Hey, welcome to our next session. I'm really happy to have Chad and Bob here from Paycom. Chad. We're going back so many years now. It's kind of nice to still have that relationship. If you think about, this year was very volatile from kind of many different aspects. If you think about, you know, tariffs, you know, new government, DOGE, etc., from your perspective, how has the year kind of played out so far?
You know, we've had a really good year. We came into the year with goals to focus on world-class service, client value achievement, and then, of course, full-solution automation. As we moved throughout the year, we were able to get our clients to realize the value of the software as we continued to work with them and get them in a good space. We worked on our service organization to continue to enhance our world-class service model. Our clients today are, I would say, in a much better position, and, you know, we're seeing a lot of client satisfaction. Those ranges continue to move higher. We've also focused on full-solution automation, along with, you know, the IWant process as well. So we've been able to roll out some good products.
And then, if you think about it, like, where I get a lot of questions from investors on the macro side, you know, like, you guys had very solid results, but there were some other players in your space where the numbers didn't come through like that much. And then the question was it macro? Is it kind of competition, etc.? Like, how do you think from kind of employment-level conversations on that sort of stuff, how that's playing out for you?
I mean, you know.
Not for you, but, like, for your space, yeah.
Yeah, well, I mean, you know, we've seen the press releases and those types of things. We're not really seeing anything in our numbers from a you know from an employment perspective amongst our clients, so it's not really easy for me to call out anything on that, but you know as we've moved throughout the year, I mean, we've had a lot of success in our strategy and going through our full-solution automation, and as we kind of look into next year, we're really excited about doubling down on the sales side. I think when you looked at a couple of years ago with our opportunities of what we needed to do from a client focus and make sure they were achieving the full value of the product, you know, we focused on that, and our clients are in a really good position right now.
We had some clients that left us that return very quickly.
Yeah.
Because their Total Cost of Ownership went up, and maybe they left for a little bit lower price. But what they experienced after doing that was an increase in total cost of ownership of the system, and that lacked automation. And so we've had a lot of clients come back. Our service levels are as high as they've ever been in our company. And our products are.
What, when you say service level, how do you define that?
Client satisfaction level.
Client satisfaction.
That we measure. Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
You would expect that to have an impact on client retention.
Yeah. Yeah.
You know, that's something that we report once a year and so we're just having a lot of satisfaction out there with both the product as well as our service model. Our opportunity, you know, as we look into next year, and this is going towards your macro, I think that, I don't think there's anything stopping us but us from that standpoint. I think there's a sales opportunity for us now as we look into 2026 and that's really what we're focused on now. We feel really good about what we've done with our service model.
Yeah.
And, you know, we feel really good what we've done in going back and working with the clients to get the full value. We feel really good about where our product is right now. So really for us, it's a go-to-market recommitment in what we're doing with that. We only have 5% of the total addressable market out there right now. So there's plenty of opportunity for us. And as we're moving into next year and we're getting set up right now, that's really where our commitment is next year's into the sales growth side.
Do you think investors over-index a little bit macro? Like, I don't know how your conversations went so far, but, like, that's the one question I get, I get all the time. But then I always try to say, like, but Chad is kind of macro is one thing. But he's driving the company forward, you know, like more.
Yeah. I mean, I don't see where macro's gonna necessarily stop us from working the plan that we have into next year and being able to capture, you know, the growth with that we want. This year we had recurring revenue growth at 10% and Adjusted EBITDA at 43%. You know, as we look into next year, we're very focused on being able to, you know, increase our ability to grow, even opening up. You know, we have a focus over the next two or three years to be able to open up several offices with what our plan is. And so it's really just right now a focus on growth because when you look at all of our other indicators within the company, which in any given year, you know, I've been doing this for 28 years. In any given year, you have something.
Yeah. Yeah.
That you're playing whack-a-mole on, and this year's just really good from all, from everything that we've done, but our opportunities as we look into next year is increasing our sales opportunities.
Yeah. Yeah.
So we've been really focused on that for the last couple of months now.
And then, is it capacity? Well, but you always were kind of, you know, in per sales office. You always had like your eight kind of.
Mm-hmm.
Eight, per sales office, etc. So if you think about, like, capacity increases, does that need to be like new offices then, openings? Or how do you think about that? Or is it just.
Well, both. I think there's an opportunity for us to add within cities that we're in. And we need to open up more markets. And the other part is taking the people we have and achieving greater success.
