Intro 0:05
Welcome to the Gooder Podcast where we talk with powerhouse women in CPG about their journeys to success. This episode is sponsored by Retail Voodoo. A brand development firm guiding mission driven consumer brands to attract new and passionate consumer base crush their categories through growth and innovation and magnify their social and environmental impact. If your brand is in need of brand positioning, package design or marketing activation, we are here to help. You can find more information at www.retail-voodoo.com.
Diana Fryc 0:44
Hi, Diana Fryc here. I’m the host of the Gooder Podcast where I get to talk to the powerhouse women in the food, beverage and wellness categories about their journeys to success and their insights on the industry. Thanks for joining us again today. Hey, this episode is brought to you by Retail Voodoo. Retail Voodoo is a brand development firm. Our clients include Starbucks Kind REI, PepsiCo, highkey, and many other market leaders. We provide strategic brand and design services for leading brands in the food wellness beverage and fitness industry. If your goal is to increase market share, drive growth or disrupt the marketplace with new innovative ideas give us a call. Let’s chat. And you can find out more information at retail-voodoo.com or in send me an email at info@retail-voodo.com. Okay, so today we get to talk about staffing, resourcing and executive recruiting in the world of better for you food, beverage and wellness. We get to meet Angela Marturano. Did I get that right? You got it right all right. Founder and President of Orchid Holistic Search. Orchid Holistic Search, not research is an executive search firm focused exclusively on values aligned companies in the natural products industry, placing director through sea level talent across function in organizations from startup through midsize organizations. Well, hello, Miss Angela, how are you?
Angela Marturano 2:14
Hi, Diana. It’s Friday. I’ve had a busy week. So I am doing great things right. Are
Diana Fryc 2:19
you Yeah, I’m okay. Now. Are you in Detroit today?
Angela Marturano 2:23
No, I leave it as my headline and on LinkedIn. I live in Costa Rica. I’m up in the mountains and a little tiny mountain village here.
Diana Fryc 2:33
Get out. That is so awesome. How long have you been operating from there?
Angela Marturano 2:38
We’ve been here for a little over three years. We absolutely love it just had kind of come out of out of our love for Costa Rica was our favorite vacation spot and a way to kind of shoulder the Detroit winters. take a little trip on either side. And then we thought Wait a second. We can bring our work here. We
Diana Fryc 2:56
could just make this home. All right. Bring a little Detroit attitude to Costa Rica. Actually, I might be very complimentary. Yeah, yes. Yeah, that’s super relaxed here. Someone’s got to bring some Detroit attitude. Oh, my goodness. Okay. Well, before we get into too many details, I always love it when my guests have an opportunity to share, share about their business. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about Orchid Holistic Search and why you started it?
Angela Marturano 3:27
Sure. So you did a good job in the intro, we are a values aligned executive search firm. We started the business because my husband is actually a naturopathic medical doctor, right. So he had this wonderful training and insight into the world of dietary supplements ingredients herbs and botanicals better for you functional food and beverage. And I was recruiting at the time. And I loved what I did, but it was not in a values aligned industry. I was working in accounting and finance within the automotive space. In 2008 2009. It was like a good a good training time a good time to cut our teeth. And then, you know, Matt was kind of thinking through some of his next steps in his career. What could he What else could he do as a naturopathic doctor and we started thinking about the natural products industry and they said, Wait a second. There aren’t too many people like focused on hiring for hiring talent for this space. What do we Why don’t we just jump in and do it? Yeah, I thought he was absolutely nuts at first, but the more we thought about it, the more I thought hey, we’re young. We’re we’re single, we’re childless. Let’s take a risk and what a perfect time to do it. So that was 22,010 that we jumped in.
Diana Fryc 4:45
Oh, yeah, that is two that is exactly the right time. You know, retail Voodoo. We we used to be called something else Lemley design since that’s my business partner had the name of that firm. since the mid 90s, but we decided to recalibrate and focus on the better for you, it was still kind of a not a thing, like it was still love, there are still a lot of questionable products, the fruit and the vegetables weren’t looking as beautiful as they do now. And of course, that’s changed in the last few years, right? It’s gone bonkers.
