Ever feel like your business is running you instead of the other way around? Prepare to break the cycle with Dan Fleisher, our adept guest on the Profitable Painter Podcast, who unveils the game-changing power of robust systems and a rock-solid team. Dan, an expert in service-based business growth, reveals how entrepreneurs can avoid being ensnared by system breakdowns and step back to focus on their core strengths. He shares insights on empowering employees to take ownership and even explores the tantalizing possibility of offering equity to motivate and retain top talent. Equipped with Dan's strategies, you're on track to scale your business without sacrificing personal freedom.
The quest for the ideal hire can seem like seeking a unicorn, but Dan decodes this mystifying process. We compare hiring to marketing, where creating a vast candidate pool is paramount—think of it as casting a wide net to catch the best fish. Discover how crafting magnetic job ads and maintaining a constant recruitment pulse can be your secret weapons. By resonating with potential employees' values and desires, you'll attract individuals who share your vision and are eager to contribute to the company's success.
Finally, imagine having a hiring process so streamlined that it feels like it's running on autopilot. That's the promise of the systems we explore with Dan, where automated forms and behavioral assessments do the heavy lifting, saving you precious time. We share personal triumphs of entrusting roles to those who outshine us, leading to exponential business growth. And if you're keen to delve deeper into optimizing your time as an entrepreneur, we nod to Dan Martell's "Buy Back Your Time" for further wisdom. Tune in for an episode that's all about empowering you to hire smart, grow your business, and reclaim time to invest where you shine brightest.
Job Ad Resource: https://hirebus.com/ai-job-ad/
Link: https://hirebus.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Profitable Painter Podcast.
The mission of this podcast issimple to help you navigate the
financial and tax aspects ofstarting, running and scaling a
professional painting business,from the brushes and ladders to
the spreadsheets and balancesheets.
We've got you covered.
But before we dive in, a quickword of caution While we strive
to provide accurate andup-to-date financial and tax
(00:20):
information, nothing you hear onthis podcast should be
considered as financial advicespecifically for you or your
business.
We're here to share generalknowledge and experiences, not
to replace the tailored adviceyou get from a professional
financial advisor or taxconsultant.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
We strongly recommend you seeking individualized
advice before making anysignificant financial decisions.
This is Daniel, the founder ofBookkeeping for Painters and
today I'm super excited to haveDan Fleischer today.
And Dan Fleischer lovesbringing the best tools and
technology in the world toentrepreneurs.
He started his career as a highschool special education
teacher.
Dan found a passion foreducating through systems and
wanted to increase the scale ofhis impact.
(01:01):
After earning an MBA fromNorthwestern University, he
worked with a managementconsultant in Deloitte's growth
strategy practice.
Helping the largest companiesin the world set their strategic
plans taught him one thingEvery business faces the exact
same problems and most of theminvolve people.
With this knowledge and atoolkit of management skills, he
(01:23):
has made it his mission to helpentrepreneurs achieve freedom
in their business throughcreating great systems and
building great teams.
Dan knows the best way tocreate freedom as an
entrepreneur is to bring theright people into your business
and grow them, and this is whyhe is so passionate about the
power of Hirebus.
Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Dan.
Hey, daniel, thanks for havingme.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Absolutely.
I'm excited to get into it.
I'm really into setting upprocesses because I feel like
processes can really free you asa business owner to focus on
what you are best at.
So I'm excited to get into this.
Can you elaborate on some ofthe common challenges that folks
in the service industry arefaced with and some of the
(02:10):
solutions that you think they'releaving on the table?
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah.
So what's interesting is for awhile I operated a coaching
business that only coached folksin the trades, called Conquer
Coaching.
We coached over 20,000 homeservice business owners
specifically, and it wasinteresting because at first I
was like oh, systems you needare marketing systems.
The systems you need are yourproduction systems, the systems
(02:36):
you need.
But eventually, after seeingthese businesses grow and often
hit a plateau, it was aroundsystems tied to people.
And often hit a plateau it wasaround systems tied to people.
And so the number one painpoint that I know I felt running
my businesses I know a lot ofour clients at Conqueror felt is
when systems break down, whathappens?
(02:57):
The business owner has to godeal with it.
If someone's sick or someonedoesn't do a good job or there's
an angry customer, ultimatelywe are responsible.
So if we can bring really,really good people into our
business who can own and havethat ownership and that
responsibility that we feel asbusiness owners, all of a sudden
(03:18):
we can create a ton of freedom.
And if we can set up really goodsystems for really good people
so that they are responsible forfunctions of the business,
that's where I've seen businessowners and that's what I felt as
a business owner be able tofocus on what it is that they
really love to do, whether thatbe building a great team culture
.
I've seen some business ownerswho have systems and they're
still on one truck and they'rerunning three plus million
(03:41):
dollar businesses because theylove doing some of the work and
they have other people managing.
It's pretty rare, but if youcan build these great systems
and build great, bring greatpeople onto your team, then you
can do what you love to do in away that has a lot of freedom to
it.
So that's what I've seen andthat's what I kind of like
strive to help folks do and Istrive for myself and my
(04:01):
business.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, absolutely, when you're talking to reminds
me.
I just read a biography ofRockefeller and there was this
point where Carnegie you knowcause he's the big guy in steel
and he comes over toRockefeller's house,
rockefeller's house and it'slike hey, how do you get your
(04:25):
the people that work with youBecause they work so hard and
they're doing great things foryou all the time?
How do you get people like that?
What are you doing?
Are you just incentivizing themwith hey?
Carnegie asks are you justgiving a bunch of money?
And Rockefeller is like no, Ijust basically inspire them and
give them the authority todirect themselves and set up the
(04:48):
incentives the right way sothat they just take the ball and
run with it.
He said something like that,not an exact quote, but it's
what it reminds me of is settingup those systems and putting
the framework in place so yourpeople can grow into that, and
getting the right people in theright seats and letting them
take charge of that role thatyou're assigning to them.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
It's a really interesting piece, and I'm sure
we'll talk about chronologically, of how do you find the right
people, how do you bring them on, how do you incent them, how do
you manage them.
It's a full life cycle to buildthis and it touches every part
of your business.
But that specific point issomething I see a lot,
specifically in home services,where it's like you build your
(05:32):
business and you make your firstkey management, hire a
production manager, even a GM, asales manager.
And we see this a lot with ourclients where they're like I
want to bring on a productionmanager and I can't find anyone.
Because, good, because I canonly pay them 90 grand a year.
And it's like, okay, well, howelse are you compensating them?
(05:54):
If you want them to feelownership of your business in
the same way that you do?
Can you give them a smallownership stake?
Why not give them some equity?
Wouldn't that be an amazingoutcome of your business if you
gave someone a single percent ofyour company and, instead of it
being worth a million dollarsbecause of their efforts, it
went to be worth $3 million,even though you gave away a
(06:17):
percentage of that.
It helped you break through bigbarriers.
I was just at Sales Boostrecently and Tommy Mello was
there, brandon Vaughn was thereand all of them were talking
about what they've unlocked andlearned as they've grown and
scaled businesses is that youneed to give people the
incentive to be part owners,because if you have really smart
(06:40):
, really talented people thatare smarter than you who own
some of it, that's when theywork hard, that's when they push
, and even though you might owna little bit less, the net
result at the end is more, andso that's kind of far down the
line in like the hiring process,that incentive process.
But it's something that we allneed to think about, and I've
seen this be a really big unlockfor a lot of folks.
(07:00):
How can you incent people tooperate your business for you
and care about it in the sameway you do?
Well, part of that is havingthem own some of it in the same
way that you own the business.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, that's huge.
That's what I've seen as well.
Folks that have the incentivesright in their business.
It just saves them a wholebunch of headache and a whole
bunch of time.
I know Charlie Munger's famousfor saying if you get the
incentives right, that's asuperpower that you can exploit
(07:31):
is if you get your incentivesright in your business.
So let's walk through theprocess of finding those right
people and getting them in theright seats and evaluating them,
retaining them.
Let's start from the beginning.
So what should the paintingbusinesses be doing to finding
(07:54):
the right person?
Should they be having them takecertain tests or personality
assessments, and then what sortof personality should be be
working in and what seats?
Like you mentioned projectmanagement.
So what does that process looklike to actually make sure
you're bringing the right peopleonto your team?