Yeah.
You know, our city in Tulsa will sell, you know, probably $9 million in new business this year. Our top rep across the company will sell over four.
Wow.
And so.
Yeah.
When you look at our total number of reps and our total number of cities, not everyone's doing that.
Yeah.
And so we have an opportunity to increase that within our current group. But we're also, really recommitting on the number of salespeople that we bring in. I think, that's our one opportunity as we look into 2026.
Yeah.
Because I feel really good about where our product is and also our roadmap of what's coming out next quarter and throughout 2026. I feel really good about how we've worked with our current clients and helping them realize and achieve the value that's received when you use the full system. And I feel really good about all the work that our client service group has done to become product experts so that we can really service those clients very well. And so, you know, when we look into 2026 and beyond, it's really that revenue growth opportunity that we have. We're a very strong sales organization. And I think as we've gotten together over the last couple of months to refocus on our value proposition, which has changed over time.
Yeah.
It's still the single database, but it's the value that can be derived from using it.
Yeah.
You know, today, our value's really decision logic. It's not now that you have the employees using the single database and using the system. It's how do we get managers, administrators, and others out of the system and allow the system to decision.
Okay.
Routine, decisions that should be consistent.
Yeah.
We've spent a lot of time developing that within our system. We have a lot of clients and prospects excited about those opportunities and already generating great ROI from the utilization of those.
That, but that sounds almost, you know, and kind of leads us probably into the AI world because, like, if the system is more automated and it's more decision-driven.
Mm-hmm.
So if you think, like, IWant is more on the user interface kind of, I would think. This one sounds more like it's deeper in the system.
You're exactly right. You know, it's not. AI's kind of your friend. If you go all AI, you're gonna miss a few things, and so there was an opportunity for us to automate a lot of these decisions within our system.
Yeah.
You know, some of it is a configuration opportunity, but you also have AI involved in some others. The way I would look at AI for us right now is it's very early outside of the analysis and the coding and other things that we use it for.
Yeah.
I'm talking about from a client's perspective of.
Mm-hmm.
Where they're seeing the greatest value. It's from not having to know our system. I mean, AI has removed a lot of the need to know our system and be trained on it.
Yeah.
Because it is, think of it as more of a portal to the value that someone has available to them.
Yeah.
Which before was a lot harder. So now a lot of the employees that even come onto the system since IWant, with our clients, they don't even really know what the software looks like. They're just using.
Yeah. Yeah.
They're just using the IWant technology. And so they're not navigating throughout the rest of the software. And so that changes habits at the employee level, which has opportunities to change it at the manager level.
Mm-hmm.
Policyholder, administrators, and then, of course, in the finance department. So, we're seeing that increased usage within our system from a value perspective. And, you know, that's a, that's our opportunity into the future.
I mean, I have to give you credit again because, like, you know, we saw one of the more upper end of the market peers just spend like $1 billion on a system that might just kind of solve that. So the IWant, whereas, like, how long did you work on that?
IWant.
Or is it out already? Yeah.
Well, IWant was, you know, a large group of us locked in a room for, you know, we worked on it for about 14 months probably. But, I would say the last eight, you know, we were kind of, we worked every weekend and night until we, you know, there were times where we had it almost done and then we'd throw something else into it and it'd go.
Okay.
Backwards.
Yeah. Yeah.
You know, there'd be times I'd come in and I'd be like, "What do we do to this?" You know, we had it there. And so, but we've gotten a lot better at that, and it's working very well. I mean, our clients love utilizing it. And it's just sped up the process for a client to really achieve the value that's available to them so that they can kind of realize that.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then how do you think about, like, does that drive already improvement on the sales and sales engagement? Because with IWant, you have like a nice differentiation factor in the market. Does that kind of show up already?
It does, but it's a product and not a strategy.
Yeah.
IWant's a product, not a strategy. And so, you know, again, I think throughout the year and when you really look at throughout our history, as we've released products, we kind of go out and we sell that product now.
Yeah.
Whether it's Beti or Gone or IWant or all the products that have come before. But when you take a step back and you look at it, I mean, we're automating a lot of these things that are critical for a business. You take something as simple as time off request where you have an employee requesting time off at 7 o'clock tonight. And time off's not about who gets time off. It might be for the employee. For me, time off's about who comes to work.
Yeah. Yeah.
