April 28, 2025 • 44 mins
Kasim Aslam, founder of Solutions 8 and expert in hiring remote top 1% talent, reveals how entrepreneurs can build extraordinary teams by treating people as "miracles" rather than commodities. He shares his counterintuitive approach to finding and empowering exceptional talent while leveraging AI as a tool that makes human uniqueness more valuable than ever.
• Entrepreneurs are "broken people" who experience dopamine during pursuit rather than achievement of goals
• Most business books treat employees as interchangeable commodities, leading to mediocre results
• The Pareto principle shows that 20% of people produce 80% of results – fight this natural distribution at your peril
• US employers struggle to hire top talent locally as they compete with tech giants and entrepreneurship
• International hiring creates win-win situations where your US company becomes an aspirational employer
• Pay 10% above the high watermark (not median) to access talent that performs 10-100x better
• Use paid trial projects instead of resumes and interviews to identify exceptional candidates
• AI replaces tasks rather than jobs, making mediocre employees dangerous while making exceptional ones more valuable
• Delegate projects not tasks, and focus on outputs rather than time spent
• Virtual work requires intentional connection through small teams, shared interests, and occasional in-person gatherings
Start building your dream team today by identifying what miracle workers you need and creating the conditions for them to thrive.
This episode is NOT sponsored. Some product links are affiliate links, meaning we'll receive a small commission if you buy something.
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This episode is NOT sponsored. Some product links are affiliate links, meaning we'll receive a small commission if you buy something.
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⚡️For Support inquires or Business inquiries, please email us at ➡︎ support@elevate-media-group.com
Our mission here at Elevate Media is to help purpose-driven entrepreneurs elevate their brands and make an impact through the power of video podcasting.
Disclaimer: Please see the link for our disclaimer policy for all our episodes or videos on the Elevate Media and Elevate Media Podcast YouTube channels. https://elevatemediastudios.com/disclaimer
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Elevate Media podcast with your
host, chris Anderson.
In this show, chris and hisguests will share their
knowledge and experience on howto go from zero to successful
entrepreneur.
They have built theirbusinesses from scratch and are
now ready to give back to thosewho are just starting.
Let's get ready to learn, growand elevate our businesses.
And now your host, chrisAnderson.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Welcome back to another recording of the Elevate
Media Podcast.
I'm Chris Anderson, your host,and today we're going to be
discussing hiring.
So if you're at the point inyour journey where you're
bringing a team on, you'rebringing individuals on to help
you grow and scale, take thingsover that you might not be the
best at, this episode is goingto be for you.
Plus, we're going to tie itinto the AI side of things that
(00:46):
we've got going on in the worldlately and all that craziness.
So excited to dive into thisepisode.
Today's guest is going to be atreat for everyone.
He has built five, seven andeight-figure companies.
He's had two eight-figure exits, is known as the guy for hiring
remote top 1% talent.
(01:07):
So he's got the wherewithal andthe knowledge around these
topics some of his achievementsand we could be here all day for
that.
But he's founder of Solutions 8, which is an eight-figure exit
company, co-host of thePerpetual Traffic Show, top 50
digital marketing thought leader, bestselling author.
So, yeah, you're in for a treattoday and if you ever struggled
to hire or keep someone, theright people, on your team, this
(01:31):
episode is going to change howyou think about doing that.
So, kossum man, welcome to theElevate Media Podcast today.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Man, yeah, I appreciate you having me, chris,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, excited to dive into this topic and, um, you
know kind of to dive right in,you know entrepreneurship's not
for everybody right.
Being successful inentrepreneurship isn't, uh,
going to happen for everyone.
I still think we've got a longway to go before I can say I'm
successful.
So for you, you know what?
What even got you started intoentrepreneurship and business
(02:02):
man?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
I failed at everything else.
I'm supremely unemployable.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Who's your last chance, right, yeah, this is all
I had Let you know, success wasmy only option.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
There's a lot of truth to that, though.
I think that you know, when wesay entrepreneurship's not for
everyone else, I actually thinkthat it's not meant to be an
elitist statement.
I think entrepreneurs arebroken people.
There's a book by DouglasBrackman it's called Driven.
It's what my business partnernamed our mastermind after but
he talks about the epigeneticphenomenon that produces
(02:33):
entrepreneurs, and we're brokeneffectively in the way that we
experience dopamine.
90% of people who Douglas termsas farmers experience dopamine
upon the completion of a goalDopamine, serotonin and I guess
their norepinephrine drops.
If I'm getting whateverchemical cocktail makes you
happy, that's.
I'm not a scientist, I don'tknow, I didn't go to school.
Uh, so 90 of people experiencethat chemical cocktail when they
(02:56):
achieve a goal.
Good for them, god bless.
That's the way god madehumanity.
It's how you're supposed to beentrepreneurs.
The 10 who he terms huntersexperience it in pursuit of the
goal and, oddly, when youachieve the goal, it drops and
you get.
You know, and I think we've allbeen there to where, no matter
what happens anything, any goalwe've set for ourselves, as soon
(03:17):
as we get there, we're like, oh, darn it.
Um, yeah, what's the next one?
Yeah, really and really.
And I think that you know somefolks are broken a little more
than others.
But that leads to this, to you,to me, to what we're doing, to
why we do it, because it doesn'tmake any real sense.
You know like, especially ifyou live in the first world man,
(03:37):
the nine to five, that's a goodgig, benefits and cushy offices
and $12 croissants and highrises and what?
40, 40 days PTO a year Are youfreaking, kidding me Right?
Like just just stuff.
That you're just like man, youknow you never have to worry
much about anything.
And then there's still the restof us.
There's that fun saying it'sthe entrepreneur is the only
(03:58):
person that'll work 80 hours aweek, so I don't have to work 40
.
You're right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
So here we are, man, man, so I guess I hope that's an
answer I'm yeah I'm broken,like you're broken, yeah I was
gonna say I'm, I just, I'm justdifferent.
That's all I was.
I'm just different.
I don't know, and it's not agood or bad thing, it's just I
got tired of being told what todo with my time and money and
how much I could make and what Icould do or couldn't do, and so
maybe I'm just stubborn and,yeah, I guess I.
(04:22):
I just really liked the, thechase of something new in the
adventure.
I literally was thinking theother day, and maybe this kind
of ties into that, like whatfrontier is left unconquered for
us now?
Like we, there's not much,right, like physical land wise.
So it's like it's like, cause Ihave that drive like man, I
would love to live back in thewild west where they're
exploring the west of the us andjust figuring it all out, or,
(04:44):
uh, you know, even before then.
So, like now, it's like the our, our final frontier, our wild
frontier, is the unknowns ofstarting a brand new business,
right?
Speaker 3 (04:54):
yeah, you have to go esoteric with it.
It's like the mind technology,spirituality, space if you have
the money, but you know you gotto make a couple billion before
you can launch a rocket, right?
Yeah, ray Dalio is obsessedwith the ocean, interestingly,
so I guess that's most of ouroceans are unexplored.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
That's true.
I just would I don't want todrown, that's like one of my
biggest yeah dude, deep bodiesof water freak me out.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Yeah, more than space .
I'm with you.
I'm fine on land.
I like it here.
I'll snorkel, okay.
Yeah, but I won't go away fromthe bay like the people that go
like deep water snorkeling.
I did that.
I think I was in puertovallarta and they, like I signed
up for this snorkelingexcursion, not really paying
attention what I was doing.
Then we get on a boat and I'mlike, oh, they're just gonna
bring us to a prettier part.
(05:38):
And no, they brought us like outoh gosh yeah, and then they
were like all right, jump in.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
No, I, I like it here yeah, that's all right, I'll
pass on that one too.
Yeah, but no, I mean and I likehow you put it like we're,
we're broken in the best senseof the word.
Um, but with that too, likeunderstanding, that's huge.
I think we're just differentand and I think I have really, I
(06:05):
like that.
I have not actually I don'tknow if I've heard someone say
that about people who are tryingto build their own business and
I really liked that because, um, I don't know, just there's so
much along the journey, right,that we had to figure out along
the way, and part of it isourselves, um, and so realizing
that we are different and that'sokay.
(06:25):
But like for you, as you've beenon this journey and you figured
that out, like, hey, I'm justdifferent, like I'm broken and
that's all right.
What are some other things thatyou've learned or like mistakes
you've made, specifically tolike even building a team,
because that's a hurdle initself, trying to even take that
step.
What has that been for you?
(06:46):
And any big mistakes you'vemade when building a team for
the first time?
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Yeah, I've made all the mistakes twice.
I call myself the world'sgreatest failure, and it's not
self-deprecation, it's actuallysomething I'm kind of proud of.
I feel forward.
I'll tell you that the biggestmistake I have made is the
biggest mistake we all make whenit comes to talent acquisition,
and I've got we were talkingabout my books before we hit
(07:11):
record.
I've got 3000 books in my houseand I'd say 20% of them
probably are some type ofbusiness and or self-improvement
book.
Okay, so bet money right now,today, and if you're listening
to this and you're near yourbookshelf, go to your bookshelf
and pull any business book offthe shelf, literally any one of
them.
And here's what I guarantee you, without a single exception and
I'd love for somebody tochallenge me on this Every
(07:33):
business book treats people likecommodities, treats them like,
talks about them, refers to them, assumes that humans as an
asset within the confines of abusiness substructure, that
people are commodities and andyou know that because, again,
it's it's referential.
They don't come right out andsay it, but that's how we're
(07:55):
taught to look at people, trainpeople, pay people, trade people
.
You know like uh, and and andand to define terms.
A commodity is something that'seasily interchangeable.
So if you have an ear of corn,right, and I have an ear of corn
, and you and I swap, we are nobetter or worse off than we were
moments ago, right, but if youhave a cpa and I have a cpa,
(08:16):
like, if, let's say, you and Iswapped our cpas, like that's
just, you know, like levels ofcatastrophe waiting for me that
I can't even begin to articulate.
Even if you have this, you, youhave people that grew up in the
same town, went to the sameschool, had the same background,
same levels of experience,worked for the same company.
Those are two uniquely valuableassets that are not
interchangeable to any degree.
(08:37):
And if you build a businessaround the commoditization of
humanity, you end up withQuicken Loans or a GoDaddy call
center or some soul-sucking,horrible, untenable revolving
door of everything that's nothuman.
And that's what's reallyinteresting too.
(09:00):
I actually really like.
I think a lot of people arecatastrophizing when it comes to
AI.
This is the greatest thingthat's ever happened for me.
Yeah, because all the thingsthat ai does, that I can do, are
the things that humansshouldn't be doing.
Anyway, it's all I love.
I hate the word scale, dude.
If I could just, uh, if I couldspray people in the face with a
(09:21):
bottle of cold water every timeI hear the word scale, like I'm
not doing that because itdoesn't scale.
What's cool about AI is now, theonly things that make money are
the things that don't scale.
If it scales, ai can do it, andso if it doesn't scale, that
means that you need a human todo it, and humans are uniquely
suited to doing most things.
So I'm going to bring this allfull circle.
I promise you this all fullcircle.
(09:45):
I probably.
Yeah, uh, I've built that.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
My bio says five.
It's actually now officiallysix we just have seven figures.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Ttm, another business I own.