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Yeah, that's a really good question, daniel, and I
know in the painting world isreally, I think, far and pretty
advanced in the belief ofassessments.
But even before that, beforeyou get to the point where
you're assessing someone,there's a higher level view that
we all need to take of hiring,which is that good hiring is
(08:35):
good marketing and sales.
It's the exact same process,and so I like to teach and think
about it in kind of three parts, similar to how any business
would run their marketing andsales function, their customer
acquisition functions.
Often it's called it's thisidea of okay, step one, top of
funnel, or marketing, how do youbring a lot of qualified
(08:56):
customers into your universe,into knowing about your business
?
And it's the same thing withhiring.
How do you get a huge bunch ofcandidates to be interested in a
role?
Because at that point it'ssimple math If you get a ton of
people interested, there's goingto be more qualified, quality
people somewhere in there.
So, step one get a bunch ofpeople, and we'll talk about how
(09:18):
to do that.
Step two is qualify thosepeople.
So you want to whittle thosepeople down to only the best,
and this is where you want to dothis with systems and not your
time.
I think a lot of us have feltthe pain of oh great, I got to
read 100 plus resumes, or I gotto hold 25 interviews to find
one person.
Well, no, there's a lot of goodways and good technology that
(09:39):
we can use that can take thosehundreds of people and whittle
it down to five or 10, so thatyou're only spending your time
on the best.
And then the third piece,similar to any sales and
marketing function, is youalways want to keep it on.
I think as business centerswe've all felt it where we're
like, sweet, we're booked outfive weeks.
I got the guys busy, now it'stime to go.
(10:00):
Do you wake up four weeks laterand you look at your calendar
and you're like, oh, we've onlygot a week of work on the books,
now I got to start marketingand spending and that seesaw of
marketing and production is offkilter.
We always want to keep ourhiring systems on, in the same
way that we're always marketing,even if we're booked out a
(10:21):
while, because we knoweventually that that calendar is
going to open up and we need tomake sure that that work is
filled so we don't get upsidedown.
Same with hiring.
We want to make sure that we'restill recruiting for those
ongoing roles crew members,sales reps, project managers,
whatever it may be for yourbusiness.
We might not spend on ads, wemight not pull as many
(10:42):
interviews, we might not engagequite as much, but that funnel
is always on.
So those are kind of the threepoints.
Big top of funnel qualify withsystems, not your time.
So you're only spending time onthe right people and then
always keep the funnel on.
Those are the three mainteaching points and I'm happy to
dive into each of those, butthat's kind of the framework
(11:04):
that we like to talk about tobuild really good hiring systems
.
That never stop.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, I think that's really powerful.
Basically, you need to treatyour marketing for your
customers Well.
You treat hiring for a newperson for your business.
Treat that just like yourmarketing.
You always have it on.
You're always getting topfunnel, get a bunch of
candidates in qualifying.
It's the same process, it'sjust applied to a different
(11:31):
problem set.
So that's awesome.
Let's start with the first one.
You said top of funnel.
What have you seen folks do?
That's most successful inmaking sure that there's always
fresh candidates coming intothat candidate pool.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Yeah.
So there's a lot of strategyhere, and then there's a handful
of tactical things that justwork really well that not a lot
of people know.
Strategically, we've seen whenyou go in, if you were to log
into, let's say Indeed right now, and just go look for, pretend
you were looking for a role as acrew member, and not many
business owners have looked forjobs in a while.
So it's something that theyneed to empathize with a little
bit.
We need to empathize with these.
(12:11):
Job descriptions are painful.
It's like you know.
No one would want to do this.
Must be able to be up onladders, not afraid of heights.
Must, must lift like 70 poundsoverhead, must, must, must, must
, must.
I think a lot of people viewhosting a job as people should
want me.
I'm giving them something, I'mgiving them a job.
(12:32):
No, you are recruiting andyou're advertising the best
people.
Think about all the ads outthere on billboards as you drive
by.
Coca-cola is not having an adthat says contains 125
milligrams of caffeine, 36 gramsof sugar, is 16 ounces or 12.
(12:54):
No, they're saying when youhave this Coke, you're going to
feel nostalgia and comfort.
And so when we're making a jobad, the objective of a job ad is
not to share all the details ofthe job.
You'll get to that later.
The objective of the job ad isto get good applicants to click
apply.
And so what do you need to do?
Well, you need to share.
(13:16):
Who are we looking for.
Who are you?
You're hardworking, you'recreative, you like solving
problems.
You like working on a growingteam.
Who we are?
We're a growing team thatvalues its people first.
We know that if we can do agood job for our customers, that
our business will grow and willbe fulfilled.
We know that we're only asstrong as our team, and so we
(13:39):
invest in our team.
What you'll do each day?
You'll work outside, you'llmake beautiful things, you'll
help make people smile.
That doesn't include getting ona ladder, but now that paints a
picture of how the candidatewill feel when they're with you
and they start to put themselvesin the shoes of being in the
role.
(14:01):
So number one is just job adsneed to be actual advertisements
.
First, job descriptions, and Ithink people get that a little
bit wrong.
You have time to share thequalification details and in
fact you can do thatautomatically, and we'll
probably get to that in a second.
The second piece here is justlike where are you finding
people?
Um, there's Indeed is great fora high volume, but there's a
(14:26):
lot of people on Indeed that arenot great candidates, so you
need to make sure you'rewhittling them out.
Handshake we've seen a lot ofsuccess specifically with
painters recruiting on.
Handshake Started as kind oflike a marketplace for folks
graduating from college, so it'spretty good for seasonal.
They're moving into a littlebit more of a tech space, but
(14:52):
Handshake has worked out well.
Facebook your communityprinting business cards that say
you're awesome with a QR codethat goes to your careers page,
is a fantastic way to find greattalent.
If you're at a gas station,there's an attendant there
that's always smiling, reallyengaging.
They might want to not be nearfumes all day.
They might want to work for asmaller business that has
different types of perks.
Hey, daniel, you know I've seenyou a few times here.
(15:12):
It seems like you're you're areally great person.
I just want to share thisopportunity that we have at at
uh, you know X, y, at AVpainting and uh, like you're
awesome, so I figured I'd giveyou this.
That guy probably hasn't gottena compliment from an employer
in months.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah, that's really powerful.
That's a good idea.
I have a little business cardswith a hierarchy that goes to
your careers page.
Just give that out to thepeople who are killing it, in
whatever capacity in life.
That's awesome.
That's a really good idea.
Cool, so, bringing in a lot ofcandidates.
I like the idea of making itemphasize job ad, not job
(15:50):
description.
You're actually trying toattract people to you.
It's not just like a list ofthings like I need this, I need
this, I need this.
It's actually trying to make ita little bit appealing to get
as many applicants and goodapplicants attracting the right
people so they're coming intoyour funnel.
Okay, so now that we have allthese one, thing that might help
people.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
We we we have like hundreds of clients and part of
what we do is we write job adsfor them via AI.
So we get a bunch of info ontheir business and then we built
a really good prompt that spitsout customized job ads and
these job ads are working top ofmarket on Indeed.
We just keep tweaking theprompt until it's working.
(16:33):
We do have a free resource thatI don't know.
I don't know your audience superwell, I've never been on the
podcast before but we have aresource at hirebuscom slash AI,
dash job, dash ad, and I don'tknow if you could link it, but
it's just that prompt for free.
Folks just enter theirinformation about the role etc.
And out will spit a job ad thatperforms top of market or has
(16:54):
historically.
So maybe that's something thatI always like to give people
resource.
Instead of spending an hourwriting a really good job ad,
here's a resource that you canuse.
It'll take you five minutes andyou just have a recurring list
of job ads and every time youneed to refresh it you can just
go in and type write me anotherone, boop, and it's programmed
to know hey, here's anotherversion that's slightly
different, so it's pretty useful.
(17:16):
So hirebuscom slash AI, dashjob, dash ad.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
And I can send you the link, daniel too.
Yeah, I'll include that in thisshow notes.
That's awesome.
So now that we have all thesecandidates, what do we next we
need to qualify?
How do we actually qualify thisin a streamlined way?
That's not going to be spendinghours.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I feel like this is one of those things that I
always chuckle about, becausesometimes I end the day with my
business now and my priorservice businesses where it's
like, oh man, I did so good atsomething that now I have a new
problem.
