Combining Staffing Success with Community Service with Mark Hall

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 (14:16.071)
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 Codaspodi and today’s guest is Mark Hall, founder and CEO of Talent Logistics, Tech Trades, and Pinpoint Resources. Founded in 1993, Talent Logistics has been providing over 100,000 hours of workforce solutions experience.

His companies have employed over 60,000 individuals and completed hundreds of thousands of engagements. You can find their website at TLXCorp.com. Now, Mark was featured in two industry expert films, The Art of Recruiting and Integrity in Recruiting. And they are proud to declare that they fix broken workforces with over a dozen innovative tools that have helped hundreds of employers solve their workforce challenges. They specialize in placing workers in skilled trades,

technology and recruitment, manufacturing, security, and through their workforce concierge service, they can handle your entire recruiting strategy and process from beginning to end. Mark is also currently a Hamilton County Councilman in Indiana, and over five years ago, he co-founded FeedingTeam.org, a charity he runs with his wife, Lisa, to provide nourishment to people with food insecurity. Now, before we get into all that good stuff,

Mark Hall (15:30.22)
to you.

Anthony Codispoti (15:40.243)
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 cashflow 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 adbackbenefitsagency.com.

Now back to our guest today, the founder of Talent Logistics, Mark Hall. I appreciate you making the time to share your story today.

Mark Hall (16:17.054)
Anthony, thank you for having me on the show today. I appreciate it.

Anthony Codispoti (16:21.267)
So Mark, what first got you interested in the staffing industry all those years ago?

Mark Hall (16:27.182)
Okay, so this goes all the way back to, let’s say it was in 1979, so this is the early 80s. I’m working as a programmer for a company called Kemper CPA Group in southern Illinois and somebody was recruiting the other programmer in the office. He took their sheet and threw it away. And I said, hey, do mind if I take a look at that? It was a recruiting pamphlet coming out of Indianapolis.

And quite literally three weeks later, I was employed in Indianapolis as a programmer. And I realized, wait a minute, people get paid for helping people find jobs. So I was always in the back of my mind. I went through a nine-year technology career before I finally figured out this is what God put me on the earth to do. It’s essentially a matchmaker, but the idea of finding

what people really want and their fulfillment in their life, finding what a client needs and then trying to make about 80 % of it work. It just clicked. As soon as I started doing that work, it clicked for me. I wasn’t brave enough to go try it on my own. I had to go do all the part-time, multi-level marketing things to prove that, wow, can I really take this step? Can I really give up my salary? Can I really go take this risk? And then it just…

It happened that I answered a blind ad in the Indianapolis Star. It was one of those big box ads. would have been, think it was about 1987, 88. And it said, you have 10 of these 11 characteristics, we want to talk to you. I looked at that ad and said, well sure, I’ve got 10 of those 11 characteristics. And they hired me to come in and be an IT recruiter.

a couple of weeks later and I made my first deal in week two, my second deal in week three and just never looked back. It clicked. The combination of the academics in information technology, the education I had, the almost 10 years as a programmer and stepped in to be able to be credible in talking to people in technology and credible in talking to people that were looking for the next career move. It just clicked and I knew that’s what got me on the earth to do.

Anthony Codispoti (18:47.613)
So how did the MLM factor into this? Was that just giving you confidence to do sales or? Yeah.

Mark Hall (18:53.706)
chops, absolutely. Yeah, ability to feel good enough about being able to go make a presentation, recruit people that would then come to work for me. So we did the insurance and we did the soap and we did the vitamins and actually did very well. But it was really a precursor. was, do I really have the fortitude, the ability, the skills, the patience to go out and do this, to take all the no’s?

And it taught me an awful lot about sales and sales 101 and frankly getting my butt kicked a few times. Better prepared me for stepping into a world where you’re living depends on being able to close a deal.

Anthony Codispoti (19:37.885)
So what are some of the biggest things that you learned from your time in the MLM industry?

Mark Hall (19:43.726)
Integrity matters and you’ll hear more of that. That’s going to be a theme. So my wife and I played an awful lot of ball when we were in our 20s, 30s and I think we hung it up at 39 and 40. I’m playing in a doubleheader. I had an upline. I had about a hundred people selling insurance for me. I an upline. I slid the break of double play and broke my leg. Okay. Not normally not a big deal, but it took me out of the MLM world for about a month while I healed.

And during that time, my upline reassigned everybody to him and started taking my commission checks. And I’ve come to find out that’s not really all that unusual. He just decided to pad his own income. And when I confronted him about that, it wasn’t a pleasant conversation and it was a complete lack of integrity on his part.

Anthony Codispoti (20:26.28)
Really?

Mark Hall (20:38.734)
He knew what had happened. He saw me in a cast. Why would you take the next step and take all of my group and then take all of my overrides and my commissions? The only reason I was able to come up with it was he needed the income worse than I did. This was his full-time gig. This was how he fed his family. Doesn’t make it right, but that was one of the biggest things I took away from is that integrity matters.

I was raised that way in a small Baptist church, but I never thought people would treat other people that way. That’s all that happened to me. You’ll see that as a theme before I open my business too.

Anthony Codispoti (21:17.971)
Okay, so let’s talk about that. What led to the opening of Talent Logistics in 1993?

Mark Hall (21:24.94)
I got fire.

Anthony Codispoti (21:26.877)
from your recruiting job, the tech recruiting job you were doing?

Mark Hall (21:30.35)
So I went from a company called Source CDP to a competitor. So I got hired by a local competitor who had an information technology staff augmentation firm and they did recruitment. Their sister firm was doing healthcare staffing, PTOT Speech. So by hiring me, he took out a number one competitor in the marketplace on his IT side and moved him over to his team and I ran his speech.

His speech and PT, OT, and speech practice, all contract-related, were outsourced primarily in those days to hospitals and rehab facilities. Was there for three years, met with this man every Monday for three years. Was promised in 1993, 1992, and 1991, was promised one-third of the profits. Still have the, or had the document. I burned it at F &G after this happened.

Anthony Codispoti (22:30.321)
I can see where this is going, no good.

