipends.

And so that’s really great because it’s kind of like you’re making 100 bucks an hour. You literally are. But because the government’s only taxing half of it, it’s really like you’re making 110, 120 bucks an hour because that money stays in your pocket. ⁓ And so what happens is there was a law passed where you’re not allowed to deduct stipends because they’re for doubling your expenses when you’re staying overnight somewhere else. ⁓ But if a

Agency cannot bill a facility for the hours that they worked right if a nurse works zero hours the agency can’t pay that nurse’s stipends, so they’re not able to like They can’t give them zero, but they kind of

Anthony Codispoti (35:25)
there has to be

some kind of base of billable hours there in order to qualify for the stipend. And so if a nurse is in Montana and there were no billable hours that week, they’re paying for that hotel and their meals out of their own pocket.

Jordan Tallman (35:39)
Exactly, exactly. And this upsets the nurses when they don’t get their stipend ⁓ and the agencies don’t like that they’re not able to pay it. It hurts their brand credibility. ⁓ So just getting out there and telling people, like teaching people how the stipends work, where the stipends are garnered, because there’s a cap for stipends. can’t just pay someone all your money in stipends. You have to have a W-2 piece and then a stipend piece and the stipend is covered by the GSA.

the government services administration, if I remember correctly. And that’s where you can look, depending on zip code, how much you would qualify for. So like in San Francisco, you qualify for 300 bucks a day. It’s based on like cost of living, how much a hotel would cost, things like that. In rural Montana, you get $110 a day.

Right? there’s, there’s kind of a difference there. And a lot of nurses, like they walk into this and they’re like, well, why do I get 300 bucks here and 110 bucks? Are you chipping me? Am I being scammed right now? and so that’s like a lot of the, just the information that you could cover, ⁓ and then teaching people on, know, your stipends can be deducted. Some companies do it this way. Other companies do it that way. ⁓ and so just getting out there and closing that knowledge gap, I think is going to solve a lot of problems. And if people can know me as the, ⁓ he helped me figure out.

how to win at travel nursing. Well, he does travel nursing as well. Maybe I’ll sign up with him. I don’t know. We’ll see how it goes. And so that’s kind of my plan is to bring value to the nurses, help them accomplish their goals. Even if it’s not working with me, I just want you to be successful. ⁓ But then if you like me, like you can work with me. No problem.

Anthony Codispoti (37:15)
Yeah. Have you seen others either in your own industry or similar industries employ the same strategy with success?

Jordan Tallman (37:23)
Yeah, I mean, this is what helped me stop drinking, right? was this philosophy podcast called Free Domain Radio. And it is a donation model. And he would always talk about the law of reciprocity. And so you give, give, give. And then in return, people will want to give back to you. Not everybody, right? 90 % of every listener to a podcast doesn’t donate. But.

If you ask people and say, look, I’m providing value. I’m out here trying to put the best podcast together for you that I possibly can. I’m reading books. I’m interviewing experts. ⁓ You know, if you want to throw me a dollar, buy me a coffee, whatever you’re welcome to. ⁓ And that’s, that’s the best model that I’m the hugest fan with. then, that was Stefan Mollin who Freedomain radio listening to him was incredible. And then I saw Alex Hormozi. I’m sure most people are familiar, but just for the people who are not, he’s a

private equity guy, but he started off in the fitness world. I saw him do this for me ⁓ as far as like business content, knowledge, education goes. And he, so he just does it on YouTube and every platform now he started on YouTube, I think. But he builds this relationship with his audience by helping us out, figuring out just business concepts, pricing concepts, how to just get to whatever the next level is in your business. And then at the end he says like, you know, if you want to learn more,

Sign up for, you he’s got a course you pay five grand, you go to Vegas, you see him in person, he teaches you more information. And then that, you know, levels up to this and that, but the eventual thing, he does all this stuff for free and he’s not selling you anything. ⁓ Cause he wants to buy your company. Right. And so if he, you know, if it makes sense, he has worked together, he’ll purchase your company and all that stuff. But that’s his ⁓ business model for ⁓ mergers and acquisitions. Sorry.

