WEBVTT

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started. So last week we talked about leading three different types of people.

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I know that was really fun.

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We learned about how to identify them and we also wanted to understand which

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strategies to employ when we're dealing with that poor behavior.

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So I hope all of you guys enjoyed that empowerment, the insight,

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the strategy, and even just the practical tools that we took away from that

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training. So today we are actually switching gears just a little bit.

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We're talking about what it looks like to hire great people.

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So we're going to be using some space X strategies for hiring well,

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and learning how to train our leaders to do this effectively as well.

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And so just before we dive in, I do have a pro tip for you all today.

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And this pro tip is all about when you're starting your new week and your fresh

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to-do list in your Q book, don't forget to visualize what done looks like.

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This is one of my favorite things because you can do it broadly for your whole

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week, or you can just do a done. What does done look like for your day?

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So an example of this is, you know,

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if I'm working on writing blogs for the company done for me,

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it looks like I'm visualizing myself actually hitting the publish button on that

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article, which means, you know, it's been written,

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it's been proofread with all the links and thumbnails, or, you know,

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even if for example, I'm working on a thin slice project done,

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means I can actually picture and visualize the team's reaction as I am wrapping

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up my presentation, or I've not just completed the task,

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but I've also delivered, you know, what was expected.

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So whatever the task is,

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do be sure to visualize the end point and not just the steps.

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And this is a tool that will help you with both starting and finishing the items

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in your Q book. And then just one quick reminder before we jump in,

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as we're going through the material today, please do add your questions,

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your comments, your thoughts, emojis to the chat.

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We do love to hear what's resonating with you during the training time.

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And with that Dion, I will hand it over to you.

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Excellent. Thank you so much. I apologize for my voice,

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which is totally worn out from all the teaching, training, talking, and meetings.

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But I do look forward to this.

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One of my favorite times to hang out with you guys

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and to meet with everybody and talk through this.

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So I was thinking about this,

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how I learned the key element of what I want to share with you today.

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And by the way, this might be worth the value of the course right here.

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So some of you might be sitting and thinking, well, you know, I'm not a manager.

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I'm not the CEO. I'm not the owner.

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I don't know why I need to know this.

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And my answer to you is this will help your career immensely,

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especially if you go from this to another job.

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And also you'll appreciate why you're here and that you're already in.

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And I know that going through this process,

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how I first learned this, I was in my mid-twenties

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and I was running a software company.

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And I was working with a big insurance group.

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And we were rolling out sales technology for this group.

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And we were training over about 3,000 of their salespeople.

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And I really learned early on,

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and I was very interested in sales psychology and what makes a great salesperson.

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And so I asked the senior vice president of sales,

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and I asked him what, his name was Peter Bias, I remember.

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And Peter worked for a company called Southern Life.

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And they're a pretty big company.

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It was a fast growing insurance company.

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And I asked Peter, so Peter, how do you find these great salespeople?

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I mean, how do you get such amazing people?

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He's like, well, you know, when they come in,

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I'm looking for people who didn't grow up with a dad.

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I was like, what?

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And he goes, and, you know, because they had to really fight

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because I didn't grow up with a dad and so on.

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And then I said, let's go to lunch.

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And then I bring my briefcase, even though I don't need to.

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And then I say, I want to put in the trunk of their car.

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And if they open the trunk of the car and it's a complete mess

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and there's dirt everywhere,

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and then I know there's not a person who's going to fit here.

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And I thought, what a random list of criteria to use.

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And so it got me thinking a lot about what are great predictors

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of a performance, a high performance person?

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Because I mean, how do you decide in a few hours or an hour or two

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whether someone's going to be a good fit for your team?

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How do you decide, you know, even how to hire them?

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So the second part I learned in doing all of this was

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I was thinking about how do I hire people above this company's pay grade?

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How do I hire people that are bigger, better than me,

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bigger, better than the company?

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How do I get that kind of talent to take the risk in their career?

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And, you know, for it to feel a little bit like a step down,

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maybe I can't even pay them what they're being paid now.

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But then...

