Unlimited Hiring

Once a week, someone who doesn't understand what we are doing at Sagan says:

"Aren't you worried about a race to the bottom!"

... as if we haven't thought about our pricing/value prop positioning carefully!

“What happens if a competitor drops their fee by XXX%? Won’t you have to follow?”

First of all - this already has happened, multiple folks—some even former customers—have copied the model. One even claimed they invented it. Lol.

If price is our only competitive defense...we're already screwed!

Our strategy is about the intersection of price AND quality.

Not just price.

Take a few minutes and read “Customer Intimacy and Other Value Disciples” by Treacy and Wiersema in Harvard Business Review in 1993.

Big Idea = Pick one dimension

• operational excellence

• product leadership

• customer intimacy

...and push it harder than anyone else.

You must meet the other two to an acceptable standard, but can build real market share with the focused one.

Here’s what that looks like:

I had a meeting today about offering unlimited headhunting for Philippines-based hiring—bundled into membership.

Not as a price increase. As a dividend to our accumulated hiring scale and muscle.

That’s operational excellence!

As we gain operational efficiency - we pass it along to our customers in the form of increased services or lower pricing.

That’s the bet we’ve made.

What operational excellence is:

• Clear promises

• A cost base that shrinks as volume grows

• Accretive distribution channels

• Optimal intersection from price and quality

Scale gains are reinvested in better operations!

Combine that with better working capital dynamics than our competitors, and we can front-load capital expenditures to further gain ground with services and operational efficiency.

What operational excellence isn’t:

• A race to be the cheapest

• Endless cost cutting that affects quality

• A tactic used occasionally

Operational excellence is strategically coherent - despite what gurus on the internet say “Only raise prices!!”.

Every part of the operation points in the same direction: quality and cost.

Unlocked margin room gives us options: add perks, upgrade technology (in service of customers), pay talent… that kind of thing.

Could we match a cut-rate offer?

Yes - but we don't need to!

Our reinvestment in expanded services dwarfs a simpler smaller player competing only on price... and not operational excellence!

The best part: this advantage compounds.

Every process tweak, every automation, every feedback loop stacks on the last.

It’s hard to copy because it isn’t one “trick”—it’s thousands of tiny, boring improvements to build operational leverage.

A competitor that tries to leapfrog by chopping price skips that…

They save customers a few dollars now and bleed later when errors & delays pile up.

So no, I’m not worried about a fee fight (I encourage it!).

Operational excellence isn’t a shield...it’s a flywheel!

Keep it spinning and the business stays healthy, competitors stay reactive, and customers stay because the work gets done at high quality at a great price.

Operational excellence isn’t defensive.

It’s offensive.
It doesn’t protect margin—it creates it.
And margin gives you freedom.

To invest.

To improve.

To win.

Yallah Habibi,

Jon

P.S.

A former competitor is on Twitter showing off last year’s profits.
We just launched a NEW channel that takes those same profits—and gives them to our distributors instead.
It’s a gold rush.

The channel is based entirely on “1 off” hiring (not Passport membership).

I’d love to work with you, drop me an email if you want to get in on the action.