Anthony Codispoti (39:18)
So I like this

concept. I’ve had multiple guests on the show talk about a similar sort of give first mentality. The one that comes top of mind actually is written a book on it, Brad Feld from, ⁓ boy, Foundry, BC. ⁓ And the general idea, as he frames it anyways, is to always give first, approach a relationship.

in a non transactional way from the perspective of what can I do for you? How can I help you with the understanding that at some point, however you want to call it, karma, the universe, whatever is going to bring that goodness back to you, not necessarily from that same person that you just gave to and, you know, not necessarily in a short timeframe, but in a collective whole, the more good that you put out there, the more good that returns to you. Is this kind of how you see it or?

Jordan Tallman (39:57)
you

Anthony Codispoti (40:12)
is a little bit of a different angle for you.

Jordan Tallman (40:14)
Yeah, mean, different words, same concept for sure.

Anthony Codispoti (40:17)
Okay,

yeah. So your tagline, small agency, big heart, zero BS. Tell us about that.

Jordan Tallman (40:27)
Yeah, I it just goes into me trying to educate the industry. There are, I’ve seen, I’ve sat next to so many BS recruiters ⁓ who just, sometimes they’re just misinformed and it’s no big deal. Maybe they’re improperly trained. Sometimes they flat out lie. Sometimes, you know, they can kind of use some used car salesman, not kind of, sometimes they use used car salesman tactics. And it was disgusting to me. It was really gross. I hated it.

It always would eventually blow up in their faces. mean, these are like small lessons that you learn as a kid. Like, hey, don’t lie because you don’t want to have to remember all the lies that you told, right? ⁓ And it just, it blows up. It gives the industry a bad name. Nurses are pissed off about recruiters. And so we want to be different by training our recruiters well, not doing any BS, being transparent about the bill rates. I have a YouTube video up right now where I show how much money my company makes off of one travel nursing contract.

Anthony Codispoti (41:25)
interesting.

That’s total transparency, isn’t it?

Jordan Tallman (41:25)
Yeah, it’s hotly.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I’ll show you, know, we charge 100 bucks an hour for you working here. You get paid 85.

I don’t keep the whole $15, some of it goes to insurance, I gotta pay for malpractice just in case you kill somebody, I hope you don’t. And just showing like a lot of the travel nurses hate agencies and they think we’re just like stealing money from them. And it’s like, dude, I find you a job and then I keep you employed, like I keep you working more contracts, right? And I’m working in the background, doing sales, like you can do this yourself. Like I’m not saying that you can’t, you definitely can.

But going through me is a lot easier and it’s worth that extra 15 bucks to not have to work three jobs, right? You don’t have to do sales and find your own contracts. You don’t have to keep your certifications up. Like, I will take care of all this for you. But like, it does cost you 15 bucks an hour, that’s little thing. I trust you.

Anthony Codispoti (42:20)
Seems like a pretty good value to me. You mentioned that some of your competitors

are using used car salesman techniques. What are some of the shady things that you’ve seen done out there?

Jordan Tallman (42:28)
Just flat out lying, man. So these travel nurses are going cross country. Picture living in Florida and then going to Seattle. They’re driving from Florida to Seattle. And they tell them it’s a day shift contract. It’s 312. You’re gonna work three days a week, 12 hours a day. And then they get there and it is a night shift contract and it’s five eights. And they’re gonna work five days a week, eight hours a day. And…

Night shift, dude, I’m not a night shift worker, right? So, but I’m here and I’m in Seattle. Like, what am I going to do? I guess I’ll just change my entire life right now. Cause like I half way did already. So that’s an incredibly unpleasant experience. ⁓ Yeah, man. Like just about there’s that tenfold. This happens all the time. And so just by taking care, like checking the boxes, that’s how.

So I, Michael Jordan is the best ever. So he wasn’t doing a bunch of like fancy shit on the court. He was practicing how to dribble with his left hand, how to dribble with his right hand. Here’s a layup. He did this a billion times and he never didn’t check the box. And so because he practiced the basics, that made him the greatest. And so just by doing the, every single time, the basics.

