Photos by Ralph Freso / Watch
Applying for a job can involve the smallest details.
It could come down to whether an applicant is me-oriented or team-oriented.
Adam Nuse, senior vice president and chief revenue officer for the NFL’s Tennessee Titans, and his wife, Sarah Nuse, founder of Tippi Toes children’s dance franchise, discussed the details that helped them rise to their respective positions, their faith and their bond as a couple during the recent T.W. Lewis Speaker Series at the Colangelo College of Business lobby.
One of Adam Nuse’s biggest duties will be generating large revenue streams for the Titans’ new stadium, scheduled to open next season. That involves hiring staffers who are relationship-driven, and he elaborated on two red flags when screening applicants.
“Be careful on your social media,” Nuse said at the event, moderated by Neda Barrie, faculty chair of sports and entertainment. “I look at it.”
Social media accounts are often the first thing Nuse seeks out when screening candidates, sometimes scanning photographs dating to their high school days.
“The one that’s a red flag for me is when they’re all photos of themselves,” Nuse said. “What I love is when they’re in groups of 12. … We want people who are relationship-driven. That’s a big piece of it.”
Another red flag is not displaying command of basic English, as well as a lack of communication. “It seems it’s lost its way over the last 20 years,” Nuse said. “Make sure you’re writing clearly.”
Sarah Nuse, who runs 110 franchises around the country, told students to “be confident in who you are,” adding that she benefited from asking God to guide her and align herself with other believers.
“Twenty-seven years in, and I’m still growing and learning,” she said. "If I ever believe I arrived, I should sell. I should always be growing and learning what God is molding me into.”
A pivotal moment for Sarah Nuse and her sister happened in 2012 after becoming a winner on entrepreneurial competition television show "Shark Tank." She learned that only one out of 5,000 applicants understood what her business represented, and a deal with "Shark" entrepreneur Mark Cuban fell through.
The contract, she said, “Did not allow me to do what God called me to do.”
She wrote an email to Cuban telling him, “I just don’t feel we’re aligned in business," and she said he replied with a nasty email that her husband framed in his office.
“One lesson from that,” Adam Nuse interjected, “Don’t chase money. Find something you’re passionate about. We look back all the time. It was hard. Sarah owns all of (her company). We don’t have to worry about what Cuban thinks. We could be chasing money in 2012 and be in a different spot.”
Adam Nuse said his pivotal moment happened in 2008, when he worked in minor league baseball while raising three young children (all of whom will attend GCU), and “God was stirring in my heart.”
He said he read “The Success Principles” by Jack Canfield and Janet Switzer that stress responsibility and taking action. He recalled one anecdote in which a man who felt he was doing all the right things asked God to bless him to win the lottery.
“The moral of the story is you've got to buy the lottery ticket. You can’t just wish and hope and pray and hope something happens.”
He bought a minor league baseball team in Bowling Green, Kentucky, which led to his ascent with the perennial prosperous Nashville Sounds and helped him land his position with the Titans.
In following their principles of being accountable to themselves in faith and business, Sarah said she talks to her husband five times a day when he’s on the road, adding he must be in bed by midnight and reporting who he has been traveling with.
“Adam would direct himself to the Reid Ryans,” said Sarah, referring to the son of Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan, who operates a successful Triple-A franchise in Round Rock, Texas, who served as a mentor regarding business and family.
She also provided wisdom about building her business amid skeptics who would ask her questions, such as, “Is your dad helping you?”
“The bigger the company, the more doubters,” she said. “Be steady. Block out the noise.”
GCU News senior writer Mark Gonzales can be reached at [email protected].
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Next T.W. Lewis speaker: Paul Charlton, former U.S. attorney, 11 a.m. Thursday, Colangelo College of Business lobby
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