IAM701- Co-founder Helps Clients Find Executive Talent

Neill Marshall has 30 years of experience in healthcare search and has conducted over 600 hundred senior-level assignments. He’s held leadership roles with major executive search firms and in 2017 helped create and is currently Chairman of HealthSearch Partners, the sixth-largest healthcare executive search entity in the U.S.

A serial entrepreneur who has started three successful companies, Marshall has spoken to professional groups, trustee groups, and boards of directors on executive recruiting and other healthcare issues and has written numerous articles and promotional publications.

Neill earned a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration/Management from Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, where he helped grow the Society for Entrepreneurship and New Ventures (ENVE) into one of the most respected student-led organizations on campus.

• CEO Hack: Creative habit: Listening to business-oriented podcasts and writing down notes on Siri
• CEO Nugget: (1) Don't give your company 100% of your time, take 10% to build your brand (2) Go where things are happening, find extra-ordinary people and become valuable to them, build relationships
• CEO Defined: Creating opportunities and implementing ideas

Website: http://healthsearchpartners.com/

Twitter: @NeillHSP
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neillmarshall

FULL INTERVIEW

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Transcription

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[00:00:02.20] – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

[00:00:30.00] – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gretch from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Neil Marshall of Health Search Partners. Neil, it's awesome to have you on the show.

[00:00:39.39] – Neill Marshall

Thanks, Gresh. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

[00:00:42.79] – Gresham Harkless

No problem. Definitely appreciate you for hopping on the show. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Neil so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Neil has thirty years of experience in health care search and has conducted over six hundred senior-level assignments. He's held leadership roles with major executive firms and in twenty seventeen helped create and is currently chairman of Health Search Partners, the sixth largest healthcare executive search entity in the United States. He's a serial entrepreneur who has started three successful companies, and Neil has spoken to professional groups, trustee groups, and boards of directors on executive recruiting and other healthcare issues, and has written numerous articles and promotional publications. Neil earned a bachelor's degree in business administration and management from Texas A and M University in College Station, Texas, where he helped grow the society for entrepreneurship and new venture, and into into one of the most respected student-led organizations on campus. Neil, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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[00:01:44.90] – Neill Marshall

Love to. Let's get to it, Gresham.

[00:01:46.40] – Gresham Harkless

Let's make it happen. So to kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit and hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. We'll let you get started with your business and all the awesome things you're doing.

[00:01:55.90] – Neill Marshall

Sure. So I started, my I started in executive search back, oh, I don't know, like, in nineteen ninety, but I knew I'd always I've worked with a pretty large search firm, but I knew that I'd always wanted to do something on my own. So about twelve years after that, a coworker and I decided to strike out on our own. We had the blessing of our of our former firm, so they referred business to us. So we had a ready-made pipeline. Nice. About twelve years later, I partnered with someone else that I'd worked with on a new firm that had a slightly different focus. We started our sir our current firm because we wanted a little bit more scale. So I'm currently cofounder and chairman of HealthSearch Partners.

[00:02:42.59] – Gresham Harkless

Nice. And it definitely sounds like you, from reading your bio, that entrepreneurial kind of, I guess, but was in you for a while, it sounds like, even at College Station.

[00:02:53.90] – Neill Marshall

Yeah. Absolutely. , I always knew that I wanted to, I wanted to do business on my own. I wanted to be an entrepreneur always.

[00:03:04.90] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That makes so much sense. So I wanted to to drill down a little bit here a little bit more about Health Search Partners. Can you take us through, exactly what you guys are doing and how you're serving clients you work with?

[00:03:14.90] – Neill Marshall

Sure. So as you said, we're the six largest executive search firms specializing in hospitals and health systems. We help our clients find executive talent for their organizations. In addition, I, work with hospital executives on how to enhance and build their career brands. And kind of a new thing that I'm doing, my newest venture is called the gray hustle. It's helping you you won't understand this. You're not quite old enough. But, us fifty-somethings, it's helping fifty-something executives build their career brand so they can enhance their income, their freedom, and all their flexibility in retirement.

[00:03:51.09] – Gresham Harkless

Okay. Nice. And I definitely appreciate that, and I do have a little bit of gray hair here and there. So I think I can I can relate to that a little bit, but I think it's it's so important to kind of be able to kinda give people, sometimes an underserved community potentially, that opportunity to really be able to kinda cultivate, and still sharpen the saw and still be able to kinda get out there and get their names out there?

[00:04:13.40] – Neill Marshall

Yeah. Absolutely. No. I agree.

[00:04:15.69] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And so, I wanted to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce. And it could be for yourself personally or your business. But what do you feel kinda sets you apart and makes you unique?