Mark Hall (22:31.121)
yeah, he sent me healed from the leg. played racquetball and I wrenched my shoulder, I had it in a sling. I look, you know, as men, we tend to feel really sorry for ourselves. So I was in one of those real pouty, I don’t like my arm hurts. And the lawyer who was his chief operations officer, called me and Bill was a great guy, Vietnam pilot, and said, we’re going to let you go.

wouldn’t even let me go back into my office to get my things, my personal belongings. Just summarily walked me to the door because I went and asked Mike, Mike was the guy that I worked for, where are we gonna do the profit distribution? We made $1.3 million this year and I got three small kids and I gotta do some college planning and I didn’t be able to put the money away and you promised that I’d get a third. And he looked me in the eye and he said, my list is billed.

Our lawyers are better than your lawyers. If you think you’re going to see a penny of this money, you’re crazy. I will tie you up in court. You’re not going to get a dime.” And said, by the way, you’re fired.

Anthony Codispoti (23:39.059)
So they fired you specifically so they didn’t have to pay you. Classy. Okay.

Mark Hall (23:45.274)
Years later, I burned the contract in effigy. But now here’s the blessing, had that never happened, I’d probably still be a VP of sales for him somewhere and would never have experienced all the things, the ups and downs, all of the things I’ve experienced in my life, that have become quite a story. If he had just had integrity, if he’d just done what he said he was gonna do. Now, karma.

You know, Carmichael is circle back. Mike, the one that I’m talking about. Daughter got kicked out of IU for cheating. Divorced twice. Alcohol riddled. Just all those problems that go along with people that don’t live a life of integrity. And this has nothing to do with my faith. This is just being a good person. Just do what you say you’re going to do. And so many people don’t care for that. They won’t.

Anthony Codispoti (24:42.343)
Mark, I’m curious, is there a small part of you that has a little bit of gratitude for that experience?

Mark Hall (24:47.758)
absolutely. I learned so much more from my losses and getting my butt kicked than I ever did from the success side. It’s tougher to learn from successes. It’s easier to learn and grow from the failures. And this was a doozy. You just can’t imagine how crushed I was. But from those ashes, I’m sitting at home. This was back in the day.

Anthony Codispoti (25:05.105)
Yeah.

Mark Hall (25:17.262)
where they had those big 18 foot satellite dishes. Do remember the big ones? And they were, you know, we could actually get live feeds that weren’t filtered like you get on Dish Network and all that stuff. Now, I’m sitting at home, I’ve got about a week’s worth of growth. I’m lying on the sofa. Lisa and I will be married 45 years here in a couple weeks. She’s like, you know, I love you, but you need to get out. It’s time to go get another job. Just you need to get out.

Anthony Codispoti (25:20.391)
Mm-hmm. yeah

Mark Hall (25:45.918)
It wasn’t two hours after she had that conversation with me that my phone rang and it was a guy named Jerry Smith using his name purposely because I think he’s passed now. Jerry was a prior client, a director at Roche Diagnostics, big client here in Indianapolis. He says, you the Mark Hall that does staffing and recruiting? Yes, I am. Because I went through every Mark Hall in the phone book until I found you.

Anthony Codispoti (26:14.292)
my goodness.

Mark Hall (26:15.756)
I’m the new director of information technology at Purdue University. Would you help me? And you could just feel the chills. Lisa and I both look at each other. We look up and go, OK, God, we get the message. And it was incredible. I just think about the odds of something like that happening. So we put in three phone lines, a fax line. And it’s hilarious because I have zero mechanical skills.

Anthony Codispoti (26:28.467)
That’s amazing.

Mark Hall (26:44.504)
built this temporary with old god-awful wood paneling. We’d convert a bedroom into this soundproofed room as we could and went to work. And I’d get up on the phones seven in the morning. I’d work until about seven or eight at night, have dinner with the kids. And then on at least two nights a week, I would recruit. Sell during the day, recruit at night. And then if I missed my numbers, I’d have it at a third day. And if I missed my numbers, I’d have it a fourth day.

And Lisa would come up into the office. couldn’t, she couldn’t talk because I was on the phone all the time. And I have this Tony the Tiger baseball and she would sit about five feet from me. She and I played a ton of softball together and we would toss this ball back and forth for hours and hours. The kids were asleep and she felt like she needed, she wanted to support me and.

She knew I was struggling and she knew this was a tough thing, but she also knew that this was my destiny. And we would sit and throw this Tony the Tiger baseball, which I keep right here on my desk for hours back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. She’s heard me do more sales pitches, more recruiting pet preps, more closes, more pre-closes than anyone else on God’s Green Arrow.

Anthony Codispoti (28:05.661)
So why three phone lines if it’s just you?

Mark Hall (28:08.302)
So this was back in the day where you have to put one on hold to get to the other weren’t things like call forwarding so I had a three set phone One I could transfer to an answering service and I could have one on hold and I could do two act at the same time So I could merge three calls if I needed to and then the fax line of course for any day That’s how we did business back then. It wasn’t even really heavy email it was

know, resume prep, and I’d fax it to a client. So you think about it, and I’m looking out, I had a window looking out in our backyard and a room about 10 by 10 with this god awful pain line and these stuff styrofoam down it to try to make it soundproof. Clients could hear her vacuuming in the downstairs or they could hear the birds chirping or they could hear the dogs barking.

Anthony Codispoti (28:39.027)
Right, we were just talking about 93. Nobody knew what email was then.

Mark Hall (29:02.522)
And she tried to keep the kids quiet, but those clients that knew me, the running joke was that my office was next to a pet store.

Anthony Codispoti (29:12.595)
So at what point did you realize that talent logistics was gonna work?

Mark Hall (29:19.116)
Well, the day’s not over yet, so I’m still not sure.

Anthony Codispoti (29:25.895)
When did you make your first hire?

Mark Hall (29:26.65)
I’m still not sure I ever realized it, you know. My very first client was Purdue. We brought in a programmer from Texas to go on contract with Purdue. They gave us seven or ten openings, so I immediately started working on that. We bring the guy up, he brings his girlfriend, he brings his girlfriend’s dog, we put him in a hotel right there next to Purdue University’s campus, he starts to work. He made it three days.

and went back to Texas. So that was the first experience on our own. I did a lot of contract recruitment work for companies like USA Funds, for Roche, for Purdue University. And I ran scared for the first year plus. You got, have to. And there have been years, years where we couldn’t take a salary. We were able to pay the bills, but that was it.

When you don’t run scared, it’s time to walk away. There is a hunger that’s inside of people. I’m 64, I just turned 64 over weekend. When you lose the hunger you have to go in and help the next person, it’s really time for you to think about doing something else.

Anthony Codispoti (30:31.347)
It’s interesting. Talk a little bit more about that.