You know, it's managing how people come to work. And so, you know, before, when we looked at our own data, 50% of time off requests were decisioned after they'd already been paid. So that's obviously not a decision. So you have employees waiting on decisions. They put requests out 7:00 P.M. Then they chase their manager down the next day. And that manager has to decide who's on maternity leave, paternity leave, bereavement, jury duty, sick.
Mm-hmm.
What are my shifts that I need covered?
Yeah. Yeah.
You know, and they have to go through all the process. Does this employee have enough time? Are they in good standing? Are there overlapping shifts? And so if someone's trying to do that right, they're spending so much time.
Yeah. Yeah.
Just figuring that. Well, that's something we've automated through Gone. So there's no management decision on who gets off. The system knows the criteria that each person set of what they need for their capacity to run their shifts. It knows what levels people are achieving, their policy for both paid time off, bereavement, what have you. And nonproductive time represents 10%-12% of a company's labor budget.
Yeah.
The labor budget's usually number one or two.
Yeah. Yeah.
largest expense, and so.
Yeah.
It's going unmanaged. So these are opportunities. This is but one, but this is an example of what decisioning and logic and automating a system. What happens is they're not even doing it. I can't even find anybody that knows their own vacation policy.
Yeah.
An employee or a manager or even the policyholders, and so when we're able to automate routine decisions where you expect consistency.
Mm-hmm.
There's a lot of value in that, for clients. We were working with one prospect, and they noticed that their revenue was down on certain days, and when we went and we unpacked that, it's because they didn't have people working the shifts, and we've all stood in line where you wanna purchase something, but it's so long, and you're like, "If they just had two or three more people there.
Yeah.
and you just put it down and you walk out. Whether that's that, whether someone's, it doesn't matter what you're doing, whether you're in manufacturing or what have you, and the point is oftentimes they did have those people, and so what you have is you have companies that are overstaffed as a company but understaffed.
But work there.
On certain schedules and work, and so when you're able to put decision and logic into a tool, it becomes the enforcer because most managers don't wanna tell an employee.
Yeah.
That has eight weeks of vacation and hasn't taken one in a year. Most managers don't wanna say no to that, even to the extent that they're willing to work a shift that's understaffed, but that impacts the company, and so, by having decision and logic throughout the system, you know, we're able to get people out of having to move that data along, which, I mean, if they're trying really hard, they're failing, and most people have given up, to be quite honest with you.
And then how does it go back to my question, like, how does it show up on, you know, sales guys engaging with prospective clients or going back to the installed base? Like, well, first of all, it's IWant just as a reminder for all of us, like, is IWant, do I pay for that? Is it part of the overall package? And then how is it with new clients?
Yeah. And so our opportunity to monetize IWant's gonna be through increased retention.
Yeah.
And through greater generation of new logo adds, if you will.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's our biggest opportunity. With products where we want 100% adoption, I don't really love to go through the process of trying to sell it to each person.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
but we do believe it will impact in our early stages. We're seeing it impact client satisfaction.
Yeah.
And of course, the happier your clients are, the more value they're achieving out of the product that they're using. You would expect that they would stay with you longer, and that would impact retention and also give us the ability to go out and sell other deals. You know, there's a whole generation of Paycom users now since August that log in and they use the IWant interface. They're not navigating.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's where they go first, and so, you know, you extrapolate that out two or three years, as employees move from place to place, and they have certain expectations of automation, even managers now.
Yeah.
They don't wanna approve time off because it can be automated, and so the more you can get people to change their habits, and it's easy to get people to change their habits if it creates great value and it's simple for them to do, and so that's really where IWant is gonna help us. You know, we've made it easier for a prospect to evaluate Paycom and see its value, and we've made it easier for clients to convert to Paycom, and so we're really excited about how we're set up as we move into 2026 and beyond.
How sustainable do you think that is, as an advantage? Because, like, if you look at your industry, you know, you drove a lot of the innovation in the space, but there's kind of relatively quick follow-on for some of the stuff. Like, the single database for some of them is kind of impossible, so you can't really do that. But, like, how quickly do you think this will be, like, you know, copied? Or how long, how sustainable is that competitive advantage?
I will just say I think it's easier to copy the brochure.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Than to actually,
Yeah.
You know, what's being achievable. We're not seeing that out there. We're seeing a lot of people are still even focused on adoption. We're past that.
Yeah. Yeah.
In the Paycom system.
Yeah.
