Avoiding Bad Hires and Building Stronger Teams
At Libertas Wealth Management Group, we believe building a strong business is never just about growth for growth’s sake. Sustainable growth depends on discipline, clarity, and surrounding yourself with the right people.
Adam Koós recently sat down with William Sprengler, founder of Frederick Fox, one of the fastest-growing recruiting firms in the country for finance and accounting talent. Their conversation explored what business owners often get wrong about hiring, why traditional recruiting models can feel outdated, and how leaders can build teams that are not only talented but aligned.
What followed was a practical, no-nonsense discussion for business owners, entrepreneurs, and leaders who want to avoid costly hiring mistakes and create a stronger foundation for growth.
From Accounting to Recruiting: William Sprengler’s Path
William Sprengler did not begin his career intending to build a recruiting firm.
After studying math and finance at Ohio State, he entered the workforce during the difficult 2007–2008 recession period. Like many graduates at the time, finding a corporate accounting or finance role was not easy. He eventually landed in cost accounting before being recruited by a staffing company around 2012.
At first, he was skeptical of the staffing industry. He did not fully understand why companies would use recruiters as intermediaries. But one recruiter saw something in him: an accountant who could communicate.
That conversation changed his trajectory.
Sprengler spent the next several years in staffing, first at a publicly traded firm and later as a partner in a midsize company. In 2019, he founded Frederick Fox with a different vision for how recruiting could work.
Why Traditional Recruiting Feels Outdated
One of the central themes of the conversation was that many traditional recruiting firms are overbuilt.
Sprengler explained that a lot of staffing agencies still operate with heavy local office overhead, multiple layers of management, and outdated assumptions about how recruiting relationships should work. In many cases, recruiters are paid relatively low base compensation and low commission percentages, while the firm carries significant infrastructure costs.
Frederick Fox took a different approach.
Instead of building a traditional agency, Sprengler modeled the firm more like a real estate brokerage or independent advisory platform. The company works with experienced recruiters who want independence but still value shared services, operational support, and a strong back office.
That model allows Frederick Fox to stay lean while giving senior recruiters the tools and incentives to perform at a high level.
What Strong Hiring Companies Do Better
According to Sprengler, companies that hire well tend to have one thing in common: a clear employer value proposition.
They know who they are. They know where they are going. They can explain why someone should want to join them.
This matters even more for smaller companies competing against larger firms. A smaller company may not always be able to win on brand recognition or compensation alone, but it can win with confidence, vision, and clarity.
A-players pick up on confidence.
When a company can clearly communicate its mission, direction, upside, and expectations, strong candidates are more likely to take the opportunity seriously. When the message is vague, the process is disorganized, or leadership cannot explain the future, good candidates often move on.
For many owners, this ties directly into broader business planning and wealth strategy, because the people you hire can influence growth, succession, risk, and long-term enterprise value.
The Biggest Hiring Mistake: Skipping References
Bad hires are expensive.
They cost time, money, momentum, morale, and leadership energy. Sprengler believes one of the biggest reasons companies make bad hires is simple: they do not spend enough time validating the person before extending the offer.
That means references matter.
Not just casual, surface-level references, but meaningful conversations that help confirm how someone actually performed in past roles. Sprengler noted that people may present well in interviews, but their history often tells a more accurate story.
As he put it, “tigers can change stripes, but it’s very rare.” In most cases, how someone approached jobs in the past will be a reliable indicator of how they approach the next one.
That is especially true in sales roles, where nearly every candidate can present themselves as a top performer. Companies need to verify the story before they build around it.
When the Hiring Process Itself Becomes the Problem
Sometimes the issue is not the candidate pool. It is the process.
Sprengler pointed to internal misalignment as one of the clearest warning signs that a hiring process is costing a company money or momentum. When stakeholders are not aligned on the profile, the process, or the decision criteria, interviews can stretch across four, five, or six weeks.
That creates confusion.
It also causes companies to lose strong candidates who are ready to move but unwilling to wait through a slow, unclear process.