It's like, oh great, I sold abunch of work.
And then you're like how am Igoing to do the work?
I only have three trucks.
(17:57):
I sold a big job, but I don'tquite know how to do that big of
a job.
Yet I sold a big job, but Idon't quite know how to do that
big of a job yet.
This is kind of one of thosechuckle to yourself as an
entrepreneur moments whereyou're like, wow, I wrote a
really good job ad and now Ihave 400 candidates.
How am I going to like I don'thave time to review all these
(18:18):
people, and so this is whereit's really.
This is where the systems comein big time.
You need to build systems thatqualify people for you versus
your time qualifying people foryou.
So in the past, if we got 400candidates coming in, be like
all right, can't wait to stay uptonight at 8 pm and read a
bunch of resumes or look attheir application forms and then
(18:40):
try my best to decipher out ofthose 400, which 40 people, 25
people, to invite to interviews.
Now, with systems, we couldhave that stuff happen
automatically for us and that'sthat's.
I'd say that's one of our mainthings that we've done for small
business owners andentrepreneurs to save them time
(19:01):
is we've built that system, butI can just tell you how it works
.
So step one we have everyone whoapplies fill out a very short
form and when I've seen theseapplication forms on folks'
careers pages, those aren'tshort forms.
I've seen people ask for socialsecurity numbers, multiple
references to answer long formquestions.
(19:22):
You're going to lose all thesecandidates.
What you're trying to figureout is how do I contact this
person and what are the core?
No more than four, three tofour requirements that they must
, must, must have to work withme.
So these forms, theseapplications, are basically go
back to marketing sales, a leadform with a few qualifying
(19:43):
questions what's your name,email, phone number so I can
contact you, and then what arethe non-negotiables that you
need to have them work for you?
Do they have a valid driver'slicense?
Do they live within X miles ofthe shop?
Will they pass a criminalbackground check, if that's
important to you.
There's, you know, are theyproficient in both English and
(20:04):
Spanish?
Are they?
I don't?
I don't know what they are forevery company, but those are
some examples.
If they say yes, yes, yes, andthey could lie, but they
probably won't, yes, yes, yes,yes, now you know that they meet
your core requirements andyou've taken that 400 and you've
whittled it down to 250 or 300is what we typically see.
(20:25):
We see about two-thirds make itthrough that.
A really important note, daniel,is and this is a hard truth is
some folks and not all by anymeans, but some folks out there
apply to jobs to maintaingetting benefits.
And so what we found is thatwhen you have these very simple
(20:47):
qualification forms, folks thatapply to jobs on job boards to
prove that they are activelylooking for work will
intentionally answer no to someof these qualifying questions
because they don't want to wastetheir time either interviewing.
And so it's a pretty difficulttruth, but it's an important
truth for us to know, asbusiness owners, that just by
(21:07):
having the simple form with asimple automation where, if you
don't say answer yes, these fourquestions, a third of folks
that are going to no show you oninterviews or you know right
away when you get to theinterview that you're not going
to want to hire them.
They're gone and you've spentno time.
We've saved you a ton of timeright there from that simple
automation Step two.
(21:30):
So now you know they meet yourcore requirements and you've
taken 400 to 250.
Good, now you said earlier well, should I have them take an
assessment of some sort?
Yes, and so that's like thecore value prop of Hirebus is.
We've taken a behavioralassessment that Fortune 500
companies used for decades tofigure out who's a good
(21:52):
executive, who's a good manager,who's a good laborer.
And what we did is we took allthat back in data and applied it
to the trades.
So we took all those algorithms.
We said, okay, instead offocusing on Fortune 500
companies, let's run this dataand algorithm through really
good folks in every position ina home service business.
So and we built benchmarks,like we built a painting
(22:14):
specific sales benchmark for thesale that we call it inside
sales for painting companies.
We have crew member benchmarksfor painting companies.
We have project managerbenchmarks, we have general
manager benchmarks, so that, nomatter what role you're having,
you take those 250 people thatpassed the initial application
and you have them, take anassessment and our assessment
(22:37):
will give them a fit score onethrough 10, so that you can
prioritize by only interviewingfirst folks that are a 10, and
then a nine and then an eight.
Now can there be someone whoscores a five, who's great at
the role?
Sure, but you are trying to beefficient and build a system
with your time, and so we've nowtaken 250 people and now you're
(22:58):
gonna interview five, and thosefive have the right behaviors
for the role, and you've savedhours of time with systems, not
you reading resumes.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Yeah, that's super powerful.
So it sounds like thisassessment.
It's kind of like somethinglike DISC or the big five
personality, but you've actuallycustomized it for the trade
industry specifically, so it hasbasically what kind of person
this is, but what role do theyactually fit in?
(23:35):
You know whether that's aproduction manager or a
salesperson, and so it's kind ofgiving you that answer like,
yeah, this person generally,based off the benchmark,
probably a good fit for sales orproduction management, whatever
the case is.
So that sounds like a huge timesaver and an amazing tool for a
(23:58):
painting business.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
It's incredibly valuable and a lot of our
current clients are runningpretty large painting businesses
and love it, and our datacontinually gets better.
I know most folks are listening, but I'll just share a quick
visual for some folks that mightbe viewing this and I'll try to
describe it.
But this is our platform.
(24:22):
I did it for me with some dummydata but, as you can see,
everyone that takes it getsscored on these 21 behavioral
scales and it's a little bitdifferent than DISC or Big Five,
because those are personalityassessments.
This is a behavioral assessment.
You might say, okay, samedifference, the slight
(24:42):
difference there is.
This shows how you often behave.
Behaviors change Personality.
Like I kind of am who I am, mypersonality hasn't shifted much
over the last decade, but Ibehave differently now than I
did when I was 10 years old andI probably will behave
differently in 20 years when I'mmuch older.
You and I are behavingdifferently on this podcast than
(25:03):
we would say if we were at awedding, right, right.
So what's powerful about thisis this you can see how people
often behave, to figure out if,if in a role, they would be
fighting against their corebehaviors.
But what's super powerful aboutthis is this is me say.
You know this is for an outsidesales benchmark.
(25:23):
The gray is what the datasuggests are the right behaviors
for someone in sales Highproductivity, high aggression,
lower self-control, highercreativity and higher
criticality.
And if you look at me, I scorea little bit lower in
productivity.
That's how I often behave, butif you brought me on the team,
(25:44):
you could help me and develop meto say hey, dan, when you're
selling, you need to be highlyproactive, which means you need
to be really goal-oriented andjust do a lot of action.
Sales is predicated on activity, so you need to knock 150 doors
a day if you're going to hityour number, and if I hit 75,
dan, you need to change how youbehave here in order to reach
(26:06):
your goals.
So now it turns into a reallycool coaching tool.
What's powerful, though, isright off the bat.
You haven't spent any time withme, you haven't even looked at
my resume, you haven'tinterviewed me, and now you know
that chances are I'd be apretty good fit, and you know
okay.
Well, what questions should Iask?
Because this person's low inproductivity?
(26:26):
Tell me about a time that youundertook a project that
demanded a lot of initiative?
That's a pretty specificquestion, based on who I am and
how I behave, that you can useas a business owner to figure
out if they're a right fit, andyou've spent no time.
You've spent no time on thissomebody to figure out if
(26:47):
they're a right fit, and you've.
You've spent no time.
You spent no time on this, so Idon't want to.
I've now for folks that arelistening, I've.
I'm not sharing the screenanymore, but, um, I just want to
show you how simple it is andhow custom it is to the trays.
All we do is serve those in thetrays.
We don't serve anyone else yeah, that's huge.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
I mean, you're having them, so the you qualify them
with that short form, gettingsome key information, some three
or four qualifying questions.
Then you have them take thisassessment that's going to
basically tell them, based ontheir behavior, are they going
to be a good fit for what youneed to be done in whatever role
that you have that you'rehiring for.
(27:21):
And then on top of that, it'sgoing to give you some
recommended interview questions,especially if they're not ideal
not ideal in a certainbehavioral trait, like you gave
proactivity as an example to.
To have them demonstrate orgive some examples of sometime
(27:41):
in the past where they'veactually were proactive or
whatever.
