November 12, 2024 • 42 mins
Unlock the secrets to crafting a powerhouse team that can turbocharge your brand's trajectory! Is it time to stop going it alone and embrace the might of a diverse team? Our latest episode of Brand Fortress HQ Tactics Tuesday promises to reveal why the lone wolf strategy may be holding you back and how embracing specialized skills can lead to unprecedented growth. Drawing from our rich e-commerce and agency experiences, we explore how handing over tasks like PPC and catalog management to experts can free up your time to focus on strategic planning and innovation.
We encourage you to "fire" yourself from roles that others can handle more effectively, enabling you to concentrate on the big picture. This episode is all about self-evaluation: determining the true value of your time and identifying which tasks can be delegated to talented individuals. Embrace the possibility of working with team members who might even surpass your skills in certain areas, ensuring your business thrives on their expertise. By strategically hiring and outsourcing, you can significantly enhance efficiency and success, allowing you to focus on expanding your market presence and nurturing a loyal customer base.
Dive into the intricacies of the hiring process in the age of AI, where we navigate the fine line between automation and genuine skill evaluation. With insights into using tools like Criteria Corp, we share best practices for streamlining candidate assessments and aligning recruitment processes with compensation expectations. We discuss the benefits of structured hiring processes that go beyond basic qualifications, ensuring you bring on board people who fit your company's culture and future vision. Regular self-assessment is key to identifying tasks ripe for delegation, thereby freeing up your time for strategic growth. Tune in to discover how to build a team that propels your business forward!
🚀 Transform your brand on Amazon by building a powerful customer list with the After Purchase Funnel Blueprint course. Click here to get the full course for free.
➡️ Ready to go deeper into your Amazon FBA journey to accelerate your success? Get your hands on ALL of the Brand Fortress HQ resources, mentorship, and knowledge base by visiting us at BrandFortressHQ.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everyone to a Brand Fortress HQ Tactics
Tuesday episode and today whatwe're going to do is we're going
to be talking about creating ateam of champions, some of the
secrets that we have to hiringsuperstar talent and I think
this is a great topic that maybedoesn't get the same amount of
attention and sexiness of youknow finding that next ad hack
or you know, getting morereviews or whatever it happens
(00:21):
to be for Amazon, but is reallyimportant when you look at
building a strong brand and howto fortify that over the long
term.
So actually, with this, beforewe hit record, we talked a
little bit about starting withthe why behind this.
So with that, I'm actuallygoing to turn it over to you,
mike, kind of how you thinkabout the why behind creating a
team of champions.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Sure, I think the biggest thing is speed, let's
say so you can grow without ateam.
I mean, obviously there'salways going to be a limit to
how far you can grow without ateam.
But I think part of the issueis that a lot of Amazon sellers,
e-commerce sellers in generalprobably also, but we try to
(01:03):
push as far as we possibly canpush, just kind of being a lone
wolf and maybe having a VA hereand there to do certain things
that maybe we're not good at andthat works for a while.
It's not a bad plan.
Obviously, when you don't havea whole lot of capital, it's
necessary.
There's really no other way togo about it.
But the problem I think thatmost of us likely run into is
(01:25):
that we carry that stage of ourbusiness too long.
We allow ourselves to remainthat lone wolf with a VA here
and there for certain things forfar too long within our
business and, as a result, wegrow much more slowly than we
could, because there's only somany hours in a day, there's
only so many things that you canget done on your own without
additional team members and, tobe perfectly frank, there's only
(01:50):
so many things that you'reactually good at.
You know there may be thingsthat you're doing in your
business.
Well, let's take it another way.
There's probably things thatyou hire VAs for that you're no
good at at all, and so you knowyou need a VA.
You're no good at it all, andso you know you need a VA.
But there's other things thatyou don't, because you're good
enough you can get the job done.
Maybe you even think you'regood at it, but realistically
(02:16):
you're probably not great at it.
And so I would say that thebiggest thing is, if you want
the greatest opportunity and thegreatest possibility to grow as
quickly as possible, or atleast as quickly as reasonable,
then you really need to back upand start looking at all of the
various things that you're doingin your business that likely
there's somebody else out therethat's probably better at it
(02:37):
than you that you probably couldpay a fairly reasonable wage to
get that work done.
And then the other thing wouldbe what are the things that you
know you should be doing in yourbusiness that you're not doing
in your business because youdon't have time, because of all
these other things that you'redoing that you might be able to
either bring somebody on to dothat would be good at it or that
(02:57):
you would now be able to dobecause you brought on team
members to cover those otherareas in your business.
And so I just think it's reallycritical to that, and I think
everybody should take a stepback and think about how fast
are you growing right now andhow much faster could you grow
if you're willing to take andput that money toward building
out.
You know at least thebeginnings of a good team.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah, I think that's just such a good point and just
to give kind of some examples,that from my experience, both in
you know, building ane-commerce brand and now you
know an agency that works withAmazon brands on a regular basis
is, you know, for example, wehave a PPC specialist and an
Amazon catalog specialist, andthe reality of it is is that
(03:37):
they are way smarter on thatstuff at the tactical kind of
everyday execution level than Iam.
And that means that, ratherthan being in the minutia of bid
adjustments and that type ofstuff on an hourly or daily
basis, it means I can work morewith brands on that overall
(03:58):
strategy and how do we move thatstrategy forward.
And so you can apply that to.
You know, in thinking aboutthat in brands is, if you have
somebody to handle whether it's,you know, maybe it's that
logistics to say, hey, to makesure that we've got enough
inventory, you know there's anumber of areas within the
business, they're kind of thatexecution piece that you can
(04:20):
find help with, and what thatdoes is it really frees up both
your time, energy and brainspace to work on the more
strategic things which, let's befrank, if you're a brand, those
things boil down to hey, Imight be doing well on Amazon,
but I might want to develop or Iprobably need to be developing,
another channel.
That may be building yourcustomer list, it may be
(04:42):
expanding onto Walmart, it maybe selling off your own website.
And then the other big one thatI really see brand owners not
spend enough time on is productdevelopment.
I think we'd all say, as ageneral rule of thumb, most
brands should be launching, youknow, especially if they're kind
of between that half million toa couple million dollars, they
should be launching at least twoto three products, new products
(05:04):
, a year.
And I would say that themajority of the brands that I
talk to on a regular basisreally struggle to launch even
one new product a year, and alot of that is because they just
don't give themselves enoughbandwidth in order to offload
kind of those everyday executionthings, to free up their you
know both their mental space andalso their time to work on more
(05:25):
of those strategic objectivesthat they should have for the
brand Way back when I was tryingto run the marketing show at my
first business.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
I was in a digital marketing course that was
talking about building salesfunnels and this and that, but
the guy was talking about thewho before the how, and one of
the things I learned when he wastalking about this is that,
mike, you talked about a taskthat you're not necessarily
great at You're good enough tobe passable but what this guy
(05:55):
talked about was that thosethings, those specific things
that you don't love and that youdon't feel like you're an
expert at, there's someone elsethat not only are they an expert
at it, but they love actuallydoing it.
So for me, that was PPC.
I think I was possible.
I came from a data analystbackground, so it was neat for
me to download reports andfilter them in ways, but I
(06:16):
wasn't launching ad campaigns.
I wasn't doing the competitiveresearch that an actual PPC
person does.
Once I let go of that and gaveit to someone that was
passionate and was better at it,they did more than I could have
done.
That was one of the firstthings.
For me, it was learning who arethe things on my list that I
(06:37):
need off of it that I can focuson.
Who is that person and is theperson you love to give to?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
That's one of the things I learned in processes is
that finds almost passionateskill well, you know, what's
interesting too is that idea,you know, and it's kind of come
up multiple times as we've beentalking here is is this you know
, we're good enough to bepassable, and, and I think what
happens with that is it's notonly a skill thing but a time
(07:06):
thing, and those two thingscoalesce into a situation where
it becomes I'm good enough tomaintain this, but maintenance
is not the same as progress, andI think that's the issue is
that you end up in this stagnantplace where you are capable of
maintaining what you have, butyou're not capable of
progressing beyond what you have, because you don't have the
(07:29):
time, you don't have the brainspace, you don't have the skill
for certain things in yourbusiness that could be better.
And so, as opposed toprogressing forward on the
logistics side and findingbetter ways to do what you're
already doing, finding new waysto do new things that you're not
already doing but you should bedoing, you're just maintaining
the inventory that you have andyou're not moving forward in
(07:49):
those logistics practices.
So you're not progressing andtherefore you're not becoming
more efficient, you're notimproving your profit margins,
you're not bringing on newproducts, whatever that is,
you're just maintaining what youhave, and that's great, if
that's all you want.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
But I would say that there's know, there's a number
of you know quotes out therethat are very similar in nature
to this, which is but you know,if you're plateaued, you're
actually declining.
You just don't know.