[00:04:25.50] – Neill Marshall

So I'm I'm gonna talk about my business instead of me personally this time. What makes Health Search Partners unique is that we're big enough to be what I call relevant in our niche, but we're small enough that we don't have access issues that the big specialized firms have. What that means in our business, is there's something that's called blockage. And what that means is a firm can't access executives or, that from companies that they work for or executives from companies that they used to work for for a certain period of time.

In addition, they can't access the executives that they've placed in their current positions. And if they're doing a lot of similar searches, they can't use those executives, in multiple searches. So clients then effectively are competing with the firm for, the best candidates. The bigger you are, the more blockage issues you're gonna have. And what health search partners can do is we can access ninety percent of the candidates out there, whereas some of our competitors can only access sixty or seventy percent.

[00:05:33.10] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

[00:05:44.80] – Neill Marshall

So what I'm gonna talk about is a habit. And it's a creativity habit or hack. Okay? So what I do, and you'll you'll appreciate this, is I listen to business-oriented podcasts, and podcasts that are, around things that I'm interested in. I've listened to it every day when I work out. The hack is that I'm thinking while the podcast is going on. And every time I get an idea, I hear something that makes sense, I write it down or type it out right then and there. I put it in one note. I put it in one place all the time. Okay? If I can't do that, if I'm running or something like that, I'll just tell Siri to write me a note. And what I do when I get in the office is I sit down, I take everything, I take a look, I see what's good, I, if there's something that's good, I implement it immediately.

[00:06:38.19] – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So that could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell yourself or if you were to tell a client, how they can be more effective and efficient.

[00:06:52.50] – Neill Marshall

So what I wanted to do is one of the things you said is what would you tell your younger self. Right? Mhmm. So here's what I would tell my younger self, I e, young people today.

[00:07:03.80] – Gresham Harkless

Mhmm.

[00:07:04.80] – Neill Marshall

The first thing is don't give your job a hundred percent of your time. Mhmm. Give your job ninety percent of your time. Take ten percent for you. Okay? That ten percent for you, what are you gonna do? You write articles, network, build relationships, go to meetings and conferences, and build your career brand. Don't give your company everything. Keep some for you. That's number one. Number two, I would say go where things are happening. Find extraordinary people and become valuable to them. Build relationships.

[00:07:37.89] – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. No. I absolutely love that because I think so many times, there's always a balance between being, you know, present and in the moment, but I think you also have to, just like with finances, they say you wanna take a certain percentage and pay yourself or be able to invest it for the long term. And I love those, kinda practical steps because I think so many times we forget about that career brand you kinda spoke to and how you might have potential opportunities that emerge today, from today, twenty years down the line. And if you're doing those things consistently, and on a regular, basis, then that might provide you the opportunity for those, potential opportunities down the road.

[00:08:16.39] – Neill Marshall

Absolutely. And I talk to so many people who focus totally on what they're doing, their job. And they say, hey. I can't, you know, I can't get away to interview with you because I'm too busy. And I'm this, and I'm like, you gotta take ten percent of that time and give it to you.

[00:08:33.79] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. And I think, obviously, from somebody who, you know, helps out so many people finding those opportunities, I think that that goes far as that, you know, that information and that nugget because those little, you know, that little amount of time can completely change your life and completely change, you know, what things look like, for you down the line.

[00:08:53.10] – Neill Marshall

Absolutely.

[00:08:54.79] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. So now I wanna ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on their show. So, Neil, what does being a CEO mean to you?

[00:09:06.20] – Neill Marshall

So as we talked about earlier, I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, and I knew I wanted to have my own business. When I was a kid, I had lemonade stands. I held carnivals, mowed lawns, and bought and sold mini bikes. I built a zip line in my backyard so that the neighborhood kids would ride on it. The first guy got on it, and the rope broke. He fell about fifteen feet, right on his you know what. So that didn't turn out so well. But, you know, I always knew that's what I wanted to do. As I got older, it became it wasn't about money with me, and it was not about prestige. What I discovered is it's about creating. Mhmm. Whether it's creating a new business, or creating a new way to do something in my business, I get a charge out of creating. So when you're the CEO and you have an idea at seven in the morning, you can have it implemented by the end of the day. That's what I love about being a CEO.

[00:10:10.10] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. And I think being able to kinda bring those things to fruition because everything kinda new under the sun is kinda created. So having the ability to kinda bring those things together, create solutions, create opportunities as we kinda talked about before, comes from somebody who is able to think about it, but taking it a step further, able to implement those on a regular basis and execute on that is a huge thing.

[00:10:35.10] – Neill Marshall

Right. And for me, it's more about the volume of things that you can create and do. And the fact that if you have an idea, you get to implement it that day. You don't have to go talk to your boss who then talks to his boss, who then talks to his boss. By the time they get back to you, you've forgotten what you wanted to do

[00:10:56.70] – Gresham Harkless

Right.

