The Growth Mindset Manager: Dan Saas’s Evolution from Sales Star to Operations Leader

Anthony Codispoti : 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 Codispoti and today’s guest is Mr. Dan Saas, managing partner at FACO. Founded in 2002, they are a high growth global professional services firm providing talent solutions in technology, finance and more across 50 plus markets. They partner with over 15,000 clients to deliver specialized services such as accounting, HR and marketing support. Known for their innovative approach, FACO was recently listed among America’s best executive recruiting firms by Forbes. Now Dan has been with FACO for several years, serving in roles like partner, senior director and director of client services. He currently guides the strategic direction of VACO’s Columbus office that’s in Ohio, while also serving as a board member for Small Biz Cares, a nonprofit that assists local businesses with community outreach. Dan’s breadth of experience and staffing and his commitment to helping others make him a true leader to watch. His passion for fostering professional growth and empowering teams aligns with VACO’s mission to connect talented individuals with meaningful opportunities worldwide. Now before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Add Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cash flow by implementing one of our innovative programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible.

To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest today, the managing partner of VACO, Dan Saas. I appreciate you making the time to share your story today.

Dan Saas : Yeah, I’m glad to be glad to join you.

Anthony Codispoti : So Dan, let’s go back before kind of work history and you started as a sport management major at OU, Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. How did the skills or mindset from that background later influence your leadership style in a professional services environment like VACO?

Dan Saas : Yeah, in the spirit of honesty and vulnerability, I wouldn’t recommend my college trajectory to too many. The only thing I knew coming out of school is that I didn’t want to use the degree I had. You know, the opportunities coming out of OU were, you know, the great sports management program, it was essentially a business degree with a sports focus. A lot of the entry level opportunities out of school were facilities, ticketing, event management, none of which I really had a passion for. So, you know, I wish going back into school, I had more of a, hey, this is what I want to be when I grow up. I learned it later in life through some life experiences and as most of you know, so probably a bit late on the finding my path or passion front. But, you know, obviously a great program, great school, built a great foundation for, you know, a lot of what I use today.

Anthony Codispoti : So, you were there more for the business degree and this was kind of a subset within that business degree and you went out into the world and you know, you were going to kind of find your way and eventually figure out what your passion was. So, what is it that kind of first drew you into the staffing? Pure desperation.

Dan Saas : To share a little bit about my story, you know, and this kind of dovetails or parlays back to the school front came out of college and really looking to find my path. You know, I got into financial services, you know, insurance investments and my series seven and life and health licenses, but that’s a, as many know, a very tough industry to break into without an established network or family member or some legacy influence there.

So, you know, that was a, you know, here’s your desk, have at it, right? And I wouldn’t have bought insurance from me. I wouldn’t have invested with myself and, you know, I always kind of fought that, you know, imposter syndrome a little bit, but needless to say that it wasn’t a much of by my own doing, but wasn’t the long-term fit for me. And, you know, you throw in a couple of kids out of school early and all of a sudden, you know, that commission only job becomes tough to swallow. So, you know, I made a tradition, a transition out of financial services actually into an accounts receivable role, have you on the business to consumer and business to business collection side and I remember it paid 1250 an hour. And I distinctly remember feeling and asking, you know, if I worked these hours, you’re going to guarantee me that 1250, right? Because I hadn’t been guaranteed any sort of income. And just the thought of being on an hourly position as modest as it was was so refreshing to have some, you know, consistency there with my paycheck.

Anthony Codispoti : And I’m, you’d come from a commission only environment and yeah, 1250 an hour, not a lot of money for somebody, you know, might have had college debt, you’ve got a young family coming, but hey, it’s something and you wanted to make sure I’m correct.

Dan Saas : And I, I like to joke that I broke, I reset the company handbook on amount of hours, overtime hours, you can work. So, they had to cut me off there after a while, but you know, you go from coming out of school and really not having a path or passion to, you know, getting into a relationship at an early age, having kids at an early age and all of a sudden your why becomes extremely clear. And so I became very, very good at business to business collections and accounts receivable. And really, the ability to have those kind of professional persuasive conversations helped and continues to help me to this day. So I take a lot out of that experience.

Anthony Codispoti : You know, I say, say more, yeah, say more about that, Dan, I’m curious, like, how did you, do you think you had a natural knack for that right out of the gate? Did you get some training? Was it just school of hard knocks where you kept trying different things a hundred different ways and you know,

Dan Saas : eventually, I kind of had a knack for it. Being able to connect with strangers, you know, you’re making calls and reaching out with stressful information, right? And you have an agenda and it’s very different many times than the person on the other end of the phone’s agenda. So it’s where can you create that, you know, where you can sort of put yourself on the other end of the table next to the person instead of the, you know, being the adversary from the from the organization. And that’s something I always, you know, tried to to lean into was, you know, showing empathy, showing understanding, making sure that, you know, I’m coming from a place of partnership that I think resonated well.

Anthony Codispoti : And so you were, you found you had a knack for having these conversations, these difficult conversations, right? These people are in a hard position that you’re showing empathy, you’re showing, you know, support, kind of putting yourself in their shoes rather than, you know, kind of coming at it from an attacking perspective. Did you find that this helped you be more successful in collecting funds? And were you commissioned?