So if you're not progressingforward, you're really on the
that.
You know, I look probably onabout a monthly basis at least
how for opportunities to firemyself from different roles in
the business, because the moreof those roles that I can fire
myself from and hire somebodyelse, the more I can work on
those strategic things that aremaybe, you know, six months a
(08:45):
year, two to three years downthe line we can make, really
focused on making progress onthose.
And I think that that's how,you know, a good framework for
how businesses that do progressand do grow move forward is by,
you know, really moving yourselfout of different roles that you
may be okay at, you might begood at, you might be amazing at
(09:07):
, and bringing people on yourteam to take those things over.
So, with that said, I do want tomake sure that we get to, you
know, because I think there's alot of listeners that are at
that stage that they're like,hey, yeah, I totally understand
that.
You know, I want to findsomebody for these roles.
You know, and the title of thisis creating a team of champions
.
So I'd love to hear from one ofyou about you know, once you've
(09:31):
identified, hey, I want to firemyself from this role.
What does that next step in theprocess look like in order to
find that superstar talent, inorder to fill that gap?
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Well, I think, first of all, you might want to back
up just a half step in terms ofhow do I determine what the role
is that I want to fire myselffrom?
What is that next role that Ishould be firing myself from?
And I think there's a fewdifferent ways that you could
look at that and, honestly, it'sprobably where those few things
coalesce that becomes thetarget mark.
(10:04):
And I would say, first of all,recognize that you should be
doing a calculation of how muchis your time worth, because if
you're not really thinking thatthrough, then I think it's
difficult to establish who thatnext person is that you should
bring on and what they should do.
If, in your business, you wereto calculate out what your
(10:28):
profits are the actual profitthat you're bringing back from
your business, versus the numberof hours that you're investing
in your business, and I wouldsay, be careful about that,
because, one, your profits mightnot be quite as good as you
think they are, so make sure youknow your numbers.
But two, there's a good chanceyou're investing more hours than
you think you're investing, andso I would take stock of really
determining how much time am Iinvesting on a weekly basis in
(10:50):
my business and then also whatis my actual profit that's
coming back out of the business.
Once you establish that, thenit's pretty easy to calculate
what your hourly rate is,essentially.
What are you making by the hour?
And so if it turns out thatyou're making $100 an hour, like
if that's what you bring in,then if you can hire somebody
(11:11):
for significantly less than $100an hour to do whatever this
thing might be, then you shouldprobably do that, because you're
freeing up $100 for maybe $20or $30 or $10, whatever that is
for maybe $20 or $30 or $10, youknow whatever that is.
So that's and it also, I think,helps you to really recognize
how much value there is in thathire.
(11:31):
When you recognize thedisparity between what is the
cost of hiring somebody to dothis job versus what am I
essentially spending to do thisjob by taking my time to do it,
which is worth $100 an hour or$200 an hour or whatever it is,
when you see that disparity, itbecomes much more obvious that
you should be bringing thisperson on.
So I think you need to startthere.
The second thing is then againgoing back to what we already
(11:54):
said.
What are the aspects of yourbusiness that you're not
particularly good at but have asignificant impact on how well
your business performs, you know, in terms of profit margin or
overall revenue or efficiency,whatever that is.
So, for instance, iflogistically you're passable but
(12:16):
you're still running into outof stock situations, which is
then affecting your rankings,which obviously then affects
your sales volume, thenlogistics might be an area where
you could bring in somebody.
Let's say again, your time isworth $100 an hour.
Let's say you could bring insomebody at $30 an hour even,
and that's still a significantdisparity.
And if you can save yourselfall of those out of stock
(12:38):
situations because you havesomebody who that's their only
focus, then the benefits to yourbusiness are immense, and so,
therefore, that would be where Iwould target that.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Yeah, I think that's a great place to start.
I would just also add to thatis that, once you've kind of
taken care of that low hangingfruit I've also found success
with.
I'll use PPC as an example.
I'm pretty darn good at PPC,but there's just a lot more
impact that I can have at moreof a strategic level.
So that's why I have people whodo PPC.
(13:08):
Now, what that means is that youknow, if I train that person
and even if they're, you know,80% as good as I am, they're
still doing a fantastic job.
And I understand I have astrong understanding of kind of
where their weaknesses are andcan help coach them to be really
good at PPC, and so I thinkthat's kind of the next area to
(13:29):
look at.
But I think I just want to kindof come back and double click
on what you said, because Ithink it's so important, which
is, you know, finding thosethings in your business that
have a high impact.
But you know, be honest withyourself where you say, hey, I
am, I'm not definitely not an Ain this area.
I may be a B or a C, but thishas a big impact on my business.
So let me bring somebody in whocan put more time and attention
(13:52):
and probably has more talent inthis area.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
And don't be afraid of team members that are smarter
than you.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
You have to be okay with that.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Look for that and actually be excited about
finding that.
One of the things I'll just addto what both of you said is
clearly defining that role.
Once you've decided on the highlevel, the highest likelihood to
kick the ball or move the ballforward in your business moved
to the VA to help me with, youknow, lead generation or
(14:28):
something like that where Ithought I knew, like actually
going through this process andunderstanding what that role was
going to be for my business,because what I found is that it
wasn't something that you canchoose on a profile, that this
is what I'm looking for, becauseI was looking for a little bit
more and I was able, once I wasable, to define the role and all
those things that they weregoing to be taking up to my
(14:49):
plate, then it helped me.
I used chat gbt to help me comeup with more of a like a
description of that person,which then kind of backed me
into a better role than I wouldhave given otherwise.
So I think what I've learned inthe process my my following
your SOP, that you I think itwas Josh Hadley that originally
introduced you to that SOP, butas I walked through that process
(15:11):
, that's what I realized was thevery key cornerstone process of
that is the final lawyer andthen everything else kind of
gets done.
So I think that's a really big,big central part of getting
started with that.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
So I think that's a really big, central part of
getting started with them.
Yeah, I think that's a greatpoint, because what I have seen
talking to a lot of brands andbusiness owners that don't have
a lot of experience hiring isthey look for somebody to do
their PPC, their logistics andoptimize their listings listings
(15:45):
and the reality of it is, ifyou start, you know, if you
don't have a clear idea of whatthat role should be, expecting
somebody to be good at thosethree very different things is
you're essentially looking for aunicorn that doesn't exist.
Or if somebody was good at allthree of those things, they're
going to be dramatically moreexpensive than somebody who
specializes in one of thoseareas and don't feel like if
(16:06):
you're.
You know, bringing somebodyonto the team, that has to be 40
hours a week.
You know, in 2024, in this dayand age, there's a lot of people
that work, you know on and offdifferent platforms like Upwork
and that type of thing wherethey work with you know,
multiple brands and they mayonly work five to 10 hours a
week for multiple brands doingthe same type of work where they
(16:27):
could be really effective foryou for just five to 10 hours a
week, which can make thatextremely affordable as well.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
I think it's also important to recognize that in
that process of defining theprofile of the role, you gain a
lot of insight that you likelydon't have on the front end.
So what will oftentimes happenis in your mind.
So, let's say, you kind of stepthrough that process that we
were talking about earlier.
You know what's my time worth,what's this area that I think
(16:57):
either I'm not very good at ormaybe I am good at, but it's
taking a lot of time, andthere's other people out there
who would be good at that, andthen I could focus over here.
So let's take logistics.
You might come into that, andyour thoughts might be I need
someone to manage my inventory.
That might be where you start,right, no-transcript.
(17:22):
And so the next step, though,in that would be to go to or
maybe you just start with.
Maybe you don't even know thename of the profile, you just
know what you want them to do.
I want them to.
You know, handle my inventoryRight.
So you go to chat GPT and yousay I need somebody on my team
that could do this for me.
What would that person becalled?
(17:42):
What would that person becalled?
Chatgpt is going to spit back.
You know one, or maybe multiple, you know role titles for the
person who would likely managethat within your business.
And then the next follow-upquestion that you should be
asking if ChatGPT doesn't justgive it to you automatically is
what are the various things thatthat person in that title role
(18:05):
would be able to do or wouldlikely do for my business?
And ChatCPT is going to giveyou about a page of information
about what that person wouldlikely do within your business
and I guarantee you it's goingto name off a bunch of things
that you didn't even think about, Maybe things that you're not
even doing, but it could also bethings that you are doing but
(18:26):
you didn't realize that thatsame person is likely going to
be good at that and there's alot of crossover in those two
areas.
Or if it's something you're notdoing, you may realize, well,
I'm not doing that, but, boy, Ishould be doing that.
And if that person, if I canbring them on and they can not
only do the thing that I neededdone, but they can also do this
other thing that I didn't eventhink about, Now, all of a
sudden, a person who might haveonly been a 10-hour a week
(18:49):
employee, maybe now they're a20-week or 30 or 40.