Angela Marturano 5:25
Absolutely not. So when we first started the company, I actually had my, my previous employer try to try to sue me for starting my own company, like non compete, even though it was definitely a different, completely different space. And, and I said, Look, I’m I’m focused in the natural products industry, and they’re like, Well, that doesn’t even make sense. You wouldn’t even be able to, like, make any money that way. Right? Yeah, I get a little chuckle out of it. Because our friends and family said the same. Like, why would you pick such a tiny little niche? But yeah, look at us now. It’s been a good 10 years,
Diana Fryc 6:04
it’s been a good 10 years, and I’m gonna guess this last year, especially with so much shifting around and movement is, is it really as nuts out there finding talent and with as many people searching as the media’s talking about?
Angela Marturano 6:19
100%. So 2020 was a slow year than we planned for these things, you know, in our business, there’s some ebb and flow and you just kind of have to roll with the punches. So 2020, for us was the year of a lot of introspection and some shifts in our way of thinking about how we’re going to business and in manifesting what we wanted out of 2021, because we knew it was gonna be a big year. And it is, I think part of it has to do with 20, being kind of companies holding back a little bit watching the market, what’s going to happen. So that coupled with the great resignation, people are kind of realizing what they really want out of a company work life. Sure, and get all these good things. And then, you know, just the growth that our industry has enjoyed, right? I mean, more and more people are eating, you know, more consciously and taking supplements. So all in all, it’s kind of like a triple whammy. And we’ve had a crazy year and yes, everybody’s looking. That’s a question. Yeah. Okay.
Diana Fryc 7:26
Well, it’s, it just seems to me like I wonder if you’re running into any of these, you know, with the natvia naturals, which of course, the boundaries of what naturals are, is getting a little bit blurry and foggy, especially with the really big CPG coming in and being able to bend things. And I wonder how that people moving from a traditionally conventional space into this into a more narrower, narrower category. If there’s if you’re seeing any, are you seeing interest, like are people wanting to move into naturals? Or is it just people moving around in general?
Angela Marturano 8:10
Definitely, people want to move into now, Charles, and I think our focus over the last year has shifted even more from naturals into conscious naturals. Who said, there’s more movement, you’ve got these, you’ve got big CPGs. You know, with very deep pockets, copycatting brands, right? I mean, rightfully so they see what’s happening with these small brands. And they’re, they’re copying it, but but the heart and the soul of the companies that we like to support Yeah, like to work with? Yeah, that’s where people want to be. Yeah, they don’t want to work with, you know, a, you know, a big CPG companies, natural brands so much they really want to go work with a founder that has
Diana Fryc 8:57
a passion and the passion. Yeah. Well, I would expect that you’ve probably had plenty of these conversations, but it’s so much harder to steer the Titanic, and to even have visibility on leadership are in reality, if you’ve got 13 layers between you or even two layers between you, and the person that’s steering the Titanic. So I think it’s I think it can be tricky, right? There’s that there’s, there’s always strengths and weaknesses to either side, how much of an impact you want versus how much mobility Do you want within an organization? I bet those are lots of questions that you have during your process with potential candidates, I think, yeah.
Angela Marturano 9:42
I do. Yeah, there. I mean, there are certain people that you know, they want a certain level of stability, which is you’re standing right there like oh, you know, we will I would look at companies in the 25 to $50 million range versus there are some people who are like, nope, want to steer the ship. I want it to be a while. Crazy. Ride, I ride it on ground floor. And I want to see the decisions that I make impacts the business greatly. Then you’ve got a lot of people who who crave that experience. Yeah,
Diana Fryc 10:11
that’s good that you’re able to vet for that. Yeah. Well, let’s talk about some of the early days when you first started. You know, first started Orchid. Do you call it Orchid for short? When you guys are d. o. h. s, sir. Do you have an acronym? Yeah, we
Angela Marturano 10:28
could call it Orchid.
Diana Fryc 10:33
Yeah, in the early days of, you know, you’re searching or building the business. Tell us what those were like? Was it struggle? Was it easy? Were there things that you learned about that you didn’t consider at the time?
Angela Marturano 10:48
Yeah, so starting the business, it was me on my couch with a spreadsheet that Matt and I had put together. And in the in the very early days, we focused exclusively on dietary supplements.
