Businesses will never thrive when there are no dynamic teams involved. The Founder and CEO of TalenTrust, Kathleen Quinn Votaw, shows us how they help improve the middle market, privately held companies that want to build a business through their People Puzzle Gap Analysis. She goes over how they train employees individually or in teams to be who they are and show what they stand for. Kathleen also talks about what her book, Solve the People Puzzle, adheres to with regards to hiring the right people, and reveals one of the things that can bring the kiss of death to any company.

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Building Mid-Market Private Companies Using People Puzzle Gap Analysis with Kathleen Quinn Votaw

We’re incredibly fortunate. We have Kathleen Quinn Votaw. She is the Founder and CEO of http://www.talentrust.com/ (TalenTrust). She is a leader in helping companies find, keep and grow great people. She’s also the author of https://talentrust.com/book/ (Solve the People Puzzle: How High-Growth Companies Attract and Retain Top Talent). She’s been recognized by the Colorado Women’s Chamber of Commerce Top 25 Most Powerful Women in Business, back-to-back Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Private Companies honoree. She’s Cobiz Magazine’s Top 100 Women on Companies six years in a row. Kathleen, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day.

Thank you so much.

Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.

TalenTrust was established in 2003, and we serve the middle market. Business owners and business leaders in the middle market and Fortune 500 companies who want to find, keep and grow great people. It’s that simple. We work on culture and we work on recruitment to make sure that they can grow. That’s my mission in life. Making sure small businesses, middle-market businesses can grow.

As a business owner, I think about the statement. There’s a challenge with many of the business owners. They get to a certain point and then they go, “I have to add key talent. I don’t know if I need a chief of staff. I don’t know if a chief operating officer, I don’t know what I need.” They go, “I’m good at running my company,” and then they have to start hiring because they’re growing.

It happens all the time and we get to a point about where we need to bring in people who compliment who we are. In privately held businesses, we can’t do it all. You get to a certain point on your journey where you have to look at other people being successful on your behalf. Either you’re going to have a lifestyle company or you’re going to have a middle market company. We work with those middle market, privately held companies that want to build a business. The owner often finds themselves in a place where how can they replace themselves so they can go on and continue to grow the company. Whether it be sales, marketing operations, finance. We often run into people who don’t know how to or when to bring in the next best athlete, next best employee to get to the next level of growth.

I think about some of the companies, you’ll talk to them and they’re bursting at the seams. The business owner’s hair is on fire and they’re going next step. I’m that business owner, my hair’s on fire. We’re growing like mad. I go, “I’ve got to do something or I’m going to die in place.” What does that conversation look like when I as the business owner reach out to you for help and trying to determine the path forward?

It often starts with, “Kathleen, something’s wrong and I don’t know what it is.” It’s because something’s not working. You get to a juncture where you understand that your culture is suffering,