Mark Hall (30:53.582)
It’s too hard. The business that I’ve chosen is the only business that I know that has a double sale. If I’m going to sell you this pen, I don’t have to go back to this pen and say, hey, is it okay if I sell you to Anthony? Can I have your permission to sell you to Anthony? Working with people, we work with an imperfect product that thinks and acts and makes stupid decisions on their own. And you have a client that changes requirements and their business changes and…

interest rates and projects change. it’s the fluidity of both sides will drive you crazy. If you lose the burn, you don’t have the killer instinct, if you don’t have the passion for it, that hunger, you’re never going to make it. It’s you just floating in water. I sense that it’s a lot like other businesses that I’ve been involved with. have to have somebody that’s the visionary, that’s going to be that passionate person going mock five with their hair in fire. Then you have to have somebody that could be the integrator.

that can actually lead it and operationally bring it to fruition. I’m not the latter, I am the former. Lots of ideas and can come up with them and craft them and even get them started. I had to start it for myself. We did deal after deal after deal and we never looked back. We were there at home for almost eight months and then we went into our first office. I wasn’t even smart enough to ask if it was a non-smoking office.

Mark Hall (32:20.472)
So we were there six weeks. Most people have no idea we were there. Then I found my real law first office that was non-smoking and we were there for three years and then on. So the lessons that you learn are incredible.

Anthony Codispoti (32:34.897)
Yeah. So let’s talk about talent logistics today. What are the services that you guys specialize in?

Mark Hall (32:41.422)
So TLX Talent Logistics was born from Pinpoint Resources and TechTrades. So Pinpoint Resources was the original brand in 1993. It came up with that name just driving in the middle of nowhere and it seemed to fit. Erotically listening to a chicken commercial on the radio. That’s another story for another day. Pinpoint Resources, the white collar side, information technology. These are the men and women that take showers in the morning before they go to work.

It’s a great way to characterize it. White collar, but you have some field professionals in crossover. I bought that business over 20 years ago, that’s the antithesis. So that would be taking your showers when you get home from work or both. Electricians, millwrights, carpenters, welders, crane operators. And we try to focus on the white collar and the blue collar within the same client. Large construction company, large manufacturing company.

Anthony Codispoti (33:13.287)
White color.

Mark Hall (33:39.286)
large new age manufacturing, whether they’re laser work like we get from Purdue. you have both, you have the people that need to work with their hands, and you have the people that need to work with their brains. So those were both staffing brands. Put people out for six weeks, put people out for six months, whatever the client would need, and there’s a nice financial justification for how you do that. Instead of having the cost per hire, they’re on my book, my work conf, my unemployment, et cetera.

But we really felt like there was a bigger play. so the bigger play was talent logistics. Talent logistics was born from the bigger play. The integration of the two, we’ve employed over 65,000 now trades professionals, over 7,000 white color professionals. But many of the clients that we talk to have a bigger, a more holistic need. They don’t have a good strategy for how they’re going to deploy talent, how they’re going to acquire it.

they’re going keep it. So when I talk and write about this, I talk about every organization has what I refer to as a natural line. Above this natural line, they have tribal knowledge. They have specific intellectual property that’s so important to the business that the business would be irreparably harmed if those people left. Now, if by definition you have people above the line, then you are going to have people below the line.

This is not a comment on their value as a person. But the lady who just lent you the new $6 million contract and the guy who goes out in the yard and takes care of the grounds do not have the same intrinsic value to the business. They can be wonderful people and have the same value as people, but they don’t have the same value to the business. The mathematical model proves that those below the line, when you have a turnover

percentage like we have in today’s market. It lends itself to a variable model. All those that are above the line need to be your employees and you need to take money and pour back into them to keep them, retain them, make them happy. We have employers here that offer on-site daycare and massages and concierge services. A company my size can’t compete with that.

Mark Hall (36:00.566)
When I go talk to an average $50 million manufacturer or $100 million construction company and I can show them that I can save them for maybe as much as 7 % by converting these people that are below the line into a variable model, I can deliver you those savings for you to pour back into those people that you must keep. You can pour that 4 to 7 % back into above the line people that you have to keep happy because if they leave, your business is really, really hurt.

Anthony Codispoti (36:29.427)
Let me see if I understand what you’re saying, Mark. You’re saying that the folks that are below the line, if you think about switching them from full-time role to a variable role, where you’re only maintaining that staff when you actually need that help and when things slow down, then they can roll off. And by following that model, you can save them four to 7 % in labor costs.

that can then be reinvested into those people who are above the line, the people who are gonna bring in those $6 million contracts for the company. Is that right?

Mark Hall (37:01.112)
Correct. And you hit on one point there, Anthony. You can expand and contract it so it can become a variable model. Or you let my team manage the churn, the turnover that’s going to happen. So the Bureau of Labor Statistics, just a generalized manufacturing company, will lose about 80%. So 80 % turnover. In some places, it’s much more than that. In your beautiful state of Ohio, average turnover in manufacturing is well beyond 80%.

Anthony Codispoti (37:27.932)
kidding.

Mark Hall (37:28.654)
So when you look at a cost per hire of $13,000 on the low side to $22,000 on the high side, blue collar versus white collar, and now you’re turning those over a couple of times a year, you’re investing 20 to $30,000 just in that turn, plus the opportunity cost of not having somebody in that position, plus the cost of overtime for the other people. It’s a pretty compelling math model.

When you look at it, it’s just purely data driven. You’re the one that spends the money. You run the ads on it, you’re the one that recruits the hundred people and have 50 of them leave in six months. I’m just spitting the data back out to you and I’m giving you a better solution for it. It’s very well received. That’s where Talent Logistics was born. So behind the scenes, I can supply you white collar people, white collar talent pinpoint. Behind the scenes, I can supply you skill trades talent.

from tech trades, but I can do this all under one holistic brand and can be your workforce partner, providing them. I used to call it workforce insurance, but the lawyers told me to call it insurance. Now I talk about workforce assurance. So it puts us in a position because we don’t have a problem finding the tradespeople. It makes us extremely unique.

That’s often is the entry point for us. You can bring me electricians? Sure. Then we need to have a conversation. They go out and sign some subcontractor and the subcontractor brings their A team. And their A team is there for four or five weeks and then they go and start another job. And then you see the job begin to trickle off. Well, if you manage your own labor, you need a labor partner that can deliver you the labor you need when and where you need it.