Diana Fryc 11:02
Okay, so, gotcha.
Angela Marturano 11:04
We had a spreadsheet, right? started making cold calls. Matt was like, are you cool, like cold call? companies? I’m like, yeah, that’s, that’s why they don’t do it. So here, I am cold calling down an alphabetical spreadsheet of dietary supplement companies. And our very first client was alliser. So we did not have to get very far down that list. Wow, realize that we had a potential market fit. And in fact, we were actually trying, we are hopeless to place more naturopaths. And that was our initial thought and our initial concept. So when I had when I was on the phone with the Vice President of HR, she’s like, Angela, yeah, we don’t need any naturopath. But we do have a Vice President of Operations. Could you help us with that? And we’re like, Yep, sure can. And that was our that was our first search. And we were successful. And they were, they were kind of that dream client that, you know, good, good. People strategic had a had a had a, had a good path to exit. And we were able to play several folks with them and the first 18 months of our business, so they gave us a really nice start.
Diana Fryc 12:14
Wow. Oh, my goodness. So tell us a little bit about I mean, I guess maybe Can you tell us a little bit about any, see anything surprising that happened in that first year, kind of like a, I didn’t expect that to happen? I mean, this might that might have just been the expectation, but I’m just thinking maybe even operationally, some of the things that you learned about the market, or you’d already come in with a fair bit amount of business. So I wonder, maybe the question is, how different was it from what you were doing before?
Angela Marturano 12:49
It was very different? I found it to be a whole lot less transactional than out of space? I’m okay. We started to have conversations about what is your culture? Like, because that doesn’t really happen when you’re Yeah. You know, at least 10 years ago and automotives are, you know, what do you What are you making? And how much is the compensation? And how far is the commute to the office? Right? So values where we started learning about the importance of values within the organizations. We did run into we started like, oh, there are some competitors in this space. So we kind of feeling that out. And then yeah, we kind of found our niche, which was placing people in sales, marketing and operations within rapidly growing dietary supplement brands. And so yeah, definitely, definitely the culture piece was better than we had anticipated. Oh, my God. And the the need was a lot different. Right? We’re not placing naturopaths in factual playfree. Executives enough, so
Diana Fryc 13:58
yeah. Wow. Do you have any? It’s been 10 years, of course, since you started doing this. What? What kind of milestones Can you look back on and kind of go this was a pivotal moment for us. Maybe where you went from supplements to a broader range of products and what that what did that look like? And was it a conscious choice? Or was it an opportunity?
Angela Marturano 14:27
Yeah, I was at a, I was at Expo West. Okay. And this must have been like 2013, let’s call it and I was trying to, appoach someone from Vega, a leader at Vega. And they were like, actually, no, I’m super happy. Vega is an amazing company. Can you help us with some searches, so Amiga was kind of the transition to more of that. not strictly the pills and cap capsules, right? Not just The tablets, but it was a lifestyle brand. plant based. And so yeah, that was 2013, I believe. And so that was that was one exciting milestone. And shortly after that, I want to say it was 2015, we switched from a contingency basis to retained, okay realized, let’s cut the crap. We’re gonna work with companies who value working with us. And we created a stronger process for ourselves, clients, and we saw a huge uptick in business really big. And so that was kind of like a, alright, I’ve I’ve cut my cut my teeth for a few years, I’ve had some success. But now let me work with let us work with companies who who value us yeah. And so it was like a personal power move, I think at that at that point. So that felt really pivotable. pivotal. And, yeah, it and it really catapulted the business forward.
Diana Fryc 16:01
When you think of, I’m assuming that you’re getting, you probably have had a number of people partner with you internally freelance, even on an FTP basis to kind of help you during some of those bigger needs, I guess, or periods of time where you’re going through a lot of growth personally. are, are you finding yourself giving people doing what you do? advice? at all? I mean, I don’t know, do you? Do you have a network of people, HR people, or placement folks that basically do what you do? Are you guys friendly? Do you help each other out?
