This guy got it right; One of my all time favorite WSJ articles

mrodman — Wed, 08 May 2013 12:13:31 +0000

WHAT’S YOUR WORKOUT
May 6, 2013, 6:58 p.m. ET

Dale Katechis of Oskar Blues

By JEN MURPHY

When Dale Katechis is on a three-hour bike ride he has one thing on his mind: a cold beer. Beer and mountain biking may seem like an unlikely pairing. But for Mr. Katechis, the founder of Oskar Blues Brewery in Longmont, Colo., they are integral parts of his company’s culture.

Benjamin Rasmussen for The Wall Street JournalDale Katechis rides with some of his employees and friends on a mountain bike trail in Hall Ranch in Lyons, CO.

On Tuesday nights, employees gather for group mountain bike rides that might last 3½ hours, followed by beer and food at one of the three nearby restaurants he owns. “We ride and race year round,” he says. “Even in the snow.”

Four days a week, Mr. Katechis has a personal trainer teach boot camp-style classes at the company gym he had built next to the brewery in 2008. Two days a week, yoga classes are offered. There is a weekly Oskar Blues run club. A massage therapist is on call two days a week. These perks are free for the approximately 275 people he employs. “It’s important to promote healthy living at work,” he says. “It’s the way I live my life. It also allows me the vices I love, like eating and drinking great beer.”

Mr. Katechis, 44 years old, raced BMX bikes in high school. He fell in love with mountain biking and began experimenting with home brewing when he was at Auburn University in Auburn, Ala. In 1997, Mr. Katechis opened the Oskar Blues restaurant in Lyons, Colo. In 1999, he built a home brew system in the restaurant’s basement, turned it into a brewpub and introduced Oskar Blues beer.

Mr. Katechis now has a 35,000-square-foot brewing facility in Longmont. Last year, he opened an East Coast brewery in Brevard, N.C., near Pisgah National Forest, one of his favorite spots to mountain bike. He is working on building a gym facility in North Carolina.

While one would think working at a brewery engenders lots of imbibing, Mr. Katechis says drinking during the day isn’t a part of the work culture. He has a quality panel of about 10 people who taste his beers. He says a beer quenches his thirst more than a Gatorade after a hard bike ride. “I want our Old Chub Scottish-style ale,” he says. “I think about it during the ride. It’s what I crave.”

Mr. Katechis is married with four kids, ages 16, 14, 11 and 7.

The Workout

Mr. Katechis is on his bike every day, and about six years ago he began doing core-strength workouts. “I really fell in love with workouts like CrossFit and decided to hire a personal trainer to train my wife and family as well as my staff,” he says.

Enlarge Image

Benjamin Rasmussen for The Wall Street JournalMr. Katechis at the company gym next to the Oskar Blues Brewery in Longmont, Colo.

At 8 a.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and at 5 p.m. on Tuesdays, many employees are at the gym doing walking lunges, crunches, and tossing medicine balls. A trainer leads what Mr. Katechis calls “In the Core” workouts, which incorporate plyometric exercises and use light weights or body weight. One day a week, a yoga instructor leads a class. “The other day I was partnered with a guy who was on his second day of the job at the restaurant,” he says. “We were able to work together at our own speeds doing crab walks, push-ups, plank pose and burpees.”

He gets out for a good mountain bike ride about four days a week. Once a week he goes on his “sanity ride” on the Hall Ranch Trail, a 12-mile trail in nearby Lyons, Colo., with a 13,000-foot elevation. On weekends, he goes on three or four-hour rides with friends.

Oskar Blues sells beer in 32 states and Mr. Katechis and his team travel to meet with customers and distributors, as well as to participate in beer festivals and events. Mountain-bike races and trail rides are worked into nearly every trip. In February when Mr. Katechis went to Phoenix for Arizona Craft Beer week, his team did the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo mountain-bike race.

When the weather is nice, Mr. Katechis bikes to and from work and also accompanies his two youngest kids to school on his bike.

The Diet

Mr. Katechis cooks breakfast for his kids in the mornings. He usually has three to four large mugs of coffee to start his day, along with a handful of blueberries and a protein shake. He eats a Clif bar around 10:30 a.m. and lunch is a salad from one of his two restaurants. He eats dinner with his family most nights. They often make pizza and have sushi at least once a week. His splurge is a good steak. “I’ll hold the dessert just so I can order the 16-ounce steak instead of the 12-ounce,” he says.

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Benjamin Rasmussen for The Wall Street JournalDale Katechis, center, before an ‘In the Core’ workout with employees.

The Gear & Cost

Mr. Katechis wears Newton running sneakers, which retail for between $125 and $175 a pair. “I suffered from a pretty severe case of plantar fasciitis [when the connective tissue on the sole of the feet becomes inflamed] and once I started running in Newton, I haven’t had a problem. They force you to stay off your heels and run on your toes.”

He wears a Nike+ FuelBand, which costs $149, to track his daily activity and calories burned. He owns 12 mountain bikes and one road bike.

The Playlist

“I am a big country music fan, but I also like Mackelmore and Alabama Shakes. I have to confess I’m a Justin Bieber fan. I know most words to his songs.”