Maybe you can bring them on ina full-time role and you didn't
even realize all the things thatyou really needed done and it
turns out that's the perfectrole to bring on, and now you
can begin to flesh that out evenfurther.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yeah, I think that's a great kind of first step.
The other thing that I wouldadd to that and this is probably
more of a first principlesthing but is, you know and I'm
going to use this in air quotesbut find a mentor, you know, a
brand owner or whatever ithappens to be?
That's a couple of steps aheadof you, and those types of
questions are also really.
I mean, chatgpt is greatbecause it's available to us
(19:27):
24-7.
So that's a great place tostart.
But then if you have somebodyin your network, that is a
couple of steps ahead of you.
Maybe you're a half milliondollar brand and they're a
million or a million and a halfjust to say, hey, I'm looking at
offloading my logistics off myplate.
Who does that in your company?
What are their responsibilities?
What does that look like?
(19:54):
Because you'll get a lot ofinsights into how other
companies do it and that alsocan be really helpful just to
give you a framework, to knowwhat should I have this person
do and what does that look like.
So that way you can set thatposition up for success.
Because, matt, like you said,just knowing, defining what that
role is and what you expectthat person to do, I think is a
big part of success, not onlyfor you as the person hiring,
but also as that you know teammember that you're bringing on
(20:19):
to make them really good.
It's so much easier if you cansay, hey, here's the seven
things that you know are reallyimportant that you accomplish in
this position.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
So we've actually talked about when, mike, when
you were walking through yourexecutive assistant hiring and I
think, john, you were goingthrough it at the same time if I
remember, I think both of youstarted the search for your EAs
at the same time and, michael, Ithink that's around the same
time that you had for JoshHadley present his SOP on hiring
, and when we walked throughthat, I remember that's the
(20:51):
process that you used for yourEA, which on the end of that,
you hired a great VA, a great EO.
So I'm kind of walking throughthat same process now with this
new role that we're hiring now,that same process now with this
new role that we're hiring now.
And I'm now within the pastthree or four days.
But, john, this kind of goesalong with what you're saying is
(21:13):
talk to a mentor and watch whatthey do and get a you know, get
insight into what they do.
I'm watching this process thatMike walked through with his,
with his EAs, and now one of thetools that he used I think Mike
and you can give a betterdescription of the tool
Criterial core is the name ofthis tool Watch them, do an
assessment and answer a bunch ofquestions that are very
specific to that role.
Again, it goes back to doing avery clearly defined goal
(21:36):
profile at the very beginning.
But it gives you a score.
They go through this test.
Then it puts them in apercentile.
I look at these emails that arecoming through now.
It shows me they tested Xpercent on this, x percent on
this, x percent on this andhere's their overall score and
if it's between 65 and whatever,76 or something like that, I
(21:56):
know that it's in X percentile.
And I don't even look at thepeople.
So it's a list of 180applicants to now a list of 15
or in the top 10 to 15percentile in all of these tests
that we gave them.
Watching that process and goingthrough it is I mean it's, it's
.
I'm nowhere near.
(22:17):
I have never been anywhere nearthat detailed when I was going
through it and it shows why Ihad challenges that I had.
I can't wait to see the actualperson that comes out on the
other side, because it'sfascinating, I think.
Going through criteria reportjust a little bit and
understanding how that piece ofthe process was into your
decision I think is super coolfor someone to learn how to do.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yeah, it's really worked out quite well.
Josh's SOP is terrific.
We made some modifications toit and adjusted it for our
business, but in large part,we're implementing it very
similarly to the way that he'sdescribed, and so if you connect
with Josh and get that SOP fromhim, I'm sure you would really
find it useful.
Great, because it does allowyou to essentially automate the
(23:10):
process of weeding out yourcandidates, so that I would say
that one of the biggest benefitsof it is if you have to do the
weeding out of candidates, andif you have to do that, then
there's a lot of time investmentrequired, and so what will
happen is you will bring in 10or 15 candidates and then you're
going to try to weed throughthose 10 or 15 to find the best
(23:33):
option out of those 10 or 15.
And you're going to get to theend of it and you're going to be
like, okay, well, we've gotthese two that are.
They're decent.
I think they could probably dothe job.
We're going to go with this guybecause he's a dollar less an
hour or lives wherever, so wecan probably pay him a little
less.
And you're going to bring themon the team and I would say,
(23:55):
more often than not, you'regoing to discover that that
person really is not what youwanted for that role, and it's
because you started with a poolof candidates that was very
small and of those, the chancesthat you were going to find the
right person for that role wasactually pretty slim.
What using Josh's SOP and usingCriteriaCorp does is it allows
(24:17):
you to throw a really large netso that instead of bringing in
10 or 15 candidates, you bringin 300 candidates or 400
candidates, and then the processthat you walk them through like
.
First there's an okay kind ofthis application thing up front.
They either do it or they don't.
(24:37):
If they did, then they enteredthe process.
Now they get popped intoCriteria Corp.
Maybe only 60% of them evenmake it through that first stage
.
Now they're in Criteria Corp,and so now they're being tested
for personality, for skill level, for a number of different
things and Criteria Corp systemand I'm sure there's others out
there.
I don't want to say thatCriteria Corp is the only option
.
It's just the one that we'reusing, and what it then will do
(25:01):
is that we'll correlate theskillset of the individual
against the personality of theindividual, against, you know, a
number of other factors andthen, as Matt was suggesting, it
will give you percentiles interms of how good of a fit is
this person for all of thesedifferent individual roles that
you might have that you'relooking for within your business
(25:21):
.
So what's interesting is isthat you tell Criteria Corp what
you're hiring for, but it willalso tell you if you've got
candidates that come in.
You can determine not only arethey not right for the current
position that you're hiring for,but they might be right for
these two or three or four otherpositions that you might not
have considered.
But they're like, knock it outof the park, amazing for those
(25:45):
roles.
And so you might decide you ranacross a good enough candidate
that you walk them through theprocess for a completely
different role that you weren'teven considering.
But on the topic of the rolethat you did want, you have a
very good way of vetting thoseindividuals and narrowing it
down to a certain select.
You know maybe three to sixcandidates that you think are
(26:07):
really good for the positionversus.
Nah, I think they'll be okay,and I don't wanna have to go
through this process again, sowe're just gonna hire one of
them, and so that, I think, iswhat I like about it is that I
can throw a really big net andit doesn't really require any
additional time on my part.
I can wait till they get to thebottom of the funnel before I
start doing any interviews oranything, and at that point I
(26:28):
already know I've got somepretty decent candidates on the
docket.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Mike, do you happen to know how long it takes from
the candidate side for them togo through that Criteria Corp
survey.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Honestly, it's not that you like how many minutes
or hours do they spend, or likehow long it will take for us.
I mean, it depends on the testthat you implement.
You don't have to implementeverything that Criteria Corp
does and you can implement someof your own custom projects
within Criteria Corp as well ifyou want to implement that.
So my guess would be you know acouple of hours, you know to go
(27:02):
through everything.
If you really gave them all ofthe various different skill and
personality tests and you've gotsome additional project that
you want to put them through, Iwould say it's somewhere in that
range.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Okay, yeah, I would.
I mean I would just.
First of all, I think it'simportant to have a process, and
Criteria Corp is a tool and itsounds like you know it's a tool
that's worked really well foryou and that Josh recommends
because it's worked really well.
I will say personally, one ofthe things that I'm very
(27:33):
sensitive to is how much timeyou have candidates, and it
depends on the pay for theposition.
If it's something that is $10,know 10 bucks an hour expecting
somebody to do, you know, gothrough, you know, a couple hour
long project and an hour longsurvey and three to four
(27:56):
interviews and all that type ofstuff you know doesn't, isn't
going to or probably won't getyou the right candidate.
It just gets you somebody thatis willing to go through all the
hoops to get to the end.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
I think I might question that a little bit,
though, and not the the.
I would say the idea behindwhat you're saying, I think, is
likely correct.
There there is a.
There's a difference betweenyou know one position and
another and the amount of moneythat's going to be paid for it
and how much time you shouldreally expect them to put in to
get to the end.
But at the same time, I wouldsay that it's also very
(28:32):
dependent upon how much are youwilling to pay for the job
versus where the candidates arecoming from.
So, for instance, maybe this isa customer service position and
you're willing to pay $6 or $7or $8 an hour for somebody who's
really good right Now.
Obviously you're not going toget that out of the US, but out
(28:54):
of the Philippines you could getsomebody really good for $6 or
$8 an hour, because a lot ofpeople in the Philippines are
working for three or four bucks.
So I think a lot of it is whatis the discrepancy or the
disparity between what anaverage wage is in, say, the
Philippines or wherever youmight be getting your employees
(29:15):
from, versus what you're willingto pay?
Because if I'm a Filipino and Iknow most times the jobs that I
might get.