Dan Saas : No, I, my incentive was, was to be the number one person, be the top performer in my group, and with the hopes of, you know, growing within the organization. And, you know, I made some, some steps along the way, but, you know, it was five to, say three to four years into, into that opportunity when, I mean, this was old school, I saw an ad on the, on Indeed and applied and, and, you know, didn’t know what I was getting myself into and, you know, when it, when it comes to staffing and recruiting and really didn’t understand what the, the third party model was. But I knew that I had built myself into a hell of an executor and somebody that had a high motor and a high drive and a high desire and frankly need for success. So, you know, that, that desperation coupled with the skills that I had learned, you know, from my previous opportunity really helped me have a pretty steep, steep trajectory in, in, in my infancy within staffing and recruiting.

Anthony Codispoti : Yeah, it’s interesting because what you were just saying, it surprised me that you’re not financially incentivized to improve your collection rate, you know, at a company like that. But I think it said a lot about your character that, because I could see a lot of people just, you know, kind of collecting the 1250 kind of going through the motions and, you know, making the calls and, you know, checking a box.

But for you, it was like, no, like I, I want to be genuinely good at this. I want to build my skillset. I want to prove my worth to the company. I want to advance myself and advance my career.

And at some point, maybe you kind of recognize that this wasn’t where you wanted to be forever, maybe you kind of, you know, reach the ceiling. And so you decide, okay, I’m going to respond to this ad in the staffing industry. And so explain what the third party model is that you weren’t familiar with before.

Dan Saas : Yeah, the entire, you know, idea of, you know, a client reaching out to a company to help them find talent. You know, I was very myopic in my view that when somebody needs to hire somebody, they just go hire somebody that there wasn’t much more to that, you know, and then you sort of learn the challenges and nuances to that and, and how, you know, a good partner in the third party world can offer a lot of value and a flexible staffing option, you know, when inter-element temporary help was needed.

So, you know, I kind of learned learned as I go and learned as I went, excuse me, but, you know, certainly, certainly believe in the model and the value that that it offers. I started very on a very transactional, you know, I was placing admin assistants and, you know, accounting clerks and AP clerks and AR clerks. And I’m, you know, interviewing these people and sort of googling what they do on the side and learning as I go and then taking those folks to market. And, you know, like I said, I did it at a very high clip and I was able to have very strategic and conversations with people and bond with people, you know, whether it was in person or over the phone. So, you know, I was, I rose through the ranks fairly quickly and into leadership.

Anthony Codispoti : And so, do you think to try to encapsulate maybe what is part of Dan’s special sauce, no pun intended as your last name, it, do you think it is sort of that ability to have empathy and put yourself in that other person’s shoes? Is there more to it than that? Like if somebody’s like, wow, you know, Dan, like it sounds like what he’s doing is pretty cool. I’d like to do that. How can I sort of develop or evolve those skills myself?

Dan Saas : I mean, there’s certainly a lot more to that. And, you know, I quickly realized and was humbled by the fact that, you know, I’ll probably never be the smartest person in the room.

You know, it would have to be a pretty small room. But, you know, not being too proud and being vulnerable enough to admit that, you know, allowed me to surround myself with very bright, very smart people. You know, I had strengths. You know, I’m a coach. I’m a leader.

I’m driven. I know how to motivate people. And I think that’s just, you know, through my background of coming up through sports and, you know, volunteer coaching and things.

So, you know, I felt like I had that piece sort of innately ingrained in me. But, you know, I was rough around the edges with my industry knowledge and professional knowledge. So, you know, I think my ability to be vulnerable and ask the stupid questions, even though someone at my level at the time should probably have already known that, you know, really helped me sort of round out fairly quickly. So, you know, as part of, you know, the ability to have empathy and, you know, there’s some skill involved with strategic conversations. But really, it’s making sure that you’re open to feedback and guidance from people that have been doing this much longer than I have.

Anthony Codispoti : Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think sometimes curiosity is kind of undervalued. You know, being able to approach this with not trying to demonstrate, like, what I know, but being curious about what can I learn? How can I grow in this kind of a situation in this environment? So, you had some stops in the staffing industry along the way before you came to VACO. How did the opportunity there at VACO present itself?

Dan Saas : Yeah, I always had known of VACO. They were a competitor when I was back at my previous firm. So, you know, they were always in the periphery. But an individual that I had worked with at that time had transitioned to VACO.

And I was working out a non-compete after I had left the organization for a new role and didn’t know I was working on a non-compete. You know, I know plans of, you know, a pit stop per se. But he had been keeping track of me and, you know, 10 months in, said, hey, you want to grab lunch and, you know, the rest is history. So, it was actually a former employee that had brought me on board with VACO.

Anthony Codispoti : What was it about VACO that attracted you? Because probably had, I don’t know, some level of comfort or security where you were before. Taking a new job is a bit of a risk, you know, a bit of an unknown. What did you see there that was attracted to?

Dan Saas : It was the autonomy that I was given to build something the way I wanted to build it. So, you know, when I came on board 10-ish years ago, VACO was, it was a, you know, $250 million organization and we’ve grown, you know, 5X in that time.