So this is like this is notonly saving time but saving you
money, because making a wronghire is anybody who's run a
business before I'm sure knowsmaking an incorrect hire costs
you tens of thousands of dollars, if not more.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Yeah, yeah, it's like um, you know I don't often like
to like hit too hard on thisbecause we've all just like this
.
This is painful.
Even this is painful for me tothink about, just thinking about
some of the bad hires, some ofthe bad decisions I've made.
But I guess that's how we learnthe best and I know, I know
most folks running a business.
I would, I would love to meetthe business owner who's not
(28:25):
made a bad hire but the pain ofa bad hire.
I, you know, you've, we've allseen the studies.
It's 60% of annual, 60 to 150%of annual salary.
It's blah, blah, blah.
But there's also, just like Ifelt this a little bit of a like
it's rocked my confidence alittle bit.
It's rocked how much I trustthe next hire, and that can
(28:49):
really limit how we grow ourbusinesses If we start to say,
oh, I can't have anyone else dothis but me, because that right,
there is a huge limiting beliefon how we can grow and scale
our business.
Cause the truth is, the truthis like we are all not the best
person to do everything in ourbusiness.
There's better, smarter peopleat different functions than all
(29:12):
of us.
And as soon as we can trust andlearn that and have the
humility to share that that's.
That's when growth happens.
Like I don't know, the firstreally good salesperson I hired
shout out to kyle changed mybusiness and changed my
philosophy.
Um, I thought that I didn'tthink that a single person sales
(29:38):
could drastically change thebusiness.
And when I looked six monthslater and we were doing, uh,
five times more, you know, salesa month with very little change
in marketing, very littlechange in our processes, it's
like, hmm, maybe it countsbetter than me.
You know like, huh, what otherparts of the business would
benefit from not having me do it?
(29:58):
Probably a lot.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Yeah, that's a.
I can relate experiences in mybusiness giving away pieces and
be like now it's flourishing,now that I'm not in it anymore.
It's a common trap, apsychological tendency to think
that oh, this is my business, soI'm the best at all the
(30:23):
different roles, because youwere doing all the roles at one
point, you know, when youstarted the business, and that
was definitely needed.
But to really grow and you wantto bring on people that are
better than you and to take itto the next level and, believe
it or not, you are not the bestat everything and that's
something that I've had to learnas well that giving it, giving
(30:44):
it to somebody else, can make ahuge positive difference.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Yeah, it's to go back to the higher bus.
This actually isn't my.
This is like a dummy results.
I'll actually pull up my exactresults so you can see.
So these are my higher busresults.
For me, dan, this is the overallline chart.
(31:11):
But if we look here, I'm incharge of sales.
Is that good?
Probably not.
And so where is my uniquegenius?
It's definitely not here.
It's probably not in marketingeither.
Here, it's probably not inmarketing either.
It's probably not in productioneither.
Maybe it's in like overallmanagement.
(31:33):
But it's really sobering andhumbling to see this and see.
Okay, the playbook for buildinga business is you know, you grow
you.
You first hire for production,then admin, then sales, then
marketing.
Well, for me, maybe I shouldhire for sales right away
because I stink at it, and maybeI should do admin because I
(31:55):
seem to be pretty good at that.
You, as a business owner, needto know what are your strengths
and what gives you energy, andthat's where you need to focus
on bringing people.
There's a really good book byDan Martell called buy back your
time, which I think flips a lotof the paradigms of how to, of
entrepreneurship and how to hireon your head.
Highly recommend it's.
It's.
It's targeted towards, likesoftware company um business
(32:15):
owners, but I think it's evenmore applicable for us in the
trades um because of some of themessages and learnings that it
shares.
So buy back your time.
By Dan Martell is a is a quickplug for some good content for
folks to read.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Yeah, and for folks that are between like seven, 50
in revenue and 1.2 million, Iwould say they have that, that
decision on how much or wastheir first big hire.
So this, either the salespersonor the production manager.
And I sometimes get thequestion like which one should I
(32:51):
, should I hire first?
And having a tool like thiswhere you know yourself and you
can kind of see plotted outagainst the benchmarks you know,
are you naturally a goodsalesperson or naturally good
production manager, that could,that could even help you know,
assessing yourself, so thatthat's that's pretty powerful
tool.
(33:11):
So you can make that, thatdecision on that first big hire
Like, is it going to be theproduction manager or the
salesperson we have we have afranchise where we have a number
of franchises but one that's a.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
It's a coatings franchise.
It's pretty big and when itcomes time for that first key
hire, that's exactly what wehave them do.
Daniel, we say, okay, there's aplaybook.
But uh, let's think aboutsports teams, like, if you have
a really good if it's footballand you're really good at
running the ball, run the ball.
If you're really good atthrowing the ball, row the ball.
(33:43):
If you're really good atdefense, rely on your defense
and play conservative on offense.
It's the same thing with thesebusinesses.
Every time they get to thatstage where it's time to hire
that first, what we callmanagement layer.
Let's look at this Do you agreewith it?
Do you disagree with it?
Great, now are you going tobring on a salesperson?
Are you going to bring on thatproject manager is what we call
it for those businesses but kindof like a production lead?
(34:04):
Great, that's your first hire.
Then you can fill the rest.
But you are unique.
You got to build a plan for you, a strategy for you, not for
what John down the road is doing.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
It's not going to work if you do it for someone
else.
It also seems like having anunderstanding of the folks
you're working or you're goingto work with you know you're
assessing them in the beginningwould help, and you kind of
mentioned it as well, like help,coach them to get better and to
prove in that, in that role,and also just to retain them in
general, cause you kind of know,you know what their strengths
(34:41):
are, what their weaknesses areor opportunities, so you can
kind of develop them and knowhow they're, how they're wired
and how they're driven.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
100 um, when we have folks join hire bus.
So one thing for us is we priceit and I don't want to get into
like a pitch about hire bus,but this is important to
understand.
Like the structure is.
We were, we were runningbusiness.
We're using like disk and otherassessments that you pay, you
know whatever.
It was like 20 bucks per, whichbecame pretty tough and we
(35:12):
couldn't then have those 250people take it.
So we price it just flat.
It's just a monthly 90 bucks amonth.
If you do annual, 149 a month.
If you do month to month nocontracts, you get unlimited
assessments.
But when people sign up, we'relike they people sign up.
We're like they usually sign upbecause they're hiring someone,
but right away we're like haveeveryone on your team take it.
Because then all of a suddenyou see the universe and what's
(35:35):
powerful when you see theuniverse of your team is you're
like, oh, daniel, who's one ofmy best crew members, is
actually like really good atsales.
Huh, if days are slow, maybe weshould have Dan go knock on
some doors.
Huh, this person you knowthey're, they're in the office,
(35:55):
but they, or this person who'sin sales is actually really good
at customer service.
So maybe their prior jobs.
There's so many inbound leadsthat all they had to do is be
smiley and friendly and they'dclose them.
Are they aggressive enough forour sales cycle?
So you now can understand whatyour team is, what people's
behaviors are, and there'scoaching documents so that you
can help develop them or putthem in the right seat.
(36:18):
And what we find is folks oftencome in like, hey, I need to
hire a new person, and then,when they have their whole team
take it, they're like, oh mygosh, it unlocked, I need to put
this person here, this personhere, this person here, and they
can restructure their org in away that fits people better and
makes people happier.
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
So maybe you already have the person.
You just didn't realize it.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
Yeah, yeah, we see that a lot with like sales,
customer service there's oftenthose rules are flipped.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Well, how?
How can folks learn more aboutHirebus or get a get ahold of
you?
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Yeah, so, um, you can email me, dan, at hirebuscom,
but I think the best way tolearn more is just to try it out
.
Try the assessment out foryourself.
So, whenever we do liketeaching sessions, we offer a
free assessment.
So if you go to hirebuscomslash free, you can go and you
can take the assessment yourself.
You can see how easy it is.
It's like five to 10 minutesand then you can see the results
(37:11):
, which is pretty cool, um, sothat you can, um, uh, see how
accurate it is.
So, like before we folks joinor become clients, we like them
to see the assessment and say,huh, does this feel right to me?
If so, it's probably a prettygood assessment of other folks.
So, hirebuscom, slash free,you'll learn more about us as
(37:35):
well as get a free assessment soyou can see if this is
something that you need in yourbusiness, for your existing team
or to bring more people on.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Awesome, highly recommend it.
