After 14 years in sales and sales management positions at ADP and Paychex I took a job as VP of Sales with a venture funded start-up in the employee benefits and electronic payments space. My second day on the job was 9/11/2001. Needless to say, everything we thought we could accomplish was out the window. After 9 months of valiant efforts, I decided that if I was going to succeed, I was going to do it my way. I started a payroll outsourcing business in the summer of 2002. My wife and I signed on the dotted line for financing to enable this business to come alive. As luck would have it, I met two gentlemen who would become my partners in launching PROXUS, LLC. With a small investment from an angel investor, the three of us leveraged our individual skillsets and built the business to 700 clients and 26 employees. A business strategy we chose was to morph the business beyond simply providing payroll to providing Human Capital Management Outsourcing capabilities to our clients. With the cost competitive nature of the payroll marketplace, we saw that HCM dovetailed with the payroll capabilities that we offered, and so decided to pursue this new strategy. It paid off well –we separated ourselves from the majority of small independent payroll providers who either chose not to or could not do what we did.In July of 2020, my business partner and I sold our 18-year-old company, transitioning it to iSolvedhcm.com. The 18 years of building this business were the most challenging and most rewarding years of my professional career. To me, our business success was all about people and teams. Our focus on these critical elements was the key to our success.We empowered our people to do their jobs and stayed out of their way. At the same time, I felt it necessary to embrace Jocko Willink’s “extreme ownership” concept. It simply means that if my team failed, it was me who failed them. As the CEO, you must own the outcome. It’s about defining the path for yourself and the business. You need to be able to take charge and take risks and set a clear vision for everyone on the team. I am focused on people above all else. Without great people, organizations cannot succeed.Today I am leveraging my experiences by helping other small companies in meeting their business objectives. I enjoy identifying the optimal person for each role in an organization and have experience in utilizing behavioral assessments for this purpose.