So, at the time it was really, you know, hey, what do you want your title to be? What do you want your team structure to be? Who do you want on it?

And how do you plan on running this thing? So, I, you know, it was a good progression and step up from being in a similar situation, but everything, you know, the lines were very clear. You know, decisions were made at two levels up and, you know, you just had to adhere and march forward to being in a position where they said, create this.

We expect it to work, but, you know, put the pieces together any way you see fit. So, that was exciting to me coming in. And, you know, I stepped in to lead our staffing group again, a very transactional APAR temporary accounting finance and HR associates or contractors, excuse me.

And, you know, at the time we were, we had a very modest pool of clients and, you know, we grew that by 10X and, you know, at one point at 100 and 150, you know, folks working for us just within that division. So, it was exciting. And then, you know, it was tapped on the shoulder to pivot over to our consulting group to run that team. And that was a huge learning experience for me, you know, not coming from a formal accounting and finance and IT background. But, you know, I was able to get that group humming and then, you know, eventually was asked to have oversight over all of our lines of business and accounting finance and IT. And that was, you know, a couple of years ago.

Anthony Codispoti : So, I want to take a couple of steps back and then I want you to kind of explain the three different areas that VACO serves. But, before we do that, I want to call attention to something because you guys have obviously grown a lot in the 10 years that you’ve been there. That’s clear. But when you started there, a $250 million business is still not a small business. That’s a pretty good size, you know, significant business. And so, it strikes me as unusual that they were like, hey, Dan, like, what do you want your title to be? Like, how, like, you would expect that if there’s like, you know, three or four guys, like having a beer together, like, hey, let’s start a business together. Like, what do you, what do you want to be chief of? What do you want to, you know, you don’t expect sort of like picking your own title and having that degree of autonomy in a business of that size?

Dan Saas : Well, the answer was because it was three to four guys on the back of an Appian saying, hey, we’re going to build a business together. So, that was our, that was the beginning of VACO in a broom closet, you know, in Tennessee. So, we, and still do have maintained a very entrepreneurial spirit. You know, we, and even back at the time, yeah, the company was a decent size, but, you know, every office was different, every office leader was different. There were some offices that leaned into a certain service offering than others. So, it was the, the, the organization grew by basically going into markets and saying, you know, what, you do this very well, we’re going to plan a VACO flag here.

And, and you continue to do this, whether it’s a managed service offering or consulting offering or, or, you know, a pure staffing offering. So, you know, VACO looked very different from, from office to office to office to office. And really, it was like, we’re going to find top talent. We’re going to get them in the right seat, and then we’re going to let them do their thing. Now, eventually we got to a size and we are at a size where, you know, it’s difficult to scale. If ever exactly, you know, so, so that’s where we’ve really, I would say, matured as, as, as an organization and put some parameters to, you know, what are we known for, what’s our brand. But at the time it was very loose. And, and this is, this was before the time that, you know, everything was interconnected through, you know, you know, globalized delivery and, and so, you know, it was very much, you know, we had our local presence, we had our local brand, and it looked kind of similar, but not the same as, as another office. And, and, you know, to, to kind of progress to, to where we are today, it was really when, when COVID hit, where, you know, I think the world realized that, that, hey, people can work remotely.

The sun does come up the next day. We took that opportunity to really operationalize ourselves and take advantage of the fact that, hey, just because, you know, we have a managed service practice that sits out of San Francisco, why can’t we offer that in Ohio? Just because we have a consultancy out of D.C., why does that just need to be a D.C. play? Really?

Anthony Codispoti : So, meaning you’ve got like a consulting office there, but why can’t those consultants provide the service to clients all over the country?

Dan Saas : So, we, we really leaned into that point of, of creating, you know, those three lanes of delivery being, you know, managed services, consulting and, and strategic talent acquisition. And really it was the culmination of things that had always existed in the vehicle world, but it just sat geographically in a, in a different area.

So, we’ve since, you know, enhanced and refined that massively into a very powerful delivery engine in a very broad way that we can, we can help clients and, and clients and customers solve, solve business challenges.

Anthony Codispoti : So, kind of walk me through those three different areas. What each of those things mean? I think the first one you mentioned was managed services. What is that?

Dan Saas : Essentially that, yeah, essentially that’s any business function or operation that an organization wants to outsource. So, the most simple example that I can provide is, is nearshoring and offshoring. You know, a company might reach out to us and say, you know, hey, we’ve got a team of, of 10 people in, in, in AP right now. I’m looking for cost arbitrage. I’m looking to eliminate the fact that I can’t hire within this group.

It’s not operating correctly. We’ll take that entire function for an organization, put it in, in, in our nearshore location and just provide that deliverable back to, back to the client on a monthly basis and it’s seamless with significant cost savings. So, you know, that can be very transactional accounting and finance that can be, you know, mid to high level IT. And, and we’ve, we found ourselves in, in some massive projects with the likes of Google and TikTok and Netflix and, okay.

Anthony Codispoti : Rather significant clients. Who, who, who are kind of the ideal fits for the, the managed services portion. Are they the really big companies? Could like a small mom and pop shop use you guys?

