From Professional Soccer To Diversity Hiring

Welcome.

Welcome, my friends, to the Talent Empowerment Podcast, where we share stories of great leaders so you can lift up your organizations, your teams, and your community. I'm your host, Tom Finn, and on the show today we have a former professional athlete turned effective tech entrepreneur, Marcus Sawyer, who is a former football player from the world sport of football, not the one we Americans refer to as soccer.

Marcus Welcome to the show, my friend.

Thanks for having me, Tom.

Well, we're going to introduce you to Marcus if you haven't had a chance to meet him yet, and he is an 18-year HR tech industry veteran. He's the founder and CEO of EQ Community. We're going to get to that. That's a platform focused on empowering multicultural professionals and giving them access to connections for their careers. He founded this company to empower people of color, and I can't wait for him to share his story with you. Before that, Marcus was an effective executive at a Fortune 500 company driving digital transformation investment integration.

He's also held notable board seats and positions such as Microsoft Services Executive Board Member. All of this experience inspired him to start the EQ community, and I've just got to go back in time a little bit here, Marcus. Tell us a little bit about sports and how that played a role in your personal growth.

Yeah, sure. Well, sports have been a big part of my life since just growing up. My dad was an Olympian, so he's a Taekwondo expert. He was the coach for England. He was a national coach. So, at three years old, I started with Taekwondo and I was doing that for several years, and then it got to a point where, being in England, the number one sport is football, soccer, the one on your feet, and it just got to a point where Taekwondo and football were on the same night.

I remember saying to my dad, "Yeah, like they're both from the same night. I need to decide. I can tell you that my dad told my mum first, and she went to talk to him. I think that they're both on the same night. He goes, "Well, you got to pick one. Son, you got to pick one”, so I said, “OK, uh, I pick football.” And then my Dad said “No, you have to do both.”

So that's a good point I can't add football for a while, and I suppose using your feet with Taekwondo would probably help with sports. And then yeah, I got into all my school teams with football. I started playing football late, actually, late in comparison to England, so probably around 10 or 12, whereas most people start at six or seven, and then, uh, yeah, I got into the school teams, which is good, then the district team, libero teams, and the captain. I got into the county team and then I kept in that and then I got into a professional team, which is Brantford, and they are actually in the Premier League now, which is cool.

So, I've done school boys through Brantford and signed my first contract when I was like 15 or 16. Yeah, that was it. That was kind of the start of my supposed sports journey.

So, when you're going through all of that and you're in a sports and athletic household, it's really important to the culture of your household. So, do you remember the time that you gave up football, you decided to move on and become, you know, a business leader in the local and global community.

I never gave up on football. I'm sitting here with a torn Achilles tendon. This is my boot. And that was from 8 weeks ago, so I still haven't given up. I still think I could make it. To be honest, I genuinely think that, yeah, I could still make it. So, you never give up. Once you play football, you never really give it up.

But there was a switch where it was like, "Hang on. Going into a place in the corner of England where it's cold on a Tuesday night and you're making no money is probably not ideal, So I think there was a switch when a friend of mine, a friend of a friend, I saw him driving and he had a Range Rover at the time and I was nowhere near that and I was like this football thing, we've got to kind of figure out how it's going to work. A lot of my friends had started to make it into the Premier League and they kind of kicked on, so I had to make that hard decision. But am I going to focus on something that's going to be a career, or am I going to focus on sports? And it kind of naturally happened, and it was more out of necessity than anything else.

So, what was your first job after your football career paused? Is your professional football career on hold? Your amateur career is still very active, I see.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's semi-professional, still active. Well, inactive right now, but it was a transition. It's quite a smooth segue, and I always talk to my son about this though, because he loves to hear it. I don't know why maybe because I sound like some old guy. I used to work in a basement and sell gym memberships. So, I'm selling gym memberships. I thought you know what? I can't play football. I'm going to go and get a job in the gym.

But I thought that the jobs in the gym that I would be able to get would be jobs that would be around actually doing gym work, maybe PT type stuff, and still be yet to get qualified to do that and I was like, "No, we've got your sales jobs," but OK, well, how does that work?