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I found an incredible, for me it was a secret, an incredible key on how that actually works.

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And what I realized is if you have an amazing culture where people feel it's a space to grow

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and expand, a lot of people will take a pay cut just to get out of their toxic environment.

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They would take a pay cut to get out of an environment that is high pressure,

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massive stress, not much recognition. And then I started to really study this

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and was in one of the research papers while I was doing my doctoral thesis. I came across this

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research and the research told a story. And the story was from PricewaterhouseCoopers

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and somebody had written a paper about why it's so hard to hire millennials. So to all the

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millennials, now everyone's starting to focus on Gen Z, so maybe we'll have Gen Z stories soon.

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But I love this story because this young person who started working in the accounting firm of

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PricewaterhouseCoopers is, as you know, they have whatever it is, 200,000 employees in 180

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countries or whatever. So it's a very big company. And so in that big company,

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her boss's boss came in one day and she was working and he was like, hey, welcome to the company.

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And then he said to her, listen, man, you just got to be here early in the morning, stay late

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at night, try to come in on weekends, because that's what I do. He said, I do that.

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I'm here all the time. I'm 10 hours a day. I'm here six days a week. She looked him in the eye

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and said, I'm sorry it takes you so long to do your work. And I thought, what a great answer,

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actually. Right. And it got me down this path of, is there a way to work that you don't,

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you can bring an amazing contribution to the business and at the same time still have a life

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and love what you're doing? And then is there a way to make it a little more effortless? And that

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got me down this whole path around which ultimately became The Edge and all this training

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we're doing is the discovery of each of these wonderful components. And then if you do it as

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a team and you do it and you work together as a team, that creates a culture that actually

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is the most powerful recruiting tool you have. Not the salary, not the title, none of that stuff.

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And so I thought, OK, if we're building this incredible recruiting tool called a powerful

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culture, a team of leaders, you know, a lot of people aren't going to believe that. So

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how do we go through an interview process that opens up what it is, who we are, what it is we

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want? Because it can't just be that we're trying to see, are you a good fit for us? The question

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also is, are we a good fit for you? So, you know, we do all the legal stuff of first 90 days of

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probation and so forth, but we don't want somebody to come work for us for three months and then say,

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I'm so sorry, didn't work out. We've done it once, but I don't want that again. So what is a great

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predictor of performance? What things can you learn up front? And so I put together a list,

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a lot of different research, all compiled. And here's the bottom line. I always like to give

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you just the essence of the thing. So here's the bottom line around what are great predictors.

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And we'll start, first of all, what are terrible predictors of success? In other words, so the

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three things are, which includes my friend Peter, first impressions are a terrible predictor. Some

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people get nervous. Some people misrepresent themselves. Some people don't do well in

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interviews and they're great people and you want them to work for your organization. So first

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impressions is terrible. Secondly, rule of thumb, you know, that kind of, well, we've always done

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this, like, you know, the rule of thumb of, I'll look and see how clean his car is. And if that's

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a mess. And he always said his, because he only married, he only hired men who grew up without a

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father and his cars were clean. I thought, what a random, crazy decision structures that, and that

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sounds crazy to you, but you'd be amazed if you ask leaders what they actually use. It's all this

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rule of thumb stuff, terrible predictor and gut decisions. I just had a gut feel about this person,

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you know, you can be wrong. So, okay. So those are terrible predictors. What are weak predictors?

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Weak predictors are, and they may surprise you, skills, experience, competency, or compensation.

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Oh, the last company paid them, you know, $180,000.

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80,000 a year, they must be really good. No. The last

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company may be terrible at hiring people. Don't inherit

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their bad mistakes. So skills, experience, competency,

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compensation. By the way, if you're taking notes, you don't

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need to, I've put together a massive cheat sheet for you at

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the end of this. And have we already dropped it? Yeah, we

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already dropped it, did we? Oh, it's already there. So it's all

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there, everything I'm talking about. It's on the bottom of the

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page. Then the next thing is, so what are strong predictors? And

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then I want to share with you what are essential predictors.

