Today we’d like to introduce you to Nick Pierce.
Nick, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I believe the subject of being an entrepreneur is a very important one because anyone can achieve this goal. And living in this country is one of the greatest places for such an opportunity. This subject is important because being an entrepreneur is open to all. It doesn’t matter what your race, color, education or even finances are because ANYONE willing to have a plan and willing to work hard has a chance of making it. And if you are good at what you do and offer value, company politics will have no bearing on your success.
And being an entrepreneur is not reserved for the privileged. As a point, there are many people today in this country who have little education, money or prospects for rising up the corporate ladder. Many can’t even speak English well. But any one of them, given the proper work ethic and ability to think, can become a successful entrepreneur. As just one example, one can work in retail at the lowest level, as my grandparents did. With determination, discipline and hard work, there will always be a need for reliable help. Work harder than anyone else and from there you will move upwards with a goal of one day starting you own business. You can even find funding to get started.
My story is not a-typical of entrepreneurs. Both of my grandfathers emigrated to the U.S., without education or money. Both became small business owners. As did both my father and mother, without money or education. As a second-generation American, I was fortunate to have attended a state-sponsored college. I was an average student which served as a motivation for me because being average made me fear failure. How would I compete as an adult with such pedestrian qualifications?
I worked hard to maintain average grades, and also worked hard making money during my education years, starting in grade school. After graduation I took an entry level position with Dun & Bradstreet as a credit reporter. It was a starting place for me, but I quickly became bored because I could see moving up the ladder only after sufficient time was put into the job and not because of special skills. Everyone was at my level and were equal.
I had always known I wanted to get into sales because I knew that if you can sell, then it didn’t matter how tenured you were or where you went to school. All that mattered was your ability to sell. And my job at D&B, while not sales, did provide me with exposure dealing with business owners soliciting financial information.
So I learned how to deal with people which was a skill needed for sales. On a whim I answered an ad in the paper for a management trainee. The position involved working for an employment agency and represented a 100% commission job. I had only been out of college for six months and had no sales experience at all, but I reasoned that I can control how hard I worked and concluded that I could make as many calls as humanly possible during a 30-day period. I could control this effort. So I concluded that I should be able to place one person within one month and calculated that I would make much more money than what D&B was paying. I took the job!
I later found out that both of my parents were sure that I would fail. The idea of me working on 100% commission was a certain path to failure they concluded. After all, I was somewhat of a shy kid and they could not see me
succeeding in such a role.
Determined, I placed two candidates during my first month. I was elated! Success fuels confidence and I quickly became the top biller within the office. Three and a half years later, I was the youngest general manager (of four offices) and only 25 years old.
Confident in my ability to bring in business, starting my own recruiting firm was a logical move and I was anxious to go in that direction. I controlled my destiny, I brought in my own clients and they knew ME. So I started Pierce-James Consulting with one partner (whom I trained while G.M.). And seven of my former staff asked to follow.
After five years, and transitioning our clientele from a “contingency” model to “retained” I wanted to learn from the big search firms. They were the firms getting the largest searches, so I left the entrepreneurial sector to join a top-global retainer search firm as a partner. I ended working as a partner for three global retainer search firms during a 15-year period, each time joining an even larger firm.
After 15 years working for global firms, I became frustrated by the rigidity and politics of the environment. I learned quite a bit during this period, but opted to return to my roots and started my second search firm, Pierce-Consulting Partners in 2002.
As I knew from my first foray into being an entrepreneur, if you are good, clients will follow you. Today we are a high-end retainer search firm of 10 senior partners, dealing with companies as large of Fortune 10 down to much smaller enterprises.
So what have I learned to be the secrets of being a successful entrepreneur? First, you have to believe in yourself and be 100% committed to delivering the highest quality of value and at a level higher than anyone else. This can be as simple of being available 24/7. You must understand your value. Competition is fierce so you need to clearly be able to articulate why you are the better choice….and you must be able to prove it every day. You have to be exceptionally good at what you do, work hard, deliver a high quality of product or service and be someone that people want to work with at all times.
Maybe your direction for being in business for yourself might be a painter or someone who cuts grass. Go the extra mile. Be on time, professional, perform your services with precision, be polite and appreciative, etc. In short, DON’T JUST SHOW UP! Be the best at what you do…period. And think about how you can grow your business. Ask to be considered for the next job, ask for positive endorsement on social media, etc. If you are in retail such as a sandwich shop, give your customers high quality food, in a clean environment, at a good value, and be extremely polite. Take the time to sincerely thank the person for their business. Make a point to recognize them if they are returning customers. Think about all of the restaurants that you visit. Do they deliver on the aforementioned points? Probably not. So do it better than they do.
Also, being an entrepreneur is not easy. You need to be able to sustain your efforts when times are not good. Business goes up and down. You can’t get easily discouraged. You need to continue to believe in yourself, your product or service, and KEEP DOING YOUR BEST.
And never become complacent. Constantly look to improve and challenge yourself to be your own critic. “What can I do better?” should be a constant question in your mind. How many times do we see a restaurant open to good reviews and then they take their customers for granted or maybe cheapen their quality? ALWAYS commit to being the best.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Economic fluctuations are a constant in business. One must be prepared for them, stay focused when they occur, and never give up.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Pierce Consulting Partners – what should we know?
Pierce-Consulting Partners is a high-end, high-touch retainer search firm. In summary, companies pay us a fee (retainer) to find and help hire senior executive talent. We have been retained by a wide range of companies from Fortune 10 down to smaller companies with revenue as low as $10 million.
We are known for delivering a superior service where our partners actually perform all aspects of our searches (as opposed to larger competitors where partners bring in the business and have “back-room” consultants do the search.
Our strategic points of differentiation:
1. Only partners execute our searches. We put our most experience people on the “front-end”, telling our client’s story to a highly discriminating talent pool. This provides a higher conversation rate of passive to active candidates.
2. We only conduct two to four searches at any one time, often putting two partners on a search. This assures that our clients get our attention and contributes to quicker completion times.
3. As a boutique search firm, we have a far greater access to the talent pool, thus our candidates are more strategically aligned with the unique needs of our clients. We have fewer “off-limits” and “candidate reservation” issues which is a significant point when going after talent.
There are two facts that make me most proud. First, we have a 90% client repeat rate. This is the most reliable point that suggests our credibility. If a client hires us a second, third, tenth time, then we know that we have satisfied their high expectations.
Second, of my nine partners, three of them are former clients and two are former colleagues of mine. This validates me personally in the eyes of highly respected people and that our model is viewed to be superior.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Other than my parents who demonstrated what it takes to be successful entrepreneurs, I have not had any one person serve as my mentor. However, having worked over the years with a collection of quality search professionals certainly is part of the learning process. Constantly soliciting feedback from clients over the years also provides knowledge necessary for success.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.piercecp.com
- Email: npierce@piercecp.com
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