Anthony Codispoti (38:55.378)
Yeah.

Mark Hall (39:21.87)
Too many people are dependent upon this 80 % to 100 % churn. And it’s made a lot of businesses struggle because they can’t find or keep the people that they need.

Anthony Codispoti (39:33.351)
I’m curious, Mark, if you can answer this question without giving away your secret sauce, because I don’t want your secret sauce out there. But what makes you so much better at being able to find these laborers and the electricians where other people can’t find

Mark Hall (39:50.83)
Great question. When I bought the business, I didn’t realize how smart the move was. Just the unintended consequences. There’s no divine providence in this whatsoever. None. It came with about 50,000 tradespeople in it. When we bought the business, it had it. Now back in those days, it wasn’t an issue. You were still at the early side of the boomers beginning to walk away. So we were very blessed.

to have that many people that that business is W-2. Now we’re at 65,000, 68,000. So the first place I go to when I need tradespeople is my own backyard. These are people that have worked for me. Now, so many of them now have moved on retired. The boomers are my age or older. So it’s their kids and a lot of them travel together. We effectively operate as if we were a competitor to the union.

I can bring you the labor you need. The hall is out of people. I’m consistently 25 % less in terms of expense than if you went to the union hall. So I’ve become a supplier that works on the merit side. Very little of what we do is on union jobs. But the real secret sauce is I’ve got people and you don’t. And it’s not really through anything magical that Mark did. Now, about eight years ago, I did buy a proprietary database.

50 million candidates. But that’s 50 million candidates. But that’s set for another business that were in pre-launch at Tech Play called Avalar. And it’s not up on any of the socials yet, but Avalar is the world’s first crowd sourcing, candidate sourcing, web enabled app.

Anthony Codispoti (41:18.355)
50 million what? Okay.

Anthony Codispoti (41:41.607)
What does that mean?

Mark Hall (41:43.702)
It means you can curate your own private network and be paid for it. How many times has someone ever come and asked you, hey, Anthony, who do know that’s the best doctor, lawyer, plumber, garbage man, pick one, mechanic? Like in my life, I get those questions all the time. I presume that you as a professional, you get those same questions all the time as well.

Anthony Codispoti (42:03.859)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Hall (42:11.65)
How often has someone offered to pay you for the value of your network?

Anthony Codispoti (42:17.188)
Not very often.

Mark Hall (42:19.662)
might get a dinner or lunch, but what I’ve created is a way for you to curate your network. And there’s some secret sauce inside of it that I’m not going to talk about, but a way for you to curate your network that can create a passive income of a couple grand a month just for you creating your own network and curating it.

Anthony Codispoti (42:40.989)
When will this be available?

Mark Hall (42:46.062)
pushed it back until the first of the year, that’s the last meeting. The tech stuff, the guts are developed. The tech stuff is not where I want it yet. I have a buddy of mine that’s doing all the app dev. We hired a graphic UI person to do all the screens, that’s done. The direct answer to question is I don’t expect it to go until Q1 of next year. That could be January, that could be March.

and our first place we’re going to, those 50 million candidates, and we’ll invite them to come in and become part of it and create their own network. It’s a multi-level marketing style approach. If Indeed and Uber and Amway all had a baby, that’s out. So that’s coming. But because we have those kinds of tools and that kind of forward thinking, we get access to people that no one else does.

Anthony Codispoti (43:30.067)
Okay. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (43:40.999)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Hall (43:41.868)
I can start by searching a 50 million candidate database for the talent that you need. No one has that. Then we move to the 66,000 people that have worked for us on the trade side. No one has that. Then we move to the 7,000 that have worked for us on the white collar side. A lot of people have that. Then we start where the other people start. My competition starts on that third level. They go to Indeed or CareerBuilder and they post and they pray that someone’s going to answer their ads and then they can go out and put them into the job.

I don’t have to do that. I start three levels higher. So it truly is a unique value proposition.

Anthony Codispoti (44:17.893)
It’s faster and it’s more cost effective. You’re not having to pay to post on indeed. You’ve already got, depending on, you know, where you have access, these people’s information, a lot of these folks you’ve already got a relationship with. know who you are. They’re, happy to hear from you. And so you can get that talent to your clients faster and more cost effectively than what your competitors could do. Yeah, that’s pretty slick.

Mark Hall (44:21.41)
Hey.

Mark Hall (44:33.208)
Correct.

Mark Hall (44:43.374)
Correct.

Anthony Codispoti (44:47.803)
What else should we say about all your staffing companies before we get into a little bit about your personal journey, being a councilman, the nonprofit?

Mark Hall (45:00.28)
Let’s touch on the 10 or 12 tools because what I’ve found is that most, especially the older I get, can I give you a body to solve an interim problem? Sure. But most of the time, there’s a systemic problem that needs to be addressed, whether it’s the supply of people, the above the line, below the line, whether they need someone to manage vendors. So I want to touch on a couple of the 12. One of the things that we’re seeing more and more traction with

is the MSP market or the Managed Services Professional Market. And this would be where talent logistics hovers over all of the other contract labor providers. So we go into a client and we have a tech stack that will be put in place. So think a VMS type of a tool for people. And then we’re the MSP that sits on the top doing all the accountability checks and balances on the firms that deliver.

is so many times you have an unwieldy number. The company we’re working with today has over 300 vendors and their plans across Asia and North America. They don’t have any consistency. It’s a cowboy world where each of them are all able to go and buy labor as they need, different prices, different markups, different insurance. Some don’t have insurance. Some don’t comply with EEOC requirements.

So we’re in a position where we’re going to bring all that together in one easy stack. We’ll whittle down the number of vendors. They need less. We’ll put in a reverse auction component. So it makes it competitive. And we believe we’ll save them close to 10 % on their contract labor spent. It’s huge number. You’ve got people in Iowa that are paying a 2.0 markup when they should be paying a 1.5 markup. That’s what the market is. But whoever bought

Anthony Codispoti (46:45.649)
Wow. Yeah.

Mark Hall (46:56.802)
And Iowa didn’t know that. They don’t have an expertise that can sit across the top of it and manage the contract labor. There are more opportunities for things like that. Sure, somebody calls us and says, I need six electricians for six months. Yes, we do that work. But there are bigger opportunities to have bigger impact on the businesses and help more people by being able to offer some of the larger solutions.