I'm going to get paid three orfour bucks, but these guys are
offering six bucks an hour tostart and raises over the next
year or two.
I might be entirely willing toinvest two or three or four
hours even and I'm not saying itshould be that many, but I
might be willing to do thatbecause this is a much better
(29:38):
paying job than what I might beable to get in any other way.
I'm gonna go for this,especially if the job
description and the descriptionof your business and how you
treat your employees and all ofthat resonates with me and
that's another thing that Ithink is important is that when
you put these job postings outthere, make sure that the people
know what they're applying for,not just the specifics of the
(29:59):
job and what theresponsibilities are going to be
, but how are you going to treatthem Like?
What kind of a company are you,how much do you value your
employees and how much are yougoing to invest in them and
bringing them forward, toincreasing their skill set and
giving them better opportunities, if your job posting makes it
very clear that you havetremendous care for your
employees and you want to givethem opportunities to grow and
(30:21):
to make more money and to becomebetter, then I think you get
that better quality candidateand I also think you get them to
be willing to spend thatadditional time to walk through
and jump through your hoops ifthey know they're going to get
paid decent for the position.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
I think that can be true.
Sorry, john, I was going to say, now that I can see the data on
this side, of these applicantsthat are filling out, like sure,
we probably would have gottenmore if there were less hoops
for them to jump through, wereless hoops for them to jump
through?
But the ones that are comingout on the other side, I think
I'm okay with weeding out, theones that didn't want to spend
the hour answering those surveyquestions, because the ones that
(30:57):
did I have some that came outon the other side that are in
the one or two percentile in allof the different aptitude,
skill and all of that puttogether, they did go through
that hour and a half two hourlong process.
So they did go through thathour and a half two hour long
process.
So the ones that we weeded, out.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
I think I was okay weeding them out.
Okay, yeah, no-transcript.
(31:37):
And then the other thing that Iwould say just from my
experience and actually I'mgoing to test out CriteriaCore
for our next position and kindof the Injash Hadley's process
to see how it compares.
But you know, either way, Iwould say one of the things that
is some whatever process youuse, a couple of key things that
(31:58):
I think you said that I wantlisteners to really hone in on.
The first is is that you wantto cast a wide net.
You probably want, you knowinitial applications to be 100,
200 people for your for thatposition, because 80 to you know
, 70 to 80% of those, no matterhow good you write that job
(32:20):
position, are going to peoplethat are going to fall into
camps.
Either one they have zeroexperience and what it is that
you're trying to hire for andthey're going to apply for the
job anyway because they click abutton and they've done their
duty of applying for the job.
And then the other one is thatthey're just not responsive.
(32:43):
So they might have greatexperience but they're just not
responsive in a timely manner tohey, we're interested in more
information about you, and sowe've had a process where you
know our first thing is is justto ask them, you know, a simple
question what interested you inthis position?
And we're typically, you know,a little insider secret.
(33:05):
We're able to eliminateprobably about half of them
because we don't get a responseback sometimes, for you know,
three, four days a week, ever,you know, and that makes it
really easy to recognize, likeokay, well, you know, if I don't
get a response back from you ina week on a simple question of
like what interests in thisposition, then you're probably
either not that interested oryou're just not able to be that
(33:27):
responsive for who knows whatreason.
And now we can move on to othercandidates.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yeah, not for sure.
I think it's important.
We a couple of other thingsthat I might mention that I
think are pretty useful in theprocess.
So I guess one be aware thatmost individuals, regardless of
(33:53):
what your hiring practice is,what your process is, that
you're going to run them through, depending on the importance of
the position, I would say thatin one way or another, you need
to attempt to test not onlytheir ability in the area but
also, I guess, their integrityto a degree, if there's some way
(34:15):
in which you can kind of testthose things.
And I guess the thing to becareful of is that these days, a
lot of individuals that aregoing to apply to your position
are going to be heavily using AIto make themselves look better
for that hiring process.
And I'm not suggesting that'snecessarily a bad thing, because
(34:38):
you want people in your companywho can actually use AI, so
people who effectively do that.
I think there's value there.
But make sure that you'redesigning the process and
whatever projects or tests thatyou're implementing, make sure
that you implement them in sucha way that you're not just
getting the people who can usethe very basics of ChatGPT or
(35:01):
some other AI to make themselveslook good.
Make sure that it takes alittle bit of skill for them to
actually do that, because thenat least you know they're
skilled with AI, you knowwhatever that is.
I also think that using a toollike CriteriaCorp or something
like that for you know,skill-based assessments and
things like that I thinkeliminates a little bit of that,
so that you don't have as muchof the AI influence on whatever
(35:24):
it is in terms of those results.
And then the last thing that Iwould say and we can, maybe you
know we have a little bit ofthat they could move into a
management position down theroad relatively easily.
(36:00):
Like, if they're good at thejob, they simply have the
temperament and kind of the baselevel skillset that they could
be good at managing somebodyelse in that job.
Technically, I think anybody canmove into a management position
, but I think it's a lot easierfor some individuals than others
.
And so if you're hiring for aposition and you're using a tool
like CriteriaCorp, I would notonly look at the information
(36:21):
that CriteriaCorp is giving youin terms of how would they do in
that job like just doing thejob but also I would look at
some of the other things thatCriteria Corp is testing to
evaluate.
Would they be good as a managerin that position, so that
you're ready for that promotionalready?
You have that person lined upand ready.
(36:43):
Once they're good at it and youneed another person in that
department, you can just promotethem, rather than trying to
bring in somebody new or lookingfor somebody who can handle
management level.
You know responsibilities.
You already have thatindividual.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Yeah, I think when we've talked about this a little
bit before, my experience hasbeen a little bit different, but
I think that that you knowthat's okay to have that
perspective and I think there'ssome.
There's definitely some valuein that in the sense of it makes
growing your team easier.
If you already have that personin place who does have
management, you know, or cantake on those management
responsibilities, you do end upsometimes paying a little bit
(37:17):
more for that person out of thegate and you know you do
eliminate some people who I'lluse the example of I have a
brother who's a programmer andhe's very, very good at
programming but he has zerointerest in ever managing people
.
He just hates it with a passionand wants to be an individual
contributor because that's wherehe likes to be.
(37:39):
And so you know you do findpeople like that where you might
eliminate somebody who's anamazing individual contributor
but never wants to or may neverbe capable of stepping into a
management position, but neverwants to or may never be capable
of stepping into a managementposition.
So we do need to start wrappingthis episode.
(38:02):
So I want to kind of think abouttakeaways for or action items
for the listeners, and I thinkthe two that I would give is,
especially if it's going to bean important part of your
business is make sure that youinterview that person and then
do an actual interview.
Surveys and messaging is fine,but you want to put a face to a
name and you learn a lot Even ifit's getting on a Zoom and
(38:22):
talking to somebody in real time, and I've actually found a lot
of success with also sharingchallenges that that person is
probably going to experience inthat position.
Like hey, here's the challengesin that position and setting
them up with that expectation oflike hey, here's the things
that are, you know, might betough in this role, so that way
they can walk into it, you know,with the right expectations.
(38:45):
Thing I would leave you with isyou know we talked about it
towards the beginning is youknow, look at a regular basis
once a month, once a quarter,whatever that happens to be for
your business of you know whatpositions can you fire yourself
from to open up more of yourtime and more of your capacity
in order to work on morestrategic things.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
Yeah, I think one thing that I would leave the
audience with is how importanthaving a process is.
For the first couple of yearsof hiring people, I was the
epitome of Mike's description ofwhat hiring looked like, where
you just hurry up and getsomeone in the door.
In a lot of cases you're makinga decision on who's a dollar or
two cheaper.
Just having a process ofhelping to cast a wider net and
(39:30):
then being able to weed thatdown without spending multiple
hours and energies, I think, isthe quality of people that I'm
seeing come out the other sideof that is astounding.
So I don't think that it reallyis a little bit more work on
the front end to set up aprocess like what we're walking
through, but it's well worth itin the end and it'll end up
saving time in the long run.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
And fortunately you'll use it over and over.
You know like I mean it's likeany other process.
Once it's in place, you know,then it's available.
So every time you hire you getto walk through that same
process and it's a whole loteasier each time.
I think the the the couple ofthings that I would leave
listeners with is one reallyspend that time on the front end
developing out the role profile, you know, really figure out
what is it you need, what is,who is the person that you need
(40:17):
for that and what are all of thethings that that person would
likely be able to do.
That maybe you're not eventhinking of.
Build that profile out reallywell so that you can build out a
really good job descriptionwhen you put the job out there.
And then the other thing iscoming back to what John said,
which is this in-personinterview.
I think it's really critical,especially in this day and age
of AI, because if it's real time, then they don't have the time
(40:42):
to use AI to formulate theiranswers and to give you exactly
what they think that you'relooking for.