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So strong predictors are things like achiever patterns. There's

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a pattern of achievement here. And if you're doing an interview

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and you're going to a job, you want to show that you have

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achiever patterns. Secondly, the ability to learn, the ability to

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adapt quickly, change, pivot, learn new skills, expand your

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job. How many of you are doing the job today that you were

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hired for? Anybody did? Anybody? No. Nobody in this. Yeah, I was

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hired to do this. And my job just grew. Probably three weeks

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in, that job description was close to worthless. Six months

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in, I was like, what? They hired me to do that? I mean, it's not

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even, you know, maybe at the highest level, like, hey, you

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should drive sales. Sure. But in the detail of what they asked,

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so the ability to learn, adapt, organizational skills, good

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problem solving skills, team skills, the ability to function

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in a team to bring your strength in a team, the ability to deal

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with change in a positive way, and the ability to grow quickly.

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These are very, very strong predictors. Notice I have not,

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anybody knows what's missing so far out of that predictor?

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Anybody know? I didn't mention what? Education. I didn't

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mention they have a university degree, a PhD and nothing, it

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doesn't actually matter. As I told my kids, you should go to

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college doesn't really matter, because it's a ticket to get

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into the arena to play the game. You know, now, you know, it

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can't be a completely worthless degree. But at the same time,

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even if it was a completely worthless degree, a lot of

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companies are just especially big corporations are doing just

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doing the check. Oh, yeah, they have a degree. And it's a

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terrible predictor, or as Elon said, universities are great,

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because you meet you meet people your own age, and you show you

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can do your chores outside of that it's worthless. And, and

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it's, you know, and I'm sorry, for those of you that put a lot

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of time into your academic studies, that would be me. And,

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you know, four degrees later, I love I love the process of

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learning, I didn't do degrees for themselves. Although my most

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useful one is still engineering, because it taught me think and

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do math and physics. And so those are very, very strong

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predictions. But let me give you the three essential predictors.

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These are the three things that make it all work. Number one,

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there's a cultural fit, our culture of trust, versus the

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traditional cultural of mistrust that most companies run

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in is huge. Now, you might say, Hey, man, everybody's gonna love

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to be part of a culture of trust. Not true. Because there are

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implications about a culture of trust, like we don't check up on

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you, we expect that you will act as a leader. And there are

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people who don't want that responsibility, they do not want

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they are literally people who just want to be told what to do,

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show up, do their job, pick up their paycheck, go home. And

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that those people will never work for any company, I leave,

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because I just don't have time to, to drag them through the

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process, because they're not. And because they're not growing

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and are in our cultures to constantly train constantly

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grow, get that growth curve. Because the one the company that

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innovates the fastest wins, right, we know that. And so you

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need a team that can actually do that. And then the second big

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one is leadership skills. Even if you're just leading your own

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contribution, that sense of ownership, I own my inputs on

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my outputs, I'm a self starter, I don't need to be told what to

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do every day. I don't immediately micromanage, I do

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want support, though, but I want space to grow as a leader. That

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way, you're seeding your company with with leaders that as you

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expand, you've got an immediate resource to build your

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organization on. And then job fit, obviously, they have to be

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able to physically do the job. So competence isn't nothing.

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It's just not the main thing. And I've hired people before

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that had no background at that for the job. But I just I just

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went through all the process. There was such a great culture

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for they were so smart, there was had real leadership skill,

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and I took the risk. And you know, in every case

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that's worked out, because people are going to grow. So what we want to know is when we're

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when we're going through the process of hiring people, we want to determine a few things like

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we want to really get to know the person, because we want to determine how driven are they,

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you know, in, in all the attributes you could put towards, you know, a great employee drive

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is the one thing that I don't know if it can be taught, I may be wrong, but I in 30 something

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years, I have never seen anyone go from a person with no drive to suddenly having a lot of it.