Well, you've got to go out on the street, and we're in a little muse and alleyway, and you've got to try and get people out of the street into the gym, and it's raining in London. So that was the first job that I had That was kind of the transition for football, and there, yeah, it was all about getting anybody who walked in If you walked in and you moved and you had a pulse, you were getting a gym membership you weren't leaving without.

No, I love that, and the gym membership model has got a such high turnover. It's such a tough thing to do that you've got to be a little gritty and insightful. I've got to have some charisma to get people to walk in the door, so was there something you learned from that job that you're still using today?

There were lots that I learned as far as What was interesting about that was that it was kind of the first inside sales job. It was B to C&B to be like when you picked it up. Because the reason it was CBT was that it was a consumer product that you were working with, but it's beta because you were trying to sell corporate gym memberships.

You kind of understand it, but then you have to meet people and physically talk to them and get them into a concept. So, it was a service still sending the service, right? which is interesting. It wasn't as high-tech as software is a service, but it was just you had to; you weren't sending anything physical.

So, I learned how to understand what the needs were and what the pains were in the needs analysis with this needs analysis sheet that we would do What do you want to achieve? Understand your goals.

And that was used in a lot of the kinds of software businesses that I started coding software for, right? So, there's a lot there.

So, as you're thinking back on your career and you've worked at very large organizations, you've started your own company. Is there something you would tell an up-and-comer in tech and business? That has been the cornerstone of your success.

Well, I started my background in sales, so the gym membership was part of that, and then I went into career building, and I was making a lot of calls at the time. And I believe you can get into a mindset of not learning with any of those jobs that appear entry-level or dead-end and not learn from it. And what I always tried to do, and it wasn't always successful, I wouldn't say initially, after some time, I figured out, OK, you can make a career from this. I tried to learn from every interaction that I had and get better. So, my aim was always to never be on the phone again as far as cold calling. I would find myself just speaking to people and having to go, but it was hard because I was making 120 calls a day, speaking to people back and forth. So, how do I turn that into an inbound? And then I remember that there was a big inbound movement with HubSpot, and all these different types of things would happen. And so, for me, it would be if you've got a job that's an entry-level, like, there's so much you can learn and take from met and even as you ask Tom, like, “what did I learn from that job?” You don't see it when you're in it but take some time to reflect and figure out where you want to go. The main thing was setting goals each year, and that was a lot of rounder sports pieces as well Always have goals.

I've got all my goals written out from every single year in the last 10 or 12 years, and they were from everything to making X amount of money to buying my first suit, like my first suit that costs a certain amount of money.

So, we're setting goals.

Yeah, well, well said.

And for those that didn't catch it, the first thing he said is to make sure that you're always learning and you're always trying to grow. And that's incredibly important because what you said, Marcus, was, look, it could have been seen as a dead-end job making 120 sales calls, but the way you viewed it was a training ground to build your expertise and be able to drive toward pre-established goals, which is so critically important for everybody to do at every single level of business.

Yes, Absolutely.

So, as you're thinking through. OK, now I'm making calls and I'm growing my career. You're working for a large organization. How did you get on the executive board for Microsoft Services?

This has got to be a great story.

So, by that time, I had probably been at CareerBuilder for about ten years and had been promoted every year. And then I became director for one of our small divisions in Europe, and then I went to the Adecco Group to lead digital transformation, but that was a significant jump, and then after that, we were meeting with all the senior leaders of the largest companies in the world.

So, when you have these interactions, you sometimes have positive interactions, and I spent quite a bit of time with Microsoft at the time. And, yes, I was surprised when they said, "Hey, like we're going to have this board and it's not the board of directors at Microsoft the bite was that the board for which you have a lot of cheap execs and a lot of cheap departments. You had people and one guy who was running the water for the day like he was responsible for just all the water, and it was me. So, there were like 25 of us that would go to these meetings every so often, and the way I think I got there, I just used to ask them a ton of questions.

I remember one time, I've told this story before, we were trying to get a contract done. I was with a large organization, and I was not in legal, but I wanted to go for everything with a fine type, similar to a fine-tooth comb. And then I got a call from one of our legal teams in Switzerland. The two of us were on this call for eight and a half hours, and I only got up to go to the bathroom. And I was going through every piece, and this was with me occasionally. So, you're building relationships, right? Going through it was hard. Anyways, it was pitch black outside by the time I got off this call, and I just wouldn't let it go until we got through every single thing and built relationships with a lot of those people.