Check out hirebuscom and I'llput the links that you mentioned
for the tools and everything sofolks can check it out.
And yeah, if you need to likethis is so important, like
getting the right team in place.
You're not going to be able togrow your business very much if
you don't have the right team inplace.
So having this piece of yourbusiness figured out is super
(38:03):
important.
So I'm super happy that youcame on the podcast today, dan,
and gave us some strategies andtactics.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
But it's been totally awesome to be on here.
It's something I'm passionateabout.
I'm glad that we're so alignedon.
Like this is the big blocker inour businesses at a certain
stage.
So, yeah, thanks for giving mespace to blab and share what
we've learned and supporting abunch of our clients.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Absolutely, and with that we will see you all next
week.
Welcome to the Profitable Painter Podcast.
The mission of this podcast issimple to help you navigate the
financial and tax aspects ofstarting, running and scaling a
professional painting business,from the brushes and ladders to
the spreadsheets and balancesheets.
We've got you covered.
But before we dive in, a quickword of caution While we strive
to provide accurate andup-to-date financial and tax
(00:20):
information, nothing you hear onthis podcast should be
considered as financial advicespecifically for you or your
business.
We're here to share generalknowledge and experiences, not
to replace the tailored adviceyou get from a professional
financial advisor or taxconsultant.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
We strongly recommend you seeking individualized
advice before making anysignificant financial decisions.
This is Daniel, the founder ofBookkeeping for Painters and
today I'm super excited to haveDan Fleischer today.
And Dan Fleischer lovesbringing the best tools and
technology in the world toentrepreneurs.
He started his career as a highschool special education
teacher.
Dan found a passion foreducating through systems and
wanted to increase the scale ofhis impact.
(01:01):
After earning an MBA fromNorthwestern University, he
worked with a managementconsultant in Deloitte's growth
strategy practice.
Helping the largest companiesin the world set their strategic
plans taught him one thingEvery business faces the exact
same problems and most of theminvolve people.
With this knowledge and atoolkit of management skills, he
(01:23):
has made it his mission to helpentrepreneurs achieve freedom
in their business throughcreating great systems and
building great teams.
Dan knows the best way tocreate freedom as an
entrepreneur is to bring theright people into your business
and grow them, and this is whyhe is so passionate about the
power of Hirebus.
Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Dan.
Hey, daniel, thanks for havingme.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Absolutely.
I'm excited to get into it.
I'm really into setting upprocesses because I feel like
processes can really free you asa business owner to focus on
what you are best at.
So I'm excited to get into this.
Can you elaborate on some ofthe common challenges that folks
in the service industry arefaced with and some of the
(02:10):
solutions that you think they'releaving on the table?
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah.
So what's interesting is for awhile I operated a coaching
business that only coached folksin the trades, called Conquer
Coaching.
We coached over 20,000 homeservice business owners
specifically, and it wasinteresting because at first I
was like oh, systems you needare marketing systems.
The systems you need are yourproduction systems, the systems
(02:36):
you need.
But eventually, after seeingthese businesses grow and often
hit a plateau, it was aroundsystems tied to people.
And often hit a plateau it wasaround systems tied to people.
And so the number one painpoint that I know I felt running
my businesses I know a lot ofour clients at Conqueror felt is
when systems break down, whathappens?
(02:57):
The business owner has to godeal with it.
If someone's sick or someonedoesn't do a good job or there's
an angry customer, ultimatelywe are responsible.
So if we can bring really,really good people into our
business who can own and havethat ownership and that
responsibility that we feel asbusiness owners, all of a sudden
(03:18):
we can create a ton of freedom.
And if we can set up really goodsystems for really good people
so that they are responsible forfunctions of the business,
that's where I've seen businessowners and that's what I felt as
a business owner be able tofocus on what it is that they
really love to do, whether thatbe building a great team culture
.
I've seen some business ownerswho have systems and they're
still on one truck and they'rerunning three plus million
(03:41):
dollar businesses because theylove doing some of the work and
they have other people managing.
It's pretty rare, but if youcan build these great systems
and build great, bring greatpeople onto your team, then you
can do what you love to do in away that has a lot of freedom to
it.
So that's what I've seen andthat's what I kind of like
strive to help folks do and Istrive for myself and my
(04:01):
business.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, absolutely, when you're talking to reminds
me.
I just read a biography ofRockefeller and there was this
point where Carnegie you knowcause he's the big guy in steel
and he comes over toRockefeller's house,
rockefeller's house and it'slike hey, how do you get your
(04:25):
the people that work with youBecause they work so hard and
they're doing great things foryou all the time?
How do you get people like that?
What are you doing?
Are you just incentivizing themwith hey?
Carnegie asks are you justgiving a bunch of money?
And Rockefeller is like no, Ijust basically inspire them and
give them the authority todirect themselves and set up the
(04:48):
incentives the right way sothat they just take the ball and
run with it.
He said something like that,not an exact quote, but it's
what it reminds me of is settingup those systems and putting
the framework in place so yourpeople can grow into that, and
getting the right people in theright seats and letting them
take charge of that role thatyou're assigning to them.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
It's a really interesting piece, and I'm sure
we'll talk about chronologically, of how do you find the right
people, how do you bring them on, how do you incent them, how do
you manage them.
It's a full life cycle to buildthis and it touches every part
of your business.
But that specific point issomething I see a lot,
specifically in home services,where it's like you build your
(05:32):
business and you make your firstkey management, hire a
production manager, even a GM, asales manager.
And we see this a lot with ourclients where they're like I
want to bring on a productionmanager and I can't find anyone.
Because, good, because I canonly pay them 90 grand a year.
And it's like, okay, well, howelse are you compensating them?
(05:54):
If you want them to feelownership of your business in
the same way that you do?
Can you give them a smallownership stake?
Why not give them some equity?
Wouldn't that be an amazingoutcome of your business if you
gave someone a single percent ofyour company and, instead of it
being worth a million dollarsbecause of their efforts, it
went to be worth $3 million,even though you gave away a
(06:17):
percentage of that.
It helped you break through bigbarriers.
I was just at Sales Boostrecently and Tommy Mello was
there, brandon Vaughn was thereand all of them were talking
about what they've unlocked andlearned as they've grown and
scaled businesses is that youneed to give people the
incentive to be part owners,because if you have really smart
(06:40):
, really talented people thatare smarter than you who own
some of it, that's when theywork hard, that's when they push
, and even though you might owna little bit less, the net
result at the end is more, andso that's kind of far down the
line in like the hiring process,that incentive process.
But it's something that we allneed to think about, and I've
seen this be a really big unlockfor a lot of folks.
(07:00):
How can you incent people tooperate your business for you
and care about it in the sameway you do?
Well, part of that is havingthem own some of it in the same
way that you own the business.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, that's huge.
That's what I've seen as well.
Folks that have the incentivesright in their business.
It just saves them a wholebunch of headache and a whole
bunch of time.
I know Charlie Munger's famousfor saying if you get the
incentives right, that's asuperpower that you can exploit
(07:31):
is if you get your incentivesright in your business.
So let's walk through theprocess of finding those right
people and getting them in theright seats and evaluating them,
retaining them.
Let's start from the beginning.
So what should the paintingbusinesses be doing to finding
(07:54):
the right person?
Should they be having them takecertain tests or personality
assessments, and then what sortof personality should be be
working in and what seats?
Like you mentioned projectmanagement.
So what does that process looklike to actually make sure
you're bringing the right peopleonto your team?
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Yeah, that's a really good question, daniel, and I
know in the painting world isreally, I think, far and pretty
advanced in the belief ofassessments.
But even before that, beforeyou get to the point where
you're assessing someone,there's a higher level view that
we all need to take of hiring,which is that good hiring is
(08:35):
good marketing and sales.
It's the exact same process,and so I like to teach and think
about it in kind of three parts, similar to how any business
would run their marketing andsales function, their customer
acquisition functions.
Often it's called it's thisidea of okay, step one, top of
funnel, or marketing, how do youbring a lot of qualified
(08:56):
customers into your universe,into knowing about your business
?
And it's the same thing withhiring.
How do you get a huge bunch ofcandidates to be interested in a
role?