I need to update that I'vebuilt six million or
multi-million dollar businessesand I've done it all by finding
truly extraordinary human beingsand just getting getting out of
their way.
And there's the, the, the.
If you're familiar with thePareto distribution, which is a
mathematical principle thatexists in every organic
ecosystem in the world, like youknow, it's the 80, 20 rule 20%
(10:10):
of the cows yield 80% of themilk and 20% of your customers
are responsible for 80% of yourrevenue.
20% of your employees yield 80%of your output.
20% of your employees do 80% ofyour work in any organic
ecosystem.
But what's kind of cool aboutthat, or what's amazing about it
, if you really crack the codeon it is you can index towards
the 20% where most businessesagain going back to the business
(10:33):
books treating people likecommodities.
Most businesses are actuallytrying to flatten that, which is
insane, because they want theydon't want to see existential
crises on an Excel file, causeit's all like a.
You know Goldman Sachs Ivyleague douchebags that think
that they existential crises onan Excel file, cause it's all
like a.
You know Goldman Sachs Ivyleague douchebags that think
that they think that they know,like oh, you know, one person is
responsible for too much.
Let's distribute this risk,quote unquote.
What happens when you flatten apyramid?
(10:53):
You lose the top of the pyramid, right, which is?
That's the, that's theleverageable part, that's the
20% that are yielding the 80%.
So you know, going to why youdidn't want to have a job.
You're like I was tired ofbeing told what to do, right,
you were tired of being treatedlike a commodity.
If entrepreneurs can buildbusinesses where people aren't
treated like commodities, dude,you can have three, five, 10, 15
(11:17):
, 20 people, businesses that areworth hundreds of millions of
dollars now, but you go out andyou find that Pareto talent, you
find the 20% that does the 80%.
And if you're willing to openyour mind to the idea that
people aren't just going to dothe SOPs, they're not just going
to check the boxes, they're notjust going to do, you know,
because that's what the businessbook teaches you, right, like
(11:38):
it's oh, build a process andthen find an easily
interchangeable human and havethem sit here on the assembly
line doing the thing.
That's gone, that's over.
So now the question is what canai not do and go build a
business around that with peoplethat are stellar, and and the
way to find stellar people.
By the way, nobody wants tohear this, which is funny
because it's it's an easy button, as you pay more right, there's
(11:59):
one to win yep, and you don'twhat my goal is to pay 10% more
than the high watermark.
And when people that arelistening to this might hear oh,
10%, that's not bad.
That's not what I said.
I said 10% more than the highwatermark.
So if the window is, let's say,70, just to throw numbers out
there, okay, 75k to 100K is thisthe salary range?
Well, 10% more than the highwatermark is $110,000.
(12:23):
That's 40% more than the 75Kthat you, as the entrepreneur,
have been taught to try to goget this commodity for, because
commodities are traded.
When you're buying commoditiesyou're trying to buy for, you
want the most for the least.
When you're findingproto-talent, you want to pay
more, because paying 10, 20, 30,40, 50% more gets you somebody
that does 10, 50, 100 times more.
(12:47):
And dude, I'm not beinghyperbolic, I'm not exaggerating
.
When I sold my business, I builtthe number one ranked Google
ads agency in the world, andwhen I sold it, one person was
responsible for 40% of myrevenues.
Name's John Moran.
It's the greatest Google adsmind in the world.
I ended up having to make him abusiness partner because he's
so important.
That's what happens, and ithappens again in every organic
ecosystem, if you allow it to.
So like finding those people.
(13:09):
That's what's cool is you canindex towards those people and
then you can build theseentities.
I built the number one rankedGoogle ads agency in the world.
I've never run a Google adcampaign in myself and in my
life I wouldn't know how to.
I had the highest performingreal estate investment campaign
on the planet before I was evera real estate investor or knew
anything about lead generation.
I've built the number oneMontessori agency in the English
(13:29):
speaking world.
I'm not a trained Montessorian,nor do I own a school.
I own a talent agency out ofLatin America.
I don't speak Spanish, dude.
What's funny is I get to do allthese things and then people
see me.
If you're listening and notwatching, I look homeless.
I haven't had a haircut in Godknows how long.
I wear shorts and a t-shirtevery day.
I'm not presentable.
I like I'm more successful thanI deserve to be and it's not
(13:52):
because I'm smarter than anybody, it's because I find people
smarter than me.
And then I get out of the way.
Yep, so many entrepreneurs arelike oh, I need to be involved
in this process and I'm like no.
Definitely do not.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I love that point because, like right now, where
we are in Elevate, like we havethree solid people on the team
but we're we're small still.
So, like my point, my part isguiding but still letting them
be in their strength.
And so, like navigating, thatfor the first time has been, uh,
I'm doing my best and learningas I go, kind of thing.
(14:21):
But it's it's cool to see thatlike those individuals lean into
their strengths and like comeup with stuff.
I was like oh shoot, yeah, Iwouldn't have thought of that or
I wouldn't have done that, likeand get stuff done.
It's just, it's a cool thing tobe a part of um and be able to
support them, you know,financially, you know.
However, else I can supportthem as a, as a leader, but then
(14:43):
them come back of what they'regiving is just, you know, it's
humbling to me to be a part andhave those kind of people.
For, for people who are startingthough, who might not have the
funds Cause I know you said pay,you know you know 10% above
watermark how do you attractpeople on your team?
How do you structure that Ifyou don't have the funds to be
able to pay for those typepeople, or is it just you find
(15:04):
the ones you can afford and theneventually find the next level
of people?
How's?
And then eventually find thenext level of people?
How do you?
Speaker 3 (15:11):
kind of guide people with that.
I'm about to get canceled inthis conversation, so we'll
dance around it to the best ofour abilities, chris, and then
you feel free to edit outwhatever you feel is incendiary.
Where are you basedgeographically?
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Indiana, so Midwest.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Okay, I really like the Midwest for the reasons I'm
about to say.
If you are in an emerged nation, right, and what does that mean
?
In a PC world, it's like US,canada, western Europe.
If you're in a place wherepeople's needs are not only
satiated but there is socialsafety nets A and then B, there
is a rich and vibrant startupand or corporate community, the
(15:46):
odds of you being able to hirePareto talent are slim.
Because why?
If I'm a kid fresh out ofschool, I either want to go work
for Google, amazon, microsoft,apple, facebook or a company
offering rich stock options in astartup environment where I
could potentially become amillionaire in two, three, four
years, or I want to go work formyself.
That's where the peak talentgoes.
(16:07):
And God bless our country, dude.
We made it easy to be anentrepreneur.
It has never, ever, ever, everbeen easier to be an
entrepreneur and there's no realdownside risk, and I'm saying
that on an anthropological scale.
I realize that there's risk andwe're assuming risk, but you
are not going to starve, you'renot going to be homeless.
We have this, this world, wherethere's no real tangible
(16:30):
existential threat to you fortaking this massive swing.
So what does that meanEmployers in the Western world
don't have access to parentaltalent because you, even if you
could match the Google, amazon,Microsoft to Apple Facebook
salary which you cannot youdon't have the name.
Yeah, you don't have the cachet, you don't have.
It's not fun for me to put yourname on LinkedIn.
There's no way you could meetthe benefits, right, you know
(16:51):
like, there's just there's noability for you to be an
aspirational employer until yougo international.
Yep, if you hire out of LatinAmerica, asia, north Africa,
eastern Europe, those folks lookat you the way people here look
at Google, amazon, microsoft.
(17:12):
They're like oh God, you're,you're, I'll get to work for a U
S company getting paid U Sdollars.
And and if you ratchet that upa little bit, like I, my
favorite place to hire out of isLatin America right now, for a
bunch of reasons Time zones areconsistent, english proficiency
super high, culturaldissimilarities fall pretty
significantly.
Cultural dissimilarities fallpretty significantly, um, etc.
(17:35):
Etc.
And paying in the us dollar hasreally significant arbitrage
opportunities.
Yeah, uh and dude, you knowlike I'm hiring out of bogota,
columbia right now.
I actually just got back fromum columbia and most the the
largest um industry in bogota iscall centers.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Okay, you ever worked at a call center?
Speaker 3 (17:51):
I have not.
I worked at two.
As a kid I worked at MCI inthis place called Zentel.
That was effectively likestealing money from firefighters
and burn victim units.
It was weird.
I wonder if they're stillaround.
Call centers are the modern daycoal mines.
They're horrible.
You know, you show up and it's10 hours in this fluorescent
light building and then and Iwas doing outbound calls, so
(18:13):
like you're just the phone ringsand you're praying to God
you're like, oh, please don'tpick up, right, and it's just,
it's just terrible.
So I'm taking people in Bogota,colombia, out of these call
center environments.
They get to work from home.
They get to, they get paid morethan they make domestically.
They work on a semi-flexibleschedule.
And when I say semi-flexible,all I mean is I'm not clocking
(18:33):
you in right on the minute andclocking you out on the minute
and you have to ask me to takeyour kid to a dental appointment
, right, um, and they domeaningful work, yep and dude,
like the, the, the, the level oftalent.
I can't begin to articulate thechange.
So if you're the level oftalent, I can't begin to
articulate the change.
So if you're and I'm going tosay I imagine we're talking to a
majority US audience.
If you're a US employer andyou've said things like it's so
(18:55):
hard to find good help thesedays and if you want something
done, good like do it yourself,that's all.
That's all horseshit.
Yeah, there are amazing people,there are unbelievable humans
that run through walls and solveproblems and built and we know
that because we see it all thetime.
(19:15):
You're just not set up in theposition of what would you call
that.
You're not in a leverageableposition for receiving.
Put yourself in that positionby finding people that would
actually be really grateful towork for you, and imagine that
for just a moment.
Imagine what it would be liketo have somebody who's
unbelievably grateful to workfor you because because their
life circumstances changed somuch in the way that you're
treating them and then howyou're paying them, and and then
cascade that forward acrossevery level of analysis in your
(19:36):
business.
When I sold solutions eight, Ihad a hundred employees, or
close closing in on a hundredemployees.
Six of them were in the UnitedStates.
Yeah, the rest of them wereeverywhere else.
And, dude, I had, I had 40%margins in an industry that
aimed at 15%, aims at 15%,because we were massively more
efficient.
I had better people thananybody else could possibly
fathom, and the one question Igot during due diligence, which
(19:58):
was an eight month process, waswhere do you find these people
Like?
This is unreal, and it'sbecause I was paying more.
I was treating them like adultsand I wasn't looking for people
that were manageable.
That's the other thing thatentrepreneurs do wrong
Entrepreneurs and they don'tlike to admit this, but as you
get older it becomes obvious,especially young entrepreneurs.
But I think all entrepreneursare actually afraid of
competence.
They don't like, because ifsomebody's smarter than me,
(20:21):
especially if I'm small, youknow I'm a small business owner,
I've got four employees and youknow whatever it is that do I'm
.
Let's say I'm a baker.
I don't want.
I own a bakery.
I don't want someone who bakesbetter than me, because what?
What am I here for now?
you know, what I mean.
And then what's going to stopthem from taking over the whole
shop?
And now there's a coup and anda mutiny at that.
You know the ss bakery, and uh,what people don't realize is
(20:44):
exactly what you and I talkedabout at the beginning of this
conversation most people, people, are not entrepreneurial.
You want those folks.