Dan Saas : Surprisingly. And I would say the beauty of our model is in a scalability where, you know, we do service the fortune one, you know, the fortune 10, but where we’ve seen the biggest growth within managed services has been in that, we’ll say 150 million and, and, and lower, you know, nonprofits, you know, small to mid-sized players where, you know, they either don’t want it to continue to have something sit on shore. They’re looking to save money. They’re looking to become more efficient. That’s really been the biggest uptick in, in our business has been in that, that small to mid-sized space.

Anthony Codispoti : Okay. Tell me about the kind of the second pillar, the consulting. What, what, what kind of consulting?

Dan Saas : It’s, it’s accounting finance and IT consulting. And that group is very broad in, in how they service clients. A couple of main areas I would, I’ll provide is, is, you know, ERP implementation and support, data, AI, transaction advisory, or a couple of the key pillars. But essentially our consulting group will come into an organization that has an issue that they don’t have a roadmap for.

They don’t have internal expertise. They need to reliance on pretty heavy hitters and, and with solid accounting finance pedigree and a new project, whether that be assisting with, you know, an, a new accounting software or, you know, maybe an organization wants to go public, providing guidance on, on what sort of reporting they need to have in place or they want to go public to private or, you know, they’re purchasing an organization or being purchased. So those are just a few areas that we support through our consulting offering.

Anthony Codispoti : So before we talk about the third area, are your VACO employees or your, you know, offshore and your shore folks, are they generally confined to one of these three pillars? Or do you see people, your, your team kind of move in between providing consulting services or management?

Dan Saas : From a delivery standpoint, we’re specialized. So, and that’s very much intentional. You know, we, from a sales standpoint, I’m having conversations with clients about all of these, these offerings and how we can blend and, and, and put something together that’s truly customized for them. But, you know, I don’t want my delivery team to be masters of none. So, you know, we’ve, we’ve put a lot of really smart people into some, you know, some pretty defined lanes from a delivery standpoint, which has, which has been a competitive advantage for us.

Anthony Codispoti : That makes a lot of sense. And as you were talking about before, when you guys were, you know, growing super fast, it was like, hey, you’re talented, go do your thing your way. And yeah, once you get to a certain size, like, you know, having SOPs, having standard processes, having things siloed.

So it’s like, I, I can be the expert of this domain, and I don’t have to worry about all this. But from a sales perspective, obviously, you need to be able to talk about all those different functions, because you don’t know what a client’s going to need. You know, it’s like, they, they could have needs that fall into the different buckets, but from a delivery standpoint, it makes a lot of sense to have them siloed. So, so tell me, Dan, Dan, about the third one, the strategic talent acquisition and staffing.

Dan Saas : Yeah. So we provide interim contract and indirect hire support to over 10,000 clients as an enterprise. So that can mean anything from, hey, my receptionist went on vacation for, or, you know, it’s got to leave for the next month. I need somebody to come in and man the front desk all the way up to and including, you know, our CFO is, is, has resigned and we need, you know, a contract CFO, CEO, COO, Senior Finance Resources. So we’ve got, we’ve got our teams specialized in, and again, to, to, to focus on certain areas and, and so it’s, you know, contract staffing and we have a consulting offering where we, we essentially loan staff individuals that we’ve brought on full time.

And then we’ve got a very experienced direct, direct hire group that is recruiting full time for clients that, you know, would prefer a full time hire versus, you know, an interim or contract option.

Anthony Codispoti : And so the geographies that you guys cover, is it all 50 states? Is it out of the global?

Dan Saas : We’ve got 40 offices across the states. We’re in Canada, we’re in the UK, we’re in India, we’re in the Philippines, Trinidad, we do a lot of, of our near showing to Trinidad and, and so

Anthony Codispoti : but in terms of the geographies that

Dan Saas : you’ve seen us from, from our perspective here in, in Ohio, we service greater central Ohio area, we will service Cleveland as well. We’ve got an office in Cincinnati that services that area and I would say a little bit into Kentucky, but in the states we’ve got 40 offices that service every, you know, every state.

Anthony Codispoti : And so your role now is you’re ahead of the Columbus office, you manage all the services coming in. That’s correct. there. And so the trajectory that you sort of described for us before and sort of the, you know, make up your own title when you come in and then, you know, get tapped on the shoulder to, you know, move into the consulting group and all that, that was specifically within the Columbus room that you were making those moves. Got it.

Okay. And seeing here, you know, Vaco was recognized by Inc. Magazine for its growth and workplace culture. What do you think sets the culture apart from other services firms, especially with you guys being so distributed with so many different options?

Dan Saas : I’d say from a culture perspective, we’ve been able to maintain our entrepreneurial spirit as we’ve grown. Now, it’s not what it was, but, you know, the lines are so solid. And getting outside of the prescribed box is so difficult. And it limits the sharing of good ideas.

It limits, you know, trying something new. You know, we keep those lines intentionally blurred a little bit, where we want people to build something if it’s, you know, a good business decision and drives value and, you know, relates to our core values that, hey, let’s, you know, we, for instance, we don’t have a networking group in this space. Why don’t we build one?