[00:10:57.70] – Neill Marshall

Right? I don't have to I don't have to convince anybody. I just get to do it.

[00:11:03.89] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And that's incredibly freeing and then a great opportunity, especially for people, you know, like yourself, obviously, that have that entrepreneurial spirit that can kind of see and solve problems. Not only will you potentially forget the idea if you have to tell your boss and your boss and your boss and so on and so forth, You the opportunity itself might be gone by the time you get approval to actually, take flight on that.

[00:11:27.29] – Neill Marshall

Absolutely. Or you run across and run into people who don't think the way you think. They, I remember back early in my career, I would do things that were, pretty cutting edge.

[00:11:41.89] – Gresham Harkless

Mhmm.

[00:11:42.29] – Neill Marshall

And then I would just sit in my office and wait for the CEO or one of his people to call me screaming at something that I did about something that I did. But it worked, and it was good.

[00:11:53.00] – Gresham Harkless

Right. Yeah. Absolutely. And it wasn't the zip line just for the record. Right?

[00:11:58.10] – Neill Marshall

No.

[00:11:59.00] – Gresham Harkless

It was bad.

[00:12:00.70] – Neill Marshall

That was a failure. Okay. That was a failure. Yeah. Before Scott Spoolstra, I don't think he was ever the same.

[00:12:07.79] – Gresham Harkless

Probably not. But, no. it's great, you know, that you remind us to kinda, you know, ignite that spirit and the opportunities that it persists. And I think that not only as CEOs, but even people that are, you know, leaders within organizations, I think it's only important to be able to kinda create a culture and that opportunity where people that have that entrepreneurial spirit and that drive can, you know, come up with ideas and different ways to kind of, you know, solve problems that allow the world, the organizations, and everything, everybody within it to be a lot better.

[00:12:42.10] – Neill Marshall

Yeah. Absolutely. I agree.

[00:12:44.29] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Neil, truly appreciate that perspective, and I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and listeners know, and of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out all the awesome things you and your team are working on.

[00:13:01.10] – Neill Marshall

Sure. So I guess what I would say is, number one, we're in an unprecedented time in a lot of different ways. But I think when we recover from COVID nineteen, we're gonna go back to a time when I would say to young people that it's an extraordinary time. Whole businesses and industries are being created every single day. I don't believe there's ever been a time when more opportunities to create businesses have ever been better. You know, your business as an example, ten years ago, podcasts were not there weren't any. There were barely any, and they weren't important. I just read somewhere that we just broke a million podcasts. That's incredible. Yeah. Anybody that's got something to say can say it.

[00:13:53.29] – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. Yeah. We all have I I think that's the biggest thing about, you know, this day and age is that you have that platform as you talked about, you know, obviously, from a podcast standpoint, but even you talked about that career brand. We have so many different ways, podcasting and vlogging and blogging to be able to kind of, transcend or to kinda create and to grow our message and our brand and everything that we're trying to do.

[00:14:18.10] – Neill Marshall

So here's a here's a funny example. So when I was very young in my career, I got quoted in USA Today, which was huge. Okay? I mean, huge. Okay? So, and I mean, getting quoted in USA Today was something you don't forget, and it was just big, big, big. So, today, once you drop your podcast and put it out, there'll be more mentions of me on this podcast than there were in the USA Today article, you know, twenty years ago. It's more important.

[00:14:58.60] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. And kind of that, an opportunity that everybody has a platform to be able to share and to be able to engage with anything they like. It provides, you know, such an opportunity, but I think that, with, you know, that opportunity, you wanna make sure that you are kinda staying in alignment with your brand and everything that you do, which is why I love, you know, everything that you guys stand for and you're able to execute. Because I think when you are able to do that, you're able to kinda swim, with the stream, not against the stream that provides, you know, a tremendous amount of opportunity.

[00:15:27.89] – Neill Marshall

Absolutely.

[00:15:30.29] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Neil, anybody that wants to reach out to you, what's the best way for them to reach out to you and to get in touch with the or?

[00:15:38.79] – Neill Marshall

So go to our website. It's w w w health search partners dot com. Or you can find me on LinkedIn, Neil Marshall, in like November, e I two l's, and then Marshall with two l's also.

[00:15:55.29] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And we will make it even easier. We'll have the links and information in the show notes. But, again, truly appreciate your time and the entrepreneurial spirit you continue to remind us of and remind us to kinda go forth with. So I appreciate you again. Hope hopefully, you have a great rest of the day.

[00:16:11.70] – Neill Marshall

Absolutely. Thanks, Gresh. Enjoyed seeing you, and enjoyed talking to your community.

[00:16:17.29] – Gresham Harkless

Alright. And I'll cut it off here.

[00:16:23.20] – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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