You want people that are better, faster, stronger, smarter,
braver, more articulate, morethoughtful, more interesting,
and then you find, wherever itis, that they're a miracle, and
then you let them, you cut themloose.
So don't build a template andsay, oh well, I'm going to hire,
you know, jane or John, andJane or John's going to come in
(21:06):
here and press this button andpull this lever and do this
thing.
How about hire Jane or John orSally or Muhammad or whoever,
and then just watch them,because it would do.
What happens in in theproductive world is we give
somebody 10 things to do, theysuck at two.
They do six, just fine, checkthe box, well done.
And then they do two betterthan any human has ever done
those two things in the historyof of task management, and what
(21:33):
we've been taught to do by allthese great business books that
surround me is to go focus onthe two they suck at and we're
like, all right, we're gonna getyou there, we're gonna build a
performance improvement programand you know, you're gonna
shadow sally because sally knowsit's like.
It's like, stop that.
How about we take these twothings that they're amazing at
and that becomes their job, youknow, but that's the problem,
dude, is it doesn't scale well,that doesn't scale well.
All right, fine, great, goodfor you.
Go build a business that ai canreplace overnight, you know?
(21:54):
Or maybe look at people likethey're literal do.
The human being is a miracle,like a literal.
I'm saying literal the way, notlike a millennial says it, I'm
saying it as a person whounderstands the meaning of the
word people, I don't care if youdon't believe in God.
Actually, for people who don'tbelieve in God, a person, is
even more of a miracle it's like, are you?
(22:15):
just these super smart apesrunning around building shit and
solving problems and going tothe moon.
You know what I mean.
Like every human is a literalmiracle and if you treat them
that way, you get like if youlook for miracles, you find
miracles.
And if you look for a cog inthe machine, that's going to be
an interchangeable commodity.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
That's what you get too right, yeah, and it's like
it's crazy.
Like the first team member wehad is from ghana, yeah, and
he's been amazing and he's he'sjust went above and beyond you
know expectations and like it'sit's led into you know you
expectations and like it's it'sled into you know.
You know what we have today,really, um and it was, and it's
(22:55):
the same thing.
Like they're really good at, orhe was really good at, editing
Um and so that's what he focusedon and and he's and that's what
I try to do with the rest.
Like we brought on our directorof marketing and content
strategy, like do your thing.
And I've said I tell them, likeI this is not like if I have
ideas, but if you're like, hey,no, that doesn't work at all.
(23:16):
Like just tell me.
Like I'm cool with that, likethis is your guys' area or
whatever.
Like I just come with ideassometimes.
And they're like, yeah, no,that's stupid.
And so I was like and I'm likeI'm fine with that.
Like I told him today.
I was like if it gets toocomplicated, you smack my hands
and Chris, like dude, no, likeyou're, you're making this way
(23:37):
too hard and I'm like I'm notabove reproach.
Like you guys have yourstrengths, I have mine.
We're working together.
Just cause I'm like started,this doesn't mean I'm anything
above anyone else, and so Ithink that's and people don't
realize that, like there are somany people out there looking
for these opportunities in the US, outside the U S, that you
can find, like to your point,talent that is ready to be a
(23:59):
part of something bigger thanthemselves.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
That's what people want.
Do they want a vision?
And I think, for you and forthe person listening, who's
probably an entrepreneur, whenyou ask yourself, you know, at
the end of my little tirade andhopefully it wasn't too soapboxy
you shouldn't have anythingleft, like there should be no
tasks left for you, cause you'veyou've hired for all of them.
Your job is to work on thebusiness and what that means
(24:23):
specifically is define thevision.
Vision is so important and it'sit's a lot of lip service, but
people spend very little time onit.
But when you really like,you're like oh, this is my gig,
this is what I'm doing.
I'm letting everybody knowhere's, this is the direction
that we're heading and here'show we're going to get there.
And and vision isn't just where, but it's also how you know,
here are the values with whichwe're going to articulate
(24:45):
ourselves and then holding tothat Like that's enough of a job
all by itself.
Yeah, you know, and if you cancrack that code, my favorite
answer in the whole world is Idon't know.
Yep, because somewhere thereport, I don't know what, what,
what do we do?
I have no idea.
How do we, I don't know, go andthen it's, it's I don't at the
(25:09):
f out, but I don't.
I don't want to be on the orgtrot anymore.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
You know, like I'm a business builder, I'm not a c
something or a vp of this orthat, whatever, like, don't talk
to me it reminds me right, itreminds me of, I think, the
story of henry ford, who wasbeing, I want to say, like on
trial or something.
Something happened in hisorganization and so he had a
bunch of the board members orsomething like coming to him and
saying like hey, you know, whydid this happen or how does that
(25:35):
work, kind of thing.
And he's like I don't know.
They're like wait, they're likeyou don't know.
He's like no, they're likereached over.
He picked up a phone.
He said but I can call exactlywho on my team does know.
He said that's what I like.
I build a team so I don't haveto know it all.
I have better people in thosepositions than me to get that
(25:58):
done.
And that just always resonatedme.
Once I heard that, I was likethat's, that's it.
Like uh, there are so manypeople that are better than us
and so many different things.
Like bring them together andcreate something amazing to make
such a big impact in the world.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Dude, if you picture right now an organization run by
a person who is the smartest,best, fastest, brightest, most
creative person in that org, youknow what I mean.
That's a sad.
You don't picture a superhumansurrounded by other demigods.
You actually picture this justsad, maybe jealous, but
(26:33):
egotistical, whatever,surrounded by a yes-man.
Oh yeah, yeah, we want and youwant.
The problem is, entrepreneurswant manageable people.
They want people that they knowthey can control, but
manageable people have to bemanaged.
If you want people that takeyour business and run with it
that don't need to be managed,you have to contend with people.
(26:54):
Like you said, you're not abovereproach.
Most people don't necessarilyhave, you know, at least not as
an as an a priori preexistingframework.
That's.
That's not where they'reapproaching life from, and and
you can learn that the easy wayor the hard way yeah, um, man,
once you get there, like, oh myGod, just get out of their way.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Yeah, and that's what .
What I like, even in the momentnow, like understanding, like,
okay, I gotta get more out ofthe way, and so, like navigating
that and anything for me, likegrowing up, like playing soccer
and sports and stuff, likeunderstanding my position, I
knew, like, even if I wasn'tstarting, um, or if I was hurt,
or like, I still had a positionand that was to cheer people on,
that was to do my best ofpractice to you know, the
(27:35):
varsity get better by justreally, uh, being a being, a,
just a fly on it, like and justtaking it to them and making
them have to work hard.
So, like, I knew my position,whatever helped the team um for
our ultimate goal of winning.
And it's the same kind ofmindset I bring into the
business.
Like I want to build a teamwith the mission of, you know,
making a bigger impact in theworld through what we do, and we
(27:58):
can do it together.
We can all succeed and have youknow what we want out of life,
kind of thing.
So for you like, where, where doyou like, where can people like
go to find these type of people, especially if they're starting
overseas?
Like, are there, are therechannels that you guide people
to going and connecting withLike indeed, is it still a good
thing, linkedin, still like?
(28:19):
Where do you kind of guidepeople to find these individuals
?
Depends on where you are whereyou're targeting geographically.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
I actually I just I'm about to publish a book called
hire which I'm giving away forfree, so people can go to
costumeme if they want the book.
There's no, you know, paywallor anything.
They can literally have it, andin the book I have a resource
that includes a directory of abunch of hiring portals.
Yeah, but to answer yourquestion directly, so this
doesn't feel like a bait andswitch.
Linkedin is great for LatinAmerica, almost all of Latin
(28:47):
America, broadly speaking.
I like smaller professional jobboards if you're looking for
individual roles.
So if you want a graphicdesigner, go find you know what
dude.
It's a traffic problem and whatmarketers know.
All good marketers know thattraffic problems are solved by
more conduits of traffic.
So if you just go to Indeed andpost your job posting on Indeed
, well congratulations, you'renow at the mercy of Indeed.
(29:09):
Instead, go find all the littletributaries.
So that would be like you knowFacebook groups and LinkedIn
groups and networkingcommunities and you know
telegram threads which, by theway, they're all so easy to
access and the one thing from acommercial perspective they'll
allow you to post that doesn'thave to do with whatever topic
it is they're discussing is jobopportunities because that helps
(29:31):
them bring something reallyvalid to their community.
So, you know, if you need aRuby on Rails developer or
you're looking for somebodywho's really good at content
writing, but they have to speakMandarin or whatever, like no
matter how specific it is, yes,go to the job boards, of course,
and their regional job boards.
You know, if you want to hireout of the Philippines, it's
onlinejobph.
If you want Pakistan, it'srosypk.
India has 150 of them.
(29:53):
So go, like, the job boards,yes, definitely, and try to find
the pools of talent, figure outwhere they hang out.
And there's a ton of schoolgroups that are free.
There's a ton of, like, youknow, whatever those little
communities or masterminds areand make it hard.
In my book I talk about what Icall fly traps.
(30:15):
Um, if you're really looking forpareto talent, like if you're
looking for the top, you know,when we train ea's which is what
I do professionally now ittakes a thousand applicants to
produce one vetted ea.
Wow, and and we put themthrough.
Hell, dude, we put them throughlike what I would consider.
You know, it's like navy sealtraining.
You want to do something reallysimilar, because if you're
paying 10% more than highwatermark, you earn a position
(30:38):
of aspiration.
So I do some really basic things, like at the top of every job
description I have, it says toapply.
Please make sure the subjectline reads I actually read the
instructions.
Yep, because I'll get no joke.
I'll get 9,000 submissions forone role and you can play auto
filter.
Now to where, if it doesn't sayactually read the instructions,
it automatically archives andnever see it.
(30:59):
And then, of the ones that Isee and it's not me, it's my EA
now filtering them.
But if they don't actuallyfollow the instructions, you
know, and I'll do little, reallybenign things like make sure
that your email or your resumereads you know this, this uh, I
want a link instead of anattachment, I want a PDF and I
want this naming convention.
Little, little little stufflike that, the most important
(31:21):
fly trap that I use that I wouldencourage everybody to use.
We're taught to hire based offof interviews and resumes, which
I think is so, so, so, so, so,so stupid, because they tell you
nothing.
Instead, I do a trial project,so I get people to submit, I
shortlist to 10 to 20 people andthen I send them a message and
I'll say hey, chris, I've beenhiring for 20 years.
I know nothing is.
We're not going to have aproductive discussion until I'm
(31:45):
able to work with you, so whydon't you let me pay you in
advance?
I'll send you whatever areasonable amount of money is
for that geography.
You know, if you're in thePhilippines, 20 bucks is great.
I'll send you 20 bucks to dotwo hours worth of work.
How does that sound?
You say yes.
I say great, send me yourPayPal and I'll I'll prepay you.
Here's the funny part, though.
I prepay them and so like,let's say, you did this with 10
people, it's $200.
And you think like, oh golly,$200, shucks, that's, that's,
(32:05):
you know, a pretty hefty expensefor every new hire I want to
make.
Well, hear me out.
I prepay everybody and I waitto see who ghosts me, cause if
somebody were to steal 20 bucksfrom you, that's not somebody
you want to hire, so I would pay10 times that to learn that
lesson right out of the gate.