Having that real-time interviewmakes a big difference in that
process to make sure that youcan weed out some of that and I
also am a big fan, and this isone of the things that Josh
Hadley does is the groupinterviews, like we do.
You know, for the last position,that we did we had two sets of
group interviews.
We had six decent candidates.
(41:03):
We did two sets of three.
We whittled that down and wewent through that process.
I think there's a lot of valuein doing that and we actually
asked Josh made thisrecommendation.
I think it was great.
We asked each person at the endof the interview who would you
hire?
You can't vote for yourself,and that actually is fairly
helpful, because most of thetime they vote for the same
person that you would likelyhave chosen.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Okay, well, very nice .
I think this is a lot of greatinformation for brands out there
that are looking at creatingthat championship team.
So I would just encouragelisteners take away at least one
of those items, implement inyour business and then let us
know how it goes.
So, part of the reason why wedo this.
I want to thank everybody forlistening and we'll see you at
the next Tactics Tuesday.
Welcome everyone to a Brand Fortress HQ Tactics
Tuesday episode and today whatwe're going to do is we're going
to be talking about creating ateam of champions, some of the
secrets that we have to hiringsuperstar talent and I think
this is a great topic that maybedoesn't get the same amount of
attention and sexiness of youknow finding that next ad hack
or you know, getting morereviews or whatever it happens
(00:21):
to be for Amazon, but is reallyimportant when you look at
building a strong brand and howto fortify that over the long
term.
So actually, with this, beforewe hit record, we talked a
little bit about starting withthe why behind this.
So with that, I'm actuallygoing to turn it over to you,
mike, kind of how you thinkabout the why behind creating a
team of champions.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Sure, I think the biggest thing is speed, let's
say so you can grow without ateam.
I mean, obviously there'salways going to be a limit to
how far you can grow without ateam.
But I think part of the issueis that a lot of Amazon sellers,
e-commerce sellers in generalprobably also, but we try to
(01:03):
push as far as we possibly canpush, just kind of being a lone
wolf and maybe having a VA hereand there to do certain things
that maybe we're not good at andthat works for a while.
It's not a bad plan.
Obviously, when you don't havea whole lot of capital, it's
necessary.
There's really no other way togo about it.
But the problem I think thatmost of us likely run into is
(01:25):
that we carry that stage of ourbusiness too long.
We allow ourselves to remainthat lone wolf with a VA here
and there for certain things forfar too long within our
business and, as a result, wegrow much more slowly than we
could, because there's only somany hours in a day, there's
only so many things that you canget done on your own without
additional team members and, tobe perfectly frank, there's only
(01:50):
so many things that you'reactually good at.
You know there may be thingsthat you're doing in your
business.
Well, let's take it another way.
There's probably things thatyou hire VAs for that you're no
good at at all, and so you knowyou need a VA.
You're no good at it all, andso you know you need a VA.
But there's other things thatyou don't, because you're good
enough you can get the job done.
Maybe you even think you'regood at it, but realistically
(02:16):
you're probably not great at it.
And so I would say that thebiggest thing is, if you want
the greatest opportunity and thegreatest possibility to grow as
quickly as possible, or atleast as quickly as reasonable,
then you really need to back upand start looking at all of the
various things that you're doingin your business that likely
there's somebody else out therethat's probably better at it
(02:37):
than you that you probably couldpay a fairly reasonable wage to
get that work done.
And then the other thing wouldbe what are the things that you
know you should be doing in yourbusiness that you're not doing
in your business because youdon't have time, because of all
these other things that you'redoing that you might be able to
either bring somebody on to dothat would be good at it or that
(02:57):
you would now be able to dobecause you brought on team
members to cover those otherareas in your business.
And so I just think it's reallycritical to that, and I think
everybody should take a stepback and think about how fast
are you growing right now andhow much faster could you grow
if you're willing to take andput that money toward building
out.
You know at least thebeginnings of a good team.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah, I think that's just such a good point and just
to give kind of some examples,that from my experience, both in
you know, building ane-commerce brand and now you
know an agency that works withAmazon brands on a regular basis
is, you know, for example, wehave a PPC specialist and an
Amazon catalog specialist, andthe reality of it is is that
(03:37):
they are way smarter on thatstuff at the tactical kind of
everyday execution level than Iam.
And that means that, ratherthan being in the minutia of bid
adjustments and that type ofstuff on an hourly or daily
basis, it means I can work morewith brands on that overall
(03:58):
strategy and how do we move thatstrategy forward.
And so you can apply that to.
You know, in thinking aboutthat in brands is, if you have
somebody to handle whether it's,you know, maybe it's that
logistics to say, hey, to makesure that we've got enough
inventory, you know there's anumber of areas within the
business, they're kind of thatexecution piece that you can
(04:20):
find help with, and what thatdoes is it really frees up both
your time, energy and brainspace to work on the more
strategic things which, let's befrank, if you're a brand, those
things boil down to hey, Imight be doing well on Amazon,
but I might want to develop or Iprobably need to be developing,
another channel.
That may be building yourcustomer list, it may be
(04:42):
expanding onto Walmart, it maybe selling off your own website.
And then the other big one thatI really see brand owners not
spend enough time on is productdevelopment.
I think we'd all say, as ageneral rule of thumb, most
brands should be launching, youknow, especially if they're kind
of between that half million toa couple million dollars, they
should be launching at least twoto three products, new products
(05:04):
, a year.
And I would say that themajority of the brands that I
talk to on a regular basisreally struggle to launch even
one new product a year, and alot of that is because they just
don't give themselves enoughbandwidth in order to offload
kind of those everyday executionthings, to free up their you
know both their mental space andalso their time to work on more
(05:25):
of those strategic objectivesthat they should have for the
brand Way back when I was tryingto run the marketing show at my
first business.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
I was in a digital marketing course that was
talking about building salesfunnels and this and that, but
the guy was talking about thewho before the how, and one of
the things I learned when he wastalking about this is that,
mike, you talked about a taskthat you're not necessarily
great at You're good enough tobe passable but what this guy
(05:55):
talked about was that thosethings, those specific things
that you don't love and that youdon't feel like you're an
expert at, there's someone elsethat not only are they an expert
at it, but they love actuallydoing it.
So for me, that was PPC.
I think I was possible.
I came from a data analystbackground, so it was neat for
me to download reports andfilter them in ways, but I
(06:16):
wasn't launching ad campaigns.
I wasn't doing the competitiveresearch that an actual PPC
person does.
Once I let go of that and gaveit to someone that was
passionate and was better at it,they did more than I could have
done.
That was one of the firstthings.
For me, it was learning who arethe things on my list that I
(06:37):
need off of it that I can focuson.
Who is that person and is theperson you love to give to?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
That's one of the things I learned in processes is
that finds almost passionateskill well, you know, what's
interesting too is that idea,you know, and it's kind of come
up multiple times as we've beentalking here is is this you know
, we're good enough to bepassable, and, and I think what
happens with that is it's notonly a skill thing but a time
(07:06):
thing, and those two thingscoalesce into a situation where
it becomes I'm good enough tomaintain this, but maintenance
is not the same as progress, andI think that's the issue is
that you end up in this stagnantplace where you are capable of
maintaining what you have, butyou're not capable of
progressing beyond what you have, because you don't have the
(07:29):
time, you don't have the brainspace, you don't have the skill
for certain things in yourbusiness that could be better.
And so, as opposed toprogressing forward on the
logistics side and findingbetter ways to do what you're
already doing, finding new waysto do new things that you're not
already doing but you should bedoing, you're just maintaining
the inventory that you have andyou're not moving forward in
(07:49):
those logistics practices.
So you're not progressing andtherefore you're not becoming
more efficient, you're notimproving your profit margins,
you're not bringing on newproducts, whatever that is,
you're just maintaining what youhave, and that's great, if
that's all you want.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
But I would say that there's know, there's a number
of you know quotes out therethat are very similar in nature
to this, which is but you know,if you're plateaued, you're
actually declining.
You just don't know.
So if you're not progressingforward, you're really on the
that.
You know, I look probably onabout a monthly basis at least
how for opportunities to firemyself from different roles in
the business, because the moreof those roles that I can fire
myself from and hire somebodyelse, the more I can work on
those strategic things that aremaybe, you know, six months a
(08:45):
year, two to three years downthe line we can make, really
focused on making progress onthose.
And I think that that's how,you know, a good framework for
how businesses that do progressand do grow move forward is by,
you know, really moving yourselfout of different roles that you
may be okay at, you might begood at, you might be amazing at
(09:07):
, and bringing people on yourteam to take those things over.
So, with that said, I do want tomake sure that we get to, you
know, because I think there's alot of listeners that are at
that stage that they're like,hey, yeah, I totally understand
that.
You know, I want to findsomebody for these roles.
You know, and the title of thisis creating a team of champions
.
