How To Hire GREAT Employees | 3 Tips To Avoid My Costly Mistakes
How To Hire GREAT Employees | 3 Tips To Avoid My Costly Mistakes
ABOUT THIS LESSON
Do you have the RIGHT people on your team? Your first few hires can set the trajectory of your businesses growth. If you hire the right people, it is very likely you will continue to hire and your business will continue to grow. However, if you hire the wrong people, it could cripple your growth forever.
I see a lot of businesses get stuck at the 1-3 employee mark because they hired the wrong people.
So, how do you find the right people?
In this video I breakdown my biggest lessons from hiring the wrong people in the past, and the framework I now use to find great people.
If you’re thinking of making your first few hires, or if you already have a small team and want to make sure you have the right people, this video is for you.
In it, I breakdown the 3 step framework to identifying if you have the right people on your team. Learning how to find the right people is one of the most underrated skills an entrepreneur can develop. This video shows you how.
If you have any questions, leave a comment and subscribe to our Youtube channel.
FULL VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Hey, it’s Connor Marriott here. In this video, I’m going to be talking about why I fired my entire team and built a new one, and so the purpose of this video is to basically help out any business owner that is thinking about hiring their team for the first time, so maybe you’re about to make your first hire, you’re thinking about your first position to hire, or if you’ve already made some hires, all the way up to a team of five or 10, so if you’re just selling out, you’re about to hire, or you have about 10 employees. This is the video that I wish I watched a year or two ago, because I went through a period where in hindsight, I had the wrong team, but I didn’t know any different, and so I’m creating this video, really to speak to past owner, and in doing so, hopefully help out a lot of business owners as they’re starting to build their team. The reason I think this is such an important topic is because a lot of businesses get stuck at the point where they have one, two or three employees, and they don’t really move past that point, and your first few hires really determine the trajectory of your growth. If you make some great hires at the start, you’ll continue to grow, you’ll continue to improve, and you’ll continue to hire. However, if you make the wrong choices in the first few people you hire, chances are, you won’t continue to hire, and this can keep your business stuck forever, and this is why, I think a lot of business owners get stuck at one, two or three employees and never move past it because potentially, they have the wrong employees, and so in this video, I’m going to show you a framework that I created to identify if you do have the wrong team or if it’s you as the leader that actually needs to improve, and so again, this is basically the framework I created. There’s three things, three ways to identify it. Before I go into that, I’m going to tell you the story of how I came to realize this, and then I’ll break down the three things. Before I dive in, there’s two caveats I want to make. Number one, I’m definitely not an expert when it comes to building a team. Right now, we’ve got a team of 10, but I went through a period where there was a lot of pain and frustration of having the wrong team, and so I’m grateful for that because I’ve learnt a lot, and so the purpose of this video is not to show you how to build a team of 100. I don’t know how to do that, but it is here to serve as a way to avoid the mistakes I made, because I definitely made a lot of them. Again, I’m not an expert in building a massive team, but my goal of this video is to help you avoid the mistakes that I made. The second caveat I’m going to make is that when I talk about leaders and managers, I’m talking about one person, right? When you hire your first few people, you, as a business owner, the CEO, the founder, you are the leader and the manager. As an organization grows, those two roles can be split apart. You can have the leader, say the CEO who’s setting the vision, telling people where we’re going, and then you’ve got a manager who’s doing the day-to-day integrating with the team, so it could be a CEO or a COO, two separate roles. When you’re starting out, when you have your first couple hires, all the way up to maybe five or 10, both those roles are probably going to be you, and so when I talk about leaders and managers, I’m talking about the one person, even though long-term, these are two separate roles. Before I get into the framework, I’m going to give you a bit of backstory. When I first started out in business, I didn’t know any other business owners, or at least I wasn’t very close to them, and so I only knew myself and the people I grew up with and went to high school with, and so when I looked at myself and my standard and my work ethic and what I put into my business, and then I looked at everyone I knew, I was very different. I had a very high standard for myself. I had very high expectations, I worked a lot, I worked very hard, and everyone else I knew didn’t really have that same standard, and so because I didn’t know anyone else that was at that level … Not saying that I was at an extremely high level. I just didn’t know anyone else. I thought that my standard was abnormal, and I actually thought it would be unreasonable to find team members that would have the same standard as I did. In hindsight, I was incredibly wrong and there definitely are people that have my standards. Some actually have far higher standards than myself, but at the time, due to my own ignorance, I didn’t think that those people existed, and so when I made my first few hires, when I started building my team, I didn’t expect people to be on the same level as me. Again, I’m not saying that as like an arrogant way of saying I was on such a high level. I wasn’t. I did work very hard and I had high standards, but I was just comparing myself to everyone else I knew, and so when I made my first few hires, when I started building my team, I didn’t aim for people that shared my standard because I didn’t think that existed, and again, in hindsight, that’s very naive of me to think. When I hired the first few people, that they weren’t at the standard that I was, but I still had the standard for