Theresia Intag is the founder of IntagHire, a Fractional Human Resource and Recruiting firm, as well as a co-founder of Tag4HR, a membership platform to support HR leaders of SMBs. Theresia has worked with amazing brands such as Samsung, Bazaarvoice, Nordstrom, Yeti Coolers, Abaco, Dimensional Fund Advisors, Spanning Cloud, Holtzman Partners and many other organizations to build and cultivate their talent pool.

Theresia values innovation, flexibility for life’s challenges, and creating human spaces in the business world by leading with compassion. Today, the world is changing faster than ever, and pushing businesses to evolve their management style so businesses can be agile and pivot quickly to stay in the game.

Theresia was a 2023 Impact Award finalist for Vistage, a global CEO network.

Key Moments

[05:59] Appreciates variety, understanding different business perspectives.

[07:00] Align HR with business strategy, not old-fashioned.

[11:15] Former entrepreneurs bring valuable perspective to hiring.

[15:33] Outsource resources, be strategic for business growth.

Find Theresia Online

https://intaghire.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/theresia-intag

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Transcript Provided By CastMagic.io

Seth [00:00:00]:
Entrepreneur’s Enigma is a podcast for the ups and downs of entrepreneurship to the wins and the fails that we all face being entrepreneurs, how we learn from adversity. Every week I talk to a different entrepreneur with a story to tell. I’m Seth Goldstein. Come with me on the journey. This is Entrepreneurs Enigma. Let’s get started. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another edition of the Entrepreneur’s Enigma podcast.

Seth [00:00:35]:
I sound surprised when I say another. Now it’s another edition of Entrepreneur’s Enigma podcast. I’m your host as always, Seth. To me today, I have Teresa in tag. She is of Intag Hire, a fractional human resource and recruiting firm, as well as the cofounder of Tag 4 HR, a membership platform to support HR leaders in small businesses. So that’s really cool because, you know, a lot of times they can’t hire the company per se, but they need help. So you’re like, well, I can I can support you over here? It’s that’s smart. I like that idea.

Seth [00:01:12]:
She’s worked with amazing brands such as Samsung, Bizzare Voice, Nordstrom’s, YETI Coolers. I have my YETI mug right here for those who are on video. YETI. Got a got a little bit YETI. I don’t get the Hialeah Stanleys. They’re they’re kinda dorky look. I don’t really like the Stanley ones. But, you know, whatever.

Seth [00:01:28]:
Teach their own. And a lot of others out there, you’ve you know, you value innovation and flexibility for life’s challenges, which, you know, happens to all of us. We get colds and all that. Life, kids, everything just kind of happens. So it’s nice to have your own kind of thing going on. So Theresa, how’s it going?

Theresia [00:01:47]:
Hi, Seth. How are you?

Seth [00:01:48]:
Not too bad. Where are you calling in from?

Theresia [00:01:50]:
I’m from Austin, Texas.

Seth [00:01:52]:
Oh, so it’s nice and warm and humid down there right now.

Theresia [00:01:54]:
It’s, yes. Right now, it is starting to warm up a bit.

Seth [00:01:57]:
Yeah. It’s it was warm in we’re recording this mid April, and this is gonna come out later. So it’s kinda dating it, but whatever. It was, like, in the seventies here in Philly, and now it’s, like, 50. And I’m like, oh my god. I’m gonna get so sick. I’m gonna get so sick.

Theresia [00:02:12]:
In Austin.

Seth [00:02:13]:
Well Austin’s in Austin’s a fun town. It’s like this little bash in a weirdness in all of Texas. I love it. It’s a great place. So anyhow, so Theresa, how did you find your way into HR and especially entrepreneurship? Did you do the corporate grind for a while

Theresia [00:02:26]:
there? I did. Yeah. I spent probably most of my career actually working in recruiting, managing recruiting, then managing human resources, doing the evolution. And I worked for both large companies like Samsung, but then also a lot of, tech companies, that were starting

Seth [00:02:43]:
whole different ballgame. Yeah.

Theresia [00:02:44]:
Whole different ballgame. Yes. So I’ve gotten different perspectives. But across the board, most companies were inefficient with their human resources and recruiting. They spent way too much money on the wrong things. So I saw there was an opportunity to do it better and to create a flexible model that could actually be plug and play for those smaller to mid midsize businesses.

Seth [00:03:05]:
Plug and play is always good. Yeah.