You know, we don’t have a quarterly women’s leadership group. Well, let’s build one. And, you know, even, you know, hey, I’ve got a new idea about a business service offering. Let’s talk through it. Let’s give it a shot.

And if it makes sense, let’s go all out. So I think that’s kept people engaged and feeling like, you know, they’re not just a cog in the machine. And that good ideas and new ideas and outside thought is certainly welcomed and celebrated and acted upon.

Anthony Codispoti : I’m kind of curious, you know, since you’ve stepped into sort of this managing partner role a couple years ago, is there a particular innovative or out of the box strategy that you and your team have introduced that’s really helped you guys kind of stand out in a competitive space?

Dan Saas : When I came on board as the managing partner, I quickly discovered, you know, there’s no real magic bullet to what I was doing. You know, I wasn’t going to come up with something that was completely radical and game changing. We had an issue with execution. We’re really good about talking about something we were going to do. We’re really bad at actually doing it.

So if there’s one thing that I knew I had to fix and was passionate about optimizing, it was our ability to execute. I’m not an organized person by nature. I don’t have a project manager mindset.

So for me, it did not come naturally. I’m a former sales guy that colored outside of the lines and was wheeling and dealing. So becoming an operational leader was certainly an area of growth for me. But I can proudly say that we’ve come leagues in our ability to take a good idea, do something with see it through or punt midway through if it’s not the right move, but actually giving things fair shots and fair shakes. And that’s been critical in our growth. I think from a service offerings perspective, our integrated ability to offer back to that managed services consulting and acquisition blend has allowed us to have very honest and consultative conversations with our clients where I don’t come in with an agenda. My agenda is certainly to solve a problem for an organization, but it doesn’t have to look a certain way.

And oftentimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it’s a little bit of staff augmentation with some oversight from our consulting group and some of our offshore and it’s all based upon what the client challenges and what they’re hoping to accomplish. So I know a lot of my industry peers are coming at this through, hey, do you need a body? Do you need a body here?

Do you need an extra body here? And if the market conditions last year were such where a lot of times that answer was no and that conversation could never go any further. So really leaning into an integrated blend of delivery mechanisms was huge.

Anthony Codispoti : It’s interesting what you said about when you came in, you guys are really good at talking about what you do. Not so good on the execution part. And you called out exactly where my brain went is yeah, sales guys, they’re great at sales. They’re not usually good on the operational front. There generally isn’t very good crossover between those two functions. Your brain is sort of, you know, pre wire for one way or the other. So did you guys get a lot better because of, you know, some of the internal team members that you had where you’re like, hey, I recognize that this is something we really need to focus on. I’m going to need your help because this is kind of the way your brain works to

Dan Saas : person X, Y, you know, we did have a couple of folks internally with very operational focuses and mindsets coming in. So leaning on those individuals to drive things. But I put a lot of that on myself as an area of growth, area of opportunity to round myself out professionally. It’s not just because it doesn’t come naturally to me. It doesn’t mean it’s something I can’t do.

I just have to try a little bit harder and be a little bit more intentional about it. So, you know, I took a lot upon myself to say, you know, this isn’t possible. The idea of execution isn’t, you know, something you have or don’t. It’s just about, you know, if it doesn’t come naturally, you got to put a little more work into it.

Anthony Codispoti : I’m so happy to hear you give that kind of a response because I think it highlights something that a lot of people don’t understand and those who do understand it need reminded of and it’s this idea of growth mindset versus fixed mindset, right? It’d be so easy to say, well, I’m, you know, Dan Sauss, like I’m a great sales guy, like that operation stuff, you know, like that’s not for me. Like, you know, that’s for somebody else.

And I’ve got two young boys, they’re eight and 10. And I always try to think about ways to sort of, you know, educate them and teach them of this, that you may not be great at something today, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t get better at it. Like we all have opportunities for growth and we can stretch ourselves into these new and uncomfortable places. And so I love to hear that, you know, it was like, hey, it was a combination of I leaned on some people internal that, you know, they have sort of the background, the expertise in this. And at the same time, I told myself, hey, you’re leveling up, like, I got to show up and I got to help to make this entire operation better. 100%.

Dan Saas : And I faced the same challenge with my kids.

Anthony Codispoti : Yeah, you have no, I don’t, it was more of a question to how you’re doing.

Anthony Codispoti : I don’t, I don’t think it’s sinking in quite yet. Because, you know, my 10 year old, he’s like, dad, I’m already good at football. And I’m like, yeah, you got, you got some skills. And like, and if you want to get better, like you can practice or, oh, dad, I’m not good at social studies or I’m, you know, I’m not good at, you know, language arts. Like, well, how do you get better? So no, I don’t, I don’t have the,

Dan Saas : I tell you what, we could probably spend eight hours on that topic alone. But, you know, coming from, you know, now an adult having, having kids, it’s, it’s interesting that overcoming adversity is such a challenge for kids these days. It’s, you know, that immediate gratification. And if it’s not there, it’s, you know, I’m not interested. So I, you know, I’m, I’m right there as well as saying, you know, you always have to be pushing yourself striving for excellence. How can you get better? If this is indeed what you want, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll spell the path out for you and you’re not on it. So yeah, it’s.