That’s how we’re good. So telling them about hey, you know, you get 36 guaranteed hours every single week, you know, your three 12-hour shifts But they do have a cancellation policy this facility, you know You could be canceled one day and you don’t get your guaranteed hours out of your old 13 weeks You could be canceled one day And then when that happens, they’re not surprised. They’re not pissed. Their expectations were set accordingly. So that could be another Unpleasant thing to happen that you see complaints on reddit all the time about

Anthony Codispoti (44:11)
Hmm. Earlier in the conversation, you mentioned something about giving your workers a Native American blessing. Do you have Native American heritage or what was behind that?

Jordan Tallman (44:23)
No, no, I didn’t, I’m not qualified to give anyone any blessings. That would be really cool if I was. ⁓ No, there was one of the respiratory therapists we worked with. He was Native American and his father came and did the blessing for, like his father didn’t go, he wasn’t a travel nurse, but ⁓ his father did the blessing on all 10 of the travel nurses. And me too, because I got to like go meet him and stuff. So it was kind of cool.

Anthony Codispoti (44:48)
Well, let’s see. And what was it? Was it sort of like burning some sage and like, kind of clearing the energy? What was the process like?

Jordan Tallman (44:56)
Yeah, we were at the Phoenix airport. We were outside. It was like four in the morning. It dark and we all kind of lined up. We put our bags down or I didn’t have my bags, but they all put their bags down, ⁓ stood shoulder to shoulder and he burned some sage. He said some words, complete foreign language. So I wasn’t sure what they were. And it was just a small ceremony.

Anthony Codispoti (45:21)
Yeah. As I hear you talk about and remind me the numbers where you guys were in revenue last year, where you anticipate being this year.

Jordan Tallman (45:30)
Yeah, so four million last year. And this year I’m going to, I’ve got the plan in place, hire five to seven recruiters to get to 10 million in revenue.

Anthony Codispoti (45:37)
Wow.

Okay, that’s excessive growth. mean, accelerated growth. Where does the confidence come from to get from four to 10 in one year? It’s a big jump.

Jordan Tallman (45:44)
Yeah,

I appreciate it, man. Well, it’s working backwards. It’s where do we want to be? How do we want to get there? I’m a big fan of Dr. Benjamin Hardy, and he’s been writing a lot of books. I think actually right behind my head, this is a podcast, so probably nobody can look at what I’m doing, there’s a book up there. Yeah, there’s a book up there, Who Not How he’s written. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (46:07)
I know we do video too.

Jordan Tallman (46:14)
One of his newest books is how to, man I read it and it’s been a while. It’s just if you want to grow, everybody thinks like, just real small incrementally, but that just typically ends up in you doing a little bit more of what you’re already doing and you’re not doing the radical changes needed to accomplish that bigger goal. And so you have to think 3X, 10X and in thinking that way, it’s a lot easier to accomplish your goal. So it’s like,

Oh, can I make five more phone calls a day and would that give me an extra million dollars revenue? What if our whole team made five more phone calls? No, no, no. We need five more people all making five more phone calls. So we have to take a different approach to, you know, get, that bigger goal out of the park, right? And so it’s the forcing of thinking differently that will change your actions to accomplish those much bigger goals.

Anthony Codispoti (47:09)
Is there any concern about bringing on so many new people all at once and stretching yourself too thin?

Jordan Tallman (47:16)
Yeah, I have no idea how to do this for sure. I mean, I’ve been working on doing this for a long time. This is like my third try at building a team. So I had to let go that one team when the wheels fell off on the story I told earlier. And then I just had to let go like two or three people pretty recently. This week I let go of one of them. And that’s been pretty difficult.

Anthony Codispoti (47:18)
I love the honesty.

Jordan Tallman (47:40)
So I’m learning what hiring is. I think I’m trying to solve the right problems here. I think most entrepreneurs, the name of the game when they get to a certain point is like putting the right people in the right places. And so I’m very excited about that and learning how to do training, how to do… Like I can do it myself. I can be an individual contributor, but learning to be a manager and…

watching the KPIs and enforcing the KPIs. That’s been a real learning curve for me, because I want to be liked. I want everybody to think I’m cool and I want to think they’re cool too. And that’s not the most, in a management place, that’s not the most helpful. As a manager, like you will be liked when you provide a ⁓ place for everyone to work, where everyone can expect like consistency, I guess you would say. ⁓

And they’re not going to like you if you made a funny joke at the meeting yesterday, right? Like it’s, it’s, it’s a lot different being like, liked in this position and like having to learn that has been painful at times, but it’s incredible, man. Like I love growth and yeah, like it’s growth is hard, but I love getting better.