Theresia [00:03:06]:
Yes. And that helps with their different, you know, changes in in growth. Sometimes, you know, they’re growing. Sometimes they’ve gotta really be careful of budget, so it’s really flexible and supportive, but has experts so that you’re not just getting these low end junior people.

Seth [00:03:20]:
Oh, yeah.

Theresia [00:03:20]:
And and that was where I started to test the model, and that was just 7 years ago. I’m I’m 54 now. I’m dating myself, but, the so it was late in my career that I took the leap to become an entrepreneur.

Seth [00:03:31]:
Because it is they were never too late to become an entrepreneur.

Theresia [00:03:34]:
It is never too late. And and I had I love watching businesses and watching how they grow. I love being around start ups and innovation. Mhmm. But I had no idea that my love for that was because I really wanted to be an entrepreneur, and it took me a while to get there. And now I’m like, I can’t go back. This is

Seth [00:03:50]:
Oh, you can’t do that. No. Exactly. And so you’ve worked for so you’ve done, like, the corporate run-in big companies and small companies and, you know, tech companies that are just weird all around. We’re gonna take a quick break, hear from our sponsors, and get right back to the show.

Theresia [00:04:04]:
Exactly. Life challenges.

Seth [00:04:05]:
You well, like, I’m sure is every everyone was a different challenge. You know, being in Samsung where it’s like, you know, half the company’s in Korea. Right. Like, that’s guy that’s a multinational company. Multinet, multinational multi multinational. Yeah. Yeah. I think the term is multinational.

Seth [00:04:23]:
Who knows? So it’s about multinational, but it can only be international once. It can be multi yeah. It has to be multinational. Alright. Well, hey. It’s vocabulary with Seth today. There we go. Anyhow, so so you you had that the multinational.

Seth [00:04:37]:
You’ve had that the stateside. You’ve had the technology. Which one did you prefer when you were in

Theresia [00:04:42]:
the tech startups.

Seth [00:04:43]:
They’re fun and scrappy.

Theresia [00:04:45]:
They are so fun and scrappy, and I I’m I’m good at that. I love that. So that’s

Seth [00:04:49]:
And you’re also you’re in a tech center because Austin’s very much a tech center. So Yes. But now being a fractional, what’s the benefit of being a fractional? I guess, because you get to do more the the the more variety, I guess.

Theresia [00:05:01]:
Correct. Yes. I get to work with all kinds of tech software, innovative, climate oriented companies, and and I love to see kind of the latest and greatest technologies or what’s happening out there. Yeah. So it’s so it’s really fun on both sides. And being in HR, you kinda get to hear more of the inside business. I understand how businesses need to be run. So I love to hear kind of the challenges they have, strategies around that, the the funding they have, and and the whole walk of the journey of tech startups.

Seth [00:05:31]:
Yeah. So why so why HR? Like, how do you find your way into HR in general?

Theresia [00:05:35]:
Yeah. I think, you know, sometimes our careers find us instead of us really going to careers. And, you know, when when I was in high school, recruiting wasn’t a thing, really. Yeah. So I kinda fell into

Seth [00:05:46]:
think it is any still. I think people fall into recruiting.

Theresia [00:05:49]:
Yeah. It’s, you know, I did a little sales early on. I I I jumped into recruiting. I also did ran a nonprofit for 6 years, so that was around training.

Seth [00:05:57]:
You’ve done a you’ve done a lot of different industries.

Theresia [00:05:59]:
I have, and I like variety. I like and I have, from that though, multiple perspectives of things. And Yeah. It helps me to really understand how, you know, different companies need different resources or, you know, have different journeys that they’re on, so I can accommodate that. And I love you know, I just really love learning how different businesses are run and what makes them tick and and what what support needs to be built to help them thrive because it’s easy to fuck up a business. I mean, it’s absolutely easy to go under. And

Seth [00:06:29]:
so Easier to do that than succeed, honestly.

Theresia [00:06:32]:
Yes. Yes. There’s so many little nuances that you gotta be aware of and walk through and, you know, taxes and, you know, people’s cars are like

Seth [00:06:41]:
Another thing dating us. We just it was it was April 15th recently in the US. And Yeah. Always Tax day.

Theresia [00:06:49]:
Stressful. Yeah. Always stressful.

Seth [00:06:50]:
Oh my god. It hits and it’s like before you know, you blank here. Your taxes are done. You blank. And it’s a taxes account. I’m like, what?