Anthony Codispoti : And along these lines, it will kind of get back to the main topic here. But I think this is kind of an interesting sidebar. You know, as parents, like we, we really want to protect our kids from hardship and struggle. And, you know, we hate to see them be hurt or sad or, or, or angry. And at the same time, we recognize that there’s value in that struggle, right? Like you, you’ve mentioned, you know, several times here, sort of the, you know, like the learning curve that you have moving into the consulting group, the, you know, the, the challenges of, you know, you kind of focusing more on operational stuff to help fix your execution. Like, like that was hard, right? That was, that was, that was a struggle.

It didn’t come naturally to you. But, you know, as you look back, like, what a great path for you to have taken. And so as parents, it’s kind of hard to watch our kids struggle, even though we know that oftentimes that struggle is the way for them to grow.

Dan Saas : And, you know, I think sometimes it’s, I want to go pay my neighbor 20 bucks to say the same thing to my kid as I’ve been trying to say, just so they hear it from, from somebody else.

But, you know, I think it, you know, it’s, it comes down to the reality. You don’t want your kid to be punched in the face when they have their first job. And, and I certainly grew, you know, the majority of my growth and advice comes from the mistakes I made. And you always want that for your kids. But, you know, I have to find that balance.

Anthony Codispoti : Yeah. Yeah. Because in parents, you go into protective mode. Sure. Yeah. Okay. So get, get back to sort of the work that you’re doing at Baco. The, the incredible growth that you guys have experienced. Is this due in part to acquisitions? Has that been part of the strategy?

Dan Saas : Yeah, both we’ve, we’ve acquired and we’ve grown organically. You know, we’ve entered into, we’ve made some business decisions that, that making, making some acquisitions was a good entry point into a certain market. You know, that’s how we got into Canada. And, and, you know, we’ve acquired some, some fairly sizable shops on the West Coast as well. So, but, you know, it’s, it’s organic growth as well. It’s really a mixture of the two.

Anthony Codispoti : And Vico’s a publicly traded company now? No. It is not. Okay. So it’s, it’s, it’s started private, it’s remained private. What was, what did you say? Was it three or four guys in the broom closet?

Dan Saas : Yeah. It was a bunch of very driven, passionate and talented individuals that, that decided that their current company did, did a lot right, but wasn’t always humane. And so they, their, their goal was to take the best parts of that and, and strip out the BS and, and start a business with, with that simple operating model.

Anthony Codispoti : What do you mean? The, the previous models were not humane?

Dan Saas : This industry, you can get really married and I think at any sales position to, to the activity. And we always want our salespeople to, you know, have high activity levels, but you can’t do that at the, at the expense of results. You know, if, if somebody’s hit their quota by, you know, two X, I’m not going to beat them up if they’re too meeting short of hitting their goal because it shows me that, you know, they’re spending the right time doing the right things and their, their model and approach may be different than the other person.

But, you know, there’s plenty of shops that will, you know, make you explain those two meetings that you didn’t hit and, and, and, you know, what, what exactly you were doing with your time and, and, you know, that gets abusive after a while. And, and especially when you get some tenure and you, you know how you see success and it may not be right along the company handbook of, of, you know, how it’s written. But, but you gotta have a lot, you have to allow for that, or you’re gonna, you’re gonna lose talented people after they start understanding that.

So, you know, we’ve, we’ve eventually found our way into some middle ground where, you know, back to, it can’t be the wild, wild west and we’ve scaled to a, a large organization, right? There needs to be some, some structure and some expectation and, and prescription around, you know, the, the amount of activity needed to succeed. That’s just the recipe to how to do well in this industry. But, you know, you, in my opinion, you know, taking a results first mindset versus an activity first mindset makes a lot more sense and, and allows me to judge people on the right and grade people on the right things.

Anthony Codispoti : That makes a lot of sense. I’d like to hear more about how you personally as well as maybe, you know, Vaco is an institution, think about recruiting, retaining team members. What, what have you done, you know, whether it’s sort of your, you know, full-time internal people, whether it’s offshore, near-shore, whether it’s, you know, contract folks that you’re, you know, placing at your, at your client’s sites.

What have you guys, you know, it continues to be a tight labor market for a lot of folks. So what have you guys found success with in terms of finding people sort of, you know, sifting through all the noise and then, you know, once you’ve got them, like, from

Dan Saas : an internal perspective, I want to provide every opportunity for somebody to grow into my role and not be threatened by that. So, you know, I’m sharing, you know, monthly financials with, you know, my lines of business leaders and saying, hey, what do you see here?

What are your areas of opportunity? What have you learned from this and, you know, getting them to have ownership of, of a P &L and, and, you know, feel like they’ve got some stake in the game rather than just reporting a number to somebody up the food chain. And I really think that empowers leaders to, to take ownership of their work and take ownership of the work of their teams. And, and so I certainly lean into providing every opportunity for someone to grow with us, you know, like I said, I’m surrounded by people that are smarter than I am. So I, I don’t fail to utilize them.