So I'd love to hear from one ofyou about you know, once you've
(09:31):
identified, hey, I want to firemyself from this role.
What does that next step in theprocess look like in order to
find that superstar talent, inorder to fill that gap?
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Well, I think, first of all, you might want to back
up just a half step in terms ofhow do I determine what the role
is that I want to fire myselffrom?
What is that next role that Ishould be firing myself from?
And I think there's a fewdifferent ways that you could
look at that and, honestly, it'sprobably where those few things
coalesce that becomes thetarget mark.
(10:04):
And I would say, first of all,recognize that you should be
doing a calculation of how muchis your time worth, because if
you're not really thinking thatthrough, then I think it's
difficult to establish who thatnext person is that you should
bring on and what they should do.
If, in your business, you wereto calculate out what your
(10:28):
profits are the actual profitthat you're bringing back from
your business, versus the numberof hours that you're investing
in your business, and I wouldsay, be careful about that,
because, one, your profits mightnot be quite as good as you
think they are, so make sure youknow your numbers.
But two, there's a good chanceyou're investing more hours than
you think you're investing, andso I would take stock of really
determining how much time am Iinvesting on a weekly basis in
(10:50):
my business and then also whatis my actual profit that's
coming back out of the business.
Once you establish that, thenit's pretty easy to calculate
what your hourly rate is,essentially.
What are you making by the hour?
And so if it turns out thatyou're making $100 an hour, like
if that's what you bring in,then if you can hire somebody
(11:11):
for significantly less than $100an hour to do whatever this
thing might be, then you shouldprobably do that, because you're
freeing up $100 for maybe $20or $30 or $10, whatever that is
for maybe $20 or $30 or $10, youknow whatever that is.
So that's and it also, I think,helps you to really recognize
how much value there is in thathire.
(11:31):
When you recognize thedisparity between what is the
cost of hiring somebody to dothis job versus what am I
essentially spending to do thisjob by taking my time to do it,
which is worth $100 an hour or$200 an hour or whatever it is,
when you see that disparity, itbecomes much more obvious that
you should be bringing thisperson on.
So I think you need to startthere.
The second thing is then againgoing back to what we already
(11:54):
said.
What are the aspects of yourbusiness that you're not
particularly good at but have asignificant impact on how well
your business performs, you know, in terms of profit margin or
overall revenue or efficiency,whatever that is.
So, for instance, iflogistically you're passable but
(12:16):
you're still running into outof stock situations, which is
then affecting your rankings,which obviously then affects
your sales volume, thenlogistics might be an area where
you could bring in somebody.
Let's say again, your time isworth $100 an hour.
Let's say you could bring insomebody at $30 an hour even,
and that's still a significantdisparity.
And if you can save yourselfall of those out of stock
(12:38):
situations because you havesomebody who that's their only
focus, then the benefits to yourbusiness are immense, and so,
therefore, that would be where Iwould target that.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Yeah, I think that's a great place to start.
I would just also add to thatis that, once you've kind of
taken care of that low hangingfruit I've also found success
with.
I'll use PPC as an example.
I'm pretty darn good at PPC,but there's just a lot more
impact that I can have at moreof a strategic level.
So that's why I have people whodo PPC.
(13:08):
Now, what that means is that youknow, if I train that person
and even if they're, you know,80% as good as I am, they're
still doing a fantastic job.
And I understand I have astrong understanding of kind of
where their weaknesses are andcan help coach them to be really
good at PPC, and so I thinkthat's kind of the next area to
(13:29):
look at.
But I think I just want to kindof come back and double click
on what you said, because Ithink it's so important, which
is, you know, finding thosethings in your business that
have a high impact.
But you know, be honest withyourself where you say, hey, I
am, I'm not definitely not an Ain this area.
I may be a B or a C, but thishas a big impact on my business.
So let me bring somebody in whocan put more time and attention
(13:52):
and probably has more talent inthis area.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
And don't be afraid of team members that are smarter
than you.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
You have to be okay with that.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Look for that and actually be excited about
finding that.
One of the things I'll just addto what both of you said is
clearly defining that role.
Once you've decided on the highlevel, the highest likelihood to
kick the ball or move the ballforward in your business moved
to the VA to help me with, youknow, lead generation or
(14:28):
something like that where Ithought I knew, like actually
going through this process andunderstanding what that role was
going to be for my business,because what I found is that it
wasn't something that you canchoose on a profile, that this
is what I'm looking for, becauseI was looking for a little bit
more and I was able, once I wasable, to define the role and all
those things that they weregoing to be taking up to my
(14:49):
plate, then it helped me.
I used chat gbt to help me comeup with more of a like a
description of that person,which then kind of backed me
into a better role than I wouldhave given otherwise.
So I think what I've learned inthe process my my following
your SOP, that you I think itwas Josh Hadley that originally
introduced you to that SOP, butas I walked through that process
(15:11):
, that's what I realized was thevery key cornerstone process of
that is the final lawyer andthen everything else kind of
gets done.
So I think that's a really big,big central part of getting
started with that.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
So I think that's a really big, central part of
getting started with them.
Yeah, I think that's a greatpoint, because what I have seen
talking to a lot of brands andbusiness owners that don't have
a lot of experience hiring isthey look for somebody to do
their PPC, their logistics andoptimize their listings listings
(15:45):
and the reality of it is, ifyou start, you know, if you
don't have a clear idea of whatthat role should be, expecting
somebody to be good at thosethree very different things is
you're essentially looking for aunicorn that doesn't exist.
Or if somebody was good at allthree of those things, they're
going to be dramatically moreexpensive than somebody who
specializes in one of thoseareas and don't feel like if
(16:06):
you're.
You know, bringing somebodyonto the team, that has to be 40
hours a week.
You know, in 2024, in this dayand age, there's a lot of people
that work, you know on and offdifferent platforms like Upwork
and that type of thing wherethey work with you know,
multiple brands and they mayonly work five to 10 hours a
week for multiple brands doingthe same type of work where they
(16:27):
could be really effective foryou for just five to 10 hours a
week, which can make thatextremely affordable as well.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
I think it's also important to recognize that in
that process of defining theprofile of the role, you gain a
lot of insight that you likelydon't have on the front end.
So what will oftentimes happenis in your mind.
So, let's say, you kind of stepthrough that process that we
were talking about earlier.
You know what's my time worth,what's this area that I think
(16:57):
either I'm not very good at ormaybe I am good at, but it's
taking a lot of time, andthere's other people out there
who would be good at that, andthen I could focus over here.
So let's take logistics.
You might come into that, andyour thoughts might be I need
someone to manage my inventory.
That might be where you start,right, no-transcript.
(17:22):
And so the next step, though,in that would be to go to or
maybe you just start with.
Maybe you don't even know thename of the profile, you just
know what you want them to do.
I want them to.
You know, handle my inventoryRight.
So you go to chat GPT and yousay I need somebody on my team
that could do this for me.
What would that person becalled?
(17:42):
What would that person becalled?
Chatgpt is going to spit back.
You know one, or maybe multiple, you know role titles for the
person who would likely managethat within your business.
And then the next follow-upquestion that you should be
asking if ChatGPT doesn't justgive it to you automatically is
what are the various things thatthat person in that title role
(18:05):
would be able to do or wouldlikely do for my business?
And ChatCPT is going to giveyou about a page of information
about what that person wouldlikely do within your business
and I guarantee you it's goingto name off a bunch of things
that you didn't even think about, Maybe things that you're not
even doing, but it could also bethings that you are doing but
(18:26):
you didn't realize that thatsame person is likely going to
be good at that and there's alot of crossover in those two
areas.
Or if it's something you're notdoing, you may realize, well,
I'm not doing that, but, boy, Ishould be doing that.
And if that person, if I canbring them on and they can not
only do the thing that I neededdone, but they can also do this
other thing that I didn't eventhink about, Now, all of a
sudden, a person who might haveonly been a 10-hour a week
(18:49):
employee, maybe now they're a20-week or 30 or 40.
Maybe you can bring them on ina full-time role and you didn't
even realize all the things thatyou really needed done and it
turns out that's the perfectrole to bring on, and now you
can begin to flesh that out evenfurther.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yeah, I think that's a great kind of first step.
The other thing that I wouldadd to that and this is probably
more of a first principlesthing but is, you know and I'm
going to use this in air quotesbut find a mentor, you know, a
brand owner or whatever ithappens to be?
That's a couple of steps aheadof you, and those types of
questions are also really.
I mean, chatgpt is greatbecause it's available to us
(19:27):
24-7.
So that's a great place tostart.
But then if you have somebodyin your network, that is a
couple of steps ahead of you.
Maybe you're a half milliondollar brand and they're a
million or a million and a halfjust to say, hey, I'm looking at
offloading my logistics off myplate.
Who does that in your company?
What are their responsibilities?
What does that look like?