Angela Marturano 16:43
Yeah, there are, there are, you know, there are several people that play in the same space. And I definitely try to keep you know, on a very friendly level, I think there’s enough room for all of us in the race, right. And, you know, I operate I think we solidly operate from a mindset of abundance versus so I’m never one that’s going to be like a competitor over there to this competitor. We all have strengths and weaknesses, I’m sure. And I think there’s room for everybody. And everybody’s style is a little bit different. So I definitely am on friendly terms with several recruiting firms. And sometimes we trade notes like, Hey, have you worked with that client? Or, oh, I saw that you were working with this person? What happened there? And so. And then in terms of having people work with me, or for me and support in a support capacity? I’ve actually only tried that once. It didn’t work out. Oh, really. It was someone who had cut who had worked for a competitor, a competing firm, let’s say in the, in the space, and I thought this should be pretty easy, but it wasn’t I’ve got founder tendencies myself. No,
Diana Fryc 17:53
that could possibly be me.
Angela Marturano 17:56
Yeah, I just I have certain quality standards that I adhere to release normally. Right. And I think part of what makes us special is that I can say that I’ve placed every single person myself really, yeah, send it along to Yes, someone else or you know, training. So if you hire me to take care of your search, it’s not going to be someone I’m training, right, that’s gonna, you know, take it on, I only take on a
Diana Fryc 18:26
handful of searches and I make sure those searches are well taken care. Yeah, so this is not about you need everybody is in business to make money. So I don’t want I don’t want to say that it’s not like you’re offering pro bono work or anything like that, but the care that you want, it’s not about you growing your business, it’s legitimately to help other businesses be able to succeed and what their missions are.
Angela Marturano 18:50
That’s right. So we will never be the biggest I never want that for myself. There’s been many times that I’ve been tempted when I’m starting to get an uptick in search needs like oh, maybe we should hire somebody, maybe we should hire somebody but the bottom line is I am I I earn a very nice living and we enjoy the work that we do and we enjoy being solo practitioners and what that means is over time we get better searches, we get bigger searches. So that that part we are able to grow right. And as I optimize my process, yeah, we do grow and but but from the standpoint of, you know, wanting to take over the industry or take 17 pages of searches at once.
Diana Fryc 19:40
Well, I want to talk a little bit about there were a couple of really, I want to say deep, I don’t want to get too over. I don’t know Wui about this, but we talked about a couple of really sensitive crunchy, tricky topics when we first met and One of this one of them was this huge emphasis in diversity and inclusion initiatives that the companies were already starting to get into, but accelerated definitely during 2020. Because of the Black Lives movement, the me too movement, I mean, we had a handful of initiatives that suddenly created a wokeness real or not amongst companies and executives across the country. And I wonder how are you guiding employers through this, like they’re coming to you, there are people that are probably coming to you that think they’re genuine in their effort? are legitimately wanting to make a difference? What do you offer him? Are you talking to them? Are you giving them resources? Talk me through that when they come to you and go, Hey, I want to check this box. And I get that it’s a box, but I’m legitimate about this. How do you how do you support them through this?
Angela Marturano 21:01
Yeah, so I think it’s a tricky topic, because as a, you know, white woman myself, right? Um, I don’t really feel like I am the best resource we’re not we’re not a diversity and inclusion. Firm. Right, right. We don’t provide we’ve taken our own unconscious bias trainings, we would like to consider ourselves to try to be as inclusive as we possibly can during search process. We love We love working with companies that have that as a Northstar, like wanting diversity within their organizations. Sometimes you can kind of tell it’s like, they say it because they know that they need to, right. And other times I’ve worked with clients who have an extremely impressive roadmap to D IB work and are working with consultants and those, those are the those are the companies that I can get even more excited. Yeah, about, you know, we’re helping them and recruiting diversity tail talent for them. There’s honestly only one that comes to mind that I know is legit from that standpoint, in the work that they’re doing. And they’ve been wonderful to work with. And I’ve placed three diversity candidates with them on all three searches that I’ve taken on. So what I suggest to clients is that they they really get serious about their internal there, what are they doing internally? What are their goals? And do they have support from an actual trained professional, because I can’t be that I can’t be nice to everybody. But what I can do is we definitely provide a diverse candidate candidate network, we took a look like really deeply at what we were doing and the placements that we were making. And in early 2020, we realized that that over the over the first 10 years of business, from what we could ascertain from the placements we’ve made, it was only 9.3% people of color. Over the last year, that number has moved to 46% excellence with us having conversations with our clients, letting them know that they might need to open their search up past we want natural CPG experience because if we’re recycling calling candidates in the same talent pool, we’ll never get anywhere, right. But if there’s an openness to, to look beyond, to maybe look outside of the industry, and to actually value value that we’re not, you know, trying to make a culture fit, but we’re adding to the culture and bringing that diverse thought process, whether that be religious or skin toner, age. All of that comes together. And so, you know, we’ve done quite a bit of work. I’m sure there’s more that we can do, but I’m pretty proud of how far we’ve come. And what I’ve seen in the industry so far. It’s it’s inspiring.