Before launching a search, leadership should agree on:
- The actual profile needed
- The responsibilities of the role
- The compensation range
- The interview process
- Who has decision-making authority
- What success looks like in the first 90 days and first year
Without that alignment, even a strong recruiting partner may struggle to deliver results.
A Better Interview Process
Sprengler favors a straightforward three-step interview process.
First, start with a technical interview. If the role requires a specific technical capability, test for that early. This saves everyone time and prevents companies from advancing candidates who are likeable but not qualified.
Second, move to the hiring manager conversation. This is where both sides can assess fit, expectations, goals, and working style.
Third, hold a final round with the broader team or key decision-makers.
The goal is not to create more interviews. The goal is to create the right interviews in the right order.
A clear process protects the company, respects the candidate, and helps both sides make a better decision.
Compensation: Transparency Wins
Compensation can be one of the most difficult parts of hiring, especially when companies are trying to stay competitive without creating internal resentment or damaging margins.
Sprengler framed compensation through a basic economic lens: supply and demand.
If a company needs a highly specialized person and there are not many people with that skill set available, the company may need to pay more to secure that talent. That can create internal equity concerns, but the business still has objectives to meet.
When companies cannot pay top dollar, Sprengler recommends creating a clear performance roadmap. That might include bonus opportunities, stock options, or other incentives tied to measurable outcomes.
The key is transparency.
When both sides are honest about expectations, motivation, and constraints, deals move faster, and the experience is better for everyone.
Scaling Requires Better Onboarding
One of the biggest lessons Sprengler learned as an entrepreneur was the importance of onboarding.
Early on, he assumed experienced people could join the company, figure out the tools and systems, and begin producing quickly. Over time, he realized that the assumption created friction.
As Frederick Fox grew, onboarding became a major scaling challenge.
His takeaway: companies cannot invest enough in onboarding, training, and development.
A growing company should have a clear 90-day onboarding plan before making aggressive hires. That plan should define what the new hire needs to learn, what they are expected to accomplish, and how success will be measured.
Without that structure, even talented people can struggle.
Retention Starts with Leadership
When asked what separates companies that retain great talent from those that constantly churn through people, Sprengler’s answer was leadership.
More specifically, gratitude, acknowledgment, and servant leadership.
He believes leaders should view employees as internal customers. The role of the leader is not simply to extract performance, but to serve the people responsible for helping the company grow.
That means listening to their ideas, giving them room to be creative, recognizing their contributions, and helping them feel connected to the company’s mission.
People are not motivated by money alone. They want to know their work matters. They want to feel heard. They want to feel like they are contributing to something meaningful.
High Performance and Caring Are Not Opposites
Strong cultures still need accountability.
Sprengler emphasized that leaders can care deeply about their people while still expecting high performance. The key is incentive alignment.
If leaders want employees to help grow the business, they need to explain why the growth matters and what is in it for the team. Otherwise, growth can feel like pressure from the top down.
Great leaders create other leaders.
They communicate the vision, align incentives, inspire action, and hold people accountable to milestones. Instead of pushing people from an “ivory tower,” they pull people toward a shared destination.
This is also why strong teams matter beyond daily operations. For owners thinking about future transition, business value, or financial independence, team quality can influence the range of options available later. That kind of long-term thinking is central to Libertas’ approach to planning.
Key Takeaways for Business Owners
This conversation reinforces several important hiring and leadership principles:
- Define the role before launching the search
- Align internal stakeholders early
- Move quickly, but not carelessly
- Validate candidates through meaningful references
- Do not confuse interview polish with substance
- Build a clear 90-day onboarding plan
- Use transparency in compensation conversations
- Treat retention as a leadership responsibility
- Align incentives before demanding growth
Hiring is one of the most important decisions a business owner makes. A great hire can accelerate growth, improve culture, and create new capacity. A bad hire can drain time, damage morale, and slow momentum for months or years.
Want to Learn More?
You can listen to the full conversation on The Retirement Fiduciary Podcast or explore additional educational articles from Libertas Wealth Management Group.
If you are a business owner wondering how hiring, leadership, growth, and long-term planning fit together, our team offers no-pressure second opinions and comprehensive planning designed around your goals.
Visit libertaswealth.com to start the conversation, or contact us directly.