(19:54):
Because you'll get a lot ofinsights into how other
companies do it and that alsocan be really helpful just to
give you a framework, to knowwhat should I have this person
do and what does that look like.
So that way you can set thatposition up for success.
Because, matt, like you said,just knowing, defining what that
role is and what you expectthat person to do, I think is a
big part of success, not onlyfor you as the person hiring,
but also as that you know teammember that you're bringing on
(20:19):
to make them really good.
It's so much easier if you cansay, hey, here's the seven
things that you know are reallyimportant that you accomplish in
this position.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
So we've actually talked about when, mike, when
you were walking through yourexecutive assistant hiring and I
think, john, you were goingthrough it at the same time if I
remember, I think both of youstarted the search for your EAs
at the same time and, michael, Ithink that's around the same
time that you had for JoshHadley present his SOP on hiring
, and when we walked throughthat, I remember that's the
(20:51):
process that you used for yourEA, which on the end of that,
you hired a great VA, a great EO.
So I'm kind of walking throughthat same process now with this
new role that we're hiring now,that same process now with this
new role that we're hiring now.
And I'm now within the pastthree or four days.
But, john, this kind of goesalong with what you're saying is
(21:13):
talk to a mentor and watch whatthey do and get a you know, get
insight into what they do.
I'm watching this process thatMike walked through with his,
with his EAs, and now one of thetools that he used I think Mike
and you can give a betterdescription of the tool
Criterial core is the name ofthis tool Watch them, do an
assessment and answer a bunch ofquestions that are very
specific to that role.
Again, it goes back to doing avery clearly defined goal
(21:36):
profile at the very beginning.
But it gives you a score.
They go through this test.
Then it puts them in apercentile.
I look at these emails that arecoming through now.
It shows me they tested Xpercent on this, x percent on
this, x percent on this andhere's their overall score and
if it's between 65 and whatever,76 or something like that, I
(21:56):
know that it's in X percentile.
And I don't even look at thepeople.
So it's a list of 180applicants to now a list of 15
or in the top 10 to 15percentile in all of these tests
that we gave them.
Watching that process and goingthrough it is I mean it's, it's
.
I'm nowhere near.
(22:17):
I have never been anywhere nearthat detailed when I was going
through it and it shows why Ihad challenges that I had.
I can't wait to see the actualperson that comes out on the
other side, because it'sfascinating, I think.
Going through criteria reportjust a little bit and
understanding how that piece ofthe process was into your
decision I think is super coolfor someone to learn how to do.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yeah, it's really worked out quite well.
Josh's SOP is terrific.
We made some modifications toit and adjusted it for our
business, but in large part,we're implementing it very
similarly to the way that he'sdescribed, and so if you connect
with Josh and get that SOP fromhim, I'm sure you would really
find it useful.
Great, because it does allowyou to essentially automate the
(23:10):
process of weeding out yourcandidates, so that I would say
that one of the biggest benefitsof it is if you have to do the
weeding out of candidates, andif you have to do that, then
there's a lot of time investmentrequired, and so what will
happen is you will bring in 10or 15 candidates and then you're
going to try to weed throughthose 10 or 15 to find the best
(23:33):
option out of those 10 or 15.
And you're going to get to theend of it and you're going to be
like, okay, well, we've gotthese two that are.
They're decent.
I think they could probably dothe job.
We're going to go with this guybecause he's a dollar less an
hour or lives wherever, so wecan probably pay him a little
less.
And you're going to bring themon the team and I would say,
(23:55):
more often than not, you'regoing to discover that that
person really is not what youwanted for that role, and it's
because you started with a poolof candidates that was very
small and of those, the chancesthat you were going to find the
right person for that role wasactually pretty slim.
What using Josh's SOP and usingCriteriaCorp does is it allows
(24:17):
you to throw a really large netso that instead of bringing in
10 or 15 candidates, you bringin 300 candidates or 400
candidates, and then the processthat you walk them through like
.
First there's an okay kind ofthis application thing up front.
They either do it or they don't.
(24:37):
If they did, then they enteredthe process.
Now they get popped intoCriteria Corp.
Maybe only 60% of them evenmake it through that first stage
.
Now they're in Criteria Corp,and so now they're being tested
for personality, for skill level, for a number of different
things and Criteria Corp systemand I'm sure there's others out
there.
I don't want to say thatCriteria Corp is the only option
.
It's just the one that we'reusing, and what it then will do
(25:01):
is that we'll correlate theskillset of the individual
against the personality of theindividual, against, you know, a
number of other factors andthen, as Matt was suggesting, it
will give you percentiles interms of how good of a fit is
this person for all of thesedifferent individual roles that
you might have that you'relooking for within your business
(25:21):
.
So what's interesting is isthat you tell Criteria Corp what
you're hiring for, but it willalso tell you if you've got
candidates that come in.
You can determine not only arethey not right for the current
position that you're hiring for,but they might be right for
these two or three or four otherpositions that you might not
have considered.
But they're like, knock it outof the park, amazing for those
(25:45):
roles.
And so you might decide you ranacross a good enough candidate
that you walk them through theprocess for a completely
different role that you weren'teven considering.
But on the topic of the rolethat you did want, you have a
very good way of vetting thoseindividuals and narrowing it
down to a certain select.
You know maybe three to sixcandidates that you think are
(26:07):
really good for the positionversus.
Nah, I think they'll be okay,and I don't wanna have to go
through this process again, sowe're just gonna hire one of
them, and so that, I think, iswhat I like about it is that I
can throw a really big net andit doesn't really require any
additional time on my part.
I can wait till they get to thebottom of the funnel before I
start doing any interviews oranything, and at that point I
(26:28):
already know I've got somepretty decent candidates on the
docket.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Mike, do you happen to know how long it takes from
the candidate side for them togo through that Criteria Corp
survey.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Honestly, it's not that you like how many minutes
or hours do they spend, or likehow long it will take for us.
I mean, it depends on the testthat you implement.
You don't have to implementeverything that Criteria Corp
does and you can implement someof your own custom projects
within Criteria Corp as well ifyou want to implement that.
So my guess would be you know acouple of hours, you know to go
(27:02):
through everything.
If you really gave them all ofthe various different skill and
personality tests and you've gotsome additional project that
you want to put them through, Iwould say it's somewhere in that
range.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Okay, yeah, I would.
I mean I would just.
First of all, I think it'simportant to have a process, and
Criteria Corp is a tool and itsounds like you know it's a tool
that's worked really well foryou and that Josh recommends
because it's worked really well.
I will say personally, one ofthe things that I'm very
(27:33):
sensitive to is how much timeyou have candidates, and it
depends on the pay for theposition.
If it's something that is $10,know 10 bucks an hour expecting
somebody to do, you know, gothrough, you know, a couple hour
long project and an hour longsurvey and three to four
(27:56):
interviews and all that type ofstuff you know doesn't, isn't
going to or probably won't getyou the right candidate.
It just gets you somebody thatis willing to go through all the
hoops to get to the end.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
I think I might question that a little bit,
though, and not the the.
I would say the idea behindwhat you're saying, I think, is
likely correct.
There there is a.
There's a difference betweenyou know one position and
another and the amount of moneythat's going to be paid for it
and how much time you shouldreally expect them to put in to
get to the end.
But at the same time, I wouldsay that it's also very
(28:32):
dependent upon how much are youwilling to pay for the job
versus where the candidates arecoming from.
So, for instance, maybe this isa customer service position and
you're willing to pay $6 or $7or $8 an hour for somebody who's
really good right Now.
Obviously you're not going toget that out of the US, but out
(28:54):
of the Philippines you could getsomebody really good for $6 or
$8 an hour, because a lot ofpeople in the Philippines are
working for three or four bucks.
So I think a lot of it is whatis the discrepancy or the
disparity between what anaverage wage is in, say, the
Philippines or wherever youmight be getting your employees
(29:15):
from, versus what you're willingto pay?
Because if I'm a Filipino and Iknow most times the jobs that I
might get.
I'm going to get paid three orfour bucks, but these guys are
offering six bucks an hour tostart and raises over the next
year or two.
I might be entirely willing toinvest two or three or four
hours even and I'm not saying itshould be that many, but I
might be willing to do thatbecause this is a much better
(29:38):
paying job than what I might beable to get in any other way.
I'm gonna go for this,especially if the job
description and the descriptionof your business and how you
treat your employees and all ofthat resonates with me and
that's another thing that Ithink is important is that when
you put these job postings outthere, make sure that the people
know what they're applying for,not just the specifics of the
(29:59):
job and what theresponsibilities are going to be
, but how are you going to treatthem Like?
What kind of a company are you,how much do you value your
employees and how much are yougoing to invest in them and
bringing them forward, toincreasing their skill set and
giving them better opportunities, if your job posting makes it
very clear that you havetremendous care for your
employees and you want to givethem opportunities to grow and
(30:21):
to make more money and to becomebetter, then I think you get
that better quality candidateand I also think you get them to
be willing to spend thatadditional time to walk through
and jump through your hoops ifthey know they're going to get
paid decent for the position.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
I think that can be true.