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Now, people going through a bad patch in their life, but they normally driven, I'm not talking

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about in the moment, I'm just talking as a general. So we want to ask and press questions

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right into how driven are they? How do they think? Secondly, we want to ascertain their problem

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solving skills. How do they deal with life? How do they deal with difficulties? How do they deal

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with failure? And, you know, in an interview, nobody wants to talk about how they failed,

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but if they will, but if they can talk about their failure and show how they learn from it,

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that is huge. So if you're doing an interview, by the way, I'm not encouraging anyone to leave

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the company you're at, that's not why they put you on the edge training. But if, but you know,

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we're always investing in you beyond what the company gets directly, right? That's what we say

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to our team. We want you to be the smartest person in the room, wherever you go, including

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how well you do during the process during the interview process. And finally, you want to make

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sure there's a cultural fit. And the best summary I've heard of cultural fit are the three C's.

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You want character, competence, and chemistry, character, competence, chemistry. Think about

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people you know. Think about, let's start with, think of a good team member in your team.

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And if you think about it, you'll realize they count, they are people of character.

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They are people who are good at their jobs. They are people of competence, and we like them. There's

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some chemistry with them, or the team likes them. We don't necessarily like them every day all the

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time, but we generally do. And that works. So think of when one's missing, you can have an amazing

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person with great character, incredible chemistry. We all love her or love him two bits,

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but they are incompetent, right? Take anyone out. Highly competent. Everybody loves them,

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but I don't know about their character, man. Those people lie. They make up stuff.

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Or, so again, you take out one of them, and the whole thing falls over.

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So we want character, we want chemistry, we want competence. Let me breathe there for a second,

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in my voice a second. So we're not going to do breakouts today, because I want to walk you

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through the nuts and bolts, and I'm going to give you probably a 15-year journey of a way to hire

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the greatest people, and I'm going to give you a detailed playbook. So we talked about playbooks

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a few weeks back. Well, today, I'm just going to hand you the playbook book for hiring great people,

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right down to every question that you need to ask or can ask, and I'm going to talk through

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what's the mechanism for pulling that all together. But before I do, hey, Jalen, do you want

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to tell us, you've been through this process fairly recently, and you know, it's a long process here

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at Brilliant, right? Four interviews, some of them gone for two, three hours, it's a long process. Tell us

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how was for you, what was your experience as you went through it? Oh man, yeah, so that was about

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a year and a half ago, and I've been through many interviews in my life, some multi-step interviews,

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and I, none of them compared to Brilliant in the best way. And I remember you were, first you were

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talking about how, you know, some people would be willing to leave a high stress environment,

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even if it means like taking a pay cut or, you know, working less hours, and I feel like I was

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kind of there in terms of where I came from before. I kind of just knew, okay, I love the people

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here, but I don't love the environment, and it's really high stress. So when I came into my interview

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with Brilliant, what I thought was most noteworthy, and you touched on this, Dion, but you said

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in the interview as the employer we're looking for, are we a good fit for you? And I remember

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Jenny was really clearly giving me kind of the vision of the company. I got some background about

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Graham as the leader, and I remember she said to me, you know, Brilliant is a lifestyle, and maybe

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it's not for everyone. These are kind of the things that make up Brilliant, and I didn't

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realize at the time, but she was giving me all of those details so that I could ascertain for

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myself, do I think I'll be a good fit, and I just remember it being one of those interviews where it

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felt like they were asking questions that were going to be really hard to answer, and I was

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Getting to the core of who I was.

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I think Jenny mentioned this in one of our previous edge calls, but I was

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kind of like, okay, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't

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definitely one of the people that cried in my interview, because I just

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know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't

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remember Jenny was asking questions that were really getting to, how do I think?

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What are my long-term goals?

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What are my dreams?

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What would that look like here at Brilliant?

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And I think it was the first time in an interview that I felt as if every part

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of me was being considered, not just that I was being hired to fit a job description.

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So, yeah, it was, it was really unique.

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And I remember just thinking, well, I've never experienced anything like this.

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So yeah, a couple, a couple of thoughts.

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Thanks, Shannon.

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I appreciate that.

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And, and I just, I asked Shannon to do that because I just wanted

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you to see from the other side.