And yeah, then they just got an opportunity and asked me to be on it, so we have an along-winded story.

Well, it's wonderful how these things occur, but what I think I heard you say, is that I asked good questions, I shook a lot of the right hands, and I had really deep and meaningful conversations with people. And that's the success of how a lot of people make it, by asking good questions, being a good person, and having deep, meaningful relationships.

So, you feel like that's the playbook.

Yeah, I think, and it goes back to being aware of what your environment is, what you believe your reality is, and what it could be. So, I always try and spot an opportunity before it happens. And thinking about that, maybe that's asking questions or trying to get to the root cause, or digging a lot deeper, and you just learn things that you didn't think would even happen. I never expected to be in that environment, but the more time you spend with people, the more you genuinely care, and you want to learn, and you're curious. Great things tend to come out of that and, I think, having a bit of foresight to say, "You know what, this is what we're doing today, but in the future, it could look like this," and just trying it out, bringing it down in the plan. And people are so thankful that you're thinking about what's next versus what's today, and you get a lot of opportunities from that. So, a lot of my roles I created before I got kind of head to go into a bigger organization.

Yeah, well said Be forward-thinking, looking ahead using the data that you have today to plan a path for the future, which is terrific. So, when you look back on your experience on that particular board, do you feel like there were a couple of things you took away from these conversations that you are still carrying with you today?

Yeah, I think that some of the topics are meaty topics. At that time, I'm just going back to where AI and security are in tech. And so, it was really interesting to see even the CEOs of these companies double-click on the trending topics at that particular time. They could be a point in time or a continuing topic. It wasn't just about kindness. In sales and marketing, like the run-of-the-mill stuff, it was like, where are we going to take things next? So, what I learned was that a lot of these folks have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

So, you've got to be in the operations and know the details, but then also, at the same time, think about what's next and start to plan and prepare for that.

Yeah, well, well said. I like walking and chewing gum. It seems very complicated to me, but I'm sure somebody is going to figure it out.

Right

In all seriousness, it sounds like a wonderful experience and something that you'll take with you for a long period. So, I think that shifts our focus to what you're doing now with the EQ community and helps me understand where your passion comes from and what you're doing with this business.

Yes, so how EQ started was very much based on my personal experience. I had an experience where I managed to get into some really interesting rooms, meet some great people, and progress pretty quickly. But a lot of it I've always felt was serendipitous or luck, and it's nice talking to you to kind of break some of it down There's probably some curiosity there. Questions I was asked, but I wanted to make that environment more deliberate.

But people that might have a similar background to me, maybe you have the capabilities and the capacity, but you haven't had that opportunity, so around that time, I suppose, social unrest has been happening in the US. I've got family news. I'm actually in my grandmother's or my grandmother's basement in Atlanta right now, which is where I am right now. So, I've got family all over the US, half moved to the UK, half moved to the U, S and I always kind of saw that there was a huge opportunity to empower people that might look like me but haven't had access to those opportunities.

So that was like the first cornerstone to it. And how we do that and what it is, is we create a community. It was a group of people that had been thinking about progressing within the tech industry. We wanted to have conversations about that, so we gave them access to get connected, and then we partnered with companies that say they want to be more inclusive.

They don't necessarily know how and it's not that they haven't done anything, but they may have taken some steps towards that. So, we help those companies hire talent in a few different ways and also help them build out their DNI Rd maps and help them with the retention of that talent.

So, it's a little bit about the background and kind of what we do in the UK.

So, I've got to ask this question because it's just always on my mind. Do you feel like you can spot companies that want to change the game and level the playing field for everybody? Or do you feel like there's a lot of lip service still in the market where companies want to check the box, be able to say they did something, but not implement change as it relates to hiring people of color?

So, I'm not sure if that's an or I think that's an and I think both are right So I think you can spot companies. But, and some companies are paying lip service to it and not doing anything about it, but it's like tarnishing everyone with the same brush again you have to maybe spend a bit of time and give them the benefit of the doubt, so I feel like Initially, with George Floyd, there was a lot of momentum, and you felt the momentum, and people said they wanted to do some.