You already have adoption at the employee level. You know, a lot of systems, I mean, for employees to be able to go through and do their expenses and their benefits and their payroll and their time off and their learning and their scheduling and everything in one system. I can keep going, recruiting and.
Yeah.
Everything, performance and compensation, doing everything in one system, usually for other businesses and their employees that utilize those. Those could be anywhere from six to eight different systems.
Mm-hmm.
And they don't talk well together, and they're not easy to automate. And so for Paycom, first thing we wanted to do with the Direct Data Exchange is make sure we're measuring all employee interactions in the system.
Yeah. Yeah.
Like, having those employee interactions direct from employee to the system. Once you've done that, now you can get to automation because you have employees that are utilizing the system, but it was moving through a flow all the way to the backend users to make decisions and move the data from there. Well, we automate it before it gets there now in many cases.
Yeah.
And so there's great value there. And I think that, in some cases, our marketing was doing a better job than our sales group was. And now as we have total alignment and we're refocused on getting back out there, which we've had a great sales year too.
Yeah.
But I don't think anybody should be using any of our competitors. I mean.
Yeah.
You know, and so we really shouldn't be losing any deals. It's 2025, and we'll go into a competitor, and half their employees aren't even utilizing the system.
Yeah.
It just doesn't make any sense. And the reason they're not is because it's cumbersome, complex, and they don't get any value out of it.
Yeah.
And so anyway, that's been our focus. And it's not about being first. It's about making sure that we're doing the right things for our clients and, in the future, for our clients as well. And we just feel really good right now about how we head into next year. We had a lot of things that we needed to get through and get shored up. And we've had those things shored up for some time now.
Okay. Yeah. I mean, because I know you're a very competitive person. If you think about it, if I'm listening to you now, like, more sales capacity, product is there, so you're looking forward to next year.
Yeah. I mean, I've been working with our sales staff myself for the last four weeks. I mean, I'm, you know, direct with them, and what I mean by that's every day. We've had our groups coming into Dallas, and we're just all really refocused on what the strategy is for clients because I think we're telling them so many things. There's so many things available to them. We've been able to now condense that.
Yeah. Yeah.
To make it easier for us to articulate that to a client so it's easier for them to see where the true value is through Full-Solution Automation. That's what we're talking about here.
Yeah.
It's not how many times you log in and use the system. It's how many times you don't need to log in and use the system. That's what automation is. And you know, you have to know your industry. You have to know what the user buyer needs and how they're utilizing the system. And when you do that and you understand the decisions that are being made, you can automate that for the benefit, you know, of our client.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. And then, yeah, you mentioned earlier, like, one of the drivers is, like, it's on sales capacity. One of the drivers was, like, new office. Historically, you always had, like, you were very thoughtful about, like, where you if you wanna go into a market, like, how you do that. So is that kind of thoughtful cadence changing for you? Or, like, how do you think about that? Or did the processes improve or change that you kind of?
I wouldn't say it's necessarily changed, but we have identified opportunities to expedite it.
Okay.
I wouldn't say the criteria is the criteria.
Yeah. Yeah.
For someone to be able to open up an office. The criteria is for someone to be able to become a manager, but we are seeing improvement in capabilities with that group, and so I think as we kinda look into next year, we'll be seeing a lot more of it with that group, and that'll produce more opportunities for us to open up offices.
Can you, historically, you talked about, like, territory opportunities in terms of, like, you know, what you cover at the moment, what you don't cover? Has that number changed? And can you remind us?
Not really. I mean, we yeah, it was about 100 offices we're able to open. We have 55 open right now. A territory represents 2,000, what we call, well, Rainbow accounts, which are prospects.
Yeah.
Within our sweet spot, and so, you know, some cities have 8,000 of those. You could have multiple offices.
Yeah. Yeah.
Some cities have, you know, 1,800 and so just talked about Tulsa earlier, and so yeah, the prospect base is there and the ability's there. We've kinda been a little bit our own log jam on that just from not having the people ready to lift up, but you know, we're doing a lot better with that now.
Okay.
So I think in the next couple of quarters, I think that we'll be able to see what's happening with the sales organization from that, from that standpoint.
Yeah. Okay. And then the last few minutes, I wanna talk about more, like, flip over a little bit on the margin side. Like, one of the things that comes up a lot with investors is, like, if you do AI, how do you do that? Do you do it in the hyperscaler, do you do it yourself? Like, talk a little bit about your setup on AI. Like, where are you doing it?