Theresia [00:06:56]:
It was painful. It’s so painful.

Seth [00:06:58]:
And it’s yeah. But it’s it’s a fact of life. Exactly. So

Theresia [00:07:00]:
Right. Yes. So so we get, like, all of that from the HR how to align HR with the business strategy as opposed to being the old fashioned HR, which is, you know, the police, so to speak. Yeah. That’s not how we operate. We operate strategically, and we operate, you know, really really knowing, like, what compliance you need to watch out for, what are nice to haves, and, you know, and what really works well for a company of that size so that it’s not too crazy. It’s not bogging down the business. It’s streamlining

Seth [00:07:29]:
things. So so you do a so you you you come in fractionally. You know, you come in. You whip everyone into shape. You get things lined up, compliance, like, oh, you have 3 employees. Or you have your first it was always I always hear it’s the first employee. It’s the toughest. Gain, like, everything lined up for that first employee.

Theresia [00:07:47]:
Yeah.

Seth [00:07:48]:
And then after that, the I think another thing is, like, what, 3 or 4 or 5, one of those that is, like, oh my god. There’s more headache at that point. Like Yes. You would live a respite between, like, 35, and then 5 happens, and it’s like, now you get even more compliance and more stuff to deal with.

Theresia [00:08:02]:
I think I think the biggest challenge too is a lot of business owners don’t realize that when you’re a company with 1 employee and then you go to 5 employees, your business kinda changes. So

Seth [00:08:12]:
what you

Theresia [00:08:12]:
thought you were gonna need or you what worked before isn’t necessarily gonna work as you grow. And it it changes fast, and it could be even, like, 3 months, 6 months that you have to shift your model a bit. And if you don’t kind of stay agile and shift, it, can bog you down and actually slow the business down quite a bit. Yeah.

Seth [00:08:30]:
Honestly and then with the government, I’m not even sure what’s going on with that rule, but it’s like, you know, if you’re a small business, you’re gonna have to tell them about something or other. I forget what it is. I mean but, like, the whole small business, like, you’re not embezzling. You’re not funding war or terrorism. That one

Theresia [00:08:44]:
That’s just like what the heck? I mean, that’s so ridiculous. And you have to be

Seth [00:08:48]:
I’m not sure if you have to do it yet. I I

Theresia [00:08:50]:
know if you’ve been do it

Seth [00:08:52]:
before the end of the year. If you’re if you’ve been in business longer, if I think if you’re just starting, you have to do it right away.

Theresia [00:08:57]:
I know I have to do it before the end of the year. Yeah.

Seth [00:08:59]:
I think it’s really for 7 years.

Theresia [00:09:01]:
I’ve

Seth [00:09:02]:
been around for 16. I’m like, I don’t know what the heck I’m doing. I emailing my wife. I’m like, hon, I think we gotta deal with this at some point.

Theresia [00:09:09]:
Yeah. Yeah. I I my accountant said, just reach out to LegalZoom, and do it for, you know, a little fee, and it’s done. But Yeah.

Seth [00:09:14]:
It’s it’s it’s a form that you fill out saying, like, we’re not we’re not embezzling. Right. We’re not we’re not evil. We’re not saying bankman freed. You know, we’re not any of this stuff. So yeah.

Theresia [00:09:24]:
Another thing to, like Mhmm. To to make it difficult for small businesses to survive.

Seth [00:09:30]:
It’s crazy. Like, it’s and, like, it’s these rules, and it’s like, I get why some of them are there. But, like, some of them are like there’s not a lot down. I’m like, really? We’ve been going just fine without it.

Theresia [00:09:40]:
Right. Exactly.

Seth [00:09:41]:
But whatever.

Theresia [00:09:42]:
After the

Seth [00:09:42]:
So alright. So you’ve done the corporate. You’ve done the exactly. You’ve done the big corporate, the multinational corporate. You’ve done the national corporate. You’ve done the small business. You’ve done the tech. You’ve done this.

Seth [00:09:53]:
You’ve done that. You’ve done nonprofit. You’ve been all over the place. Yeah. What is the best thing about being an entrepreneur, though?

Theresia [00:10:00]:
Freedom.

Seth [00:10:01]:
Versus all that variety that you went through.

Theresia [00:10:04]:
Yeah. Freedom. Freedom to, you know with freedom comes a lot of responsibility.