Here are Dale Katechis’s favorite riding trails, located near one of his two Oskar Blues breweries:

From Trail to Suds: Four Mountain-Bike Rides With a Cold Reward

Hall Ranch Trail, Lyons, Colo.

“Hall Ranch is the home trail for Oskar Blues,” says. Mr. Katechis. “It’s a tough, rocky, technical climb…plus it’s a rowdy descent. There is a rolling loop at the top that allows view of Longs Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park. ”

DuPont State Forest, N.C. DD +1.41%

“DuPont is a great place to ride because you can piece together a ton of different fast and rolling routes throughout the more than 10,000 acres of forest. Many of the trails take you past waterfalls between Hendersonville and Brevard, N.C.”

Enlarge Image

Getty ImagesPisgah National Forest

Black Mountain Trail, Pisgah National Forest, Brevard, N.C.

“Pisgah is such an inspiring and raw forest. I really like the rugged, technical and often wet riding conditions. The Tasty Weasel 2 taproom is right down the road from the gates to Pisgah National Forest so it’s great to be able to ride from the brewery and roll in for a post-ride beer.

Monarch Crest Trail, Poncha Springs, Colo.

“The Monarch Crest Trail is the quintessential Colorado high country [between 11,000 feet and 12,000 feet] adventure. The trail has great ups and downs, rocky sections, fun descents and views to enjoy over a trailside brew. To add to the fun, there is always that chance of afternoon thunderstorms.”

Write to Jen Murphy at workout@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared May 7, 2013, on page D3 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: A Colorado Brewer Mixes Exercise With Beer.

Good enterprise Sales, Sales Engineering, and PS candidate are going fast

mrodman — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 19:25:58 +0000

Xtra Effort has noticed candidates are receiving multiple offers and often in a timely fashion. Specifically, two Xtra Effort clients recently lost later stage candidates because the candidates received more timely evaluation processes with other attractive employers (not Xtra Effort clients).

We would suggest we all be aware of this trend.

Timely employer to candidate feedback and an efficient ability to screen candidates is becoming increasingly important (with or without a third party recruiter).

This is a polite way of saying don’t take good candidates for granted, they are going fast. It is expensive to invest your company’s resources in 3/4 of an evaluation cycle and then lose critical talent at the 11th hour.

Be diligent and don’t skips steps, but also keep it tight and be aware of what your best candidates are experiencing with your process and the MUTUAL evaluation cycle.

Has Computerworld “Jumped the Shark”?

mrodman — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:30:54 +0000

Below is Computerworld‘s topics for the week. Wow, things have changed. It used to be all about data storage, ERP, Client Server” (I know, way back), SOA, Oracle databases, SAP, Web Services, etc… Who would have thought the focus would be comparisons of phones with a little focus on challenges with the Windows OS? Does this mean we don’t care as much about enterprise application and infrastructure issues, or that enterprise infrastructure has matured/stabilized to the point where it is no longer worthy of mention? Perhaps Computerworld simply “Jumped the Shark” and its sister magazines such as Network World have picked up the slack by covering Cloud computing, etc.?

Recap of Q1 2013 Xtra Effort client hiring details; enterprise technology segment

mrodman — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 17:31:39 +0000

Below is a recap of Xtra Effort client hiring activity for Q1 2013.

The data may help you with your own planning, or at least provide a comparison.

As a frame of reference, Xtra Effort clients are small to medium sized enterprise scale technology companies (products and services) that hire Sales, Sales Engineers, and Professional Services personnel throughout the USA.

LINK TO RECAP

Observations:

Hiring sales staff has increased among professional service companies. These companies are hiring because they are reaching their targets

Cloud infrastructure, Big Data and BI companies are experiencing considerable growth and/or have significant funding for expected growth – hence hiring

Hiring demand has increased in the Midwest

Lots of young SaaS product companies continue to want to hire inside sales staff with 2 – 5 years of experience whom are responsible for the whole sales cycle in a virtual manner. Demand for this profile seems to be outstripping supply.

The above link represents our actual Q1 2013 client hires, and does not represent all of Xtra Effort’s client hiring demand (where employment offers and acceptances have yet to occur.) See XTRA EFFORT’S PORTAL for a full picture of Xtra Effort’s entire current day hiring requirements, including: solution offerings, compensation, roles, location, and responsibilities.

Ken Michalak receives $500 Amazon.com Xtra Effort referral fee

mrodman — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 23:32:24 +0000

Xtra Effort’s client is provides marketing database building, cleansing, and other services to help businesses improve their marketing effectiveness and ROI.

They asked Xtra Effort to help them identify and hire an accomplished upper Midwest sales executive with deep success selling marketing solution solutions to business-to-consumer companies.

Ken Michalak obviously knew exactly what we were trying to articulate relative to our client’s needs. He referred us to a candidate with almost two decades of experience selling marketing automation and database content. The candidate was hired and within three months is already poised to deliver a new client for a noteworthy amount of revenue.

Thank you Ken!