And then there are people thatthey're not trying to steal from
you, but they're not veryaccountable.
(32:26):
I'll get folks that follow up amonth later being like, hey, you
never sent me the trial project.
I'm like, oh, you don't say Uh,and then the people that follow
up.
You put more fly traps in theirway if you want to, but once
you have the trial projects andthey've done you know the work,
dude, I don't need an interviewanymore.
I still do it to.
You know, walk through theprocess.
I mean, by the time you're donewith a process like that, you
(32:47):
end up with like bloodthirstyassassins, just killers that
you're just you're thrilled tobe working with.
And it's not uncommon for me tohire multiple people for the
same role, cause I'm like Ican't afford not to hire both of
you and I know I'm growingenough to justify that.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
So that that you'd build it like a funnel.
It's a sales funnel just likeanything else.
Make it attractive on the topend and then filter a ton of
people out.
Whoever comes in the bottom isgoing to be epic.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Absolutely no.
I love that and you know, Ithink that's a great piece of
advice.
Is that trial project?
Because how do you know you'regoing to measure it's going to
work well if you don't even knowhow they work?
Because, like you said, theresume and stuff is just kind of
platitudes, it's just showingwhatever on paper but it doesn't
show the actual results thatthey can provide.
(33:30):
So how does that?
How do you know?
Okay, so let's kind of diveinto that.
So if you're hiring for thesepositions, how do you know what
is worth hiring a person forversus using AI?
Because I know you kind ofmentioned the scalable part.
Then you know kind of use AIfor that.
Can you kind of walk into thedifferentiation of when to use
AI versus when to hire?
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Yeah, so I'm in.
This is a philosophicalposition that I think some
people can choose to disagreewith if they'd like to.
I don't know that.
The winners and the losers aregoing to be easily fleshed out
in short order, so it's easy forme to speck in the bushy babble
Now.
I'd ask everybody who'slistening to just temper what
I'm saying against your ownwisdom.
That said, I don't think AI isa top down initiative.
(34:14):
I think that's obvious, andhere's what I mean by that.
You don't bring in a consultantwho's like oh Chris, I'm going
to help you redesign elevatemedia group using AI.
You're going to put this AItool here and this AI tool here
and we're going to sew thosetogether and bam, that's not the
(34:35):
way this is going to manifest.
Ai is a bottom-up initiative,and what that means is your
employee from ghana is editingand has, you know, six hours
worth of editing on their slatetoday and says you know what I
do?
I spend a lot of time intranscription.
I can use d script for thetranscription and I can use this
for the, and then they start tokind of sew in that this very
specific tool for this veryspecific implementation.
(34:57):
You know, unless it's different, like it's if this, then that,
except when, right, it's likeI'm only using descript if the,
if the transcriptions in english, because if it's in spanish, I
know this other tool worksbetter.
It has to be bottom up, yeah.
So, mr and mrs entrepreneur, Idon't think you pick when you
use ai.
I think you bring in reallyintelligent people that know
what the hell they're doing, andthen your incentives aren't
(35:19):
built around, they're builtaround output.
Yep, so the the worst thingsemployers do is they misalign
incentives with their employees,and a one really, really,
really good way to misalignincentives, by the way, is to
pay people for time.
Right, because paying peoplefor time, it's like, all right,
I can just sit here.
If you want me to sit here, youknow, but if you want me to
create videos, it's like dude,I'll give you 10 bucks for every
(35:41):
short you make.
And then you find out like, ohyou, you don't just make 50
shorts a day, you can make 5,000shorts a day because you got
really smart with, and you thinkyourself like, oh golly, now I
have to pay $10 per short.
Well, okay, yeah, and if youare in a leverageable business,
you're charging, you know,$1,000 or whatever it is that
you're charging and so you putyourself in a position where you
have aligned incentives.
(36:02):
So that's my answer is I don'tthink AI is going to replace
roles wholesale.
I think it's going to replacetasks, and then those people are
going to be allowed to expand.
That's why you want Paretotalent, because if you hire
mediocre talent pre-AI there wasa place for mediocre talent.
(36:23):
Let's say that you're a graphicdesign shop, right, and you
have your A players, but everynow and then there's overflow
that comes in.
Well, you've got Jerry andJerry's a six out of 10 scale,
but that's okay because Jerrycan knock out some of the
overflow.
Well, now take Jerry and putthe nuclear weapon that is AI on
Jerry, right, you just scaledmediocrity, the moon, and to
(36:43):
scale six out of 10 averagesyour business down to failure.
So you don't want to ever scalea Jerry, you want to get rid of
all your Jerry's and you wantto only have your A plus talent,
your 11s out of 10s, becausenow it's like we're not going to
have an overflow problem, we'regoing to have a quality of
output problem.
Bill Gates has a great quote.
He says that automation appliedto an inefficient system only
(37:03):
amplifies the inefficiency.
That's going to be true to AIto degrees that are hard to
articulate.
So I and that's dude.
That's the other thing.
That's why I also think thatthe what you need are miracles
and not commodities, because thecommodity person is the role
player.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
The miracle person is the person that continues to be
valuable regardless of how therole changes, and they're the
ones that teach you how the rolechanges yeah, yeah, I think
that and that's and that's aninteresting thing too like with
roles changing, like we've seenmore in our, you know, last
handful of years, with virtualwork changing right Like the
(37:44):
landscape of.
I know that you know they'remaking people come back to
office and stuff, but there'sstill the hybrid based on
businesses, like how do you lead, how do you guide your team
through virtual connections,because you know we're not all
in office here at Elevate and sohow do you kind of guide with
that, with those changes?
Speaker 3 (38:03):
It's harder.
I think people who think thatvirtual work can be just as
integrated as in-person work arewrong, and this is I mean.
I've built now a half dozenvirtual businesses.
But there are things you can do.
We have an all hands meetingevery Friday.
In the all hands meetingthere's an open mic where one
person presents on somethingthey're passionate about that
has nothing to do with work.
We have, like fun Slack threadson like books or movies or
(38:26):
travel, or kids or pets.
I like to break people up intosmaller pods so that they're
working in small groups andcommunities.
At Solutions 8, we had astrategist, a specialist, small
groups and communities.
At solutions eight, we had astrategist, a specialist and a
client manager and, and theymanage the same slate of clients
, okay, and so like finding waysto make sure that people don't
lose.
You know, semblances of humanconnection are really important.
(38:46):
We also get together, like Ijust went to bogota with my team
.
There's no reason to do thatother than we wanted to.
You know, all get together andmeet, belly to belly and have
fun, and, and we had a littleparty for all of our EAs and you
know that was.
I don't know how much that costus.
I bet you it approached five,six grand, maybe more than that,
and it was really importantbecause we all got to know each
(39:07):
other and, you know, not everyentity can afford that.
I do think that we losesomething not being together,
not being in person.
Obviously right, we have to,and but I think that the the the
benefits outweigh the costsmost of the time yeah, yeah,
definitely.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Yeah, I like the in-person stuff and we're about
50 50, um, and so, yeah, it'sdefinitely a different landscape
to navigate that and keeppeople connected and keep them
feeling like they're not on anisland and things like that and
um, so, yeah, it's just curious,it's.
I mean, it's an interestingthing.
We're still, you know, we stillhave to navigate and figure out
nowadays, so, um, but no, it'sbeen a man, it's been a great
(39:48):
conversation.
Um, I'd love to end with kindof like some just rapid fire
questions and just dive intothese and um, so what, what
would you say is the most underunderrated skill in hiring?
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Uh, well, to be honest with you, I think it's
the onboarding and the training.
Okay, is that a good answer,chris?
Because it's not.
I mean, hiring happenspre-training and I think, where
people think, oh, I hired thewrong person, no, you might have
found somebody that's great.
And then you bring them on andyou screw them up.
People don't know how todelegate.
They think that you know theydon't understand.
Authorship creates ownership.
(40:25):
So I see employers ruining.
I own a staffing agency.
We place executive assistantsand I know they're assassins.
And then I place them in anorganization and then I watch
them get melted.
You know like they they takethis really proficient person,
dude, imagine a really smartperson who's driving, and you're
like turn left here, turn rightthere, or they're creating, and
you're like make the squarecircle change red to blue, like
(40:46):
right.
It doesn't take many times ofthat before somebody takes their
hand off the wheel and they'relike all right, you're driving
now.
Yep, obviously.
You know like let them drive,delegate projects, not tasks,
don't harp on little things.
If it's subjective, let it go.
You're not always right, uh,and?
And if people are willing to dothat and they're willing to
(41:07):
train in a way, that's not,that's actually symbiotic, it's
not abusive.
I think that, uh, they end upwith really really good people.
But that's the big mistake thatI see people make is their
onboarding is just abysmal okay,no, that's good, that's good
and it's definitely.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
Yeah, it's definitely something you've got to
consider is how you're bringingthem on and, yeah, there's so
much to think about Favorite AItool right now Chat, gpt.
Yeah, pay for the pro Pay 200bucks, yeah Cool.
So with all the books behindyou if you're watching this on
video, all Um so with all thebooks behind you if you're
watching this on video, all hisbooks, 3000 books behind him.
(41:38):
What is one book everyentrepreneur should read?
I know you said some of themAnti-fragile by Nassim Nicholas.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
What was it?
Anti-fragile?
That's the most importantconcept I've ever been exposed
to, especially today.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
He's a hard read, cause he's so obnoxiously
arrogant?
Speaker 3 (41:59):
but he deserves to be cause.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
He might be one of the smartest people alive gotcha
.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Okay, anti-fragile nice.
Um, worst hiring mistake you'veever made.
Ah, so many dude, dear god inheaven.
Um, finding roles for people isnumber one.
Find people for roles, notroles for people.
And then number two, and thisis one that everybody made when
you know they're not a fit, cutthem.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Gotcha, how do you know when they're not a fit To
be?
Speaker 3 (42:22):
honest.
I hate such an esoteric answer,but you feel it, it's in your
gut, you're like, I just knowthis person's not going to work
out.
But I mean, if you keep tryingand they keep, whatever missing
we're small businesses, theprofitability, the time to sit
there and wait for somebody tofind themselves, right, you know
, you make one mistake, it's myfault.
Hey, this is a problem, let'snot do that again.
You make two mistakes.
It's your fault.
Hey, remember we talked aboutthis.
(42:42):
You make three mistakes, you'refired.
And I don't mean littlemistakes, right, I mean like hey
, I, this can't continue.
Yeah, you know, one, two, threedone.
And and I've gotten a littlecallous Maybe I love people to
death dearly and deeply.
You know I've spent an hour onthis call, calling them miracles
(43:02):
, and act like an effing miracle, or I have no space for you.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
you know, yeah, I like them.
Um, so last one, if it's if, ifeverything's done, you're gone,
you know you're dead.
Um, and all of your accolades,accomplishments, life in general
is forgotten, except one thing.
What?
Speaker 3 (43:25):
would you want that one thing to be remembered?
My kids, yeah, yeah.
Well, I just want my sons toremember that I love them.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
Just being a dad man.
That's awesome.
That's awesome.
I love that.
I love my kids too, yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Just being a dad man.
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
That's awesome.
I love that, I love my kids too.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
So well, kostum, this has been a great conversation,
man, I truly appreciateeverything you've kind of broken
down with hiring and theconnection to AI and how we can
do it better.