A big Korean company has bought a plant just north of here. We’re having the same conversations with them. They know they need hundreds of people beginning in Q1 of next year. They don’t know what to do. They don’t have any relationships. They just came and bought the plant. There’s two people that are involved so far. We’re at the table having the exact same conversation. Let us manage the continuity for you. We’ll bring vendors. If you want to pick the vendors, you pick them.

Anthony Codispoti (47:49.789)
When you say vendors, are you talking about staffing vendors? because. Are you talking, you’re not talking about like raw material vendors? Okay, got it.

Mark Hall (47:52.268)
Yeah, better as me. Absolutely.

I don’t know, people. the labor side, so there are vendor management tools for raw materials. There are also vendor management tools for people. And you push those requirements out and it offers continuity and it offers consistency and frankly, then you can have regulatory compliance when you don’t have it before. Today, the first one I mentioned is in Cowboy State. It’s a tough spot.

Anthony Codispoti (48:21.681)
When you talk about regulatory compliance, are you talking about things like making sure that they have the right insurance, that the workers comp and unemployment is all set up correctly? Is that what you’re talking about from a compliance perspective? Okay.

Mark Hall (48:32.536)
Sure, at a very high level, yes. But these clients also have governmental regulatory compliance. So they have to take, for example, OSHA logs. It just has one example. So if you’re in a manufacturing plant, whoever owns that plant owns that OSHA log. So there are requirements for safety and safety protocols. I know OSHA reported. For some of these clients that are in manufacturing, they take dollars from the federal government.

So there are employment statistics that have to be reported back into the federal government. So compliance is an issue. We have discovered over the years, suppliers, competitors of ours, that carry no insurance, that are in the middle of three pieces of litigation, that their owners are going to lose the company through a divorce. And my clients are sitting there, their business is dependent upon what happens in that divorce proceeding? Come on.

We bring a certain assurance to the table if those guys fail, we’ll go find another one or we’ll do it ourselves as a backup. So there are lots of other service offerings. It’s people as a solution think talent solution, don’t think just staff augmentation. If I can think differently about my business, so if it really costs me $20,000 to hire somebody and I’m turning it over twice a year, I get 40 grand into it.

You know, I can get a lot of contract labor to put out more product with that 40 grain.

Anthony Codispoti (50:09.489)
because it’s cheaper for you to manage that turnover than it is for your clients to do it internally.

Mark Hall (50:13.326)
And when you craft a solution, so we had a client that we did this a couple years ago, they were hiring large volumes of 15 to 16 dollar an people. And this was an OEM automotive aftermarket. And we did the study to show them that if you replaced 20 of those 15, 16 dollar an people with six 24 dollar an hour people, you’ll get more productivity.

and they didn’t believe me. So we put our money where our mouth was and we brought in those six and they killed it. It was an order of magnitude of four to one. And it saved, these guys are professionals, they’re more skilled. They didn’t have to turn over, they’re to work. They work 65 hours a week and they just killed it. And after we proved it, it saved them much, much more than 10%. Because they’re putting 20 or 30, 15, 16 dollar an hour people on all this.

with overtime and cost of hire and we put six, some days they went off with five and we just killed it. An order of magnitude of productivity of four to one. That’s not a staffing solution. That’s a business, that’s solving a business problem with people. And in today’s market, if you can get it done with six people, that’s a much higher probability for success than doing it with 15 or 20. But that kind of gives you an idea.

Anthony Codispoti (51:31.132)
and

Mark Hall (51:42.99)
Solve your labor problem. If I need more people, I need less people, or I need different people. There’s where we have a solution. We can play in all of those. Sure, staff augmentation is one of 12 tools. It’s just one of 12 tools. So if I go into a situation and all I have is a hammer, every problem is a nail. Well, I can’t go into this situation thinking, look, staffing is the right solution. I have a dozen different solutions I can bring to you.

that will impact your business. Staffing’s just one of

Anthony Codispoti (52:15.559)
Mark, I want to transition into either talking about the nonprofit or the health issues that you went through. And I want to make sure that we do it in the chronology that makes the most sense. So you tell me which one to go to first.

Mark Hall (52:31.438)
So let me jump on feedingteam.org and we have… The feedingteam.org ties to the business, that’s why I want to go there. The feedingteam.org was started because in 1985 and 1986, Lisa and I were what’s called a GAP family. A GAP family. These are people that make too much money to qualify for any kind of public assistance. But not so much money that they’re not…

food insecure if something goes bump in the night. So in my neck of the woods, it’s somewhere in that $40,000 $45,000 a year income level and four or more miles to feed in the home. Feedingteam.org pantries are designed to be located anywhere where GAP families will be or where they live. So certain apartment complexes, certain trailer parks, tattoo parlors, frankly.

at the public health department, at the fairgrounds, at churches, at schools. Today, feedingteam.org is 71 outdoor freestanding food pantries. No questions asked, open 24-7, 365 with non-perishable meals. And we’re serving 12,000 meals a month with just what we’re pushing out. About half of our pantries are managed by pantry hosts.

We manage the rest of them. We supply food. We have volunteers that sort stock clean. But it’s the thing that people need to understand is it’s tied inextricably to the business. We don’t have any paid employees. We run fundraisers. Sure, we are a file 1c3, but it’s funded by town logistics. Every dollar of revenue that comes into TLX, about a quarter of point of the revenue.

goes over to the feeding team to buy food, materials for the box truck, to deliver the pantries, to paint them, to supply them, to store food, pay insurance, gas. So when you do business with TLX, you’re helping the community. When you do business with TLX, we feed our families because that’s how we earn our living. I put people to work at your business, Anthony. I’m feeding your family. I’m also feeding their family because they’re earning a paycheck. And at the same time,

Mark Hall (54:56.942)
We are all collectively feeding people that otherwise would not get a meal. You can’t unwind this. Do business with TLX because it helps the community. It helps feed people that otherwise would go hungry. Business and ministry, the intersection of the two. And we don’t buy the thump, but if people want to talk about why we do this, Every Pantry has my life first on it, Colossians 3, 23 and 24. Do everything you do is unto the Lord, not unto men.

It’s what have. Colossians 23 and 24, which the paraphrase is, everything you do, do unto the Lord, not as unto men. Your reward is in heaven. Your reward is not here. You don’t do it for personal glory. You don’t do it for anything here. You do it because of what God has done for us. And it’s in small type. We don’t Bible thump people that are hungry or people that can’t feed their kids. They don’t care to know about any of stuff.