the business, right? I had standards for myself and I had standards for the business, and the people I hired weren’t quite there, and so one of the frameworks we teach our clients is ownership. This is a mental framework that I believe every business owner should have, and that is of ownership. That basically means that everything in your business is your fault. If someone makes a mistake, it’s your fault. If something goes wrong, it’s your fault. You need to take ownership, because if you blame other people, you lose control, and so to do well in anything in life, you need to take ownership, and so this is a very important mental framework to have. However, it can create some problems, because if you’re building a team and you have the wrong people and they’re not performing, if you’re taking ownership of that, you’re saying, “It’s my fault,” which you should do most of the time, then it can blind you to the fact that maybe you’ve got the wrong people, and this is what was happening. I had a team, they weren’t performing at my standard, and as a business owner, I thought it was my responsibility to get them at the standard, and so this went on for about 18 months. I was pushing my team, I was trying to give them all the resources, all the tools, all the training, all the support to be at the standard that I was setting, and they weren’t reaching that, and so I just kept looking at myself and being like, “Okay, I need to work harder.” “I need to put more into this. I need to give them more time and energy,” and it created a very negative situation for me because it was so demanding of my mental bandwidth each day. I was completely exhausted. I didn’t want to hire more people because the people that I had were taking so much of my energy, and like I said, this went on for about 18 months, until one day, I went to a mastermind with a bunch of other business owners who were doing … They’re very successful in their business. After telling them the story and the situation of what was going on, they told me that, “Maybe you’ve got the wrong people.” When I first heard this, I thought, “Well, that’s not true. It’s my fault. I’m taking responsibility. If they’re not where they need to be, that’s on me,” and they kept telling me like, “No. You’ve probably got the wrong people.” “It shouldn’t be this way.” This took me a very, very long time to kind of understand, and I had a lot of resistance about it at the start. I would say, “No, it’s my fault,” and they just kept telling me, “No. You’ve probably got the wrong people.” After too long, I finally realized that I did, in fact, have the wrong people, and this can happen. You can have the wrong people, but there are also situations where you have the right people, but you as the business owner or the leader are not giving them the tools to succeed, and so in this video, I want to give you a framework that you can use to identify, “Do you have the right people, and it’s you as a business owner that needs to improve, or do you actually have the wrong people?” Again, this can be very challenging because as a business owner, you should take responsibility for everything, but there are situations where you have the wrong people, and so in this video, I’m going to break down the framework, and there’s three areas that you can ask yourself or three things that you can look at to figure out, “Do I have the right people and do I need to train them better, or do I maybe have the wrong people?” The first framework, and this is the most important, is the standard of the individual. As the leader, as a CEO, as a business owner, your role is to set the standard, and then to give your team all of the tools, resources, training, support to reach the standard. It is not your role to make that person want to reach the standard. This is very important, so I’m going to repeat it. It is your responsibility, your role as the leader to set the standard and to give your team everything they need to reach the standard, but if they are not intrinsically motivated to reach the standard, that is not on you, and that is probably the wrong person, and so what I was finding was I was forcing my standard onto these people, and they weren’t motivated to reach it, and so what happened was I would push. I would give them a lot of energy. I’d give them a lot of time. I’d try to basically push them uphill to reach the standard, and they didn’t want to do it. When you have the right people, they want to reach the standard. They’re intrinsically motivated, and you basically just need to give them the frameworks and the trainings and the tools to do it, and they will want to do it, but when you have the wrong people, they won’t, and so this is the first way you can identify if you have the right or wrong people. “Are they intrinsically motivated to reach your standard?,” and if they’re not, they’re probably the wrong people, and so this is the first thing you need to understand, and it’s very, very powerful. The best way to identify if this is happening is by looking at how you feel after you talk to your team. If you talk to your team and you are drained, then that probably means you’re trying to put your standard on them, and they don’t want to reach it, and so this is what happens. You’re trying to get them to be at a certain standard, and they don’t want to be there themselves, and so you’re forcing them. You’re pushing all your energy onto them to try to like move them up this hill and get to this level, and they don’t want to do it, and so it’s very draining. On the other hand, when you have the right people, when you talk to them, you’re like, “Here’s a standard,” they’re like, “Awesome. How do I get there?,” and it gives you energy. It motivates you because they want to be there too, and you just need to give them the guidance, right? It’s not so much of, “Are they at the standard?,” because when you hire someone, they’re not going to be at your standard because they still need to learn. You still need to train them. The question is, “Do they want to be at that standard?,” and if they don’t, it is not your responsibility to get them there. They need to be intrinsically motivated to reach a standard, and then you give them the tools and resources to do so, but if they don’t want to be there, it’s probably the wrong people. The second aspect of this comes down to growth. The purpose of hiring an employee is to grow your business, and so the way it works, typically, let’s say in your