So, our job was to create an environment where we removed all the roadblocks, so there were no excuses and then you started to see whose kind of in this. And this is not new. They've been peak companies, people, and individuals that have been working on this problem for a long time. So, you also start to see those folks as well, and you can tell, like, by the level of investment.

In terms of time and effort from companies versus what they say they're going to do and also how they treat people, it's like really, really, really simple. Simply, It's similar to a party. Your host is the company. When people come to your party, do they feel welcome? And you know, when you go to these parties and people are trying to shop, I've got this car, got that car, got this problem, you're trying to show off. That's one way or you're obnoxious to some people in it, or you're welcoming. And how is the company welcoming those individuals and giving them an environment to have a good time, thrive, and do their best work?

So, I think that's worked.

Yeah, I love that evaluation and analysis. It's just so simple, right? You can just visualize the party at your house. What type of host do you have? What is their persona and how do they make you feel? And that is... that is the culture of an organization driven by the people that run it.

And that's what the party looks and feels like, with the employees coming in and ultimately out of the organization.

No, I'm just going to add to that Tom and some houses, right there's no host. It's like going to an open house on the weekend; you just walk in, and you can make it whatever you want. And you'll kind of get a feel for that around the environment that's close by and the neighbors and the people there.

So yeah. But anyway, no more house analogies and parties than allergies.

So, I have a good friend of mine who is the head of DEI at a major corporation, and she said to me, "Look, I want this job title to be eliminated. She said there should be no head of death because we shouldn't have to have somebody whose sole job is to create diversity, equity, inclusion, and, of course, belonging in an organization. It should just be part of the fabric and culture of every leader's job description”. What's your take on that?

So, our mission and purpose, EQ, is to empower people of color to thrive.

Now I would just like it to be to empower people to thrive. We're not there yet. And we're not there because we need to highlight.

Where do we need to help Just to be very clear and provide some clarity? So, I agree. I think it should be like that to empower humans to throw I wish that was just our mission and we'll get there at some point, but I think kind of highlighting what you're working on is important because it attracts certain people to you and then you get more open and closed doors initially and it allows you to get momentum.

And then that momentum breeds network effects, and those network effects allow you to start to scale your business. So, you've got to kind of figure out who's in your ecosystem for you to bring into that environment to drive it forward, and if you're not explicit about what you're doing or how you're working, it's hard to do that initially. So yeah, I agree.

I just think it's going to take time.

And you're focused on the front end of the HR stack, which is talent acquisition. That's your core focus, to the best of my knowledge. How do you feel that the market is progressing in talent acquisition?

Yeah, so it's evolved a lot because... I think there are a few things that are at play, and one is access to information and data it just didn't exist so freely back in the day. It was like if you were a head-hunter because you knew those people in your Rolodex and you knew these beautiful people, then you were able to kind of connect them That doesn't exist anymore. It does, but at the real, real top, top, top end. I think they'll still do fine in the end, because of that, right?

I think within the talent acquisition piece, there's still this little bit of a conflict between agencies and direct TA and it's kind of like they're working with each other to figure out do you partner, do you not, and every session is a good example of that when you start kind of lowering third party spend.

So, I think data has had a big part in that because, ultimately, everyone kind of has access to the same information because it's on the Internet. Then the question is, how do you then distill and curate that information and how do you repackage it?

But there are still companies that sell water, and bottled water and they do a good job as well. So that branding in that packaging and what you say you do and your niche in your niche, you're gaining knowledge in a certain area is key.

So, I think that talent acquisition internally is probably becoming a little more generalist. I think the specialists are starting to grow. A lot more in the agency world as far as TAA. You don't need a specialist every single day.

So, let's flip this around. We're looking at it from the company perspective, but let's talk about it from the employee perspective. So, I'm an employee. I'm looking for a new job. Maybe I'll go on LinkedIn, maybe I'll go on Indeed, and there are a few other places I could look for a new job. What does your business impact? The general employee that's looking for a new role.

So, we invite people to our community when they're not looking, and people are part of the community because they have common interests. So, whether that's arts, culture, crypto, just having conversations, and at some point, what we start to notice in the community, one of the insights we get is that when people are active in the community, they're kind of stuff. Yeah, I'm going to get myself out there a little bit more. We don't say anything, but maybe they're attending. There are a lot more events than there were, and they're starting to kind of get their feelers out there.