Where can people go to connectwith you, learn more from you,
and things of that nature.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
Kostumme K that nature, kassimme K-A-S-I-Mme.
All my socials.
I do a YouTube video every day.
You can have my books for free.
You can hire one of our EAsAwesome, we can just hang out
with your buddies.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
Cool, yeah, take them up on that.
Go get connected with Kassimand check out his stuff, get his
books and just continue tolearn from him.
Again, kassim, so grateful foryou and your time today.
Thanks again, appreciate you,buddy, thanks for having me
Absolutely, and if you'relistening to this and you
haven't yet, make sure you gofollow the show.
It just helps us get this infront of more ears so we can
(44:25):
make a bigger impact togetherand continue to go out there,
make a difference, elevate yourlife, elevate your business, and
we'll talk to you again nexttime.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Thank you for listening to the Elevate Media
Podcast.
We'll talk to you again nexttime.
Welcome to the Elevate Media podcast with your
host, chris Anderson.
In this show, chris and hisguests will share their
knowledge and experience on howto go from zero to successful
entrepreneur.
They have built theirbusinesses from scratch and are
now ready to give back to thosewho are just starting.
Let's get ready to learn, growand elevate our businesses.
And now your host, chrisAnderson.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Welcome back to another recording of the Elevate
Media Podcast.
I'm Chris Anderson, your host,and today we're going to be
discussing hiring.
So if you're at the point inyour journey where you're
bringing a team on, you'rebringing individuals on to help
you grow and scale, take thingsover that you might not be the
best at, this episode is goingto be for you.
Plus, we're going to tie itinto the AI side of things that
(00:46):
we've got going on in the worldlately and all that craziness.
So excited to dive into thisepisode.
Today's guest is going to be atreat for everyone.
He has built five, seven andeight-figure companies.
He's had two eight-figure exits, is known as the guy for hiring
remote top 1% talent.
(01:07):
So he's got the wherewithal andthe knowledge around these
topics some of his achievementsand we could be here all day for
that.
But he's founder of Solutions 8, which is an eight-figure exit
company, co-host of thePerpetual Traffic Show, top 50
digital marketing thought leader, bestselling author.
So, yeah, you're in for a treattoday and if you ever struggled
to hire or keep someone, theright people, on your team, this
(01:31):
episode is going to change howyou think about doing that.
So, kossum man, welcome to theElevate Media Podcast today.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Man, yeah, I appreciate you having me, chris,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, excited to dive into this topic and, um, you
know kind of to dive right in,you know entrepreneurship's not
for everybody right.
Being successful inentrepreneurship isn't, uh,
going to happen for everyone.
I still think we've got a longway to go before I can say I'm
successful.
So for you, you know what?
What even got you started intoentrepreneurship and business
(02:02):
man?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
I failed at everything else.
I'm supremely unemployable.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Who's your last chance, right, yeah, this is all
I had Let you know, success wasmy only option.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
There's a lot of truth to that, though.
I think that you know, when wesay entrepreneurship's not for
everyone else, I actually thinkthat it's not meant to be an
elitist statement.
I think entrepreneurs arebroken people.
There's a book by DouglasBrackman it's called Driven.
It's what my business partnernamed our mastermind after but
he talks about the epigeneticphenomenon that produces
(02:33):
entrepreneurs, and we're brokeneffectively in the way that we
experience dopamine.
90% of people who Douglas termsas farmers experience dopamine
upon the completion of a goalDopamine, serotonin and I guess
their norepinephrine drops.
If I'm getting whateverchemical cocktail makes you
happy, that's.
I'm not a scientist, I don'tknow, I didn't go to school.
Uh, so 90 of people experiencethat chemical cocktail when they
(02:56):
achieve a goal.
Good for them, god bless.
That's the way god madehumanity.
It's how you're supposed to beentrepreneurs.
The 10 who he terms huntersexperience it in pursuit of the
goal and, oddly, when youachieve the goal, it drops and
you get.
You know, and I think we've allbeen there to where, no matter
what happens anything, any goalwe've set for ourselves, as soon
(03:17):
as we get there, we're like, oh, darn it.
Um, yeah, what's the next one?
Yeah, really and really.
And I think that you know somefolks are broken a little more
than others.
But that leads to this, to you,to me, to what we're doing, to
why we do it, because it doesn'tmake any real sense.
You know like, especially ifyou live in the first world man,
(03:37):
the nine to five, that's a goodgig, benefits and cushy offices
and $12 croissants and highrises and what?
40, 40 days PTO a year Are youfreaking, kidding me Right?
Like just just stuff.
That you're just like man, youknow you never have to worry
much about anything.
And then there's still the restof us.
There's that fun saying it'sthe entrepreneur is the only
(03:58):
person that'll work 80 hours aweek, so I don't have to work 40
.
You're right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
So here we are, man, man, so I guess I hope that's an
answer I'm yeah I'm broken,like you're broken, yeah I was
gonna say I'm, I just, I'm justdifferent.
That's all I was.
I'm just different.
I don't know, and it's not agood or bad thing, it's just I
got tired of being told what todo with my time and money and
how much I could make and what Icould do or couldn't do, and so
maybe I'm just stubborn and,yeah, I guess I.
(04:22):
I just really liked the, thechase of something new in the
adventure.
I literally was thinking theother day, and maybe this kind
of ties into that, like whatfrontier is left unconquered for
us now?
Like we, there's not much,right, like physical land wise.
So it's like it's like, cause Ihave that drive like man, I
would love to live back in thewild west where they're
exploring the west of the us andjust figuring it all out, or,
(04:44):
uh, you know, even before then.
So, like now, it's like the our, our final frontier, our wild
frontier, is the unknowns ofstarting a brand new business,
right?
Speaker 3 (04:54):
yeah, you have to go esoteric with it.
It's like the mind technology,spirituality, space if you have
the money, but you know you gotto make a couple billion before
you can launch a rocket, right?
Yeah, ray Dalio is obsessedwith the ocean, interestingly,
so I guess that's most of ouroceans are unexplored.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
That's true.
I just would I don't want todrown, that's like one of my
biggest yeah dude, deep bodiesof water freak me out.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Yeah, more than space .
I'm with you.
I'm fine on land.
I like it here.
I'll snorkel, okay.
Yeah, but I won't go away fromthe bay like the people that go
like deep water snorkeling.
I did that.
I think I was in puertovallarta and they, like I signed
up for this snorkelingexcursion, not really paying
attention what I was doing.
Then we get on a boat and I'mlike, oh, they're just gonna
bring us to a prettier part.
(05:38):
And no, they brought us like outoh gosh yeah, and then they
were like all right, jump in.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
No, I, I like it here yeah, that's all right, I'll
pass on that one too.
Yeah, but no, I mean and I likehow you put it like we're,
we're broken in the best senseof the word.
Um, but with that too, likeunderstanding, that's huge.
I think we're just differentand and I think I have really, I
(06:05):
like that.
I have not actually I don'tknow if I've heard someone say
that about people who are tryingto build their own business and
I really liked that because, um, I don't know, just there's so
much along the journey, right,that we had to figure out along
the way, and part of it isourselves, um, and so realizing
that we are different and that'sokay.
(06:25):
But like for you, as you've beenon this journey and you figured
that out, like, hey, I'm justdifferent, like I'm broken and
that's all right.
What are some other things thatyou've learned or like mistakes
you've made, specifically tolike even building a team,
because that's a hurdle initself, trying to even take that
step.
What has that been for you?
(06:46):
And any big mistakes you'vemade when building a team for
the first time?
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Yeah, I've made all the mistakes twice.
I call myself the world'sgreatest failure, and it's not
self-deprecation, it's actuallysomething I'm kind of proud of.
I feel forward.
I'll tell you that the biggestmistake I have made is the
biggest mistake we all make whenit comes to talent acquisition,
and I've got we were talkingabout my books before we hit
(07:11):
record.
I've got 3000 books in my houseand I'd say 20% of them
probably are some type ofbusiness and or self-improvement
book.
Okay, so bet money right now,today, and if you're listening
to this and you're near yourbookshelf, go to your bookshelf
and pull any business book offthe shelf, literally any one of
them.
And here's what I guarantee you, without a single exception and
I'd love for somebody tochallenge me on this Every
(07:33):
business book treats people likecommodities, treats them like,
talks about them, refers to them, assumes that humans as an
asset within the confines of abusiness substructure, that
people are commodities and andyou know that because, again,
it's it's referential.
They don't come right out andsay it, but that's how we're
(07:55):
taught to look at people, trainpeople, pay people, trade people
.
You know like uh, and and andand to define terms.
A commodity is something that'seasily interchangeable.
So if you have an ear of corn,right, and I have an ear of corn
, and you and I swap, we are nobetter or worse off than we were
moments ago, right, but if youhave a cpa and I have a cpa,
(08:16):
like, if, let's say, you and Iswapped our cpas, like that's
just, you know, like levels ofcatastrophe waiting for me that
I can't even begin to articulate.
Even if you have this, you, youhave people that grew up in the
same town, went to the sameschool, had the same background,
same levels of experience,worked for the same company.
Those are two uniquely valuableassets that are not
interchangeable to any degree.
(08:37):
And if you build a businessaround the commoditization of
humanity, you end up withQuicken Loans or a GoDaddy call
center or some soul-sucking,horrible, untenable revolving
door of everything that's nothuman.
And that's what's reallyinteresting too.
(09:00):
I actually really like.
I think a lot of people arecatastrophizing when it comes to
AI.
This is the greatest thingthat's ever happened for me.
Yeah, because all the thingsthat ai does, that I can do, are
the things that humansshouldn't be doing.
Anyway, it's all I love.
I hate the word scale, dude.
If I could just, uh, if I couldspray people in the face with a
(09:21):
bottle of cold water every timeI hear the word scale, like I'm
not doing that because itdoesn't scale.
What's cool about AI is now, theonly things that make money are
the things that don't scale.
If it scales, ai can do it, andso if it doesn't scale, that
means that you need a human todo it, and humans are uniquely
suited to doing most things.
So I'm going to bring this allfull circle.
I promise you this all fullcircle.
(09:45):
I probably.
Yeah, uh, I've built that.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
My bio says five.
It's actually now officiallysix we just have seven figures.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Ttm, another business I own.
I need to update that I'vebuilt six million or
multi-million dollar businessesand I've done it all by finding
truly extraordinary human beingsand just getting getting out of
their way.
And there's the, the, the.
If you're familiar with thePareto distribution, which is a
mathematical principle thatexists in every organic
ecosystem in the world, like youknow, it's the 80, 20 rule 20%
(10:10):
of the cows yield 80% of themilk and 20% of your customers
are responsible for 80% of yourrevenue.
20% of your employees yield 80%of your output.
20% of your employees do 80% ofyour work in any organic
ecosystem.
But what's kind of cool aboutthat, or what's amazing about it
, if you really crack the codeon it is you can index towards
the 20% where most businessesagain going back to the business
(10:33):
books treating people likecommodities.
Most businesses are actuallytrying to flatten that, which is
insane, because they want theydon't want to see existential
crises on an Excel file, causeit's all like a.
You know Goldman Sachs Ivyleague douchebags that think
that they existential crises onan Excel file, cause it's all
like a.
