Win Sheridan
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Beginning with the End in Mind
Beginning with the end in mind.
This timeless adage has been put into
practice by entrepreneurs throughout the ages, yet
few have implemented it to quite the tee as Win
Sheridan and his partners, Brian Callaghan and
Jeff Veatch, have.
The three fraternity brothers, only a year
or two out of college at the time, had been working
at Aerotek (now Tek Systems), an IT recruiting
firm in Reston, VA. It was an era of rapid growth
for Aerotek, and the company was sending out its
employees to help open offices in St. Louis and
Portland. The urgency and drive of this effort
seeped into the very core of these
three young men, and after just a few
months, they felt as though their
skills and expertise would best serve
in launching an IT staffing company
of their own.
Thus, beginning with the end
in mind, Win and his partners met in
their living room one night to set the
vision and division of their new
enterprise. Among the most pivotal
decisions made in that first meeting
was in regards to the intended scope
of their endeavor: it would not be a
local or regional company, but
instead a national presence. Thus,
Apex Systems was incorporated in September of
1995 and opened its doors in the first week of
October, committing to filling the IT placement
needs, both project-based and permanent, of
Fortune 500 and larger midsize companies
throughout the United States.
Honoring a noncompete agreement with
Aerotek, they were not permitted to do business
within 50 miles of Aerotek's office in Reston within
their first 18 months of operation. Happy to abide
by that mandate, Win and his partners opened
Apex's first office on the south side of Richmond.
Indeed, their experience with sales, recruiting, and
all other front office services and considerations
was strong enough to realize the broad ambition
they had set their sights on, and the company
began to take off. Enjoying immediate and rapid
growth, however, presented unforeseen challenges
to the firm’s back office responsibilities such as
payroll, accounts receivable, collections, and cash
management. With success coming faster and
faster, their cash was draining rapidly.
In fact, Win recalls with a shudder a
period in May of 1996 when Apex's checking
account fell to about fifteen thousand dollars,
which could only realistically sustain them for
another week. “When you’re growing that fast
and running that hard, the business is like a rocket
ship,
and
you
feel
that
turbulence,” he describes now.
Fortunately,
the
company’s
integrity
and
strong
client
relationships yielded an influx of
cash that could sustain the
operation, and Apex was able to
pull itself out of the danger zone.
But this served as a vital lesson,
and Apex vowed to restructure its
back end effectively so that it
could quickly scale to handle the
rapid growth the company
continued to enjoy.
“Banks are not keen on
supplying startups, and what few
people realize is that rapid growth can actually kill
a company quicker than no growth or slow growth
can if it’s not managed properly,” he says today.
“We had very ambitious growth plans from the
very outset, and this required equal performance
in the front- and back-offices.” In large part, it was
Apex’s strength in personal relationships that
helped them overcome these early challenges with
cash flow. “It's very important to establish
relationships with a client's back-office people as
much as with their front office people,” Win
acknowledges now. “We cleared that hurdle, we
learned from it, and we haven’t looked back.”
After this initial learning experience, Apex
really hit its stride, and at eighteen months to the
Win Sheridan
day of their noncompete, the firm opened its
Fairfax office. Apex hired its first 50 employees
from a pool of first-degree past associates and
acquaintances, yielding a close-knit and enduring
network that made for a tenacious, driven, and
cohesive team.
This strong foundation paid dividends,
and through plenty of referrals from proven hires,
the company continued to experience strong
growth. New offices opened rapidly in Baltimore,
Raleigh, and Atlanta, and today—true to their
original vision—Apex has 49 offices spanning the
entire United States. In the first year, its sales
broached the million dollar mark. In the next, that
figure rose to $5 million. Sales then rose annually
to $15 million, followed by $28 million, followed
by $37 million, followed by $60 million. Last year
alone, Apex drew $550 million in revenues, and for
2011, their sights are set on $700 million. This
marks halfway to their billion dollar milestone—a
target they’ve had their sights on since day one,
and which they hope to realize in 2012. Yet, with
characteristic ambition, Win is quick to emphasize
that this is only a milestone, not an end goal.
Such an insatiable and ambitious drive is
rarely displayed, and even more rarely realized—
evident of an inner fire lit by a unique flame which
we all might like to ignite in ourselves. Success is
certainly integral to the equation, but Win’s
example highlights the fact that setbacks play a
role that is perhaps just as vital. As an English
major in college, he certainly experienced his fair
share of rejection letters before landing at Aerotek
after his classmate, fraternity brother, and now
business partner, Jeff Veatch, referred him.