Diana Fryc 24:08
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s inspiring too. And I think that’s you and I kind of bonded a little bit on that because that was one of my primary goals with the gutter podcast was to was to normalize diversity and and everything from skin color to LGBTQ, disabled, religious immigrant status, military, I mean, all of those things are grossly mis underrepresented in leadership. And you’re right. If we are only looking for perfect fits, and the perfect fit looks like x, y and z, that’s never going to change. And so I think it’s wonderful and you know, when we’re doing brand development, that’s part of the conversation that we have about how they look at their audience. Like what the now industry is targeting mostly Caucasian, upper middle class women. How are we going to target? How are we going to grow this category? Unless we understand the needs of which there are a tremendous needs. But if we’re not looking there, how are we going to get there? So I love that you’re, you’re able to have just by the consciousness being able to make and start making some changes there. Do you? How are you able to help some of these? I mean, I don’t know how deep your relationships are. But are you able to have kind of relationships and help these hiring managers or your partner’s resolve or understand what unconscious bias looks like? I think you just address that, but I’m just asking it outright in this way.
Angela Marturano 25:49
Yeah, I mean, I think that’s it’s, it’s such an important topic that I don’t like to pretend that I can sure, deliver that as a production service, right. But what I do is I do always incur, I let clients know upfront that that’s a part of our search process is to include diversity on every slate of talent that we present, when at all possible. And I do let them know that when they place very stringent requirements, it’s less likely that I’m going to be able to deliver on that, right that kind of as a screening basis, upfront dacha for the types of clients that we like to partner with, better for worse.
Diana Fryc 26:34
And now flip the conversation over to the candidate side. I, you know, being a being I am, I’m only a woman, and when we talk about from the diversity standpoint, and I don’t check a lot of the boxes. And so I wonder how tricky it is for candidates to navigate this type of thing? Are you having similar kinds of conversations with them? Are you helping them resolve the fact that they might be moving into a box check, but that everybody knows it’s a boss check. And it’s a it’s a learning and I’m using boss, I’m trying to use box check as a neutral term, not a bad term. It’s like people legitimately want to make change, and sometimes checking boxes. And knowing that there’s a box and checking the box is the first step to making that change. And I’m wondering, as you’re having those conversations, are you able to provide any guidance to those candidates who are interested in helping with the change, knowing that they’re coming in for a really great job opportunity, but they’re also going to have an impact on the company in a much larger way?
Angela Marturano 27:42
Yeah, I mean, it’s a good question. I think a lot of candidates, they do kind of want to know, like, Where do I stand is actually like, once I get in, is this as my voice going to be her gotcha. Or I have, I’ve worked with a couple of candidates who were the token person in the organization token black person, token gay person, in my jumping from a situation like this to another one, or How’s it going? Like, how is my voice going to be included? And I don’t, and rather than necessarily even have a huge, robust di roadmap for 18 months, which some people do, and some organizations don’t they just want to know, is my voice going to be heard? Right? Am I going to have any level of influence in the organization? Usually the answer is yes. Because we work at leadership level. Right,
Diana Fryc 28:39
right. It’s kind of a catch 22.
Angela Marturano 28:41
Yeah. But usually, yes, the roles that we’re, we’re filling are mission critical to a company and these candidates are sitting on the leadership team. So yeah, they are able to, and I like to work with companies that allow people to bring their full selves to work. And that’s part of my application process. Like, isn’t it? Who are you as a human being? Yeah. Candidates over the past year have been like, wow, I really enjoyed filling out your application, because no one’s asked me that question before. I asked like, Who are you as a marketing leader? And then where are you as a human being? Really, it allows people to feel like, oh, maybe they care about me. Yeah, maybe I’m not just an application. And I do try to embody that inclusiveness throughout my, my process. So that’s a little off topic, but Well,
Diana Fryc 29:31
no, I suspect then then you have these really rich relationships with people for a long time because of that, because now they’re a human rather than a number.