day-to-day, when you’re starting out, there’s five things you’re doing each day, and you’ve got five units of energy to give these five things. When you hire someone, their role is to come in and take one of those things, which should then free up more energy so that you can do something else, so you’re spending your time doing something, you get someone in, and then you can do more, and then you can get someone else in, and you can do more, and you can continue to grow like this. If you’re not able to grow after you hire someone, then again, it may be the wrong person, and so a good rule of thumb is that if you hire someone and six months later, you’re not ready to hire someone else additionally on top, then you may have made the wrong hire. This goes for all roles, not just roles that are associated with growth. An example of this would be an EA, or an executive assistant. The role of an executive assistant is not necessarily to help you grow, right? They’re not doing marketing, they’re not doing sales, so they’re not doing growth activities, but that individual should give you an additional 10, 15, 20, 30 hours of your time back each week so that you can focus on growing. Even the roles that aren’t directly associated with growth should allow you to keep growing, and if they’re not, then, again, you may have the wrong people. What I was finding is that when I had the wrong people, was that, let’s say there were five things that I was doing, I would hire someone to do one of those things, which should have freed up energy and bandwidth for me to focus on something new, but instead, what was happening was because this person wasn’t performing and because they didn’t want to perform, I was now thinking about, number one, “Is this task being done?,” and number two, the person that’s doing this task, “Are they okay?,” and so my focus was actually split. Not just on one thing, but now, on two additional things because I was worrying about the person and the task that that person was supposed to do, and so rather than giving me more bandwidth, it was actually taking more bandwidth, and so when I was thinking about this, I was like, “Well, I don’t want to keep hiring people,” because I was so drained. I would say about 85% of my mental bandwidth each day was going to, “Is this person doing their role?,” “Is this task being done,” and, “Is this person motivated to do it?,” and so that’s not the situation you want. You want to hire someone, and once they’re trained, you should be able to have additional bandwidth and energy and focus each day to put onto new things. Again, to give you an example, I now have more energy, mental bandwidth and focus each day with a team of 10 of the right people than what I used to have with a team of three of the wrong people, and so that’s one way you can gauge it, when you bring someone on, if six months later, “Are you ready to hire someone new and keep growing, or are you staying stuck?” This is such an important thing to understand, because again, so many business owners get stuck after one, two or three hires because those hires aren’t allowing them to grow. The first way to identify it is standards. “Are they intrinsically motivated to reach the standard you set?,” the second way is, “Has this person allowed me to grow?,” and the third way comes down to surprises and new ideas. The right people, they will surprise you. They will give you new ideas. They will give you new strategies. They’ll look at things in new ways, and they’ll help you grow, and that’s awesome. When you have the right people, they’ll contribute to the growth of your business. They’ll say, “Hey, maybe we should do this. Maybe we could improve this.” The wrong people won’t do that. They may surprise you, but it’s always a negative surprise, right? It’s always like, “Oh, you didn’t do this again,” or, “You forgot to do this.” Right? There are surprises, sure, but they’re never positive surprises. The right people will surprise you positively, and so they’re the three ways to identify if you have the right people. Number one, “Are they intrinsically motivated to reach your standard?,” number two, “Have they helped you grow? Do you have more mental bandwidth to focus on growth?,” and number three, “Do they surprise you in a positive way and offer new ideas and strategies?” I want to stress this again, this is such an important thing to understand because a lot of businesses never move past a couple hires because of the people they hire, and sometimes it is that the leader or the manager or the business owner is not providing the tools and resources to grow or to meet the standard, but sometimes it is that you just have the wrong people. If you’re someone like me, who I used to be, where I thought, “No one would reach my standard,” I can assure you there are people who will have your standards. There are people who will exceed your standards. It just comes down to finding the right people, and so hopefully this has been useful. If you are thinking about hiring a team, these are the things that I’m looking for now, “Is this person intrinsically motivated to grow?,” “Are they able to help me grow?,” “Are they able to offer new ideas?,” and when you have those people, you’ll enjoy hiring, you’ll look forward to hiring, and you’ll be able to continue hiring. Like I said, now I have more energy and bandwidth and focus with a team of 10, and I have more than when I used to have a team of three. That kind of shows the difference of when you have the right team, it shouldn’t take your energy. It shouldn’t drain you. It should actually give you energy and it should allow you to continue growing your business. Again, hopefully this is helpful. If you’re thinking about hiring or if you have a couple hires, you can run through this framework to identify, “Are they the right people?,” and if they are intrinsically motivated, if they do help you grow, and they are offering new ideas, and they’re not at the standard you want, then it’s probably now on you to give them the tools and resources to reach the standard, but if they don’t want to be at the standard that you’re setting and they don’t understand why it’s important that they reach the standard, then it may be the wrong people. Again, hopefully this is useful. Hopefully you enjoyed this. If you have, be sure to give it a thumbs up and subscribe for more videos like this, and I’ll see you in the next video.
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