So, for us, it all started with the community. We didn't start on the TA side; we started building a community first, we said, "Oh, by the way, if there's an opportunity, we can let you know and make an introduction for you. So yeah, it's really about getting people connected to their interests. And then you find out more about them.

It's sort of like, look, I mean, you live locally, and we've known each other for a long time. And let's say on a Friday night, we went out. You'd probably say, "Oh, like, how's work? Yeah, it's going OK. I'm kind of thinking about something, you know, that would be the start of the conversation. We try and make that happen inside of our environment online a lot more freely and a lot more casually without your kind of publicity. It applies to everyone.

So, it's a private way to have a conversation and start to explore other opportunities within a safe community where you feel trusted, and you feel people are of like mind. Is that right?

Yeah, that's correct. And I'll reiterate, many people come not to get transferred jobs. They come because they're interested in connecting with new people. Things that might be important to them or just be of interest to them.

Yeah, we've all learned over the last couple of years that community is one of the most important things that we can be a part of, and you don't have to be right next to somebody to be in a community. We've all learned over the last couple of years that we can have virtual communities that give us that same feedback and love along our path. So, kudos to you for putting that together. A quick pro tip for those listening. If you've heard Marcus's TA a couple of times, that just means talent acquisition if you're not from that space. So, he's integrated that TA quite a few times for you.

So, Marcus, where is your organization What's on the horizon in the next couple of years for the EQ community?

Well, we've started, as I mentioned before, as the community, the core piece of connecting people, and more recently, we've developed a new service that's called EQ Intro. And that's around helping companies get introductions, whether warm introductions to individuals or more of a platform play. And we're starting to go deeper into the cycle of work. So, as you mentioned, there's the front-end piece, but then there's the retention piece, and we're now being asked to help companies with their employee resource groups and RG's because we've helped them in the past.

So, we can start doing that for others, which will draw our attention. So, I see us establishing a full-service platform in and around D&I for whatever you need.

And, uh, but we're starting in a few key areas where we have experience.

Yeah, very nice. And do you think that'll take you a couple of years to build, or is that something that if we've got a listener today that wants to work with you, something you could execute on pretty quickly?

Yeah, so the EQ intro part is live now the erg pieces are live now We already do Rd maps for companies around the world, and so those are the things that are available as of today. I think we're where we're not where we are today. We're not providing coaching services. That's not a thing right now. Some companies do that, and, uh, I don't know one or two of those. We are, yeah, really just focused on the front end.

Today, we can see ourselves moving together and maybe we will partner with companies that deliver. That service, which might also be another way,

Yeah, well, we can certainly explore that conversation as well. But you know, you started an access model within your business, and we talked about this ahead of the show. Can you help everybody understand what the different models are for talent acquisition are, like what's an access model?

So, when we started EQ, it was a traditional recruiting model we would get paid on a placement and then hire, but there was a lot of good work that was happening before that. And then also, we felt we were a little bit in conflict with the talent acquisition team. So, we wanted to empower them rather than compete with them constantly. As a result, the access model gives you access to the matches you have for specific roles and positions. And then you can say, hey, I want to contact that talent directly or I'd like an introduction from EQ. And with those introductions, you can get as many introductions as you want, and we charge a monthly subscription fee to do that.  

So, what I think I'm hearing is the traditional model, which is typically 20% of an employee's salary that gets paid to a recruiter after the employee is hired. And that model still exists and is effective at very high levels of organizations because, as I heard you say earlier, it's network-based.

And that's still going on in the executive ranks. But in the middle of the company and deep parts of the organization, an access model allows you to partner with the talent acquisition team in a little more effective way and not charge these huge fees for finding the right people to fit into their organization. Did I captured that?

I think that's right. And I've always had this challenge, and we've charged placement fees, but I've always felt like when you've got two candidates that come to an end and it's a decent size roll, it's like a, uh, A200K roll or something. And you know, for one, you don't have to pay anything, and two, you have to pay 40K, and we're trying to get diverse talent through the door. That just provides another stumbling block right at the end. So, we wanted to just remove all the barriers. And remove all the excuses.