You mean as far as, well, we've always managed our own data centers.
Exactly.
From the beginning, so we didn't have that as an issue. We actually also manage our own data centers that hold our GPUs and what have you. They're actually a little bit different than some of our other,
Yeah.
Data centers as well. But, so we manage those ourselves. You know, when you're looking at, I mean, I've had to learn a lot about this. There's certainly not you can put a lot of things in AI or, or in this model that you don't need to, just because of, for instance, employees clocking in. Well, IWant we had a program where you could say, "Clock me in." But it actually takes longer than what the widget on the very front of your screen. Takes longer to click, "IWant," and say, "Clock me in," than what it does to have the widget on your screen say, "Clock me in." Plus, when you look at the consecutive responses that we're getting.
Yeah.
That's hitting those GPUs. There's a, you know, it eats up a lot, and there's not a ton of value in it when you understand an employee that's trying to log in.
Yeah.
That's collecting time that has to be there at 8:00 A.M., and they're trying to clock in, and you're making them go through an AI tool.
Yeah.
And so you do have to understand where does it work? Where does it slow down the process and becomes, you know, where I have to have something understand you versus you already see it in front of you, and you can click it.
Yeah. Yeah.
So where is it helpful, and where's it gonna slow you down? And so those are the things we focus on. And then I think you're also looking at opportunities for, you know, a different level of AI that could potentially answer, you know, best practice type questions and serve as a, you know, a proxy for, you know, an individual that might be having to answer those same types of questions.
Yeah.
But I think a lot of that is, you gotta have a lot of configuration in there too because you have to start with.
Yeah. Like a.
Understanding what needs to be accomplished.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, and then, like, the other big discussion point, and that's one for you, Bob, is like, how do you use internally, like, you know, I know chat is always about increasing efficiency and not wasting money internally. Like, are you guys using it internally, like, already, and you know, what are you doing there?
Oh, absolutely. I mean, we're the biggest super user of the product out there.
Yeah.
And that's driving the Full-Solution Automation that we're doing internally as well. So, and it also helps improve our product because we see what clients see.
Yeah.
We can help work with the teams on that.
Yeah. Yeah, and then, if you look at internal, is it the classic areas of, like, development is getting a little bit better because you can use tooling there? Support?
It definitely helps in development, you know, being able to analyze certain things from client data.
Yeah.
Conversations with clients when they call in through service, just analyzing clients' communication patterns with us and being able to predict, you know, which clients are in a good spot and which clients are.
That's accurate.
susceptible. And you need to make sure that we're covering those. And so, you know, I wouldn't say, you know, we, of course, have it in our product, but we also have it in other areas of our business, even being able to have it analyze the usage components of how do I get clients from this level of value over to a much higher level of value with the exact same spend. I mean, I've kinda said it for a long time, you know. I kinda call it swinging the jackhammer, right? I can buy a jackhammer, and I can sit there and swing it, or I could've just turned it on.
Yeah.
And we have a lot of clients that sometimes still do that. They buy a product that has automation, but they kinda use it the old way.
Yeah. Yeah.
And so, you know, we've also been able to use certain AI tools and what have you to be able to identify that and make it much easier for people to get value. I mean, prior to IWant, a lot of people were you know making a lot of extra clicks, even if they tried to get the data in the system. Sometimes they didn't know where to get it. And so.
Yeah.
IWant just speeds that up. IWant's either gonna give you a home run or put you on third base to where you have one more click.
The last question for me, and then time flew by. It's kind of amazing. The last question for me is, like, as you think about better times next year, how do you think about margin as part of that? 'Cause, you know, if you have more sales capacity, maybe more office opening, etc., do you?
I mean, I'm right. This year, I'm really 2026, I'm focused on growth.
Yeah.
Now, I will say, you know, we sell a really good product that creates a lot of efficiencies for the client. We get to share in that. So you would expect that as you are selling, you're also impacting your margins positively as well.
Yeah. Yeah.
If with this additional revenue, so we're focused on that, but we're also protective of our margins. You know, we've got strong margins now, and we're not working through anything in our model to change the margin profile.
Yeah.
You know, toward the negative anyway.
Yeah. Okay. Perfect. That's a good summary. Okay. Chad, Bob, good to see you again. Thank you.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. All right. Thank you. It's good seeing you.
Good to see you again.
You're doing well.