Anthony Codispoti (55:26.737)
Wait, say that again.

Mark Hall (55:56.854)
And we will put, there’ll be some proselytizing material that’ll be in there. There’ll be job opportunities in there. We try to connect them with other services if they’re really hurting. But the crossover piece is what’s important. People will do, we never intended it to be this way, by the way. People will do business with us because of Feeding Team. They’ll do business with us. They can spend their contract labor money anywhere. But they’ll do business with us.

because of what we do with feeding team. Lisa, I saw her just pull in the driveway. They’re going today to pick about 800 pounds of food that will be distributed out. We have about 30 volunteer families that stock and manage pantries. They come here every Wednesday to the office.

Anthony Codispoti (56:41.917)
So I’m looking at your site, feedingteam.org, and I see a couple of pictures of these, you call them pantries, and I think that’s a good word for it. I’m trying to get a sense of the size. I mean, it seems to me like this is the size of like a normal-sized, smallish closet. Would that be about right?

Mark Hall (56:48.782)
Yeah.

Mark Hall (57:00.11)
About six foot tall, about four feet wide, about three feet deep, and it’ll hold 400 to 500 non-perishable meals. We don’t stock it like that anymore because people take advantage. We set a new pantry, we’ll put three or four hundred meals in it, and then about every three days someone will come back with 20 to 100 meals. Ramen, canned tuna, canned protein.

When I speak on feeding team, I talk about the same crossover. I bring a can of Dandymoor beef stew with me, just as an illustrative object. When Lisa and I first started, 85, 86, two small girls at home, car engine blows. This was us. This is where this came from. We were a Gap family. We’re Wednesday. We both work. We’re getting paid on Friday.

We’re going, all right, well, how are we going to feed the kids tonight and tomorrow night until we get paid on Friday? Supper, more times than I would care to admit, was a can of beef stew. Back then, you’ll appreciate this from Ohio, Kroger, cost cutter, god-awful yellow can of beef stew that we could get for 30 cents, and a baked potato. That was supper.

We’ve been blessed to a place where we can give back to people that were in our same spot. That’s all this is. It’s big box you put food in. It’s not a complicated model.

Anthony Codispoti (58:26.407)
Well, and it reminds me of in my neighborhood here, we see these tiny little birdhouse shaped things where it’s for books. Have a book, leave a book, right? And then similar thing, I’ve seen same kind of size things where people will put kind of like you’re doing some food in there. And like you have something, leave it. You need something, take it. But you guys are doing this on a different scale and you’re not primarily

Mark Hall (58:34.86)
Yes. Thank you, Mark.

Anthony Codispoti (58:54.639)
relying on other folks to stock these things, you are taking that upon yourselves. You built these structures, you place these structures, you stock these structures, it sounds like multiple times per week. Yeah.

Mark Hall (59:05.774)
Yes. Well, we started, and I would drive the box truck on Friday afternoons and go put food in pantries. Then Friday afternoon became all day Friday. Then it became all day Thursday and all day Friday. And we just couldn’t do it. We had to change the model to a volunteer model. But we know, case in point, I just wrote about it. We write articles for the local newspapers about feeding team. And we learned at a charity event last weekend of a daughter.

of a local, prominent local official, single mom who was feeding herself and her child out of the panthers. Too proud to ask for help from her parents. Her parents could stroke her a check and buy her years worth of groceries. Nope, I want to do this on my own. And so you have a upper 20s single mom with a small child who’s providing for herself by feeding out of the pantry. We see it all the time.

Anthony Codispoti (01:00:02.737)
Now, most of these are located in north central Indiana, just north of Indianapolis, which is where you’re located. But I see a couple in rather remote locations from you, Las Cruces, New Mexico and Sepulpa, Oklahoma. How did those ones come about?

Mark Hall (01:00:12.699)
Yes.

Mark Hall (01:00:18.701)
Yes.

Las Cruces was a Lions group and the Lions Club in Las Cruces, New Mexico somehow found out about us and wanted to do a pantry. So we partnered together, got the plans, got all the documents, showed them what to do, taught them how to run it, and they branded it half feeding team and half Lions Club. So when you go there, there’s actually the pantry sits outside the Lions Club.

The one in outside of Tulsa is a client. We built it together. We had an outsourced contract in Tulsa where we were at the TLX partner I told you about. And we partnered together to put a pantry there. Our most recent pantry just landed a new client in Whitetown, which is about 30 minutes away from where I’m at now. We have pantries 72, 73, and 74.

all teed up ready to go. One of them is going to go to a tattoo parlor in Kokomo. One is going to go to a business on the west side of Indianapolis. And one is going to go to the health department, Hamilton County Health Department.

Anthony Codispoti (01:01:26.919)
Mark, probably my favorite question to ask in these interviews has to do with a personal challenge that someone has overcome and the lessons that they’ve learned going through the other side. We got to touch on this just a little bit in the pre-interview. So I have a feeling this is going to take up the rest of our time and I’m totally fine and very excited about that. So I want to do a couple of housekeeping items before we get into that. I just always like to invite people who are listening and like the content to hit the like.

Share subscribe button on their favorite podcast app and I want to let people know the best way to get in touch with you mark What would that be?

Mark Hall (01:02:02.99)
So probably the best way would be simple email address mark.hall at TLXCorp.com mark.hall at TLXCorp.com or 317-832-1104 317-832-1104 TLXCorp.com is the homepage for all of

Anthony Codispoti (01:02:25.639)
Great, and we’ll have all of that information in the show notes too. Okay, Mark, I’m gonna kinda turn the mic over to you for a little bit, because I wanna hear more about the health scare that you had back towards the end of 2021.

Mark Hall (01:02:40.014)
Well, let me rotate back a little bit. So you’ve had, I think this is your 71st show, if I remember right, 71.

Anthony Codispoti (01:02:48.411)
We’ve got a few that have been taped but not published yet.

Mark Hall (01:02:51.886)
thought it was kind of ironic, 71st Pantry, 71st Show, when I looked back. I’m arguably going to be the only person that you’ve ever had on your podcast that has died twice. One of the films, did a little, same group that did the art of recruiting, Integrity Recruiting, did another little 90 second blurb.

Anthony Codispoti (01:02:55.051)
okay, I like that though, yeah.