You know Goldman Sachs Ivyleague douchebags that think
that they think that they know,like oh, you know, one person is
responsible for too much.
Let's distribute this risk,quote unquote.
What happens when you flatten apyramid?
(10:53):
You lose the top of the pyramid, right, which is?
That's the, that's theleverageable part, that's the
20% that are yielding the 80%.
So you know, going to why youdidn't want to have a job.
You're like I was tired ofbeing told what to do, right,
you were tired of being treatedlike a commodity.
If entrepreneurs can buildbusinesses where people aren't
treated like commodities, dude,you can have three, five, 10, 15
(11:17):
, 20 people, businesses that areworth hundreds of millions of
dollars now, but you go out andyou find that Pareto talent, you
find the 20% that does the 80%.
And if you're willing to openyour mind to the idea that
people aren't just going to dothe SOPs, they're not just going
to check the boxes, they're notjust going to do, you know,
because that's what the businessbook teaches you, right, like
(11:38):
it's oh, build a process andthen find an easily
interchangeable human and havethem sit here on the assembly
line doing the thing.
That's gone, that's over.
So now the question is what canai not do and go build a
business around that with peoplethat are stellar, and and the
way to find stellar people.
By the way, nobody wants tohear this, which is funny
because it's it's an easy button, as you pay more right, there's
(11:59):
one to win yep, and you don'twhat my goal is to pay 10% more
than the high watermark.
And when people that arelistening to this might hear oh,
10%, that's not bad.
That's not what I said.
I said 10% more than the highwatermark.
So if the window is, let's say,70, just to throw numbers out
there, okay, 75k to 100K is thisthe salary range?
Well, 10% more than the highwatermark is $110,000.
(12:23):
That's 40% more than the 75Kthat you, as the entrepreneur,
have been taught to try to goget this commodity for, because
commodities are traded.
When you're buying commoditiesyou're trying to buy for, you
want the most for the least.
When you're findingproto-talent, you want to pay
more, because paying 10, 20, 30,40, 50% more gets you somebody
that does 10, 50, 100 times more.
(12:47):
And dude, I'm not beinghyperbolic, I'm not exaggerating
.
When I sold my business, I builtthe number one ranked Google
ads agency in the world, andwhen I sold it, one person was
responsible for 40% of myrevenues.
Name's John Moran.
It's the greatest Google adsmind in the world.
I ended up having to make him abusiness partner because he's
so important.
That's what happens, and ithappens again in every organic
ecosystem, if you allow it to.
So like finding those people.
(13:09):
That's what's cool is you canindex towards those people and
then you can build theseentities.
I built the number one rankedGoogle ads agency in the world.
I've never run a Google adcampaign in myself and in my
life I wouldn't know how to.
I had the highest performingreal estate investment campaign
on the planet before I was evera real estate investor or knew
anything about lead generation.
I've built the number oneMontessori agency in the English
(13:29):
speaking world.
I'm not a trained Montessorian,nor do I own a school.
I own a talent agency out ofLatin America.
I don't speak Spanish, dude.
What's funny is I get to do allthese things and then people
see me.
If you're listening and notwatching, I look homeless.
I haven't had a haircut in Godknows how long.
I wear shorts and a t-shirtevery day.
I'm not presentable.
I like I'm more successful thanI deserve to be and it's not
(13:52):
because I'm smarter than anybody, it's because I find people
smarter than me.
And then I get out of the way.
Yep, so many entrepreneurs arelike oh, I need to be involved
in this process and I'm like no.
Definitely do not.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I love that point because, like right now, where
we are in Elevate, like we havethree solid people on the team
but we're we're small still.
So, like my point, my part isguiding but still letting them
be in their strength.
And so, like navigating, thatfor the first time has been, uh,
I'm doing my best and learningas I go, kind of thing.
(14:21):
But it's it's cool to see thatlike those individuals lean into
their strengths and like comeup with stuff.
I was like oh shoot, yeah, Iwouldn't have thought of that or
I wouldn't have done that, likeand get stuff done.
It's just, it's a cool thing tobe a part of um and be able to
support them, you know,financially, you know.
However, else I can supportthem as a, as a leader, but then
(14:43):
them come back of what they'regiving is just, you know, it's
humbling to me to be a part andhave those kind of people.
For, for people who are startingthough, who might not have the
funds Cause I know you said pay,you know you know 10% above
watermark how do you attractpeople on your team?
How do you structure that Ifyou don't have the funds to be
able to pay for those typepeople, or is it just you find
(15:04):
the ones you can afford and theneventually find the next level
of people?
How's?
And then eventually find thenext level of people?
How do you?
Speaker 3 (15:11):
kind of guide people with that.
I'm about to get canceled inthis conversation, so we'll
dance around it to the best ofour abilities, chris, and then
you feel free to edit outwhatever you feel is incendiary.
Where are you basedgeographically?
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Indiana, so Midwest.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Okay, I really like the Midwest for the reasons I'm
about to say.
If you are in an emerged nation, right, and what does that mean
?
In a PC world, it's like US,canada, western Europe.
If you're in a place wherepeople's needs are not only
satiated but there is socialsafety nets A and then B, there
is a rich and vibrant startupand or corporate community, the
(15:46):
odds of you being able to hirePareto talent are slim.
Because why?
If I'm a kid fresh out ofschool, I either want to go work
for Google, amazon, microsoft,apple, facebook or a company
offering rich stock options in astartup environment where I
could potentially become amillionaire in two, three, four
years, or I want to go work formyself.
That's where the peak talentgoes.
(16:07):
And God bless our country, dude.
We made it easy to be anentrepreneur.
It has never, ever, ever, everbeen easier to be an
entrepreneur and there's no realdownside risk, and I'm saying
that on an anthropological scale.
I realize that there's risk andwe're assuming risk, but you
are not going to starve, you'renot going to be homeless.
We have this, this world, wherethere's no real tangible
(16:30):
existential threat to you fortaking this massive swing.
So what does that meanEmployers in the Western world
don't have access to parentaltalent because you, even if you
could match the Google, amazon,Microsoft to Apple Facebook
salary which you cannot youdon't have the name.
Yeah, you don't have the cachet, you don't have.
It's not fun for me to put yourname on LinkedIn.
There's no way you could meetthe benefits, right, you know
(16:51):
like, there's just there's noability for you to be an
aspirational employer until yougo international.
Yep, if you hire out of LatinAmerica, asia, north Africa,
eastern Europe, those folks lookat you the way people here look
at Google, amazon, microsoft.
(17:12):
They're like oh God, you're,you're, I'll get to work for a U
S company getting paid U Sdollars.
And and if you ratchet that upa little bit, like I, my
favorite place to hire out of isLatin America right now, for a
bunch of reasons Time zones areconsistent, english proficiency
super high, culturaldissimilarities fall pretty
significantly.
Cultural dissimilarities fallpretty significantly, um, etc.
(17:35):
Etc.
And paying in the us dollar hasreally significant arbitrage
opportunities.
Yeah, uh and dude, you knowlike I'm hiring out of bogota,
columbia right now.
I actually just got back fromum columbia and most the the
largest um industry in bogota iscall centers.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Okay, you ever worked at a call center?
Speaker 3 (17:51):
I have not.
I worked at two.
As a kid I worked at MCI inthis place called Zentel.
That was effectively likestealing money from firefighters
and burn victim units.
It was weird.
I wonder if they're stillaround.
Call centers are the modern daycoal mines.
They're horrible.
You know, you show up and it's10 hours in this fluorescent
light building and then and Iwas doing outbound calls, so
(18:13):
like you're just the phone ringsand you're praying to God
you're like, oh, please don'tpick up, right, and it's just,
it's just terrible.
So I'm taking people in Bogota,colombia, out of these call
center environments.
They get to work from home.
They get to, they get paid morethan they make domestically.
They work on a semi-flexibleschedule.
And when I say semi-flexible,all I mean is I'm not clocking
(18:33):
you in right on the minute andclocking you out on the minute
and you have to ask me to takeyour kid to a dental appointment
, right, um, and they domeaningful work, yep and dude,
like the, the, the, the level oftalent.
I can't begin to articulate thechange.
So if you're the level oftalent, I can't begin to
articulate the change.
So if you're and I'm going tosay I imagine we're talking to a
majority US audience.
If you're a US employer andyou've said things like it's so
(18:55):
hard to find good help thesedays and if you want something
done, good like do it yourself,that's all.
That's all horseshit.
Yeah, there are amazing people,there are unbelievable humans
that run through walls and solveproblems and built and we know
that because we see it all thetime.
(19:15):
You're just not set up in theposition of what would you call
that.
You're not in a leverageableposition for receiving.
Put yourself in that positionby finding people that would
actually be really grateful towork for you, and imagine that
for just a moment.
Imagine what it would be liketo have somebody who's
unbelievably grateful to workfor you because because their
life circumstances changed somuch in the way that you're
treating them and then howyou're paying them, and and then
cascade that forward acrossevery level of analysis in your
(19:36):
business.
When I sold solutions eight, Ihad a hundred employees, or
close closing in on a hundredemployees.
Six of them were in the UnitedStates.
Yeah, the rest of them wereeverywhere else.
And, dude, I had, I had 40%margins in an industry that
aimed at 15%, aims at 15%,because we were massively more
efficient.
I had better people thananybody else could possibly
fathom, and the one question Igot during due diligence, which
(19:58):
was an eight month process, waswhere do you find these people
Like?
This is unreal, and it'sbecause I was paying more.
I was treating them like adultsand I wasn't looking for people
that were manageable.
That's the other thing thatentrepreneurs do wrong
Entrepreneurs and they don'tlike to admit this, but as you
get older it becomes obvious,especially young entrepreneurs.
But I think all entrepreneursare actually afraid of
competence.
They don't like, because ifsomebody's smarter than me,
(20:21):
especially if I'm small, youknow I'm a small business owner,
I've got four employees and youknow whatever it is that do I'm
.
Let's say I'm a baker.
I don't want.
I own a bakery.
I don't want someone who bakesbetter than me, because what?
What am I here for now?
you know, what I mean.
And then what's going to stopthem from taking over the whole
shop?
And now there's a coup and anda mutiny at that.
You know the ss bakery, and uh,what people don't realize is
(20:44):
exactly what you and I talkedabout at the beginning of this
conversation most people, people, are not entrepreneurial.
You want those folks.
You want people that are better, faster, stronger, smarter,
braver, more articulate, morethoughtful, more interesting,
and then you find, wherever itis, that they're a miracle, and
then you let them, you cut themloose.
So don't build a template andsay, oh well, I'm going to hire,
you know, jane or John, andJane or John's going to come in
(21:06):
here and press this button andpull this lever and do this
thing.
How about hire Jane or John orSally or Muhammad or whoever,
and then just watch them,because it would do.
What happens in in theproductive world is we give
somebody 10 things to do, theysuck at two.
They do six, just fine, checkthe box, well done.
And then they do two betterthan any human has ever done
those two things in the historyof of task management, and what
(21:33):
we've been taught to do by allthese great business books that
surround me is to go focus onthe two they suck at and we're
like, all right, we're gonna getyou there, we're gonna build a
performance improvement programand you know, you're gonna
shadow sally because sally knowsit's like.
It's like, stop that.
