Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: Welcome to another episode of the Growth Focus Podcast where we bring together tech leaders from all across the globe to share their time, their insights, and their experience with us on our journey within entrepreneurship and growing our business. My name is Gary Lafter, your host and CEO and founder of the Growth Focus Partnerships, where we take leaders messages and turn them into revenue engines. I can't wait to get started on this particular episode today. So without further ado, why don't we start and bring on our guest, Macy. Macy, it's an absolute pleasure having you here today. We why don't you start off by telling us who you are and what is it that you do?
[00:00:56] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm Macy. I work with Axiompath and Cognified.
I am a client, solution and engagement manager. All of that just means that I facilitate great partnerships.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: That's a really interesting way of putting it. And I love the way that you said, you know, that with clients, Clients are partnerships, especially within our industry, that the more we see our clients more as partnerships, we've certainly seen over the last few years, those companies who succeed actually form more hybrid partnerships with them as opposed to just providing a product or a service. Why don't you give us a quick 90 second overview of what your business does and why you got into it?
[00:01:38] Speaker A: Yeah. So Axiom Path is a staffing, consulting and advisory firm. We help companies of all sizes, from scrappy startups to massive enterprises, build and scale their tech, finance and operations teams. Basically, we help find people the right roles and help the teams not just survive, but actually thrive. We also have Cognified, which is our AI arm. We, we bring productive insights, AI agents, smart automation into that mix. And this means we can work faster and smarter. But humans still run the show because at the end of the day, we really need humans to make the team succeed.
[00:02:15] Speaker B: Yeah, that's it. That is an amazing fact. You know, we always need the humans, even in this world now, where we grow more, more. We can't have a podcast episode without even mentioning AI. There's always got to be an AI element to it. But you're absolutely right. There absolutely needs to be the human element in our industry. But likewise, for any business to grow, the product or service that we provide must and usually solve a big problem. So what is the biggest problem that you see within your industry that your company solves and how are you going about doing that?
[00:02:47] Speaker A: Yeah, so there's a couple of things and I'll try to keep it as brief as possible. I can get long winded from time to time. But I think right now we're in this interesting phase where there's a little bit of over automation, there's a lot of tools, a lot of bots. These can kind of pull up candidates. They can tell you, you know, who they are, but they can't really tell you if they're going to fit right or if they're going to thrive in your company culture or if they can even grow with you. So we try to solve both. We try to create a agent that's going to be proficient within your organization to cut out that repetitive or filtrative work. But we have a lot of human judgment that comes from us as well, from an advisory standpoint. So just try to fix both problems.
[00:03:28] Speaker B: So talking about those problems, who is your ideal client and how do they, how do they, how does that problem surface itself within their company and how do they know they've actually got this problem?
[00:03:39] Speaker A: Yeah. So our ideal client is anyone that is in a growth focused organization.
Again, it can be somebody really small and a very eager startup, or it could be an enterprise that's just looking at what is in store for next year. Those problems typically surface right about this time of year. Everybody's doing their year end, figuring out who they need coming into next year, what projects they're going to need support on and they need a little bit of clarity and strategy. So we can invite, we can offer that from our advisory standpoint and then we can build out anything that you need in order to have those insights and automation.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: So what are the challenges then that you see your ideal client have on a day to day basis and what is the outcome from those challenges that they can expect by working with you?
[00:04:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest problem we see on a day to day basis is going to be they need somebody for their team. Right. So we like to emerge ourselves completely into an organization and be a true partner. We get to know you, where you're going, how you're scaling, and the team that you lead. Then we find the right person that's going to drive success within that organization. And sometimes it's not a person, sometimes it's a tool, but we have those experts that can give you that guidance.
[00:04:55] Speaker B: So when it comes to, as an if I was going to pretend to be your client, what mistakes am I generally making at this moment in time that if I continued along this route would probably be a disservice to my company?
[00:05:11] Speaker A: Yeah. So sitting with 400 resumes in your inbox for Your next project manager, that's probably going to be pretty harmful and unsuccessful. Right. So having that oversight of, hey, you know, here's the tool that can sort these, bring the top five to you. We can have those preliminary conversations, make sure they fit the culture, the climate, the growth expectations based on basically bring you the exact person from the, for your team with use of tools and human intuition.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: So Macy, you're in a very competitive market. There is, there are agencies and companies that do something very, very similar. And I use that word similar deliberately because perception is reality in, in the marketplace. How and what makes you guys unique in the way you help your clients achieve the. This very common set of problems.
[00:06:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I think the really big differentiator is the blend of human first staffing and strategic advisory and the intelligent use of AI. There's a lot of firms that can find you candidates, there's a lot of places that can offer you tech, but few combine both while actually helping clients get real ROI from AI. We use AI to optimize the process, predict the outcomes, streamline some workflows, but humans still call the shots. And the ROI isn't just the tech. It's the smarter decisions, the better hires and the teams that actually turn out and perform.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: It's interesting you mentioned ROI there Macy, because obviously, especially within your industry, one of the challenges and biggest ROI gains would be actually the lack of making mistakes, wouldn't it? It'll be the lack of bad decisions that would end up costing them as well. So it's not so much the cost of inaction, it's the cost of bad action. Would you agree with that and what could you add to that?