Anthony Codispoti (48:50)
So let’s talk about growth because

in my experience, our biggest growth opportunities come from overcoming some of the biggest challenges in our life. What is an example for you? A big challenge that you overcame, how you got through it and what you learned.

Jordan Tallman (49:00)
Yes.

Man, I wanna tell my drinking story, but we already used that story. So I’m trying to, I don’t have anything locked and loaded right now. Let me try and think of something.

Anthony Codispoti (49:21)
Is there a ⁓ different ⁓ angle to come at that drinking story? Or is there another challenge that you’ve overcome? Maybe it’s something that you’re overcoming now. I mean, you’re talking about, ⁓ you know, having to let people go recently. It sounds like tell me if I’m connecting the dots correctly that these were individuals that you need people you need people to for the growth, but they just weren’t the right people in the right seats.

Jordan Tallman (49:50)
Yeah, mean definitely the person I just let go, as a person I like him. He’s a good dude, funny, says like I appreciate his presence in the meetings and whatnot. He was a good guy to have around and he made placements. was bringing, he was generating revenue for the company. Maybe not enough placements if he was making so many placements that I couldn’t say shit to him and that’s another story but the problem that I encountered with this person was

He wasn’t providing the correct or any amount of customer service. There was no relationship building going on. And even if you are making money for the company and probably would, you know, it would be enough to stay employed because there’s no relationship.

I can’t, I tried to train that. I tried multiple times on hey, watch this video at one minute, 34 seconds. It’s gonna talk about this concept. I want you to employ that concept the next time you’re on a phone call. I go listen to the phone calls. The concept is just, it’s like you never even watched a video. And I’ve done this many times. It just wasn’t, I don’t know if it wasn’t clicking or if it wasn’t interested in doing the work, right? ⁓

investigated with him, I would talk to him about it every single week and it just wasn’t there. And so even though he was bringing in money, which was kind of a tough decision, it’s like, well, I mean, we can just keep him around, but not having relationships with the nurses and building our brand and gaining credibility in the market share, market space, I think was hurting us more than five bucks for whatever, however much we make for a dollar for one contract being completed.

Anthony Codispoti (51:28)
So let’s explore that for a moment. There’s a guy who was performing reasonably well in terms of bringing in revenue for the company, but the customer service component, which is so important to you and your company’s brand, was just not there. You’re trying to provide the training. I’m curious, did you try role playing at all? Like, hey, watch this video and then let you and I try it out together.

Jordan Tallman (51:53)
Yeah, definitely. And he would say that he knows. The one question I would ask him to ask me and then others was, how do you take your coffee? Just a conversation starter, little goofy off the wall. And he would just always say it never came up. And I’m like, well, ask me how I take my coffee. And then you ask me, and I’m like, well, it just came up because you brought it up. And so just ask the question, what are we talking about? And I remember there was one day.

He asked me just the other week, what are you doing for New Year’s? And I was like, my God, man, are you building a relationship with me right now? You’re doing it, dude. Please use that on the phones.

Anthony Codispoti (52:33)
So he just went right

to business. There was no personal rapport there. There was no chit chat about your day, your life, et cetera. That was kind what was rubbing you.

Jordan Tallman (52:43)
Yeah, and so he’s selling the jobs and we don’t always have the best jobs, man. Like some of them are great and but not all of them. And a lot of people won’t go to them unless like you can sell them into going to them. And I just, saw a lot of badgering. A lot of people felt badgered.

Anthony Codispoti (53:01)
Yeah.

Jordan Tallman (53:01)
by

like, hey, sign the contract, sign the contract, sign the contract. And this is not an experience that I want anyone to have, much less anyone in my business. Like, I don’t want you to get called a bunch of times by a vendor asking you to sign a contract. This is just rude, it’s annoying, it’s not fun, especially in my business, I don’t want this to happen. But just in general, I don’t want anyone to have to encounter this and I don’t wanna be responsible for it.