Despite its status as an IT recruiting firm, the job
did not require skills in technology, but rather a
rare personality with an eye for talent and a mind
for the strategic pairing of talent with need.
Though he accepted his position at
Aerotek thinking he would later attend law school
in the tradition of his father, who had owned his
own law firm for 40 years, it quickly became clear
that his path lay elsewhere. His partners were
finance and psychology majors, and this robust set
of skills and backgrounds is a true testament to the
unique and far-reaching nature of the industry in
which Apex operates.
“This is very much a business about
building great relationships,” Win notes today. “It
is a great asset to be extroverted, and to be able to
communicate with people effectively. It’s not the
kind of talent that can be captured solely on paper.
You’ve really got to know people. Our people are
our number one competitive advantage, and one of
our top goals is to create a winning culture where
they can be highly successful and have fun with
their career along the way.” Forming strong bonds
both internally and externally in this manner has
played a pivotal role in Apex’s success thus far,
and promises to remain a major building block in
the future expansion of that success.
While the ability to form strong, genuine
relationships with others is indeed a tremendous
asset in the IT staffing realm, Win also emphasizes
the importance of that inner drive that compelled
him to set such a lofty bar the night Apex was
born. “You have to want to win, and it's got to
burn you to no end if you don't,” he explains
passionately. His partners mirror Win's spirit in
this regard, and it is perhaps for this reason that
their personalities harmonize so effectively to
strike that ideal pitch of compelling and effective
leadership that companies so often strive for. “We
all feel that sense of urgency to get out there, grow
the business, ensure our people are always
improving, and do the right things,” Win explains.
“We are an ever-evolving work-in-progress.” He
and his partners emphasize these ideas to their
employees through their expectations and through
positive reinforcement, and it is this leadership
philosophy that drives Apex today.
The roots of Win’s professional savvy and
leadership style have certainly been honed
through his experience in the IT staffing realm, but
they actually extend far back to the earliest days of
his youth. Growing up in Alexandria, VA, his first
job was delivering the Alexandria Gazette in the
sixth grade. As a child, he had observed older kids
doing the job of wrapping and banding the papers
before putting them in bags if it was raining, and
he would even help out. When he actually
assumed a position of his own, however, he
learned about the behind-the-scenes aspects of the
business, including collections and customer
complaints.
The importance of back office
management and of developing relationships with
clients was underscored even at this early age and
foreshadowed the lessons Win would learn from
Apex many years down the road.
His entrepreneurial flair was also
evidenced early in life when he decided to start his
own lawn mowing service after working the
summer of his sophomore year of high school for a
Profiles in Success: Inspiration from Executive Leaders in the Washington D.C. Area
company that paid him ten dollars an hour to do
25 to 30 lawns per day. “After one summer of that,
a partner and I decided we could do it on our own,
so Fannon and Sheridan Lawn Service was born,”
Win laughs now. “Taking that small step and
having that experience at an early age was a great
lesson in entrepreneurship.”
In advising young entrepreneurs entering
the business world today, Win advocates for
choosing passion over a paycheck. “Don’t be a
slave to the almighty dollar,” he warns. “Too
many people focus on this, and it’s a mistake. If
money is your only motivation, you will ultimately
fail one way or another. Find something you’re
great at and passionate about, and then put
together a business plan. Have fun with it. Money
should not be the end goal, but a byproduct of
doing what you love to do. Today, I certainly have
my sights set on goals, but it’s never about what’s
going into my pocket. Money is just the byproduct
of what we’re accomplishing as a company. The
better payoff is the satisfaction you get from seeing
your people get rewarded as they grow with the
company.” By keeping your sights on goals in this
manner, and on the passion that truly inspires the
inner will to win, one can truly begin with the end
in mind, setting the course for success from the
very first step.
© September 2011 Gordon J. Bernhardt. All rights
reserved. Reprinted by permission.
 By Gordon J. Bernhardt, CPA, PFS, CFP®, AIF®
About Gordon J. Bernhardt
President and founder of Bernhardt Wealth
Management and author of Profiles in Success:
Inspiration from Executive Leaders in the
Washington D.C. Area, Gordon provides financial
planning and wealth management services to affluent
individuals, families and business-owners throughout
the Washington, DC area. Since establishing his firm in
1994, he and his team have been focused on providing
high-quality service and independent financial advice to
help clients make informed decisions about their money.
For more information, visit www.BernhardtWealth.com
and Gordon’s Blog.
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Win Sheridan
Profiles in Success: Inspiration from Executive Leaders in the Washington D.C. Area