Angela Marturano 29:41
Yeah, yeah. And I’ve had, I’ve worked with so many great people, and I’m at that stage where it’s been over 10 years. It’s almost 12. Now, so I’ve placed people you know, two and three times now really, some times over their career. Yeah. So, you know, we get to know one another and when an opportunity comes up, they know Think of them. And they know I know a little bit you know about them as a human being, and maybe I don’t know, their kids birthdays or their favorite restaurant, but I know what’s important to them in terms of, you know, an opportunity to make a meaningful difference. And I remember those sorts of things. And they know that I at least treat them with a ton of respect and care in the process.
Diana Fryc 30:23
Yeah, and with as though they’re human. I think that’s really awesome. I love that. Now, with this kind of crazy time that we’ve got going on, during 2020, I the same question for both candidate, and then potential employees, employers and and that is, what is the advice you find yourself giving most and this might be, regardless of the fact that it’s crazy, like, what do you find yourself guiding and giving advice to employers on during this type of process, and then with candidates?
Angela Marturano 31:01
Mm hmm. So for candidates, I think there are a lot of self limiting beliefs that are starting to crash down. And what I tell candidates, and especially in the space that I work in the niche that I’ve crafted, you can’t have it all, I think it’s possible. So I think you can have an employer that respects you, I think you can have a job that is meaningful, I think you can sell or make products that make a difference, that have an impact. And you can have your family and your life and your time, and you can have it all. And I know that because I feel to a pretty large degree that I have it all. So I know it’s possible. And I know a lot of my clients, you know, want that for their employees too. So I really help guide people to make the right decision. It sucks when they don’t pick the offer, you know, they don’t choose the sometimes you know, they they go with a different company, but they they need to know that I’m there to help align them with their own North Star throughout the process. And that’s why people trust me, I think.
Diana Fryc 32:12
And then on the employer side, do you see yourself giving a common set of advice?
Angela Marturano 32:21
I do. And it’s, it’s that it’s the golden rule, right? We have to if you want someone to give their all value them. And that sometimes means it could come in in the negotiation process, right? If someone’s asking for 150, and you immediately offer them 140. That’s just diminishing the level of value you place on them on day one. So a lot of these conversations can be shaped and molded. And and you know, elevated by working with someone like myself, right? Who can help be the middle person in that relationship. And in those early days, and like, Well, wait, this is important to this person. And this is really important to the company, can we make this work? Are we on the same page? Or maybe not? So? But yeah, it would be it’s a pretty similar thing, right? I think you can have your dream candidate, you probably can’t do it by just spraying out the JD on LinkedIn, you’re never gonna get that diversity quotient wraps, you know, by just spraying the job posting on LinkedIn, using multiple recruiters trying to get it through your own network. Because your investors all look like you. And your finances all look like you look like you. And you’re gonna co create the sameness in your organization. Yes. So I think, you know, if companies really want to invest in their talent, and they need to invest in the talent process period from day one, and I think that does come along with investing in hiring a recruiter who can really bring you the best and and work on behalf of the client and the candidate.
Diana Fryc 34:06
Okay, I have a I love that we use recruiters as well and have had good success in and not good success. I mean, it’s sometimes you know, you’re still at the end of the day, you’re the one that’s hiring and making that final decision. I have a question for you, though, because I find and this might be recruiting practice that is not not common, so I’ll just ask it. There have been plenty of times where we have worked with a recruiter and we’ve given all of our parameters, and this is for the financial standpoint. And we’ll say this is the top of where we’re at. And I’m thinking of one particular recruiter that we don’t use anymore and this is probably why we’re, they would always present somebody that was over the are the Cap have our situation and then we would end up trying to get into a little bit of a negotiation with the candidate, it was always a little tricky. How do you How would you advise me as somebody who uses recruiting services, to have that conversation with the recruiter other than me saying, you know, this was our cap? And why are you bringing us candidates that don’t fit into what our needs are? Do you understand what I’m asking?