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We tend as the company or as the manager or the leader to just

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see it from our own side, right?

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And when we do it as a two-way street, it sets them up to, when you come here,

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we are going to make a massive investment in your leadership

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development and in your productivity.

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And we're going to give you the best tools from around the

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world in a single system.

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We're going to put it all together for you.

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And to make that massive commitment, we got to know you're in here, you know?

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So when we see on your resume, you change jobs every 18 months to two years.

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I wouldn't necessarily say that's a, you know, that's a bad predictor.

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I know a lot of people say that.

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I have actually found that, that, you know, it's, it's an okay predictor, but

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it's not, it's, it's certainly worth the conversation and bringing it up.

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So let's talk about what are the steps we go through.

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And there's four steps in the hiring process and then the actual onboarding.

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So we'll call it five steps.

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So they're the interviews and there are four of them.

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Then we make the candidate an offer.

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They confirm the offer.

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We send them an agreement and then they're, they start and they're onboarded.

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So what we're going to focus today on is just step number one,

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which is the hardest by far.

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And that's the interview process.

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So when we go through the interview process, what we want to do is we want

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the person who's going to be working closest to that person to do the actual

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hiring, it doesn't help if I'm as the president of the company, I'm hiring

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somebody who doesn't actually going to report to me.

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So if, so in this case a lot of times when we go through this process, we've

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set it up in such a way that the manager is going to drive the process.

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And after each interview, the manager has to call their manager, their leader.

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So for instance, when Jenny was hiring Jalen or someone else, or somebody in

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our team was hiring, they were calling me after each interview, the

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last interviews with me anyway, but the, they were calling me.

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And what I found in the beginning is that they didn't

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rigorously apply this process.

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And you may remember when Dia was with us, she went through several

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hires and she said the single thing she wish she did, she wish

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she implemented this thing.

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Exactly.

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It's like the Q system.

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If you implement it exactly, and you don't soften the questions,

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it will really help you.

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So what we want to do is have a high-level interview plan.

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We know there's four steps and we want to tell the interviewee, the

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candidate, Hey, we're going to take you through a four step process.

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And then while we're setting this all up, we put together what

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we call a participation table.

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Now, what do we mean by that?

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Because there's the managers doing the main interview, and then usually

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the second interview involves someone else often from somebody who's,

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you know, is going to be able to be financially make the offer.

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And then there's going to be an interview with the team they will

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be working with, and then there'll be the interview with the owner,

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CEO, president, whoever the most senior executive person running the businesses.

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So each of those steps, each of those four steps is what we, we're

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going to go through and put that together in that fashion.

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So, so in the, in the, in putting all this together, I will, let's go

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through the, the very, you know, the very first process, so we, we,

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sorry, before we do that, so we write up the interview, we go

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through the participation table.

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Then we want to have a high-level description of what the

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position requirements are.

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Obviously we have to have a range of offers that we've

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prepared financially to offer.

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And so it's very high level at this point, because you want to be

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able to customize it based on, if you get an exceptional person, I

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think as a general rule, if you find an outstanding person, regardless

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of their age, their gender, their background, their education, if

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they're an outstanding person, hire them.

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I mean, it's so rare to find such good people.

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I would say find a way.

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And so you don't want to set the upfront structure so tight.

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type that you knock out a great candidate who may not be a perfect fit but would easily be able to

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grow into what you need and would just be a great person on your team. So you hire good people even

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if you're not sometimes I've hired people even when I wasn't looking for them because I bumped

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into them along the way and I said you should go through the interview process. You definitely want

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to get their resume beforehand. I know we said you know look for job skipping and all that all that

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is we're looking for patterns, we're looking for conversation points, we're not disqualifying them

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beforehand and then we want to tell the candidate hey we're going to take you through a

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five-step process. Each interview may last you know two to three hours and by the way you cannot

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rush this. You cannot rush this. So let's talk about what happens in interview number one

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which can be anywhere from two to four hours. I once did one that was seven hours so it was

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because it was for a C. I was hiring a president of my of a company so that was longer and we did

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I think all four were over three to five hours. Now not everything is going to be that

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long and here's why it takes so much time especially when I tell you that fundamentally we're

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going to ask one question that sounds very counterintuitive and as Jalen said at the beginning

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of the call this is a variant or a version of what SpaceX do. Last year SpaceX and Tesla had

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over a hundred thousand people apply for jobs and I think they and they hired 1500, 1.5 percent.