Sorry, john, I was going to say, now that I can see the data on
this side, of these applicantsthat are filling out, like sure,
we probably would have gottenmore if there were less hoops
for them to jump through, wereless hoops for them to jump
through?
But the ones that are comingout on the other side, I think
I'm okay with weeding out, theones that didn't want to spend
the hour answering those surveyquestions, because the ones that
(30:57):
did I have some that came outon the other side that are in
the one or two percentile in allof the different aptitude,
skill and all of that puttogether, they did go through
that hour and a half two hourlong process.
So they did go through thathour and a half two hour long
process.
So the ones that we weeded, out.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
I think I was okay weeding them out.
Okay, yeah, no-transcript.
(31:37):
And then the other thing that Iwould say just from my
experience and actually I'mgoing to test out CriteriaCore
for our next position and kindof the Injash Hadley's process
to see how it compares.
But you know, either way, Iwould say one of the things that
is some whatever process youuse, a couple of key things that
(31:58):
I think you said that I wantlisteners to really hone in on.
The first is is that you wantto cast a wide net.
You probably want, you knowinitial applications to be 100,
200 people for your for thatposition, because 80 to you know
, 70 to 80% of those, no matterhow good you write that job
(32:20):
position, are going to peoplethat are going to fall into
camps.
Either one they have zeroexperience and what it is that
you're trying to hire for andthey're going to apply for the
job anyway because they click abutton and they've done their
duty of applying for the job.
And then the other one is thatthey're just not responsive.
(32:43):
So they might have greatexperience but they're just not
responsive in a timely manner tohey, we're interested in more
information about you, and sowe've had a process where you
know our first thing is is justto ask them, you know, a simple
question what interested you inthis position?
And we're typically, you know,a little insider secret.
(33:05):
We're able to eliminateprobably about half of them
because we don't get a responseback sometimes, for you know,
three, four days a week, ever,you know, and that makes it
really easy to recognize, likeokay, well, you know, if I don't
get a response back from you ina week on a simple question of
like what interests in thisposition, then you're probably
either not that interested oryou're just not able to be that
(33:27):
responsive for who knows whatreason.
And now we can move on to othercandidates.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yeah, not for sure.
I think it's important.
We a couple of other thingsthat I might mention that I
think are pretty useful in theprocess.
So I guess one be aware thatmost individuals, regardless of
(33:53):
what your hiring practice is,what your process is, that
you're going to run them through, depending on the importance of
the position, I would say thatin one way or another, you need
to attempt to test not onlytheir ability in the area but
also, I guess, their integrityto a degree, if there's some way
(34:15):
in which you can kind of testthose things.
And I guess the thing to becareful of is that these days, a
lot of individuals that aregoing to apply to your position
are going to be heavily using AIto make themselves look better
for that hiring process.
And I'm not suggesting that'snecessarily a bad thing, because
(34:38):
you want people in your companywho can actually use AI, so
people who effectively do that.
I think there's value there.
But make sure that you'redesigning the process and
whatever projects or tests thatyou're implementing, make sure
that you implement them in sucha way that you're not just
getting the people who can usethe very basics of ChatGPT or
(35:01):
some other AI to make themselveslook good.
Make sure that it takes alittle bit of skill for them to
actually do that, because thenat least you know they're
skilled with AI, you knowwhatever that is.
I also think that using a toollike CriteriaCorp or something
like that for you know,skill-based assessments and
things like that I thinkeliminates a little bit of that,
so that you don't have as muchof the AI influence on whatever
(35:24):
it is in terms of those results.
And then the last thing that Iwould say and we can, maybe you
know we have a little bit ofthat they could move into a
management position down theroad relatively easily.
(36:00):
Like, if they're good at thejob, they simply have the
temperament and kind of the baselevel skillset that they could
be good at managing somebodyelse in that job.
Technically, I think anybody canmove into a management position
, but I think it's a lot easierfor some individuals than others
.
And so if you're hiring for aposition and you're using a tool
like CriteriaCorp, I would notonly look at the information
(36:21):
that CriteriaCorp is giving youin terms of how would they do in
that job like just doing thejob but also I would look at
some of the other things thatCriteria Corp is testing to
evaluate.
Would they be good as a managerin that position, so that
you're ready for that promotionalready?
You have that person lined upand ready.
(36:43):
Once they're good at it and youneed another person in that
department, you can just promotethem, rather than trying to
bring in somebody new or lookingfor somebody who can handle
management level.
You know responsibilities.
You already have thatindividual.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Yeah, I think when we've talked about this a little
bit before, my experience hasbeen a little bit different, but
I think that that you knowthat's okay to have that
perspective and I think there'ssome.
There's definitely some valuein that in the sense of it makes
growing your team easier.
If you already have that personin place who does have
management, you know, or cantake on those management
responsibilities, you do end upsometimes paying a little bit
(37:17):
more for that person out of thegate and you know you do
eliminate some people who I'lluse the example of I have a
brother who's a programmer andhe's very, very good at
programming but he has zerointerest in ever managing people
.
He just hates it with a passionand wants to be an individual
contributor because that's wherehe likes to be.
(37:39):
And so you know you do findpeople like that where you might
eliminate somebody who's anamazing individual contributor
but never wants to or may neverbe capable of stepping into a
management position, but neverwants to or may never be capable
of stepping into a managementposition.
So we do need to start wrappingthis episode.
(38:02):
So I want to kind of think abouttakeaways for or action items
for the listeners, and I thinkthe two that I would give is,
especially if it's going to bean important part of your
business is make sure that youinterview that person and then
do an actual interview.
Surveys and messaging is fine,but you want to put a face to a
name and you learn a lot Even ifit's getting on a Zoom and
(38:22):
talking to somebody in real time, and I've actually found a lot
of success with also sharingchallenges that that person is
probably going to experience inthat position.
Like hey, here's the challengesin that position and setting
them up with that expectation oflike hey, here's the things
that are, you know, might betough in this role, so that way
they can walk into it, you know,with the right expectations.
(38:45):
Thing I would leave you with isyou know we talked about it
towards the beginning is youknow, look at a regular basis
once a month, once a quarter,whatever that happens to be for
your business of you know whatpositions can you fire yourself
from to open up more of yourtime and more of your capacity
in order to work on morestrategic things.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
Yeah, I think one thing that I would leave the
audience with is how importanthaving a process is.
For the first couple of yearsof hiring people, I was the
epitome of Mike's description ofwhat hiring looked like, where
you just hurry up and getsomeone in the door.
In a lot of cases you're makinga decision on who's a dollar or
two cheaper.
Just having a process ofhelping to cast a wider net and
(39:30):
then being able to weed thatdown without spending multiple
hours and energies, I think, isthe quality of people that I'm
seeing come out the other sideof that is astounding.
So I don't think that it reallyis a little bit more work on
the front end to set up aprocess like what we're walking
through, but it's well worth itin the end and it'll end up
saving time in the long run.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
And fortunately you'll use it over and over.
You know like I mean it's likeany other process.
Once it's in place, you know,then it's available.
So every time you hire you getto walk through that same
process and it's a whole loteasier each time.
I think the the the couple ofthings that I would leave
listeners with is one reallyspend that time on the front end
developing out the role profile, you know, really figure out
what is it you need, what is,who is the person that you need
(40:17):
for that and what are all of thethings that that person would
likely be able to do.
That maybe you're not eventhinking of.
Build that profile out reallywell so that you can build out a
really good job descriptionwhen you put the job out there.
And then the other thing iscoming back to what John said,
which is this in-personinterview.
I think it's really critical,especially in this day and age
of AI, because if it's real time, then they don't have the time
(40:42):
to use AI to formulate theiranswers and to give you exactly
what they think that you'relooking for.
Having that real-time interviewmakes a big difference in that
process to make sure that youcan weed out some of that and I
also am a big fan, and this isone of the things that Josh
Hadley does is the groupinterviews, like we do.
You know, for the last position,that we did we had two sets of
group interviews.
We had six decent candidates.
(41:03):
We did two sets of three.
We whittled that down and wewent through that process.
I think there's a lot of valuein doing that and we actually
asked Josh made thisrecommendation.
I think it was great.
We asked each person at the endof the interview who would you
hire?
You can't vote for yourself,and that actually is fairly
helpful, because most of thetime they vote for the same
person that you would likelyhave chosen.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Okay, well, very nice .
I think this is a lot of greatinformation for brands out there
that are looking at creatingthat championship team.
So I would just encouragelisteners take away at least one
of those items, implement inyour business and then let us
know how it goes.
So, part of the reason why wedo this.
I want to thank everybody forlistening and we'll see you at
the next Tactics Tuesday.
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