Angela Marturano 35:29
I do. And and that’s a really important conversation and part of the trust and relationship building from a recruiter and a client perspective up front. And I can think of one particular scenario this year were a bigger company than we normally work with. It was like a $200 million brand came to us and they wanted a brand, a brand manager, but as it turned out, they kind of needed a brand director. Oh, so they told us, they told me they asked me, Hey, we were recommended to you and your firm. What would you say would be arranged for this? This? This position, given what we’re asking of the candidate? Yeah. And I told them, and I said, Really, you’re looking at 150 to 200. And they were like, Oh, well, we were thinking of one to 150. And they need to they need to relocate. And you know, I said, Alright, you know what, let me think about it while we’re getting our, you know, paperwork in place, and that, but it’s really going to have to be dictated by the market right now. Yeah. And I don’t know. And then we came, we ended up hiring, I think a candidate who was 170. Wow, that was above their range, right above the range on it. And we elevated the title, because that’s what the market demands. But you know, what I what I what I would say is a you got to know what the market is doing at the moment. And you’ve got to get really clear from the beginning. And if a company is going to tell me they want to hire a head of growth at 120, well, then I’m just not going to take that search. It’s because you’re not realistic. It’s not realistic, and what is not realistic. And what I like to do is I like to present a range of candidates, yeah, you’re probably going to get a couple that are right within your range, you’re probably going to get one on the low side that’s kind of green working their way into the level. And you might get a superstar that’s like, Alright, well, this person’s 10k above your range. Yeah. But they’re like everything and more. So, you know, take your pick. And yeah, usually it ends up that the client ends up hiring one of the top 10 because they they bring the most value, and it makes sense. I think it’s just important to get really clear in the beginning kind of the process before they even take your search.
Diana Fryc 37:45
Yeah. And, and even asking, so if I was going to bring a candidate to you that looked like blank. Is that going to be okay, or are you set on Blank? You know, I think, yeah,
Angela Marturano 37:55
I always do that, like, okay, so if I find the very perfect person, they’re not that there’s a perfect person out there. And if I find someone who meets abcdefg Yeah, and they’re above your range, do you not want to see them? And then?
Diana Fryc 38:10
Well, yeah, well, excellent. Okay, good. Thank you for that. Well, you know, Angela, there’s probably a whole host of other things that we could talk about kind of more granularly. But I think that we cover kind of those biggies that you and I wanted to talk about here on the show. And as we’re coming into the end of the podcast, I’m gonna switch gears and we’re gonna just talk about well, I’m going to ask you a few questions that I asked absolutely every guest. And and so the first one is, do you have some sort of I would call it happy hour factoid that you can share about the industry. And this could be either about recruiting or since you’ve been working with supplements and wellness brands for so long. Maybe you have some sort of interesting, like, I don’t even know what it could be about those industries that somebody could share over a cocktail later this week.
Angela Marturano 39:05
Hmm. All right. Well, it’s not industry specific. But as it relates to recruiting, okay. A lot of people have this conversation about counteroffers. Right. And there is a statistic that I like to share with everybody, because I think it makes a lot of sense before you even start looking for a job to consider. Wait, what if my company actually does want me more than more than I know, and they come back and they want to offer me more money? Yeah. When a company does that the candidate is only statistically going to stay for an average of six months after that. So you have to really get clear with yourself. And you have to understand that and you have to realize that after that, you know, counteroffer happens, you’re probably not going to be there for much longer anyway, so get clear in the fact that you probably shouldn’t accept that counter offer in the first place. And if you have one toe out the door, step out when the goings Good,
Diana Fryc 40:03
okay? Okay, that’s interesting. Okay. Are there any? Are there any women in the industry, again, recruiting or in this wellness space that you are wanting to elevate? You think our rising stars just simply give a shout out for the work that they’re doing right now? Yeah, there
Angela Marturano 40:25
are a couple of women in the space. They’re both independent consultants, right and different service providers. One is Candice Shearman. And she just stepped off on her own to build King Lou’s the natural pet snack brand, but she’s also doing fractional consulting, work marketing, digital marketing, okay. And she’s super values aligned. I think she gives her all she understands the space really well. And Casey Plachek. Casey is an ops consultant. So she can come in and help you with your, your, your, your logistics, And oh, by chain and a fractional basis or consulting basis. So those two are great for really startup brands who might need some additional support. Yeah, on a part time basis. Yeah, just before they before they call someone like myself to hire full time. Yeah, they need to fill in that gap for a short amount of time. Those are two awesome women. And they’re super values aligned and very much in tune with the space.
