The Smart Way to Scale a Team Without Breaking Your Business - Travis Hann - Pender and Howe

What if hiring faster isn't the answer? And slowing down is the smartest move you can make?

In this episode of Small Business, Big Engine, Grant sits down with Travis Hann, co-founder of Pender & Howe, a modern executive search firm built for scale, transparency, and high performance. Travis shares the story behind starting the firm inside a legacy recruitment company, how they separated in 2022, and what it’s been like building a digital-first hiring platform in an industry that’s notoriously slow to change.

If you’ve ever struggled with when to hire, how to hire, or whether you’re hiring the right kind of person, this conversation will hit home.

Travis doesn’t just run a recruitment firm, he’s actively scaling one. With 11 full-time employees and over 20 contributors, he’s navigating the same decisions his clients are. He shares how he built the operational infrastructure before scaling, why his team uses tools like CRM integrations and client-facing dashboards to eliminate hiring black holes, and how the company is using strategic assessments and a retention-focused guarantee model to place leaders that actually stick.

Grant and Travis dive into:

• The spark that led Travis to launch Pender & Howe

• How they structured the business to scale without chaos

• What "digital-first" hiring actually looks like in practice

• Why hiring slowly and intentionally has been their competitive edge

• The internal systems and tools that have helped them stay nimble

• Why delegation is so hard for founders (and how Travis is learning to let go)

• How to know if your next hire is solving a real business problem

• What makes one hire derail a small team, and how to spot it early

• The impact of AI and remote work on new grads and entry-level talent

• Why great candidates rarely come from job boards

• What Travis has learned from replacing founders and building leadership teams

You’ll also hear Travis explain why culture fit isn’t just a buzzword, and how one wrong hire can shift everything in a 10-person team. He shares what he looks for in A-players (hint: it’s not a perfect resume), why so many people ignore the small signals during interviews, and how to structure your hiring process to actually learn what matters.

Whether you’re hiring your first employee or your fiftieth, this episode will give you practical insight into how smart businesses approach recruiting, growth, and building great teams.

Want more from Travis Hann?
Connect with him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/travis-hann
Learn more about Pender & Howe: https://penderhowe.com

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