|
Entrepreneur Files
EESIS
UT Connection: VP of Sales and Marketing Clayton Walber, BBA 95
Location: Houston
People are motivated by many things to improve their standing in life. Clayton Walberg yearned to eat something other than Ramman™ noodles. Walberg was fresh out of college and stuck in a job that fell far short of his original expectations. Organized training was not available, there was no support, he didn’t even have a desk, much less a computer, to call his own.
It was a small company with big plans, he just didn’t know it. He decided it was up to him to either sink or swim, and committed himself to making it work. It turned out to be the best experience he could have asked for.
“I didn’t have a choice,” remembered Walberg, “I learned a little bit of everything, and eventually the sales started rolling in. I helped to build a marketing campaign, did trade shows, and eventually had control of a six-state territory. I owe a lot to my original employer.”
It was that same raw determination that surfaced again four years later when he decided to start his own business in partnership with his father and two others. “I always wanted to be part of something I had a significant interest in,” he said. EESIS (which stands for Employee-Employer Strategic Information Solutions)—backed by Summit Capital and Equis II and now 22-employees strong—is the result.
EESIS is a single-source provider of an enormous range of employee consulting services, including benefits, human resources, and payroll. By combining today’s technologies with business process outsourcing, EESIS manages all the people processes within a firm, eliminating a significant amount of cumbersome administrative and clerical tasks so that managers can focus on the company’s core business goals. “Employees are a company’s most important assets,” said Walberg. “EESIS can help them manage those assets to their fullest benefit.”
Essentially, EESIS can provide small to mid-size firms the strategic HR resources and economies of scale when purchasing things like benefits, or access to world class technologies, that have only been available to very large firms with substantial human resources departments. Currently, firms in the EESIS niche market might already be paying separate companies to administer payroll, provide benefits, conduct recruiting, and so forth, but are unable to cross-reference information that could help optimize the management of their human resources. “We can provide our scale of services, streamline the organization, and supply best practice consulting all at a cost effective price,” Walberg attested.
With the recent acquisition of a national staffing company, Talentree, EESIS can now add temporary staffing to its already extensive list of services. “This is a significant, established company that brings a nationwide presence to us,” said Walberg. The company has also garnered some national exposure through articles in HR Executive, Emerging Business, and Workforce magazines.
The most satisfying thing about owning your own business, said Walberg, is being able to watch it grow. “You can actually see the fruition of your efforts.” And he has learned more in the past three years than he would learn in ten in a normal corporate setting. “The learning curve is phenomenal, you get to do everything: sales and marketing, finance, building out an office, working with investors, presenting road shows, strategic partnering, you name it.”
Of course there’s a price to pay for having all this fun. “Be prepared to put in double the hours you expect, and deal with a lot of frustration, but try to maintain a resemblance of a social life,” Walberg advised anyone considering starting a business. “It’s easy to lose your life when your emotions and thoughts are tied up in the business.”
For more information, visit www.eesis.com.
For information on specific programs at the McCombs School, consult our contacts page. For media information, contact the Communications Director by phone at 512-471-3314 or by email at CommunicationsDirector@mccombs.utexas.edu.