Julie Crafton receives $500 Amazon.com XtraEffort electronic gift certificate for referring a Sales professional

mrodman — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 14:11:41 +0000

Thank you Julie for referring a top Sales professional. Xtra Effort’s client is a $300m+ high growth technology solutions firm. They are organized by industry, including healthcare, telcom, media, insurance, retail, and financial services. Their solution offerings include Big Data/BI, Web Content Management, Cloud/Mobile Development, Quality Assurance, and Software Development.

Their Healthcare practice needed a seasoned sales executive experienced in selling $1m+ solutions.

Julie sent the perfect candidate, and both the client and candidate are pleased with the outcome. It’s terrific when it works out the way “it suppose to”, huh?

Thank you Julie.

current Xtra Effort client hiring data: enterprise technology sales, sales engineering, and implementation roles; Xtra Effort is hiring a recruiter

mrodman — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 13:33:19 +0000

Xtra Effort assumes many of you are immersed in reaching your personal sales objectives or implementing sold solutions. Others may be three quarters heads-down and one quarter looking what is on the 2013 horizon.

Regardless of your current circumstance, you may find this LINK to be informative. It is a spreadsheet with Xtra Effort’s current client hiring requirements, including:

1) Role

2) Compensation

3) Location

4) Technology

5) Travel

6) Transaction size

Xtra Effort clients are high growth, enterprise technology and service solution companies.

Companies in the Big Data market segment seem to represent the most hiring, but trends related to marketing effectiveness, compliance, social media, mobile computing, systems and organizational productivity are what is driving its growth. Cloud computing and SaaS are also popular, and the IT security sector has been consistent in its hiring.

We encourage you to share your current career status with us.

Please let us know if you can’t access the file, we can email it you.

Lastly, Xtra Effort’s client growth requires us to hire an associate who is experienced in contingency based recruiting or inside sales within the technology sector. The position is located at our Westford office. We would appreciate you informing suitable acquaintances of this career opportunity. Let’s help insure the cobbler’s kids have shoes

Happy Thanksgiving.

Xtra Effort’s recent enterprise software client hiring requirement data: locations, compensation, technology, etc.

mrodman — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 19:29:25 +0000

This link provides access to Xtra Effort’s client hiring requirements for the past five months. It includes roles, compensation, locations, quotas, travel requirements, deal size, and technology/service offerings. You may find it to be helpful for your 2013 planning.

The report verifies that Big Data is hot. Some of our clients truly qualify as Big Data companies, but more important is the growth of companies selling (and buying) Analytic solutions. You may interested in the types of problems being solved with it.

Analytic solutions are being offered in relation to data center server optimization, desktop computing and application delivery, risk management, marketing, workforce optimization, human resources, and finance. More clients are offering purpose built analytic applications for a particular function or industry.

Similarly, as “Cloud computing” matures, our clients provide solutions that are less about generic enabling of cloud computing, and more specific solutions for cloud security, performance, and optimization. We similar circumstances within Mobile computing.

SaaS solutions have made it more difficult to articulate our client’s median deal size because their customers will make an initial commitment, but the deal will then expand via more divisions, subscription commitment over a greater period of time, or functionality. A better way to express it may be “average first year client sales revenue”, versus “deal size.”

Sales Engineers remain the most challenging candidates for our clients to hire. One reason is smaller and younger enterprise technology companies often require their Sales Engineers to have hands-on technical skills, and top notch charisma and sales acumen. More mature technology companies have more people to share the technical proof versus sales load.

Travel requirements have lessened due to the convenience of SaaS solution selling (vendor), evaluation (enterprise), and implementation (vendor/enterprise). However there are ample exceptions, particularly with the heavy upfront work to sell-evaluate-configure an analytic solution with any real favorable impact.

Xtra Effort successfully recruits for four Boston Globe’s 2012 “Top Places to Work companies”

mrodman — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 13:18:36 +0000

During this morning’s cereal and coffee I was reading the Boston Globe magazine and was disappointed that it was not the typical format, including Tales of the City, Dinner with Cupid, houses with porches by the water (or some other strange attribute), and reader comments from the most liberal and right wing zealots.

Instead, this week’s issue was dedicated to recognizing “Top Places to Work companies”. Seeing our clients (some active, some inactive at this point in time) Kronos, Globoforce, Imprivata, and Click Software make the list featured created a big smile, knowing Xtra Effort helped them grow over the years with critical Sales, Sales Engineering, and Professional Service hires – nationally.

I am not surprised to see these companies because what they all have in common is high employee retention, and strong and unique work cultures.

I suppose now that I mentioned Xtra Effort’s affiliation with this list of companies, the Boston Globe will solicit us to advertise in next year’s issue.

Chuck Saulino issued Xtra Effort $500.00 Amazon.com electronic gift certificate

mrodman — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 12:42:39 +0000

Xtra Effort’s client required an experienced executive client account manager with a background in risk management, property and casualty insurance, business process, and client management/growth.

Chuck Saulino was thoughtful enough to recommend the perfect candidate.

Our client hired Chuck’s recommendation, and this morning he was issued a $500 Amazon.com electronic gift certificate from Xtra Effort. Just in time for the holidays.

Thank you Chuck!