Mark Hall (01:03:14.702)
I died once in 2004 and I died on the table when they were putting a stent in. a family history of heart disease. And then in 2021 to our conversation earlier, I discovered I’d been facing a pain in the upper left side of my chest for a long time. It was like a burning baked potato and it would really stress out when I had a contentious conversation with an employee.

or contentious conversation with a or when the Colts defense was on the field. The only relief that I could get would be by standing in a doorway and pushing my hands up and really pushing against my shoulders and that would provide me some relief. We checked everything. I suspected in the back of my mind that it could be similar. My father had had…

seven bypasses my mother had had three. So I have a history of this. So I’m not naive, but know, hope springs eternal. Well, maybe it’s not. So we ran this myriad of tests from about February of 21. Every test you could think of that wasn’t a heart catheterization. In the meantime, while we’re doing these tests, I’m planning to run for office.

So I had lost in my first campaign in 2000 and well, back up, I ran for a caucus and lost. I ran in 2018 and lost. I ran in 2019 and lost. So I’m pretty sure I’m thinking, okay, God’s closing this door. He really doesn’t want this to happen. And sure as anything, we’re going through these tests and Lisa and I are…

praying through this pretty hard and it was pretty obvious to us, yeah, you’re supposed to run again. So we spent the summer while we’re doing all this testing, preparing all of the collateral material required to run for a countywide race, a countywide election. In our neck of the woods, Hemelan County is a very affluent county, about 380,000 people just north of Marion County, north of Indianapolis, as we talked earlier.

Mark Hall (01:05:33.838)
And the proposition of winning a countywide race here is much like winning a statehouse race or in some parts a federal representative race. So we filmed, we did pictures, we prepared all the clatter material and then the doc says you need to go have a heart catheterization. So you can imagine the angst. We’ve done all of this work, spent tens of thousands of dollars to get ready to go run again against what I was describing to you earlier, the evil empire.

embedded establishment politicians that did not have the constituents best interest of heart. And I’m laying on the table and all of this emotion culminates when I hear Dr. Piles say, you got to go straight to open heart.

And it was pretty surreal.

Anthony Codispoti (01:06:24.103)
was through your mind when you heard those words?

Mark Hall (01:06:26.766)
Well, they had me on a little bit of verset, but I was lucid enough.

first thing that strikes me is my wife. The next thing that strikes me is my kids. Then it goes to grandkids. And you think about it. In that moment you think about your legacy. And you think about the unimportance of so many things that we do. It’s when you’re faced with the very real prospect of your own mortality in a very near and a very real sense. Life changes.

There are no atheists in footholds. There are no atheists in the open heart surgery laboratory if you my undertone. So roll tape forward and we go to St. Vincent’s Hospital, which was incredible. I gave them a five star rating on Yelp. was, even the people that cleaned, they were happy and they were singing and we got good food and it was incredible care, even including the sergeant.

The surgeon, I don’t mind getting bumped for people that are requesting a world-class surgeon to do heart transplants. And he would sit on my bed in the morning and say, look, I could do it, but it’d be like eight o’clock tonight after a heart transplant, and I really want to give you my best. don’t. And this happened twice. So we got pushed back, and he got pushed back, and he got pushed back. We stayed through Thanksgiving of 21, and then the day came, and I was the first one up.

I remember the theater, if you’ve ever been in a surgery center like that, the lights are, it’s like being on the sun, the cold, I can remember it being in the 40s, it was frigid. And me being the quiet, shy, unassuming guy that I am, I’m up the crack of jokes. I got myself off the gurney and I’m not, I don’t have any heart problems, I got myself off the gurney. I jumped up on the operating table, I’m joking back and forth and they’re telling me.

Mark Hall (01:08:32.526)
calm down. They understand that my jabbering is a nervous reaction to what’s coming on. So four and a half, five hour surgery. Lisa describes the most dire part is when you’re in the surgery theater, they won’t tell you anything. They have a monitor outside in the waiting room and you can see the different stages of the surgery. So it’s a different color and you’re coded by a patient number. It’s not the name and she could tell.

Anthony Codispoti (01:08:54.579)
interesting.

Mark Hall (01:09:02.126)
at the point that I was taken off and put on life support, that they stopped my heart, had it out. So she knew, the moment, again, Lisa and I have been together 49 years, married 45. The moment that she was the most emotional with my daughters was that moment when she knew that this was completely in God’s hands. My husband’s heart is no longer beating. It’s sitting outside his chest and they’re gonna begin to work on it.

Very surreal moments then. A couple of very funny moments afterwards, I’m coming out of the anesthesia and just to prove that boys will be boys, my pastor is inside, he’s gonna be there with Lisa. And I’m starting to come out of the anesthesia and I’m still a little loopy and they’re talking about I gotta calm down. They actually tied my hands down because I can’t talk without him.

And I looked at the pastor and I said, if you me to calm down, she’s got to take her or put her shirt back on.

Mark Hall (01:10:09.398)
Apparently in that same process, he rebuked me and then I flipped him off.

I remember none of that. So go forward at another hour or two, they got their restraints off my hands and now we’re taking the tube out and we’re taking the mask off. And I looked at Lisa in that moment and I said, okay, we’re gonna beat you. And she knew, I didn’t have to anything more. I woke up from the anesthetic, I knew I was gonna be okay, I knew I’d survived it. And I looked at my wife and I said, now we’re gonna beat you, we’re gonna win.

Anthony Codispoti (01:10:17.341)
Blame the anesthesia.

Mark Hall (01:10:46.124)
And she’s, okay, I guess we’re back in. the re-election, was the evil empire. In context, these are not nice people. In context, we received death threats for running for a county office. In context, my middle daughter was nine months pregnant.

Anthony Codispoti (01:10:50.363)
And were you talking about beating the heart attack or were you talking about we’re going to win the election?

Mark Hall (01:11:13.592)
two days before the election at gay birth. And people on social media were posting horrible things about wanting my grandchild to be born stillborn. We would have spent any amount of money, done any amount of work, just because of they picked on the wrong family. They came at, come after me all you want, but leave my kids, my wife, my grandkids out of it and they didn’t. It was as much a rocky…

Alboa moment as I’ve ever had in my life. Waking up knowing I was going to live and knowing I was going to go kick his ass. And we did. We beat a five term incumbent by 17 points. Never, never have. Five term incumbent by 17 points.

Anthony Codispoti (01:11:55.805)
That’s unheard of.