How about we take these twothings that they're amazing at
and that becomes their job, youknow, but that's the problem,
dude, is it doesn't scale well,that doesn't scale well.
All right, fine, great, goodfor you.
Go build a business that ai canreplace overnight, you know?
(21:54):
Or maybe look at people likethey're literal do.
The human being is a miracle,like a literal.
I'm saying literal the way, notlike a millennial says it, I'm
saying it as a person whounderstands the meaning of the
word people, I don't care if youdon't believe in God.
Actually, for people who don'tbelieve in God, a person, is
even more of a miracle it's like, are you?
(22:15):
just these super smart apesrunning around building shit and
solving problems and going tothe moon.
You know what I mean.
Like every human is a literalmiracle and if you treat them
that way, you get like if youlook for miracles, you find
miracles.
And if you look for a cog inthe machine, that's going to be
an interchangeable commodity.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
That's what you get too right, yeah, and it's like
it's crazy.
Like the first team member wehad is from ghana, yeah, and
he's been amazing and he's he'sjust went above and beyond you
know expectations and like it'sit's led into you know you
expectations and like it's it'sled into you know.
You know what we have today,really, um and it was, and it's
(22:55):
the same thing.
Like they're really good at, orhe was really good at, editing
Um and so that's what he focusedon and and he's and that's what
I try to do with the rest.
Like we brought on our directorof marketing and content
strategy, like do your thing.
And I've said I tell them, likeI this is not like if I have
ideas, but if you're like, hey,no, that doesn't work at all.
(23:16):
Like just tell me.
Like I'm cool with that, likethis is your guys' area or
whatever.
Like I just come with ideassometimes.
And they're like, yeah, no,that's stupid.
And so I was like and I'm likeI'm fine with that.
Like I told him today.
I was like if it gets toocomplicated, you smack my hands
and Chris, like dude, no, likeyou're, you're making this way
(23:37):
too hard and I'm like I'm notabove reproach.
Like you guys have yourstrengths, I have mine.
We're working together.
Just cause I'm like started,this doesn't mean I'm anything
above anyone else, and so Ithink that's and people don't
realize that, like there are somany people out there looking
for these opportunities in the US, outside the U S, that you
can find, like to your point,talent that is ready to be a
(23:59):
part of something bigger thanthemselves.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
That's what people want.
Do they want a vision?
And I think, for you and forthe person listening, who's
probably an entrepreneur, whenyou ask yourself, you know, at
the end of my little tirade andhopefully it wasn't too soapboxy
you shouldn't have anythingleft, like there should be no
tasks left for you, cause you'veyou've hired for all of them.
Your job is to work on thebusiness and what that means
(24:23):
specifically is define thevision.
Vision is so important and it'sit's a lot of lip service, but
people spend very little time onit.
But when you really like,you're like oh, this is my gig,
this is what I'm doing.
I'm letting everybody knowhere's, this is the direction
that we're heading and here'show we're going to get there.
And and vision isn't just where, but it's also how you know,
here are the values with whichwe're going to articulate
(24:45):
ourselves and then holding tothat Like that's enough of a job
all by itself.
Yeah, you know, and if you cancrack that code, my favorite
answer in the whole world is Idon't know.
Yep, because somewhere thereport, I don't know what, what,
what do we do?
I have no idea.
How do we, I don't know, go andthen it's, it's I don't at the
(25:09):
f out, but I don't.
I don't want to be on the orgtrot anymore.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
You know, like I'm a business builder, I'm not a c
something or a vp of this orthat, whatever, like, don't talk
to me it reminds me right, itreminds me of, I think, the
story of henry ford, who wasbeing, I want to say, like on
trial or something.
Something happened in hisorganization and so he had a
bunch of the board members orsomething like coming to him and
saying like hey, you know, whydid this happen or how does that
(25:35):
work, kind of thing.
And he's like I don't know.
They're like wait, they're likeyou don't know.
He's like no, they're likereached over.
He picked up a phone.
He said but I can call exactlywho on my team does know.
He said that's what I like.
I build a team so I don't haveto know it all.
I have better people in thosepositions than me to get that
(25:58):
done.
And that just always resonatedme.
Once I heard that, I was likethat's, that's it.
Like uh, there are so manypeople that are better than us
and so many different things.
Like bring them together andcreate something amazing to make
such a big impact in the world.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Dude, if you picture right now an organization run by
a person who is the smartest,best, fastest, brightest, most
creative person in that org, youknow what I mean.
That's a sad.
You don't picture a superhumansurrounded by other demigods.
You actually picture this justsad, maybe jealous, but
(26:33):
egotistical, whatever,surrounded by a yes-man.
Oh yeah, yeah, we want and youwant.
The problem is, entrepreneurswant manageable people.
They want people that they knowthey can control, but
manageable people have to bemanaged.
If you want people that takeyour business and run with it
that don't need to be managed,you have to contend with people.
(26:54):
Like you said, you're not abovereproach.
Most people don't necessarilyhave, you know, at least not as
an as an a priori preexistingframework.
That's.
That's not where they'reapproaching life from, and and
you can learn that the easy wayor the hard way yeah, um, man,
once you get there, like, oh myGod, just get out of their way.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Yeah, and that's what .
What I like, even in the momentnow, like understanding, like,
okay, I gotta get more out ofthe way, and so, like navigating
that and anything for me, likegrowing up, like playing soccer
and sports and stuff, likeunderstanding my position, I
knew, like, even if I wasn'tstarting, um, or if I was hurt,
or like, I still had a positionand that was to cheer people on,
that was to do my best ofpractice to you know, the
(27:35):
varsity get better by justreally, uh, being a being, a,
just a fly on it, like and justtaking it to them and making
them have to work hard.
So, like, I knew my position,whatever helped the team um for
our ultimate goal of winning.
And it's the same kind ofmindset I bring into the
business.
Like I want to build a teamwith the mission of, you know,
making a bigger impact in theworld through what we do, and we
(27:58):
can do it together.
We can all succeed and have youknow what we want out of life,
kind of thing.
So for you like, where, where doyou like, where can people like
go to find these type of people, especially if they're starting
overseas?
Like, are there, are therechannels that you guide people
to going and connecting withLike indeed, is it still a good
thing, linkedin, still like?
(28:19):
Where do you kind of guidepeople to find these individuals
?
Depends on where you are whereyou're targeting geographically.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
I actually I just I'm about to publish a book called
hire which I'm giving away forfree, so people can go to
costumeme if they want the book.
There's no, you know, paywallor anything.
They can literally have it, andin the book I have a resource
that includes a directory of abunch of hiring portals.
Yeah, but to answer yourquestion directly, so this
doesn't feel like a bait andswitch.
Linkedin is great for LatinAmerica, almost all of Latin
(28:47):
America, broadly speaking.
I like smaller professional jobboards if you're looking for
individual roles.
So if you want a graphicdesigner, go find you know what
dude.
It's a traffic problem and whatmarketers know.
All good marketers know thattraffic problems are solved by
more conduits of traffic.
So if you just go to Indeed andpost your job posting on Indeed
, well congratulations, you'renow at the mercy of Indeed.
(29:09):
Instead, go find all the littletributaries.
So that would be like you knowFacebook groups and LinkedIn
groups and networkingcommunities and you know
telegram threads which, by theway, they're all so easy to
access and the one thing from acommercial perspective they'll
allow you to post that doesn'thave to do with whatever topic
it is they're discussing is jobopportunities because that helps
(29:31):
them bring something reallyvalid to their community.
So, you know, if you need aRuby on Rails developer or
you're looking for somebodywho's really good at content
writing, but they have to speakMandarin or whatever, like no
matter how specific it is, yes,go to the job boards, of course,
and their regional job boards.
You know, if you want to hireout of the Philippines, it's
onlinejobph.
If you want Pakistan, it'srosypk.
India has 150 of them.
(29:53):
So go, like, the job boards,yes, definitely, and try to find
the pools of talent, figure outwhere they hang out.
And there's a ton of schoolgroups that are free.
There's a ton of, like, youknow, whatever those little
communities or masterminds areand make it hard.
In my book I talk about what Icall fly traps.
(30:15):
Um, if you're really looking forpareto talent, like if you're
looking for the top, you know,when we train ea's which is what
I do professionally now ittakes a thousand applicants to
produce one vetted ea.
Wow, and and we put themthrough.
Hell, dude, we put them throughlike what I would consider.
You know, it's like navy sealtraining.
You want to do something reallysimilar, because if you're
paying 10% more than highwatermark, you earn a position
(30:38):
of aspiration.
So I do some really basic things, like at the top of every job
description I have, it says toapply.
Please make sure the subjectline reads I actually read the
instructions.
Yep, because I'll get no joke.
I'll get 9,000 submissions forone role and you can play auto
filter.
Now to where, if it doesn't sayactually read the instructions,
it automatically archives andnever see it.
(30:59):
And then, of the ones that Isee and it's not me, it's my EA
now filtering them.
But if they don't actuallyfollow the instructions, you
know, and I'll do little, reallybenign things like make sure
that your email or your resumereads you know this, this uh, I
want a link instead of anattachment, I want a PDF and I
want this naming convention.
Little, little little stufflike that, the most important
(31:21):
fly trap that I use that I wouldencourage everybody to use.
We're taught to hire based offof interviews and resumes, which
I think is so, so, so, so, so,so stupid, because they tell you
nothing.
Instead, I do a trial project,so I get people to submit, I
shortlist to 10 to 20 people andthen I send them a message and
I'll say hey, chris, I've beenhiring for 20 years.
I know nothing is.
We're not going to have aproductive discussion until I'm
(31:45):
able to work with you, so whydon't you let me pay you in
advance?
I'll send you whatever areasonable amount of money is
for that geography.
You know, if you're in thePhilippines, 20 bucks is great.
I'll send you 20 bucks to dotwo hours worth of work.
How does that sound?
You say yes.
I say great, send me yourPayPal and I'll I'll prepay you.
Here's the funny part, though.
I prepay them and so like,let's say, you did this with 10
people, it's $200.
And you think like, oh golly,$200, shucks, that's, that's,
(32:05):
you know, a pretty hefty expensefor every new hire I want to
make.
Well, hear me out.
I prepay everybody and I waitto see who ghosts me, cause if
somebody were to steal 20 bucksfrom you, that's not somebody
you want to hire, so I would pay10 times that to learn that
lesson right out of the gate.
And then there are people thatthey're not trying to steal from
you, but they're not veryaccountable.
(32:26):
I'll get folks that follow up amonth later being like, hey, you
never sent me the trial project.
I'm like, oh, you don't say Uh,and then the people that follow
up.
You put more fly traps in theirway if you want to, but once
you have the trial projects andthey've done you know the work,
dude, I don't need an interviewanymore.
I still do it to.
You know, walk through theprocess.
I mean, by the time you're donewith a process like that, you
(32:47):
end up with like bloodthirstyassassins, just killers that
you're just you're thrilled tobe working with.
And it's not uncommon for me tohire multiple people for the
same role, cause I'm like Ican't afford not to hire both of
you and I know I'm growingenough to justify that.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
So that that you'd build it like a funnel.
It's a sales funnel just likeanything else.
Make it attractive on the topend and then filter a ton of
people out.
Whoever comes in the bottom isgoing to be epic.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Absolutely no.