Because at that point it'ssimple math If you get a ton of
people interested, there's goingto be more qualified, quality
people somewhere in there.
So, step one get a bunch ofpeople, and we'll talk about how
(09:18):
to do that.
Step two is qualify thosepeople.
So you want to whittle thosepeople down to only the best,
and this is where you want to dothis with systems and not your
time.
I think a lot of us have feltthe pain of oh great, I got to
read 100 plus resumes, or I gotto hold 25 interviews to find
one person.
Well, no, there's a lot of goodways and good technology that
(09:39):
we can use that can take thosehundreds of people and whittle
it down to five or 10, so thatyou're only spending your time
on the best.
And then the third piece,similar to any sales and
marketing function, is youalways want to keep it on.
I think as business centerswe've all felt it where we're
like, sweet, we're booked outfive weeks.
I got the guys busy, now it'stime to go.
(10:00):
Do you wake up four weeks laterand you look at your calendar
and you're like, oh, we've onlygot a week of work on the books,
now I got to start marketingand spending and that seesaw of
marketing and production is offkilter.
We always want to keep ourhiring systems on, in the same
way that we're always marketing,even if we're booked out a
(10:21):
while, because we knoweventually that that calendar is
going to open up and we need tomake sure that that work is
filled so we don't get upsidedown.
Same with hiring.
We want to make sure that we'restill recruiting for those
ongoing roles crew members,sales reps, project managers,
whatever it may be for yourbusiness.
We might not spend on ads, wemight not pull as many
(10:42):
interviews, we might not engagequite as much, but that funnel
is always on.
So those are kind of the threepoints.
Big top of funnel qualify withsystems, not your time.
So you're only spending time onthe right people and then
always keep the funnel on.
Those are the three mainteaching points and I'm happy to
dive into each of those, butthat's kind of the framework
(11:04):
that we like to talk about tobuild really good hiring systems
.
That never stop.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, I think that's really powerful.
Basically, you need to treatyour marketing for your
customers Well.
You treat hiring for a newperson for your business.
Treat that just like yourmarketing.
You always have it on.
You're always getting topfunnel, get a bunch of
candidates in qualifying.
It's the same process, it'sjust applied to a different
(11:31):
problem set.
So that's awesome.
Let's start with the first one.
You said top of funnel.
What have you seen folks do?
That's most successful inmaking sure that there's always
fresh candidates coming intothat candidate pool.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Yeah.
So there's a lot of strategyhere, and then there's a handful
of tactical things that justwork really well that not a lot
of people know.
Strategically, we've seen whenyou go in, if you were to log
into, let's say Indeed right now, and just go look for, pretend
you were looking for a role as acrew member, and not many
business owners have looked forjobs in a while.
So it's something that theyneed to empathize with a little
bit.
We need to empathize with these.
(12:11):
Job descriptions are painful.
It's like you know.
No one would want to do this.
Must be able to be up onladders, not afraid of heights.
Must, must lift like 70 poundsoverhead, must, must, must, must
, must.
I think a lot of people viewhosting a job as people should
want me.
I'm giving them something, I'mgiving them a job.
(12:32):
No, you are recruiting andyou're advertising the best
people.
Think about all the ads outthere on billboards as you drive
by.
Coca-cola is not having an adthat says contains 125
milligrams of caffeine, 36 gramsof sugar, is 16 ounces or 12.
(12:54):
No, they're saying when youhave this Coke, you're going to
feel nostalgia and comfort.
And so when we're making a jobad, the objective of a job ad is
not to share all the details ofthe job.
You'll get to that later.
The objective of the job ad isto get good applicants to click
apply.
And so what do you need to do?
Well, you need to share.
(13:16):
Who are we looking for.
Who are you?
You're hardworking, you'recreative, you like solving
problems.
You like working on a growingteam.
Who we are?
We're a growing team thatvalues its people first.
We know that if we can do agood job for our customers, that
our business will grow and willbe fulfilled.
We know that we're only asstrong as our team, and so we
(13:39):
invest in our team.
What you'll do each day?
You'll work outside, you'llmake beautiful things, you'll
help make people smile.
That doesn't include getting ona ladder, but now that paints a
picture of how the candidatewill feel when they're with you
and they start to put themselvesin the shoes of being in the
role.
(14:01):
So number one is just job adsneed to be actual advertisements
.
First, job descriptions, and Ithink people get that a little
bit wrong.
You have time to share thequalification details and in
fact you can do thatautomatically, and we'll
probably get to that in a second.
The second piece here is justlike where are you finding
people?
Um, there's Indeed is great fora high volume, but there's a
(14:26):
lot of people on Indeed that arenot great candidates, so you
need to make sure you'rewhittling them out.
Handshake we've seen a lot ofsuccess specifically with
painters recruiting on.
Handshake Started as kind oflike a marketplace for folks
graduating from college, so it'spretty good for seasonal.
They're moving into a littlebit more of a tech space, but
(14:52):
Handshake has worked out well.
Facebook your communityprinting business cards that say
you're awesome with a QR codethat goes to your careers page,
is a fantastic way to find greattalent.
If you're at a gas station,there's an attendant there
that's always smiling, reallyengaging.
They might want to not be nearfumes all day.
They might want to work for asmaller business that has
different types of perks.
Hey, daniel, you know I've seenyou a few times here.
(15:12):
It seems like you're you're areally great person.
I just want to share thisopportunity that we have at at
uh, you know X, y, at AVpainting and uh, like you're
awesome, so I figured I'd giveyou this.
That guy probably hasn't gottena compliment from an employer
in months.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah, that's really powerful.
That's a good idea.
I have a little business cardswith a hierarchy that goes to
your careers page.
Just give that out to thepeople who are killing it, in
whatever capacity in life.
That's awesome.
That's a really good idea.
Cool, so, bringing in a lot ofcandidates.
I like the idea of making itemphasize job ad, not job
(15:50):
description.
You're actually trying toattract people to you.
It's not just like a list ofthings like I need this, I need
this, I need this.
It's actually trying to make ita little bit appealing to get
as many applicants and goodapplicants attracting the right
people so they're coming intoyour funnel.
Okay, so now that we have allthese one, thing that might help
people.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
We we we have like hundreds of clients and part of
what we do is we write job adsfor them via AI.
So we get a bunch of info ontheir business and then we built
a really good prompt that spitsout customized job ads and
these job ads are working top ofmarket on Indeed.
We just keep tweaking theprompt until it's working.
(16:33):
We do have a free resource thatI don't know.
I don't know your audience superwell, I've never been on the
podcast before but we have aresource at hirebuscom slash AI,
dash job, dash ad, and I don'tknow if you could link it, but
it's just that prompt for free.
Folks just enter theirinformation about the role etc.
And out will spit a job ad thatperforms top of market or has
(16:54):
historically.
So maybe that's something thatI always like to give people
resource.
Instead of spending an hourwriting a really good job ad,
here's a resource that you canuse.
It'll take you five minutes andyou just have a recurring list
of job ads and every time youneed to refresh it you can just
go in and type write me anotherone, boop, and it's programmed
to know hey, here's anotherversion that's slightly
different, so it's pretty useful.
(17:16):
So hirebuscom slash AI, dashjob, dash ad.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
And I can send you the link, daniel too.
Yeah, I'll include that in thisshow notes.
That's awesome.
So now that we have all thesecandidates, what do we next we
need to qualify?
How do we actually qualify thisin a streamlined way?
That's not going to be spendinghours.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I feel like this is one of those things that I
always chuckle about, becausesometimes I end the day with my
business now and my priorservice businesses where it's
like, oh man, I did so good atsomething that now I have a new
problem.
It's like, oh great, I sold abunch of work.
And then you're like how am Igoing to do the work?
I only have three trucks.
(17:57):
I sold a big job, but I don'tquite know how to do that big of
a job.
Yet I sold a big job, but Idon't quite know how to do that
big of a job yet.
This is kind of one of thosechuckle to yourself as an
entrepreneur moments whereyou're like, wow, I wrote a
really good job ad and now Ihave 400 candidates.
How am I going to like I don'thave time to review all these
(18:18):
people, and so this is whereit's really.
This is where the systems comein big time.
You need to build systems thatqualify people for you versus
your time qualifying people foryou.