Seth [00:10:09]:
But,

Theresia [00:10:10]:
the freedom, the flexibility, the you you get to design things. You get to trust your gut more, and no one’s stopping you. That’s what I love. You really get to kind of expand in a way that you never thought you’d be allowed to expand in your lifetime.

Seth [00:10:26]:
On your terms too. Yes.

Theresia [00:10:27]:
Yeah. And

Seth [00:10:28]:
you and if you screw up, it’s on your terms.

Theresia [00:10:30]:
Right. Exactly.

Seth [00:10:31]:
It’s all on you, which is a good thing and a bad thing. I mean, on on the on the flip side, what keeps you up at night as an entrepreneur?

Theresia [00:10:36]:
Yeah. Cash flow revenue, you know, the total All

Seth [00:10:38]:
that stuff keeps you up is this is, like, yeah. I gotta get another deal to this week. Oh my god. All that stuff. And that’s a technical that is a technical term. But we all feel it. You know, it’s one of those things, like, you sit there and you’re like, alright. All the good things are also a headache.

Seth [00:10:55]:
Mhmm. Like, freedom. Yeah. The and you set your own schedule. Well, you really don’t set your own schedule. It’s to go from 1 boss to, like, 16, 20, 30 bosses. It’s like it’s

Theresia [00:11:06]:
Right. You really have to love it, I think. You’ve really gotta have that, desire for it or almost obsession with it Yeah. To keep you going through. And it

Seth [00:11:15]:
And it’s nothing wrong if you try and you and you say this is not for me, and you you go back to corporate. I mean, I found a lot of people say, like, they like hiring out former entrepreneurs because they think differently. Yes. I also hear people saying I will never hire an entrepreneur because they think differently. Well, that’s a company you don’t wanna work for because they don’t think differently. And we’re not and and I’m please, Apple, don’t send me a cease and desist for saying that.

Theresia [00:11:36]:
Well, I think, you know, if you’re a company that is that honors innovation, your entrepreneurs are gonna think outside of the box a 100%.

Seth [00:11:43]:
Exactly. And that’s kinda key. Being go from entrepreneur to intrepreneur or go from intrepreneur to ex extrepreneur. I always say extrepreneur. Entrepreneur Should be extrapreneur, honestly. But anyhow Gotcha. So, what is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?

Theresia [00:12:00]:
You know, I think what’s the most important is building a support network.

Seth [00:12:05]:
Yes.

Theresia [00:12:06]:
Like, it’s hard. It’s a hard journey being an entrepreneur or a business owner and and doing all the different things, wearing all the different hats, and you cannot know it all. And that support group, 1, emotionally, like, people that are gonna cheer you on, and 2, you know, knowledgeable experts that you can tap into. That’s a really big deal.

Seth [00:12:27]:
And is that sort of what you’re doing with your your I was gonna say club membership platform with your club, your HR club?

Theresia [00:12:35]:
No. That is, I would say, more about, watching human resources, the departments and the people, the individuals really go through hell over the undervalued. And so

Seth [00:12:44]:
we my

Theresia [00:12:45]:
partner and I decided to create this environment, and so we my partner and I decided to create this environment of supporting them, because life’s already hard. I mean, that’s kinda why I’m pro flexibility. I’ve gone through shit. Everybody goes through stuff. And sorry if I, cut

Seth [00:13:06]:
off. Where you’ve already got the explicit tag. It’s fine. Go

Theresia [00:13:08]:
for it. It’s real, though. Life gets real at times. And then to add that kind of complexity and negativity on top of your role, we wanted to really provide HR people with tools so that they can thrive better because they’re not always business savvy. And they’re not They

Seth [00:13:27]:
also get they also get a lot of shit from people too. Like, oh, it’s HR. It’s HR. It’s like no. But HR can be good. They can be your friend. They can help you figure stuff out.

Theresia [00:13:35]:
Totally. Yes. And and there’s really some fantastic, wonderful human resource people that get overlooked. And they don’t cheer for themselves, so people don’t realize all the things that they’re doing in the background. So that’s why we wanna do that.

Seth [00:13:47]:
Path. I think what what is it? It’s the least liked people in jobs are journalists, politicians, and I think HR. That’s, like, one of those.

Theresia [00:13:56]:
Would not be surprised. Yes. Absolutely.

Seth [00:13:58]:
And I’m like and some of it’s warranted. I mean, some of it’s warranted. I mean, it’s a totally warranted for politicians.