I understand the model. As far as percentage modeling goes, you can make significant revenue and profit from doing it. In that way, I just think that it always feels like something that not everybody loves. I don't feel like the recruiters even love it because they have to wait so long to get paid. I feel like the companies don't like it because they get hit with these big beans.

But no one figured out where that equilibrium should be somewhere in the middle? Yeah, yeah, we're striving to achieve that goal.

And look, you talked about companies and profits, and you're talking about the economy a little bit. Help us understand how diversity within the ranks of an employee population does improve profits.

Well, one of the examples that I like to give is if you and I are sitting at a table and there is an object in the middle. But it's got four sides. We need two other people on either side of that table to identify that object so you can see the round corners. And business, as we talked about earlier, without seeing round corners because you've got to see what's next. You must make predictions, and if you don't have people that can see things from different angles, you're not going to be able to predict. The other thing is, going back to sports, you can't have everyone playing in the same position, kind of like a goalkeeper playing outfield. Yeah, it just doesn't work the sport gets it and you see the best players playing. And they will play their position, and they have slightly different personalities, and they play to win, and it's the same for organizations that want to win in the long term. And you'll notice the difference between, and I learned this is a global organization and a multinational organization.

A global organization means that you have one headquarters and everything gets rolled out globally just across the border. Multinationals have different divisions. And those divisions have autonomy in their local markets, and you need that to scale your business-like Coca-Cola would be a multinational organization. The taste of Coca-Cola is different in each market. How do you know that? You've got to understand the market, you've got to understand the people, so the perspective.

This is key when you want to sell into different markets. So, I think that's just it allows you to expand immediately. You've got different lengths.

Yeah, well said, Marcus Very well said the next question that I have, that's sort of on my mind, is really about you and your entrepreneurial journey. What are you trying to accomplish as an entrepreneur?

Well, I had looked at that. We got this thing in England called a record of achievement when I was 15 years old. I wrote down two things. I'm either going to be a professional or not. I'm either going to be a professional athlete or start my own business.

Those are the two things that I wrote down after looking at them the other day, and I couldn't believe it. I'd always had this idea that I wanted to create something. So, for me, I don't see an end game as an entrepreneur. I'm not like, kind of looking to sell, exit, and go into the sunset. I just like the process.

I enjoy building stuff from scratch and just enjoying the grind, and maybe at some point I'll get too old, and I will. I won't enjoy it, UM, but I like meeting new people, looking at new ideas, solving problems, creating something from scratch, putting your product out there in the world, and developing. So, for me, it's just, yeah, just continuing to do that and who knows, like we're doing this right now in the recruiting space, it could be a completely different space in years to come back.

I see myself stopping anytime soon.

Well, well said. And I'm sure everybody wants to hear you say that because they don't want you to stop. You're creating new ways of looking at business, unpacking old business models, and doing it with a keen eye toward inclusivity and diversity. You're doing it across the world. You're doing it with companies that need this work done for them and they need it packaged. So, kudos to you for having not only the vision but the strength and fortitude to execute it. That, my friend, is the most difficult part, which is the execution. So, thank you for taking on this role in our communities, and I appreciate your doing this good work.

Oh God, yeah. Ideas are cheap executions are expensive, right? Yeah, yeah, that's right.

And look, Marcus, where can people find you? They want to track you down. They want to work with you. They want to meet you or perhaps just connect with you. What's the best way to? folks to do that.

I'm on LinkedIn, pretty active, just my first name, last name, and two Rs . So, Marcus Sawyer has two hours. In the end, And I'm sure that'll be in the show notes somewhere. And as far as EQ, there are a couple of ways to find us. One is just EQ.community, so it's just EQ. community is our URL. We also have links if you want to find them.

Things are working only on the EQ.app, so EQ.BP and those are the two ways to find them.

Yeah, beautiful. And thank you for sharing all of your information and your stories. And of course, we'll put everything in the show notes so that people can find you and get a hold of you. And with any luck, they will reach out and work with you on some really important projects for their organizations.

And with that, Marcus, thank you so much. For being on the show.

Thanks for having me, Tom. I enjoyed it, and I appreciate the thoughtful questions.

And thank you for joining the Talent Empowerment podcast. I hope our discussion inspires you to lift your organizations, your teams, and your community. We'll see you next time. And as always, let's get back to people and culture together.

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