So in the past, if we got 400candidates coming in, be like
all right, can't wait to stay uptonight at 8 pm and read a
bunch of resumes or look attheir application forms and then
(18:40):
try my best to decipher out ofthose 400, which 40 people, 25
people, to invite to interviews.
Now, with systems, we couldhave that stuff happen
automatically for us and that'sthat's.
I'd say that's one of our mainthings that we've done for small
business owners andentrepreneurs to save them time
(19:01):
is we've built that system, butI can just tell you how it works
.
So step one we have everyone whoapplies fill out a very short
form and when I've seen theseapplication forms on folks'
careers pages, those aren'tshort forms.
I've seen people ask for socialsecurity numbers, multiple
references to answer long formquestions.
(19:22):
You're going to lose all thesecandidates.
What you're trying to figureout is how do I contact this
person and what are the core?
No more than four, three tofour requirements that they must
, must, must have to work withme.
So these forms, theseapplications, are basically go
back to marketing sales, a leadform with a few qualifying
(19:43):
questions what's your name,email, phone number so I can
contact you, and then what arethe non-negotiables that you
need to have them work for you?
Do they have a valid driver'slicense?
Do they live within X miles ofthe shop?
Will they pass a criminalbackground check, if that's
important to you.
There's, you know, are theyproficient in both English and
(20:04):
Spanish?
Are they?
I don't?
I don't know what they are forevery company, but those are
some examples.
If they say yes, yes, yes, andthey could lie, but they
probably won't, yes, yes, yes,yes, now you know that they meet
your core requirements andyou've taken that 400 and you've
whittled it down to 250 or 300is what we typically see.
(20:25):
We see about two-thirds make itthrough that.
A really important note, daniel,is and this is a hard truth is
some folks and not all by anymeans, but some folks out there
apply to jobs to maintaingetting benefits.
And so what we found is thatwhen you have these very simple
(20:47):
qualification forms, folks thatapply to jobs on job boards to
prove that they are activelylooking for work will
intentionally answer no to someof these qualifying questions
because they don't want to wastetheir time either interviewing.
And so it's a pretty difficulttruth, but it's an important
truth for us to know, asbusiness owners, that just by
(21:07):
having the simple form with asimple automation where, if you
don't say answer yes, these fourquestions, a third of folks
that are going to no show you oninterviews or you know right
away when you get to theinterview that you're not going
to want to hire them.
They're gone and you've spentno time.
We've saved you a ton of timeright there from that simple
automation Step two.
(21:30):
So now you know they meet yourcore requirements and you've
taken 400 to 250.
Good, now you said earlier well, should I have them take an
assessment of some sort?
Yes, and so that's like thecore value prop of Hirebus is.
We've taken a behavioralassessment that Fortune 500
companies used for decades tofigure out who's a good
(21:52):
executive, who's a good manager,who's a good laborer.
And what we did is we took allthat back in data and applied it
to the trades.
So we took all those algorithms.
We said, okay, instead offocusing on Fortune 500
companies, let's run this dataand algorithm through really
good folks in every position ina home service business.
So and we built benchmarks,like we built a painting
(22:14):
specific sales benchmark for thesale that we call it inside
sales for painting companies.
We have crew member benchmarksfor painting companies.
We have project managerbenchmarks, we have general
manager benchmarks, so that, nomatter what role you're having,
you take those 250 people thatpassed the initial application
and you have them, take anassessment and our assessment
(22:37):
will give them a fit score onethrough 10, so that you can
prioritize by only interviewingfirst folks that are a 10, and
then a nine and then an eight.
Now can there be someone whoscores a five, who's great at
the role?
Sure, but you are trying to beefficient and build a system
with your time, and so we've nowtaken 250 people and now you're
(22:58):
gonna interview five, and thosefive have the right behaviors
for the role, and you've savedhours of time with systems, not
you reading resumes.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Yeah, that's super powerful.
So it sounds like thisassessment.
It's kind of like somethinglike DISC or the big five
personality, but you've actuallycustomized it for the trade
industry specifically, so it hasbasically what kind of person
this is, but what role do theyactually fit in?
(23:35):
You know whether that's aproduction manager or a
salesperson, and so it's kind ofgiving you that answer like,
yeah, this person generally,based off the benchmark,
probably a good fit for sales orproduction management, whatever
the case is.
So that sounds like a huge timesaver and an amazing tool for a
(23:58):
painting business.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
It's incredibly valuable and a lot of our
current clients are runningpretty large painting businesses
and love it, and our datacontinually gets better.
I know most folks are listening, but I'll just share a quick
visual for some folks that mightbe viewing this and I'll try to
describe it.
But this is our platform.
(24:22):
I did it for me with some dummydata but, as you can see,
everyone that takes it getsscored on these 21 behavioral
scales and it's a little bitdifferent than DISC or Big Five,
because those are personalityassessments.
This is a behavioral assessment.
You might say, okay, samedifference, the slight
(24:42):
difference there is.
This shows how you often behave.
Behaviors change Personality.
Like I kind of am who I am, mypersonality hasn't shifted much
over the last decade, but Ibehave differently now than I
did when I was 10 years old andI probably will behave
differently in 20 years when I'mmuch older.
You and I are behavingdifferently on this podcast than
(25:03):
we would say if we were at awedding, right, right.
So what's powerful about thisis this you can see how people
often behave, to figure out if,if in a role, they would be
fighting against their corebehaviors.
But what's super powerful aboutthis is this is me say.
You know this is for an outsidesales benchmark.
(25:23):
The gray is what the datasuggests are the right behaviors
for someone in sales Highproductivity, high aggression,
lower self-control, highercreativity and higher
criticality.
And if you look at me, I scorea little bit lower in
productivity.
That's how I often behave, butif you brought me on the team,
(25:44):
you could help me and develop meto say hey, dan, when you're
selling, you need to be highlyproactive, which means you need
to be really goal-oriented andjust do a lot of action.
Sales is predicated on activity, so you need to knock 150 doors
a day if you're going to hityour number, and if I hit 75,
dan, you need to change how youbehave here in order to reach
(26:06):
your goals.
So now it turns into a reallycool coaching tool.
What's powerful, though, isright off the bat.
You haven't spent any time withme, you haven't even looked at
my resume, you haven'tinterviewed me, and now you know
that chances are I'd be apretty good fit, and you know
okay.
Well, what questions should Iask?
Because this person's low inproductivity?
(26:26):
Tell me about a time that youundertook a project that
demanded a lot of initiative?
That's a pretty specificquestion, based on who I am and
how I behave, that you can useas a business owner to figure
out if they're a right fit, andyou've spent no time.
You've spent no time on thissomebody to figure out if
(26:47):
they're a right fit, and you've.
You've spent no time.
You spent no time on this, so Idon't want to.
I've now for folks that arelistening, I've.
I'm not sharing the screenanymore, but, um, I just want to
show you how simple it is andhow custom it is to the trays.
All we do is serve those in thetrays.
We don't serve anyone else yeah, that's huge.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
I mean, you're having them, so the you qualify them
with that short form, gettingsome key information, some three
or four qualifying questions.
Then you have them take thisassessment that's going to
basically tell them, based ontheir behavior, are they going
to be a good fit for what youneed to be done in whatever role
that you have that you'rehiring for.
(27:21):
And then on top of that, it'sgoing to give you some
recommended interview questions,especially if they're not ideal
not ideal in a certainbehavioral trait, like you gave
proactivity as an example to.
To have them demonstrate orgive some examples of sometime
(27:41):
in the past where they'veactually were proactive or
whatever.
So this is like this is notonly saving time but saving you
money, because making a wronghire is anybody who's run a
business before I'm sure knowsmaking an incorrect hire costs
you tens of thousands of dollars, if not more.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Yeah, yeah, it's like um, you know I don't often like
to like hit too hard on thisbecause we've all just like this
.
This is painful.
Even this is painful for me tothink about, just thinking about
some of the bad hires, some ofthe bad decisions I've made.
But I guess that's how we learnthe best and I know, I know
most folks running a business.
I would, I would love to meetthe business owner who's not
(28:25):
made a bad hire but the pain ofa bad hire.
I, you know, you've, we've allseen the studies.
It's 60% of annual, 60 to 150%of annual salary.
It's blah, blah, blah.
But there's also, just like Ifelt this a little bit of a like
it's rocked my confidence alittle bit.