I mean, most elections are decided within, you a handful of percentage points, but to beat a five term incumbent by 17 points, that’s, that’s insane. So how did, how did this affect your, your view and the vision of the world and your life going forward?

Mark Hall (01:12:11.16)
We were.

Mark Hall (01:12:18.424)
So I made preparations before in case I didn’t make it. I hired someone to run the businesses day to day. And he served for about eight months in a vice president role. And right before I went in, I promoted him to the president of all of the entities. He runs the day to day. So I had a tremendous amount of peace. Spiritually, I was at peace. If I die, I’m with my maker, and I got that. I don’t want to die, but if I did, I’m at peace.

The toughest part was the conversations with the kids. That was hard to have those conversations and what I’d expect out of you and what you’re need to do to take care of your mother and all of those conversations are gut wrenching. The conversations on business was pretty easy. Here’s what I want you to do and keep the wheels on and get it to here and once you get it to there I’d like you to sell it, make sure it’s taken care of and keep her on benefit. That was just check the box, da da da da da. But again, we talked about legacy.

So coming through that, it has changed my life because now I focus on things that are going to have longer last impact. Feeding team, public service, the charitable work we do through church. Not because of a near death experience, it just really kicked my butt to say, you’re not, business isn’t your end game. Business is a means to get to your end game.

and can use what you do in the context of helping other people and glorifying God, or you cannot. It’s your choice.

Anthony Codispoti (01:13:55.577)
This is what we were talking about before, how you love this combination of business and ministry, and you’ve got a word for it.

Mark Hall (01:14:02.165)
Yeah, business three. fits. And you don’t have to be a big faith person, but you can use your platform, your tools, your business to be able to help others even in a small way. We talk to people all the time. You never know the value of a can of green beans put in the pantry until you’re a mother who can’t feed her three kids.

Anthony Codispoti (01:14:26.739)
That’s a tremendous stress.

Mark Hall (01:14:27.022)
We need to be a part of that. Every day we get, every day we get to be a part of that. I’m looking out over the top of my screen and I can see a pantry. It’s 20 yards from where I’m sitting right now. So I see people pull in all the time here. There’s a guy that comes up on his wheelchairs, got one of those motorized wheelchairs. There’s a state highway out here. He rides the state highway. There’s a dad who brings a kid on a backpack and his kid up on his shoulders and he always grabs a

Anthony Codispoti (01:14:50.092)
my goodness.

Mark Hall (01:14:56.878)
protein bars on hands to the kid. There are large families of transient people that will come here and take the food that they need to get wherever they’re going. I get to be a part of that vicariously, but I get to be a part of that. If they need real help, then we offer them help to get to bigger food pantries of places that can take care of them. I would never have been in that place but for this business.

The business funds all of that. The ability to help people is because of how good we are in our business. They’re inextricably intertwined. The county council work, that’s just, that’s business. That’s business consulting and it’s a $300 million budget and you get to help a lot of people. But this is very direct. See people that’ll pull up in a late model car and they got nails all done up and they got a really nice cell phone.

and they can’t feed themselves.

Anthony Codispoti (01:15:59.101)
What a neat feeling it must be for you, Mark, to have that pantry sitting right outside your office window where you’re toiling away. Sometimes things are going well at work. Sometimes there’s big frustrations. And every now and then you get to look up and you get to see the fruits of your labor in an entirely different way playing out. The dad with the kid on his shoulders, you know, the guy in the motorized wheelchair. I have to imagine that the feeling it…

Mark Hall (01:16:05.496)
Thank

Mark Hall (01:16:21.294)
Okay.

Anthony Codispoti (01:16:26.301)
creates in your renewed heart is something that’s probably hard to put words to.

Mark Hall (01:16:31.342)
It is. Have you got time for a story? All right. So this was a lesson from our big picture window right here. Lady pulls up and normally if somebody has a cooler, they’re coming to take too much. So I was triggering, she brings out this red cooler and she brings out a child. This one happened to be a daughter and she’s not 10 yards from me, like right where I’m looking. And she begins to sign to her daughter.

Anthony Codispoti (01:16:33.65)
Yes.

Anthony Codispoti (01:16:45.585)
Hmm.

Mark Hall (01:17:00.238)
Okay, that’s unusual. I’ve never seen that. My spidey sense is going off because they brought it cooler. They’re to go over to the pantry, they’re going to take everything out, and they’re going to bail. This proves Mark’s predisposition and God’s sense of humor. She takes this thing over with the daughter and opens it up and proceeds to sign, telling, it’s like four shelves in the pantry, she’s telling the daughter about the different pantry items. And then…

Anthony Codispoti (01:17:06.386)
Yeah.

Mark Hall (01:17:29.954)
the daughter starts getting things out of the cooler and putting it in the pantry. So this is a take what you need, give what you can model. And of course I’m feeling, God, because that was not what I thought. That was the furthest thing from my mind.

Anthony Codispoti (01:17:43.023)
You were ready to go confront her and…

Mark Hall (01:17:46.062)
And you try to not do that, but you know, you go high cooler. So just to add insult to injury, she gets done. She goes back, puts the red cooler back and out comes a boy with a blue cooler. And the whole thing happens all over again. And the little boy goes over and puts stuff in the pantries just to prove the point to Mark. Don’t judge the book by its cover, you idiot.

Anthony Codispoti (01:17:48.829)
Yeah

Anthony Codispoti (01:18:12.637)
I love that story. That’s a wonderful one to end on, Mark, because it gives you a ray of sunshine and hope in a world where there’s a lot of chaos and division. When you see something like that happen, it lights you up for humanity again.

Mark Hall (01:18:29.922)
It does, Anthony. We get to live in a world of hope because we see it on a regular basis. I don’t have a lot of hope in our government and I’m on the inside and it’s hard saying no to people in balance and budgets. This is pretty basic. A pecan and green beans has a big impact on a mom’s life, like I was saying, if her kids are hungry. And through our business, we have the opportunity to be a part of that entire food chain, feeding her family.

Anthony Codispoti (01:18:31.389)
Mm-mm.

Mark Hall (01:18:58.744)
feeding our clients’ family, feeding my employees’ family, feeding my family.

Anthony Codispoti (01:19:04.211)
That’s terrific. Mark, I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Mark Hall (01:19:10.828)
My pleasure. Thanks for having me. It’s been a joy. You can’t tell I don’t have fun having these conversations at all.

Anthony Codispoti (01:19:17.779)
The room lit up because of you today, so thank you. Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.