Anthony Codispoti : And it’s big and smart of you to recognize that, that you’ve got folks around you that are, you know, better at their individual roles than, than you are. It shows that you’re hiring correctly, right? Yeah, you’re putting the right people in the right seats.

Dan Saas : Yeah. And I, you know, our attrition is for our industry is very low, very low by comparison. And I think the, you know, we treat people like adults, we invest in them and we foster growth.

And I think people appreciate that. And, and, you know, there, there are, you know, there’s always this war to, to pluck talent from, from other agencies and, you know, bring people in. And frankly, I’m never concerned about losing anybody to another agency, to another firm, because I know what we have can’t be matched, at least not in the.

Anthony Codispoti : And you think it’s, it’s, it’s mostly based around that fact that you, you really encourage and foster individual growth in your team.

Dan Saas : And we provide, I have part of it. Standards, right? We have expectations as a business, but, you know, we offer a lot of flexibility to folks. And I think that’s appreciated, you know, if it’s abused, we’ll, we’ll address it.

It normally isn’t. But, you know, we try to hire the people that you don’t have to keep your thumb down on to produce when you look the other way. And if we’ve done that right, it’s just about, you know, training them up in the right way, giving them the right environment to succeed and let them go.

Anthony Codispoti : Dan, what’s a serious challenge that you’ve had to overcome? What was it? What did you learn? How did you get through it?

Dan Saas : I dealt with a lot on my plate from a personal standpoint. Over the last, I would say, five to 10 years. Couple that with the stresses of the job and my inherent need, if you ask anybody that knows me well enough, to try to control every variable within my life, right? Whether that be, you know, the, what my kids are doing to, you know, what a next spouse is doing or how they’re thinking to, you know, how’s everything on the home front now to every variable that, that, comes up in every, every day business. And it was maddening and I didn’t deal with it well. And so I got burned out and I wasn’t the father I wanted to be, you know, I, I was in shutdown mode immediately after work because I was just, my cup was full, right? And I couldn’t offer my spouse the attention that she needed, my kids, the attention that they needed because I was too busy trying to wrap my arms around every single thing in my life and spin those plates and keep them up at all times.

And, and that continues to be a struggle. I’m a control person by nature. I want to, I want to feel like I have some effect on an outcome realizing that I still can, but I cannot, I have to let go of some of that. You know, whether that be through, you know, believe in higher power or through religion or wherever you, you know, choose to exercise that, but, but letting go and saying, you know what, there are things and variables in my life that I can control, but there’s a hell of a lot that I cannot. I have to be okay with that.

It’s going to suck because it’s, it, again, it doesn’t come naturally to me to just, you know, believe in the outcome. But it was necessary for me to, to sort of balance my life from a personal and, and professional standpoint and feel like I could let some of that, that stress go was, was huge.

Anthony Codispoti : I think, I think what you’re touching on here doesn’t get enough airtime. Yeah, sort of this, because I mean, you know, type a hard driven, you know, people like ourselves, you know, it’s, it’s both a blessing and a curse, right? Like you’re good at what you do, Dan, because you are thinking about all the details and, you know, controlling all these different aspects that you can, but the reality of the world is that it’s so complex and there’s so many other variables outside of our control that you can line up all of your pegs exactly, you know, in a straight row and, you know, be completely prepared.

And then something happens that you could have never foreseen, wouldn’t have any influence on and it completely, you know, disrupts your game plan. You mentioned I mean, you touched on faith. Is that something that has been an important element for you and, and at least to some degree starting to let go of this sense of trying to control everything? 100%.

Dan Saas : And, and, you know, as part of a small group of, of, you know, some, some great individuals that I, I met with on a weekly basis. Unfortunately, schedules have gotten away from me where that’s no longer always possible. But, you know, that was a big focus in, in, you know, throughout a couple of conversations with that group kind of immediately hit a chord with me that, man, you’ve got a stranglehold around a ton of different things. And, you know, A, you can’t control how that person is thinking, how they’re feeling, what they’re going to do. But your sure as hell putting a lot of thought into it and allowing that to dictate your, your, your happiness and your state of mind. And, and you have to let some of that go. Like, you have to know you’re doing the right things, but you have to know that you can’t control everything. And, you know, whoever you trust or believe in or what you believe in, you know, it’s, it’s, you know, very cathartic to, to, to come to that realization.

And, you know, you kind of feel like you’ve taken some things off your shoulders. So not to say that it’s fixed, like I still my mentality and that’s my default, right, is, is to stranglehold it. And I have to remind myself that, listen, it’s impossible to do.

Anthony Codispoti : It’s, it’s this game of, of consure tug of war, right? Like, that part of your brain can say, Hey, yeah, I recognize I need to let go of things. And another part of your brain is, yeah, but I don’t know what happens if I do, right?

Dan Saas : Right. So, you know, and then from a business standpoint, that just goes down to goes back to, you know, bringing the right people on board, trusting them, and knowing that you’ve, you’ve set them up to succeed, but allowing them to succeed. Similar to the path I was given coming on board, right, is just build this and, you know, how you think you ought to, and we’re going to give you the resources and have the expectation that you’re going to grow out and do it right. But we’re going to give you the space.

