Staying Focused on Execution at Axiom Recruit

Something keeps coming up in conversations with founders that I don't think enough senior executives hear. When a founder describes who they need on their team, they almost never start with a job title. They say things like: "𝘐 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘬 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘺 𝘰𝘱𝘴 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘮 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘸𝘰 𝘥𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘢 𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘬 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘹 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴." "𝘐 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰'𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘢 𝘚𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘉 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘮𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐'𝘮 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨." "𝘐 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰'𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘮𝘦 𝘐'𝘮 𝘸𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘨 - 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘮 𝘸𝘰𝘯'𝘵." Not once has a founder said to me: "𝘐 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 20 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘦𝘹𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘮𝘺 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘳." What they're describing is judgement. Pattern recognition. The ability to walk into unfamiliar territory and be useful fast. And here's the part that surprises most executives I share this with: They already have all of it. The gap was never capability. It's visibility. The founders who need them don't know they exist yet. And the executives who could help them are sitting in corporate roles assuming they need another decade before they're "ready." The match is already there. The introduction just hasn't happened yet. If a founder could describe their ideal fractional hire right now - without knowing your name - would they be describing you?

In AdvisorHub’s latest article on the rise of mid-career advisor recruiting, Scott Neils, 49 Financial’s EVP of Growth & Head of Field, shares why experienced advisors are increasingly evaluating whether they are in the best environment to grow, serve clients, and build long-term success.   As Scott put it, “When mid-career financial professionals eventually find themselves in a spot where they feel confident enough, they begin learning more about the broader industry... This is when they ask themselves whether they are in the best place to serve, grow and achieve their goals.”   At 49 Financial, we believe advisor growth is fueled by the right combination of support, technology, flexibility, and culture.   #49Financial #AdvisorHub #FinancialAdvisors #WealthManagement

One of the biggest mistakes I see growing companies make… is thinking they need more people — when what they actually need is 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲. I’ve worked with teams that were: • talented • experienced • doing their best …but still overwhelmed, missing things, and constantly in “catch-up mode.” Not because they weren’t capable — but because 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐧’𝐭 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦. When there’s no clear structure: everything starts to feel urgent communication breaks down and even strong teams start to struggle 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐩 𝐢𝐧. Not to slow things down — but to create clarity so things can move faster and with less friction. 𝐈’𝐦 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐮𝐩 𝐬𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝟏–𝟐 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡. If that’s you (or someone you know), feel free to reach out.

A lot of founders still run their companies on memory. What lives in their head. What gets repeated in meetings. What everyone is somehow supposed to “just know.” That works for a while. Until the business grows, complexity increases, and the cost of forgetting starts showing up everywhere—missed handoffs, repeated conversations, fuzzy ownership, slower decisions. From The Persistent Machine: “The organization exists because human memory is mortal.” That line gets at something deeper than documentation. A real organization has to remember beyond the founder. It has to hold context, decisions, standards, and priorities in a form that survives bandwidth, stress, and turnover. Otherwise you don’t really have a system. You have a group of people standing around a disappearing signal.

A lot of founders still run their companies on memory. What lives in their head. What gets repeated in meetings. What everyone is somehow supposed to “just know.” That works for a while. Until the business grows, complexity increases, and the cost of forgetting starts showing up everywhere—missed handoffs, repeated conversations, fuzzy ownership, slower decisions. From The Persistent Machine: “The organization exists because human memory is mortal.” That line gets at something deeper than documentation. A real organization has to remember beyond the founder. It has to hold context, decisions, standards, and priorities in a form that survives bandwidth, stress, and turnover. Otherwise you don’t really have a system. You have a group of people standing around a disappearing signal.