It's rocked how much I trustthe next hire, and that can
(28:49):
really limit how we grow ourbusinesses If we start to say,
oh, I can't have anyone else dothis but me, because that right,
there is a huge limiting beliefon how we can grow and scale
our business.
Cause the truth is, the truthis like we are all not the best
person to do everything in ourbusiness.
There's better, smarter peopleat different functions than all
(29:12):
of us.
And as soon as we can trust andlearn that and have the
humility to share that that's.
That's when growth happens.
Like I don't know, the firstreally good salesperson I hired
shout out to kyle changed mybusiness and changed my
philosophy.
Um, I thought that I didn'tthink that a single person sales
(29:38):
could drastically change thebusiness.
And when I looked six monthslater and we were doing, uh,
five times more, you know, salesa month with very little change
in marketing, very littlechange in our processes, it's
like, hmm, maybe it countsbetter than me.
You know like, huh, what otherparts of the business would
benefit from not having me do it?
(29:58):
Probably a lot.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Yeah, that's a.
I can relate experiences in mybusiness giving away pieces and
be like now it's flourishing,now that I'm not in it anymore.
It's a common trap, apsychological tendency to think
that oh, this is my business, soI'm the best at all the
(30:23):
different roles, because youwere doing all the roles at one
point, you know, when youstarted the business, and that
was definitely needed.
But to really grow and you wantto bring on people that are
better than you and to take itto the next level and, believe
it or not, you are not the bestat everything and that's
something that I've had to learnas well that giving it, giving
(30:44):
it to somebody else, can make ahuge positive difference.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Yeah, it's to go back to the higher bus.
This actually isn't my.
This is like a dummy results.
I'll actually pull up my exactresults so you can see.
So these are my higher busresults.
For me, dan, this is the overallline chart.
(31:11):
But if we look here, I'm incharge of sales.
Is that good?
Probably not.
And so where is my uniquegenius?
It's definitely not here.
It's probably not in marketingeither.
Here, it's probably not inmarketing either.
It's probably not in productioneither.
Maybe it's in like overallmanagement.
(31:33):
But it's really sobering andhumbling to see this and see.
Okay, the playbook for buildinga business is you know, you grow
you.
You first hire for production,then admin, then sales, then
marketing.
Well, for me, maybe I shouldhire for sales right away
because I stink at it, and maybeI should do admin because I
(31:55):
seem to be pretty good at that.
You, as a business owner, needto know what are your strengths
and what gives you energy, andthat's where you need to focus
on bringing people.
There's a really good book byDan Martell called buy back your
time, which I think flips a lotof the paradigms of how to, of
entrepreneurship and how to hireon your head.
Highly recommend it's.
It's.
It's targeted towards, likesoftware company um business
(32:15):
owners, but I think it's evenmore applicable for us in the
trades um because of some of themessages and learnings that it
shares.
So buy back your time.
By Dan Martell is a is a quickplug for some good content for
folks to read.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Yeah, and for folks that are between like seven, 50
in revenue and 1.2 million, Iwould say they have that, that
decision on how much or wastheir first big hire.
So this, either the salespersonor the production manager.
And I sometimes get thequestion like which one should I
(32:51):
, should I hire first?
And having a tool like thiswhere you know yourself and you
can kind of see plotted outagainst the benchmarks you know,
are you naturally a goodsalesperson or naturally good
production manager, that could,that could even help you know,
assessing yourself, so thatthat's that's pretty powerful
tool.
(33:11):
So you can make that, thatdecision on that first big hire
Like, is it going to be theproduction manager or the
salesperson we have we have afranchise where we have a number
of franchises but one that's a.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
It's a coatings franchise.
It's pretty big and when itcomes time for that first key
hire, that's exactly what wehave them do.
Daniel, we say, okay, there's aplaybook.
But uh, let's think aboutsports teams, like, if you have
a really good if it's footballand you're really good at
running the ball, run the ball.
If you're really good atthrowing the ball, row the ball.
(33:43):
If you're really good atdefense, rely on your defense
and play conservative on offense.
It's the same thing with thesebusinesses.
Every time they get to thatstage where it's time to hire
that first, what we callmanagement layer.
Let's look at this Do you agreewith it?
Do you disagree with it?
Great, now are you going tobring on a salesperson?
Are you going to bring on thatproject manager is what we call
it for those businesses but kindof like a production lead?
(34:04):
Great, that's your first hire.
Then you can fill the rest.
But you are unique.
You got to build a plan for you, a strategy for you, not for
what John down the road is doing.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
It's not going to work if you do it for someone
else.
It also seems like having anunderstanding of the folks
you're working or you're goingto work with you know you're
assessing them in the beginningwould help, and you kind of
mentioned it as well, like help,coach them to get better and to
prove in that, in that role,and also just to retain them in
general, cause you kind of know,you know what their strengths
(34:41):
are, what their weaknesses areor opportunities, so you can
kind of develop them and knowhow they're, how they're wired
and how they're driven.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
100 um, when we have folks join hire bus.
So one thing for us is we priceit and I don't want to get into
like a pitch about hire bus,but this is important to
understand.
Like the structure is.
We were, we were runningbusiness.
We're using like disk and otherassessments that you pay, you
know whatever.
It was like 20 bucks per, whichbecame pretty tough and we
(35:12):
couldn't then have those 250people take it.
So we price it just flat.
It's just a monthly 90 bucks amonth.
If you do annual, 149 a month.
If you do month to month nocontracts, you get unlimited
assessments.
But when people sign up, we'relike they people sign up.
We're like they usually sign upbecause they're hiring someone,
but right away we're like haveeveryone on your team take it.
Because then all of a suddenyou see the universe and what's
(35:35):
powerful when you see theuniverse of your team is you're
like, oh, daniel, who's one ofmy best crew members, is
actually like really good atsales.
Huh, if days are slow, maybe weshould have Dan go knock on
some doors.
Huh, this person you knowthey're, they're in the office,
(35:55):
but they, or this person who'sin sales is actually really good
at customer service.
So maybe their prior jobs.
There's so many inbound leadsthat all they had to do is be
smiley and friendly and they'dclose them.
Are they aggressive enough forour sales cycle?
So you now can understand whatyour team is, what people's
behaviors are, and there'scoaching documents so that you
can help develop them or putthem in the right seat.
(36:18):
And what we find is folks oftencome in like, hey, I need to
hire a new person, and then,when they have their whole team
take it, they're like, oh mygosh, it unlocked, I need to put
this person here, this personhere, this person here, and they
can restructure their org in away that fits people better and
makes people happier.
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
So maybe you already have the person.
You just didn't realize it.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
Yeah, yeah, we see that a lot with like sales,
customer service there's oftenthose rules are flipped.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Well, how?
How can folks learn more aboutHirebus or get a get ahold of
you?
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Yeah, so, um, you can email me, dan, at hirebuscom,
but I think the best way tolearn more is just to try it out
.
Try the assessment out foryourself.
So, whenever we do liketeaching sessions, we offer a
free assessment.
So if you go to hirebuscomslash free, you can go and you
can take the assessment yourself.
You can see how easy it is.
It's like five to 10 minutesand then you can see the results
(37:11):
, which is pretty cool, um, sothat you can, um, uh, see how
accurate it is.
So, like before we folks joinor become clients, we like them
to see the assessment and say,huh, does this feel right to me?
If so, it's probably a prettygood assessment of other folks.
So, hirebuscom, slash free,you'll learn more about us as
(37:35):
well as get a free assessment soyou can see if this is
something that you need in yourbusiness, for your existing team
or to bring more people on.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Awesome, highly recommend it.
Check out hirebuscom and I'llput the links that you mentioned
for the tools and everything sofolks can check it out.
And yeah, if you need to likethis is so important, like
getting the right team in place.
You're not going to be able togrow your business very much if
you don't have the right team inplace.
So having this piece of yourbusiness figured out is super
(38:03):
important.
So I'm super happy that youcame on the podcast today, dan,
and gave us some strategies andtactics.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
But it's been totally awesome to be on here.
It's something I'm passionateabout.
I'm glad that we're so alignedon.
Like this is the big blocker inour businesses at a certain
stage.
So, yeah, thanks for giving mespace to blab and share what
we've learned and supporting abunch of our clients.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Absolutely, and with that we will see you all next
week.
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