Anthony Codispoti (53:27)
So you guys won an award. You were recognized as a top rated healthcare staffing firm just this past year in 2025 by great recruiters. What did you guys do to earn that recognition?

Jordan Tallman (53:40)
Yeah, so those were reviews actually, five star reviews on the platform, Great Recruiters. And I just think we had so many. think one of our recruiters got 40 this year, which certified her, I think 30 or may have certified her as a certified great recruiter. ⁓ But it was just the, I think we had a couple hundred in total and that was what certified us as a great company.

Anthony Codispoti (53:46)
Okay.

⁓ And those are reviews that are coming from folks that have worked for you, the traveling nurses.

Jordan Tallman (54:15)
Sorry, yes, they’re specifically from travel nurses, yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (54:18)
Okay,

right. ⁓ Jordan, how would you characterize your superpower?

Jordan Tallman (54:25)
man. ⁓

That’s interesting. I think I have a great way of reframing things. This is probably for the newbie people who are looking to maybe start their own business. I have a really great way of taking a negative thing that occurs and…

figuring out how I can benefit from it and seeing it as a positive. My wife loves it. Okay, my wife, let me tell you, when we have an argument, she is, I’ll always be like, man, I’m so glad we have this argument. Now we’re gonna figure, we’re gonna do things differently. We solved a problem and she’s like still pissed off. And she’s like, yeah, okay, Jordan, great, thank you. Glad that you’re excited about our argument right now. So yeah, I think doing that is super helpful because it keeps you moving forward.

Right, that’s the really important part is if you decide to start a business, don’t stop, keep going and figure out what can help you do it again and again and again. And that’s one thing that I’m struggling with, man, so hard with my YouTube channel is my relationship with making content. I don’t know lighting, I don’t know sound, I wanna do 17 takes in a row and then I hate everything that comes out of my mouth. ⁓

And so I’m just like deleting it, delete, delete, and I’m getting no content put out. It’s a miracle that I have a YouTube channel even at all right now. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So yeah, I’m working through that. I’ve got a coach that I’m working with right now. I’m very excited. It’s an expert who knows the industry that is going to help out with a lot of the just, what would I say? Just frustration.

Anthony Codispoti (55:49)
Perfect can be the enemy of progress, right Jordan?

Jordan Tallman (56:08)
So finding things to relieve the frustration, whether that’s a coach or probably not beer, don’t do beer guys, whatever that thing is. Yeah, exactly. Whatever helps ease that pain, I think it’s really important because if you want to build something like there’s going to be some pain, so get ready for it,

Anthony Codispoti (56:16)
Exercise for you. was one thing you transitioned into away from beer. Yeah

Well, and I like this that you’re offering advice for people who ⁓ maybe are just starting out, haven’t started a new thing because you and I talked before we started recording about your approach to starting a business. was more about go after and develop a skill first. Do you want to say more about that?

Jordan Tallman (56:50)
Yeah, I mean, that’s what I did personally, and I would highly recommend to anybody who’s looking to start a business is go work somewhere and then figure out how they do it and then try it for yourself, right? Like, if you are super into clothes, clothing design, and you want to start a t-shirt company, go work for a guy and fold his t-shirts. I don’t know how it works, but like go work in the print shop or whatever that is and figure out like, how does he get his sales? How much does he charge?

and see these baseline things and then go try it for yourself after you, it’s like an apprenticeship for one or two years, right? I don’t have that much experience, I have two years experience in recruiting before I started my own company. And it’s been great, man. We did four million revenue this year and you can too, I promise you. can, four million sounds like a lot if you’ve never made more than 100,000 or whatever the number is, but I promise you, like you could do it.

Anthony Codispoti (57:45)
What’s the best decision you ever made for your business?

Jordan Tallman (57:50)
in.

It’s a good question.

to improve myself, to stop drinking, to keep going, to grow, my commitment to growth.

Anthony Codispoti (58:07)
What’s something about your industry that would surprise a lot of outsiders?