Theresia [00:14:06]:
Oh, man. Right.

Seth [00:14:08]:
But, I mean, journalists I mean, some of them some of them are sleazebags. I mean, I’m a former journalist. And, like, you know, I I I don’t think I was a sleazebag as a journalist, but there was definitely sometimes when I was like, you know, I could see why people don’t necessarily like journalists. In HR, you know, it’s you when you interact with HR, it’s when there’s a problem. And that’s what people have to adjust to saying. HR is not just when there’s a problem. It’s when you need help figuring out your benefits. You need help figuring this out.

Seth [00:14:35]:
You know, if there’s, you know, maternity leave to deal with and stuff. You know? It’s like HR can be your friend.

Theresia [00:14:42]:
Absolutely. And HR is changing. Human resources evolving. There’s a there’s more modern approaches to it. The old traditional approach doesn’t really work in today’s business world.

Seth [00:14:52]:
Most traditional approaches don’t.

Theresia [00:14:54]:
Yeah. So so that’s kind of, you know, putting HR in a different light, I think, is really important right now too because they’re doing different things than they used to. It’s more dynamic.

Seth [00:15:04]:
Yeah. It’s it’s incredible. Company. It is. And I think I think a lot of small businesses think, oh, we don’t need HR because we’re so small. You might not need a HR department. Correct. You might wanna talk to Teresa.

Seth [00:15:18]:
You might wanna talk to a way, fractional HR company and at least figure out, I mean, payroll, at least. I mean, nothing’s worse than writing. Trying to remember trying to remember how to write a check. Like, I have to do that to myself, and it’s I have to remember how to write a check every once a while. Like, how do I do this?

Theresia [00:15:33]:
But it’s also important, like, as you just grow a little bit, what resources can you tap into that you can outsource pieces so it’s not taking up your time as a business owner? And and that’s, like, where we get strategic with our clients of here’s different areas, not us even. Like, we we work ourselves out of a job. Here’s different areas of how you can do parts of your human resources and be smarter about it and get the ROI on it that you need. Mhmm. And and then you could use us to validate things or to see what we’re seeing in the market. And so you don’t need us a lot. It’s just every once in a while.

Seth [00:16:07]:
Yeah. It is. Hence, the fractional. You don’t need a HR person all all in Exactly. But being an adviser almost kind of thing. HR adviser. I That’s a good way. So, Teresa, where can people find you online? Where do you hang out the most?

Theresia [00:16:20]:
Yes. I think the most is on LinkedIn. And, you know, my last name, I n t a g, is unique. There’s only a few

Seth [00:16:27]:
of us in America. But Teresa has an I in it before the a.

Theresia [00:16:30]:
Teresa has an I in it.

Seth [00:16:32]:
I in it. The the last name was you know, it’s very unique. Got that. But then you then your parents had to kind of throw you a curveball and give you an I before the a.

Theresia [00:16:40]:
That’s alright. That’s alright. So yeah. And in tag hire or tag for HR are the 2 companies, that I help run. So those, you know, you can look those up as well, and we often have free resources, for companies to tap into. Awesome. Well, Theresa,

Seth [00:16:52]:
thank you so much for being on. This has been so much fun. I’ve learned a lot. You know? It’s it’s the let’s also commiserate and bitch and moan about, you know, how, like, corporate ugh. Yeah. I could never go back to corporate. I’ve I’ve thought about it. I worked for Merck for a little while there.

Seth [00:17:07]:
I enjoyed it. But then, you know, HR calls, you know, like, oh, crap. Right. And back then, it was like, you know, it was in the back when we were trying to figure out what was it? It was trying to figure how to do fair and balance for pharma in Twitter. Oh, wow. If when it was a 140 characters, you can’t. No. There’s no way.

Seth [00:17:25]:
You can’t link out. It has to be in the message. It’s like, yeah, you can’t do it. That was fun. That was always a fun time. So, Teresa, thanks for being on. It’s been so great.

Theresia [00:17:33]:
Thank you, Seth. It was great to meet you.

Seth [00:17:35]:
That was a great show. If you’re enjoying Entrepreneur’s Enigma, please view us in the podcast directory of your choice. Every review helps other podcast listeners find our show. If you’re looking for other podcasts in the marketing space, look no further than the marketing podcast network at marketing podcasts dotnet. Gold’s theme, gee. I hope you have enjoyed this episode.