[00:07:02] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I mean there's, there's bad hiring and there's bad tool choice. Right. So with us we can help you identify the tool that you need and the person that you need to utilize it. Right. Or train your team that's in place how to utilize something new to them. Nothing is successful or creates ROI if you're not using it right. So you have to make those smart decisions and utilize the tools you're investing in.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: Yeah, know you're very, you come across as a very passionate about what you do. Macy, let's talk about you for a little bit. What brought you into this particular industry and what is it that you like about your typical day?
[00:07:37] Speaker A: Yeah, so that's an interesting question because I have a very different background from technology. I actually got my start in small startups in the beverage scene. I guess, let's think about 15 years ago Breweries were pretty hot, right? And they were fun. And then I got, you know, mastered brewing, got into distilling. And one of the things that I really enjoyed about that industry in general and hospitality in general is building relationships with people and a human connection. So it's kind of ironic. I transitioned into tech and now I basically just create relationships within tech.
That's what I've always loved doing. My day is pretty much spent doing things like this how having good conversations with people in the technology space, collaborating, seeing how we can build community around it. That's kind of the goal for me.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: So with that goal in mind, Macy, where do you see your industry going in the next, you know, with. I suppose because we're using tech, I'm going to shorten this, let's say the next two to five years as opposed to five to 10 years. Where do you see your industry in the next two to three years?
And how are you guys staying at the forefront of this?
[00:08:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I think with keeping AI in mind because it applies to almost everything we do right now. Right. And specific to our industry, keeping AI in mind when it comes to tools and hiring, I think that there's going to be a lot more of the over automation and we're going to have to do a little bit of a scale back and remember that we need that human oversight. And I think there's going to be a big need for a lot of training. So. So that can be simple. I think we all have, you know, Gemini or Copilot or, you know, whatever. It's already automatically integrated into our everyday and we're utilizing it, but we may not know the full potential. So we have the ability to come in on an advisory approach and kind of teach how to maximize the use of what the organization's already paying for and what's already built in. One way that we're doing that in particular is we are actually. We just hosted Charlotte's largest AI conference. We did it from an executive standpoint to kind of offer like hands on training for two days of how you can actually utilize this, train your team. So just kind of building a community around the technology and then making sure everybody's trained on it because it is moving so fast.
[00:10:01] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, what we're seeing, certainly from the clients I've got and the guests that we've had on this podcast, a year or so ago, we would see a doubling of knowledge every sort of six to seven months. And now we're seeing a doubling of ability and knowledge in AI every three to four months already this year, you know, and probably two months by the time we next year out. Bearing that in mind, how do you see AI really helping your clients in the years 2026, 2027 and beyond? Because it's going to look somewhat different to where it is today.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's just going to save time. I think that's going to be the biggest resource we can lean on it for, is just automating the mundane tasks, saving us that, you know, back and forth, little tedious communication or thought process. And then also, you know, reporting. It's, it's great to create data and reports around it. It's quick, it kind of streamlines that process. So I think just getting to your answer faster, whether it be strategy, hiring, I think that's really what it's going to be most beneficial for. We just got to get everybody trained on how to use it right and safely.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I think this is the key thing is it's getting everybody trained. But the beauty is because it's moving so fast and everyone is so busy, people are always going to feel that they're being left behind. They're always going to feel that they're behind the curve on that. And that's why we need people like yourselves that's going to help people pull them up to the ranks, as it were, and keep them up to date. So listen, Macy, is this a bit of a loaded question for your last question with us today? If you had one piece of advice that you wanted to leave our viewers and our listeners with today with regards to helping them grow their business from your perspective, what would that one piece of advice be?
[00:11:53] Speaker A: Lean on people that know how to do it. So I'm kind of thinking in the frame of my boss, my mentor, Saqib Khadak. He is big on sticking yourself with somebody that, that knows how to do it and learning directly hands on from them. So if somebody is offering to help teach you something, always say yes, absolutely.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: I think that's a fantastic note to end on. Macy, it's been an absolute pleasure having you here today. Thank you very much for your time.
[00:12:22] Speaker A: Thank you so much.
[00:12:23] Speaker B: And thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for joining us for another episode of the Growth Focus podcast. And as per usual, if you've liked this, please make sure you let know why you liked it by commenting below. But more importantly, please share share episodes like this so that other people can gain the knowledge that people like Macy and other leaders have shared with us on our episodes. So until next time, be safe. But more importantly, be profitable. And we shall see you on the next episode of the Growth Focus podcast.
[00:12:49] Speaker A: Bye bye, Sam.