I love that and you know, Ithink that's a great piece of
advice.
Is that trial project?
Because how do you know you'regoing to measure it's going to
work well if you don't even knowhow they work?
Because, like you said, theresume and stuff is just kind of
platitudes, it's just showingwhatever on paper but it doesn't
show the actual results thatthey can provide.
(33:30):
So how does that?
How do you know?
Okay, so let's kind of diveinto that.
So if you're hiring for thesepositions, how do you know what
is worth hiring a person forversus using AI?
Because I know you kind ofmentioned the scalable part.
Then you know kind of use AIfor that.
Can you kind of walk into thedifferentiation of when to use
AI versus when to hire?
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Yeah, so I'm in.
This is a philosophicalposition that I think some
people can choose to disagreewith if they'd like to.
I don't know that.
The winners and the losers aregoing to be easily fleshed out
in short order, so it's easy forme to speck in the bushy babble
Now.
I'd ask everybody who'slistening to just temper what
I'm saying against your ownwisdom.
That said, I don't think AI isa top down initiative.
(34:14):
I think that's obvious, andhere's what I mean by that.
You don't bring in a consultantwho's like oh Chris, I'm going
to help you redesign elevatemedia group using AI.
You're going to put this AItool here and this AI tool here
and we're going to sew thosetogether and bam, that's not the
(34:35):
way this is going to manifest.
Ai is a bottom-up initiative,and what that means is your
employee from ghana is editingand has, you know, six hours
worth of editing on their slatetoday and says you know what I
do?
I spend a lot of time intranscription.
I can use d script for thetranscription and I can use this
for the, and then they start tokind of sew in that this very
specific tool for this veryspecific implementation.
(34:57):
You know, unless it's different, like it's if this, then that,
except when, right, it's likeI'm only using descript if the,
if the transcriptions in english, because if it's in spanish, I
know this other tool worksbetter.
It has to be bottom up, yeah.
So, mr and mrs entrepreneur, Idon't think you pick when you
use ai.
I think you bring in reallyintelligent people that know
what the hell they're doing, andthen your incentives aren't
(35:19):
built around, they're builtaround output.
Yep, so the the worst thingsemployers do is they misalign
incentives with their employees,and a one really, really,
really good way to misalignincentives, by the way, is to
pay people for time.
Right, because paying peoplefor time, it's like, all right,
I can just sit here.
If you want me to sit here, youknow, but if you want me to
create videos, it's like dude,I'll give you 10 bucks for every
(35:41):
short you make.
And then you find out like, ohyou, you don't just make 50
shorts a day, you can make 5,000shorts a day because you got
really smart with, and you thinkyourself like, oh golly, now I
have to pay $10 per short.
Well, okay, yeah, and if youare in a leverageable business,
you're charging, you know,$1,000 or whatever it is that
you're charging and so you putyourself in a position where you
have aligned incentives.
(36:02):
So that's my answer is I don'tthink AI is going to replace
roles wholesale.
I think it's going to replacetasks, and then those people are
going to be allowed to expand.
That's why you want Paretotalent, because if you hire
mediocre talent pre-AI there wasa place for mediocre talent.
(36:23):
Let's say that you're a graphicdesign shop, right, and you
have your A players, but everynow and then there's overflow
that comes in.
Well, you've got Jerry andJerry's a six out of 10 scale,
but that's okay because Jerrycan knock out some of the
overflow.
Well, now take Jerry and putthe nuclear weapon that is AI on
Jerry, right, you just scaledmediocrity, the moon, and to
(36:43):
scale six out of 10 averagesyour business down to failure.
So you don't want to ever scalea Jerry, you want to get rid of
all your Jerry's and you wantto only have your A plus talent,
your 11s out of 10s, becausenow it's like we're not going to
have an overflow problem, we'regoing to have a quality of
output problem.
Bill Gates has a great quote.
He says that automation appliedto an inefficient system only
(37:03):
amplifies the inefficiency.
That's going to be true to AIto degrees that are hard to
articulate.
So I and that's dude.
That's the other thing.
That's why I also think thatthe what you need are miracles
and not commodities, because thecommodity person is the role
player.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
The miracle person is the person that continues to be
valuable regardless of how therole changes, and they're the
ones that teach you how the rolechanges yeah, yeah, I think
that and that's and that's aninteresting thing too like with
roles changing, like we've seenmore in our, you know, last
handful of years, with virtualwork changing right Like the
(37:44):
landscape of.
I know that you know they'remaking people come back to
office and stuff, but there'sstill the hybrid based on
businesses, like how do you lead, how do you guide your team
through virtual connections,because you know we're not all
in office here at Elevate and sohow do you kind of guide with
that, with those changes?
Speaker 3 (38:03):
It's harder.
I think people who think thatvirtual work can be just as
integrated as in-person work arewrong, and this is I mean.
I've built now a half dozenvirtual businesses.
But there are things you can do.
We have an all hands meetingevery Friday.
In the all hands meetingthere's an open mic where one
person presents on somethingthey're passionate about that
has nothing to do with work.
We have, like fun Slack threadson like books or movies or
(38:26):
travel, or kids or pets.
I like to break people up intosmaller pods so that they're
working in small groups andcommunities.
At Solutions 8, we had astrategist, a specialist, small
groups and communities.
At solutions eight, we had astrategist, a specialist and a
client manager and, and theymanage the same slate of clients
, okay, and so like finding waysto make sure that people don't
lose.
You know, semblances of humanconnection are really important.
(38:46):
We also get together, like Ijust went to bogota with my team
.
There's no reason to do thatother than we wanted to.
You know, all get together andmeet, belly to belly and have
fun, and, and we had a littleparty for all of our EAs and you
know that was.
I don't know how much that costus.
I bet you it approached five,six grand, maybe more than that,
and it was really importantbecause we all got to know each
(39:07):
other and, you know, not everyentity can afford that.
I do think that we losesomething not being together,
not being in person.
Obviously right, we have to,and but I think that the the the
benefits outweigh the costsmost of the time yeah, yeah,
definitely.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Yeah, I like the in-person stuff and we're about
50 50, um, and so, yeah, it'sdefinitely a different landscape
to navigate that and keeppeople connected and keep them
feeling like they're not on anisland and things like that and
um, so, yeah, it's just curious,it's.
I mean, it's an interestingthing.
We're still, you know, we stillhave to navigate and figure out
nowadays, so, um, but no, it'sbeen a man, it's been a great
(39:48):
conversation.
Um, I'd love to end with kindof like some just rapid fire
questions and just dive intothese and um, so what, what
would you say is the most underunderrated skill in hiring?
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Uh, well, to be honest with you, I think it's
the onboarding and the training.
Okay, is that a good answer,chris?
Because it's not.
I mean, hiring happenspre-training and I think, where
people think, oh, I hired thewrong person, no, you might have
found somebody that's great.
And then you bring them on andyou screw them up.
People don't know how todelegate.
They think that you know theydon't understand.
Authorship creates ownership.
(40:25):
So I see employers ruining.
I own a staffing agency.
We place executive assistantsand I know they're assassins.
And then I place them in anorganization and then I watch
them get melted.
You know like they they takethis really proficient person,
dude, imagine a really smartperson who's driving, and you're
like turn left here, turn rightthere, or they're creating, and
you're like make the squarecircle change red to blue, like
(40:46):
right.
It doesn't take many times ofthat before somebody takes their
hand off the wheel and they'relike all right, you're driving
now.
Yep, obviously.
You know like let them drive,delegate projects, not tasks,
don't harp on little things.
If it's subjective, let it go.
You're not always right, uh,and?
And if people are willing to dothat and they're willing to
(41:07):
train in a way, that's not,that's actually symbiotic, it's
not abusive.
I think that, uh, they end upwith really really good people.
But that's the big mistake thatI see people make is their
onboarding is just abysmal okay,no, that's good, that's good
and it's definitely.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
Yeah, it's definitely something you've got to
consider is how you're bringingthem on and, yeah, there's so
much to think about Favorite AItool right now Chat, gpt.
Yeah, pay for the pro Pay 200bucks, yeah Cool.
So with all the books behindyou if you're watching this on
video, all Um so with all thebooks behind you if you're
watching this on video, all hisbooks, 3000 books behind him.
(41:38):
What is one book everyentrepreneur should read?
I know you said some of themAnti-fragile by Nassim Nicholas.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
What was it?
Anti-fragile?
That's the most importantconcept I've ever been exposed
to, especially today.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
He's a hard read, cause he's so obnoxiously
arrogant?
Speaker 3 (41:59):
but he deserves to be cause.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
He might be one of the smartest people alive gotcha
.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Okay, anti-fragile nice.
Um, worst hiring mistake you'veever made.
Ah, so many dude, dear god inheaven.
Um, finding roles for people isnumber one.
Find people for roles, notroles for people.
And then number two, and thisis one that everybody made when
you know they're not a fit, cutthem.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Gotcha, how do you know when they're not a fit To
be?
Speaker 3 (42:22):
honest.
I hate such an esoteric answer,but you feel it, it's in your
gut, you're like, I just knowthis person's not going to work
out.
But I mean, if you keep tryingand they keep, whatever missing
we're small businesses, theprofitability, the time to sit
there and wait for somebody tofind themselves, right, you know
, you make one mistake, it's myfault.
Hey, this is a problem, let'snot do that again.
You make two mistakes.
It's your fault.
Hey, remember we talked aboutthis.
(42:42):
You make three mistakes, you'refired.
And I don't mean littlemistakes, right, I mean like hey
, I, this can't continue.
Yeah, you know, one, two, threedone.
And and I've gotten a littlecallous Maybe I love people to
death dearly and deeply.
You know I've spent an hour onthis call, calling them miracles
(43:02):
, and act like an effing miracle, or I have no space for you.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
you know, yeah, I like them.
Um, so last one, if it's if, ifeverything's done, you're gone,
you know you're dead.
Um, and all of your accolades,accomplishments, life in general
is forgotten, except one thing.
What?
Speaker 3 (43:25):
would you want that one thing to be remembered?
My kids, yeah, yeah.
Well, I just want my sons toremember that I love them.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
Just being a dad man.
That's awesome.
That's awesome.
I love that.
I love my kids too, yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Just being a dad man.
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
That's awesome.
I love that, I love my kids too.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
So well, kostum, this has been a great conversation,
man, I truly appreciateeverything you've kind of broken
down with hiring and theconnection to AI and how we can
do it better.
Where can people go to connectwith you, learn more from you,
and things of that nature.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
Kostumme K that nature, kassimme K-A-S-I-Mme.
All my socials.
I do a YouTube video every day.
You can have my books for free.
You can hire one of our EAsAwesome, we can just hang out
with your buddies.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
Cool, yeah, take them up on that.
Go get connected with Kassimand check out his stuff, get his
books and just continue tolearn from him.
Again, kassim, so grateful foryou and your time today.
Thanks again, appreciate you,buddy, thanks for having me
Absolutely, and if you'relistening to this and you
haven't yet, make sure you gofollow the show.
It just helps us get this infront of more ears so we can
(44:25):
make a bigger impact togetherand continue to go out there,
make a difference, elevate yourlife, elevate your business, and
we'll talk to you again nexttime.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Thank you for listening to the Elevate Media
Podcast.
We'll talk to you again nexttime.
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