Jordan Tallman (58:18)
no, I don’t want to say it. It doesn’t put us in a good way.

Anthony Codispoti (58:20)
Hahaha.

Not

helpful to go there, huh?

Jordan Tallman (58:25)
Yeah,

I mean, all, so there’s a lot of, ⁓ in the recruiting industry, I’m sure a lot of your, you know, your audience is in the industry. There’s a lot of drama. There’s a lot you get to, my favorite part about being a recruiter is asking people how much money they make. Like you don’t get to ask people that question ever anywhere. And I was always really interested in like, you know, where

How do people make money? Who makes money? How do I get into what they’re doing? And so being able to ask people in the IT industry and see some of the crazy numbers that they’re making was a lot of fun for me. And then I kind of got addicted to the tea, the drama, the gossip, that type of thing. And now that I’m in travel nursing, my gosh, there’s so much and I love it. ⁓ But I think sometimes people would be surprised at like…

what happens with nurses, like your healthcare people. So I’ve got this one story, man. ⁓ It’s not mine, technically. I had a recruiter, I was involved, but the recruiter is her story. ⁓ She had a nurse, we’ll just call her Betty, right? She went to a new contract, new facility across the country. And first four weeks,

Everything’s fine. Betty’s doing a great job. No problem. It’s our first time working with Betty. So we’ve kind of, we’re just building this relationship, getting to know her. ⁓ Betty was really into Bravo television, like drama TV. And so she kind of had a penchant for like kind of talk a shit a little bit. And it was fun, whatever. But four weeks in, we get a call from the facility and they said that Betty is farting into her hand and putting it people’s faces. And I was like, Betty is a 30 year old woman. Like, no, she’s not.

Right? Like this is some sort of a, like a rumor mill that’s going around that people are after Betty right now, because she probably talks some shit and like, that’s not good. So her recruiter has to professionally call her and ask her if she’s crop dusting the hospital. And so the recruiter doesn’t want to do it, right? She’s like, dude, like, how do I say this? is a crap. There’s no way she’s doing this. And I got to accuse her like this is bullshit. So we just say, pull the bandaid off, man, call her, find out what’s going on. So.

The recruiter calls her and she says, hey, Betty, I heard that you’re farting into your hand and putting it in people’s faces. ⁓ And Betty says, I ain’t never buttercup nobody in my life. And she had a word for it, buttercup, right? So like immediately we know that she’s guilty. Like this, she’s definitely doing this. So we had to escort her out of the hospital immediately. And so yeah, that’s like one of the most surprising things about the industry that people don’t realize is like nurses are just people too.

They can be as professional or unprofessional as all of the friends that you know.

Anthony Codispoti (1:01:01)
my gosh, that’s something my nine year old not only would do but has done I think did last night. And now we’ve got a term for it. And I don’t know if I want to share that with my kids because then I think they’ll want to do it more just so that they can laugh at the name. that’s incredible. Well, I’ve just got one more question for you today, Jordan. But before I ask it, I want to do three quick things. First of all, anybody who wants to get in touch with Jordan, their website is waywardmedical.com.

Jordan Tallman (1:01:07)
I’m

Yeah.

Exactly.

Anthony Codispoti (1:01:30)
waywardmedical.com and we’ll have that link in the show notes. Also, as a reminder, if you want to get more staffing employees access to doctors, therapists, and prescription meds that, as paradoxical as it seems, actually increases your company’s net profits, reach out to us at addbackbenefits.com. Finally, if you’re enjoying the show, a quick comment or review on your favorite podcast app goes a long way towards helping others discover the show.

So thank you for taking a quick moment to do that right now. Last question for you, Jordan. A year from now, you and I reconnect and you are celebrating something big. What’s that big, specific thing that you’re celebrating a year from today?

Jordan Tallman (1:02:14)
10 million revenue.

Anthony Codispoti (1:02:15)
I love it. Easy answer. Jordan Talman from Wayward Medical Staffing. would be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate you.

Jordan Tallman (1:02:17)
yeah.

Always, Anthony, you’re the man. It’s been great.

Anthony Codispoti (1:02:30)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.