Last week we held our first collaboration with our partners, Exitwise. We got Rachel Murphy and Brian Dukes to talk all things founder dependency but there was a catch. This webinar was a cameras on, no replay type of affair. That way, people get to ask questions and answer honestly without watching what they say. The thing that kept coming? Founder energy. How do you replicate something you can't bottle? Rachel's take: stop dropping people into roles and hoping they'll deliver the process. Document it, make it repeatable, get clarity on who owns what. That's the bit that turns hiring into actually removing yourself from the business. Do you know how dependent your business is on you? Get your hands on the Founder Dependency Audit and find out: https://lnkd.in/dqRRVQxW

"𝗛𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝐜𝗮𝗽𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁." Pause on that for a second. 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥. 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞. 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐞𝐬. 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 - as in assets to be managed, deployed, and when necessary, liquidated. This isn't just industry jargon. It's a 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐨𝐟𝐭𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐞, 𝐨𝐫𝐠 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬. 𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲. 𝐈𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐭. Companies that treat employees as capital behave like it. They 𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐲, 𝐜𝐮𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, and are genuinely surprised when institutional knowledge walks out the door with the person they just let go. Then they wonder why they're always recruiting. Contrast that with companies that treat people as 𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐬 - with careers that extend beyond this quarter, with ambitions their current role might not fully capture, with fears that don't appear in any performance dashboard. Those companies don't just retain talent. They build something. 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞. 𝐂𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐬 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐨𝐧 𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐨𝐧𝐞. That's the foundation Aplicorn was built on. Not 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 - 𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭. Not because it sounds better in a pitch deck. But because the companies getting this right already know: 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞, 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤. What do you think - does language in HR actually matter? #EmployeeFirst #HRLeadership #PeopleFirst #WorkplaceCulture #HRTech #Aplicorn

Some founders I know don’t give themselves the CEO title right away. It took me a long time to give myself that title at August Venture Talent. Honestly, it felt a little pretentious. Especially when the “team” was essentially me, two assistants, and a smattering of outsourced support. And when I launched our second brand August Executive, I still couldn’t quite bring myself to use CEO. Just today, I changed that. Over time, I’ve come to understand how much the way we see ourselves shapes what we build — and what we believe is possible. At one point, I even asked ChatGPT whether I truly was a CEO. Based on the conversations we’d had about my work, decisions, clients, team structure, and vision, it said yes — because I was already making CEO decisions every day. That stuck with me because I think a lot of founders operate this way for a long time. The title often lags behind the reality. One of the biggest changes that came when I finally embraced the role wasn’t ego. It was responsibility. I started asking a different question: “Am I the person who should be doing this task?” To be clear, with a lean team, I still do plenty of things I probably shouldn’t be doing — and definitely won’t be doing when revenue is 10x or even 5x stronger. But I’m also realizing something important: You don’t suddenly wake up one day operating like the leader of a larger company. Part of how you get there is by starting before the company fully catches up to the vision. Dan Martell talks about this in 𝗕𝘂𝘆 𝗕𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲 — the idea that if someone can competently do a task for a fraction of your effective hourly value, you should seriously question why you’re still doing it. Because eventually the question isn’t just whether you can do something. It’s whether it’s the highest and best use of your time given what you are building.

A lot of growing businesses quietly become dependent on a few people who “just know.” + How things work + Why decisions were made + Which clients need extra handling + Where the risks are + What breaks if something changes It feels efficient at first. Until those people are off sick. Leave. Become overloaded. Or simply turn into the bottleneck for every decision. That’s when growth starts slowing down in places that are hard to diagnose: → slower onboarding → inconsistent delivery → duplicated work → founders pulled back into the weeds Not because the team isn’t capable. Because too much operational knowledge lives in people’s heads instead of the business itself. 👉🏽 Scale only becomes real when knowledge stops being tribal.

Your M&A integration is failing because you're treating it like a project, not a transformation. Most post-acquisition integrations focus on systems, processes, and org charts. They miss the real work: integrating cultures, aligning values, and helping people from two companies feel like one team. Here's what I've seen in 36+ integrations: The ones that succeed aren't faster. They're more intentional about the people side. They invest in: • Clear communication about why the acquisition happened • Transparent decisions about roles, structure, and changes • Listening to concerns from both sides • Celebrating wins together early • Giving people time to adjust, not rushing to "normal" The ones that fail rush the technical integration and ignore the human one. Six months later, they're dealing with turnover, culture clash, and lost institutional knowledge. Your systems can merge in weeks. Your culture takes months to integrate. What's your biggest concern about your next acquisition?