🎙️ Scott Mayer's Staffing Industry Journey: From Selling Coupon Books at 15 to Leading Employee-Owned QPS Employment Group

Scott Mayer transforms early teenage management experience into 40-year staffing empire as chairman of QPS Employment Group, starting with one-room office and $5,000 borrowed investment after nine months learning the industry from a competitor who underpaid him. Through candid stories about barely making payroll while living in his parents' basement selling personal collectibles for gas money, landing game-changing Kraft Foods and Tombstone Pizza contracts that launched explosive growth, and losing his best friend and business partner Mark to sudden heart attack in 2018, Scott reveals how relationship-focused sales combined with "bleed QPS blue" employee culture created conditions for successful 2020 ESOP transition putting ownership in workers' hands.

✨ Key Insights You'll Learn:

• Career foundation age 15-17: managing summer youth program hiring, firing, training kids selling charity coupon books door-to-door

• Nine-month staffing apprenticeship: learned entire industry but left because "they didn't treat me great or pay me good" at $6/hour

• Startup reality check: zero salary first 2-3 years, lived at parents' house, sold coin/card/beer can collections for gas money

• $25,000 line of credit story: framed original letter showing above-prime rates and $500 application fee that now sits alongside below-prime rates

• "Slicer guy" wouldn't recognize me: 19-year-old never said he owned the company, just "sales rep for QPS"

• Kraft Foods and Tombstone Pizza contracts: bigger newspaper ads with better job descriptions attracted hundreds, placed best of best

• Weekly payroll crisis management: literally on hands and knees praying invoices would be paid before Friday payroll deadline

• Relationship-driven sales advantage: "People go out of their way to do business with people they like and cut breaks to people they like"

• ESOP transition 2020: CFO balanced fairness to sellers Dan and Scott with fairness to employee-owners, 6-12 month process

• Immigration reform mission: working with Congressman Derek Van Orden and Stephen Miller on food-processing worker visa legislation

• National security food argument: 200 workers removed from Omaha meatpacking plant shut it down permanently, threatening food supply

• 2.5 million worker shortage annually: people age out, retire, die, injured—America needs new workers regardless of sealed border

• AI recruiting revolution: bots interview candidates in real-time conversations indistinguishable from humans, screen 50 to find 10 best

🌟 Scott's Key Mentors & Influences:

• Best Friend's Dad (Summer Program Founder)

• Early Staffing Firm Employers

• Scott's Father (Lawn and Garden Dealership Owner)

• Kraft Foods and Tombstone Pizza Contacts

• Mark (Best Friend and Business Partner

• Competitor Who Mentored

• CFO (Forever Financial Leader)

• Jonas Priestling (Manpower Chairman/CEO)

• God and Faith

👉 Don't miss this powerful conversation about earning trust through checks and balances rather than granting it blindly, choosing employee ownership over private equity or selling to competitors, and why hardworking immigrants picking vegetables and milking cows represent national food security rather than job theft from Americans who won't do those jobs at any wage.

🔗 Connect with Scott Mayer:

LinkedIn: Scott Mayer 

Email: smayer@qpsemployment.com 

QPS Employment Group: qpsemployment.com

📄 Transcript Available: How Scott Mayer Turned Nine Months of Learning Staffing Into Employee-Owned QPS Employment Group

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📄 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line Website: addbackbenefits.com