Anthony Codispoti : Dan, let’s say you and I connect again a year from now, and you’re celebrating something. What would that be?

Dan Saas : You know, we’ve got some pretty gaudy financial goals for our business that I think we’re poised to hit as long as our execution and go back to that execution piece is, is, is an A or an A minus this year. So I think we’re putting ourselves, I think we’ve put ourselves in the place where we can’t hit that. That’s been a big, you know, goal from when I’ve come on board to sort of hit that, that milestone as an office. So I hope to be, and plan to be celebrating that, you know, over the next year. And I would just, you know, from a personal standpoint is continued investment in myself and continue, continue growth as a professional, as an individual. I know that’s not quantifiable at times, but I think it always needs to be top of mind and something that I always haven’t placed a whole lot of importance in.

Anthony Codispoti : Can you say more about the growth goals, either like what they are or why it is that you feel so encouraged that you can hit them?

Dan Saas : Yeah, so we’ve got our budget number and, and I’ve put our bogie about 30% above that budget number. So it’s, you know, it’s gaudy. It’s, it’s going to be a reach. But again, I think we’re at a spot where we’re doing the simple things right consistently. And we’re starting to realize the power of, you know, being able to have larger, broader conversations with clients about big ticket, big picture initiatives, you know, that come with, you know, big, big price tags and big paychecks at the end of the day. If you’re taking an organization through a digital transformation or an ERP implementation or, you know, a very strategic and high level journey. So, you know, having that mechanism to say, you know what, staff aug maybe down this quarter, there may not be a lot of people bringing on contract associates. However, a heck of a lot of people want to talk about offshore right now. Heck of a lot of people want to talk about data optimization right now. Heck of a lot of people want to talk about AI right now. Let’s have those conversations.

Anthony Codispoti : And you feel like you’ve got the operational support in place to execute on those as you’re striking up those.

Dan Saas : We do. You know, our organization went through a recent brand transformation where we had a bit of a convoluted story to tell, just going back to, you know, my earlier comment about every office looking a little bit different. And as we started to operationalize that, we were rolling out seven different brands, you know, this is our supply chain brand, and this is our consulting brand, and this is our healthcare brand. And this, you know, and it just became word salad at some point, trying to introduce these to somebody who doesn’t have a background in what we do. We’ve merged those into an entity called High Spring, which Vaco is the talent acquisition arm of High Spring, and High Spring is our main delivery engine for managed services and consulting. And that’s agnostic across organizations. We still have the same specializations, but, you know, it eliminates a lot of the noise and how we introduce ourselves and what we do. So that’s been powerful, and that’s a resonator with market.

Anthony Codispoti : No. Dan, I’ve just got one more question for you. But before I ask it, I want to do two things. I’m going to invite all our listeners, first of all, to go ahead and hit the follow button on their favorite podcast app. So you can continue to get more great interviews like we’ve had today with Dan Soss from Vaco. Dan, I also want to let people know the best way either to get in touch with you personally, follow your story or that Vaco.

Dan Saas : Yeah, connect with me on LinkedIn. S-A-A-S is my last name. Software is a service. So it’s pretty easy to remember and a great ice breaker for me at times or stupid joke or both.

Anthony Codispoti : And I made one myself.

Dan Saas : There you go. Yes. I took the time. Sorry, go ahead. So LinkedIn will include the link here in the show notes. Please, you know, send me an email, dsoss at Vaco.com. Happy to engage or answer any questions anybody may have about what we do and how we partner with clients. So, yeah, I’m certainly excited for the opportunity to share our story and in my story. And hopefully, it’s somebody out there who finds value in it.

Anthony Codispoti : So last question for you. I want to make sure that we talk about the Small Biz Cares that you’re a board member of. What is this? How did you get started with it? What does it do?

Dan Saas : S-Gosh, I got started with Small Biz Cares. I’m a morning person. And so I think it was a Sunday and I don’t know if this show is still on. It probably is. It was like Experience Columbus or something. And it comes on at 5.30 or 6 a.m. on Sunday mornings.

So I was walking the dogs and sort of listening to catch up on current events around the city. And Davine Bansal came on and he’s the creator of Small Biz Cares. And really, he was looking for an opportunity to create a group that fosters philanthropy that is a resource to organizations that say, hey, I want to give back. I don’t really know how or I don’t have the time to organize my team into volunteering or whatever we may want to do.

Small Biz Cares provides that, is that outlet and mechanism in which they can engage with to become more involved in the community, to network with other small business and small entrepreneurs, solar entrepreneurs, as well as some mid-sized organizations. So it’s been a great group to be a part of. And I think we’ve done a lot of good. We have quarterly events and we’re volunteering, whether that be life-wise of Ohio or the food pantry or the Columbus Food Collective. So we always try to do a lot of good. And we have a scholarship offering as well that comes through that group. So, yeah, Small Biz Cares.

Anthony Codispoti : How could folks learn more about it? Yes, Small Biz Cares.org. We’ll make sure we include that in the show notes, too. Dan Saas, I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today.

Dan Saas : I appreciate the opportunity to be on Anthony and looking forward to staying in touch.

Anthony Codispoti : That’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories Podcast, folks. Thanks for learning with us today. you