Diana Fryc 41:31
Wow. That’s cool. I like that. Yeah, I don’t I can’t I have a little notebook notebooks, a little spreadsheet of all the fractions because I run across people who want the services of retail Voodoo, and then they go oh, but that my, our fees don’t are not in alignment with what they’re about. And usually they’re younger and startups, type of brands. But I always have a pocket full of fractions that go Okay, well, here’s for the next couple years, you might want to work with this person or this person. So I’ll have to get those names for me to add them to my list. Thank you for sharing those folks. You’re welcome. Hmm, what brands or trends are you keeping your eye on right now on why?
Angela Marturano 42:17
Yeah, so great question. I think you know, first of all the herbal and botanical spaces is heating up, it’s been heating up it’s been here for 1000s of years via ayurvedic and traditional medicine. But it’s here to stay in a big way. So you know, that space is huge. Anything functional mushroom related? You know, whether it be in the beverage space adaptogens whether it be you know, mushroom packaging, I love seeing innovation in that space for the mental health state space psilocybin mushrooms and one on space closely really there’s a lot to be said oh yeah, for the direction of mental health in this country. And so so yeah, herbs, herbs and mushrooms are my go to is always
Diana Fryc 43:08
Hmm, so then are you actively helping those brands in the hemp and CBD space as well? Are you Is there a lot of movement there.
Angela Marturano 43:19
Um, I would say that we don’t do as much in the in the I I’m a big supporter of hemp and CBD. The the industry’s been a little interesting, you know, just regulation wise, movement wise. So I’m a big believer, but personally don’t do a ton of work in that space right now. Once once we’re legal and good to go and there’s no gray area anymore. I think it’ll be, you know, a nice play for us as
Diana Fryc 43:51
well. I just interviewed somebody recently who does hemp and CBD research. And she and she’s been a huge activist at a political level and has a lot of sway and say, and she speculated that 12 months, she said, she says the FDA that’s really more the problem child than the other type of regulatory with banking. Once the FDA says it’s ago, she expects it to open up and they had expected it to happen in 2020. But FDA shifted their focus to COVID and so she anticipates that as COVID starts to whatever the heck it starts to go away that CBD and hemp will be on that flip side. And I
Angela Marturano 44:41
would hope that the we get it done during this administration. I think it’s it’s time I think everybody’s here for
Diana Fryc 44:47
Right? I mean, we’re all just half of us but more than half of us are rolling our eyes half the time around this stuff but I get it you know, if you are not a believer and there’s a personal ideology that It’s not aligned with that’s great it it’s, but it sure makes it tricky for commerce and business. We’ll get there. We’ll get there. Yeah. Well, hey, we’ve been talking with Angela, Martorano founder and president of Orchid Holistic Search. Angela, if people wanted to learn more about what you do, or just simply get you on their radar, what’s the best way to do that?
Angela Marturano 45:24
LinkedIn, I hang out there quite a bit. Like to post a little bit about Costa Rica living, I like to post a little bit about the trials and tribulations of working and search tips and tricks for candidates. And, you know, just share a little bit about about life and connect with people there. So that’s the best way to find me.
Diana Fryc 45:44
Awesome. I am going to, after our call, I’m going to connect you with my friend in your spare time you can meet each other I don’t know, maybe. But I want to thank you, Angela, for your time today. And I really appreciate your input and feedback and for all that you’re doing in the world of naturals really excited to have you on today. So thanks so much.
Angela Marturano 46:07
Thank you so much, Diana. It’s really been a pleasure. I appreciate you. You’re great interviewer.
Diana Fryc 46:13
Oh, thank you. And we’ll catch you guys all next time. Perfect. Sounds great. Enjoy your weekend.
Outro 46:26
We hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you haven’t already, be sure to click subscribe and share with your network. Until next time, be well and do Gooder.