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So these are some of the best candidates in the world, some of the smartest technical people in

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the world. As we've already mentioned before this system is designed to solve that problem

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but it's also designed to solve your problem. So here's what we're doing in interview number one.

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We're measuring performance and the strategy here is to drill down as far as possible on the one

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key question. Here's the hardest, here's the question. What is the hardest problem

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you have solved or difficulty you've overcome? What we're trying to determine here is are they

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self-driven and how they deal with challenges. If somebody now when I say you think that well

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they'll answer that in five or ten minutes now what do I ask? You need to ask but how did that

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happen? Where did that happen? So tell me what is the most difficult thing? Well the most difficult

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thing was learning to sell properly and I loved selling but then I got on this team and you know

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there were 20 sales people on the team and then you know I grew up and I just worked so hard

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and I just didn't have their background. I was the youngest on the team so I had to do and then

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they explained the details. Well so where did you end up? Where are you in the sales? Where did you

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end up? Well I end up as number three. Well why weren't you one or two? Well they were better

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than me. In what way were they better than you? What did they do that you didn't do? What is it

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that they took on that you didn't take on? You've got to press them. This sounds unkind but you've got

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to press and press as we say keep driving down the road till you hit the t-junction till you've got

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to keep pressing and here's how you know you've got to the end of it they start repeating themselves.

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Here's one thing I've learned. Oh I was on a team and we took the company from a million dollars to

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five million dollars and we did it in 18 months. Cool. How many people on your team? Well there

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were four of us. Okay and how did you do that? Well we did this and this. Then you find out if

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you press the details they don't know the details because they weren't the one driving the process.

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They were on the team but they weren't the originator of the idea. The real leader will

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know the details and will answer your questions all day long. That's the key. You have to keep

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pressing them. Keep pressing them. Who did that? What role did you play? Explain that role to me.

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How did that contribute to the success? How did you move from one to five million?

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What was the reason it was only one million? In other words, was it about to go to five

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million anyway? In other words, did a previous group do all the work? It's like politicians

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right? A new president comes in. The last president spent eight years fixing everything and now the full

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fruit of it hits and they go look I've only been here three months and I've solved all these

401
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wonderful problems. There's no way you solved all these wonderful problems. You're just getting

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the inertia of someone else. So you need to be careful that somebody doesn't position themselves

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as a high performance person and the way you find that out is do they know the details and you need

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to press and press and press and let it take as long as it takes. The next thing you're trying

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to come to a decision if you want to do the next interview.

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If not, thank them for their time, be gracious, send them a

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note afterwards explaining. You appreciate that. And here's what

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we're pressing for. Let's say in this interview, I've determined

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how this person thinks. And because I've determined how they

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think, and I think this is a really, you know, go getter,

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self starter, think this is going to work. What I'm looking

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for next is what's the risk and support this person needs?

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Everybody needs support. Maybe they're maybe, you know, when

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they started their career, they may be further in their career

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now, and they didn't grow up with some of the tools, you

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know, some of the tech tools, or they didn't, they're not familiar

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with some of the software that you used, or, or maybe they just

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need support where, you know, they, they have some quirk, some

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need support, we all have that, right. So your job is to as

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you're going through and pressing and pressing, and by

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the way, you want to press them a little bit, I don't wanna say

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forcefully, but directly. And the reason is, you want to see

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how they handle your pressure. The interview is a stressful

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place, let's see how they do. And every now and again, you can

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just back up, you know, lighten it up and say, hey, we're not

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00:31:08.480 --> 00:31:12.280
trying to trap you, we're just trying to get to know you. And

427
00:31:12.320 --> 00:31:15.760
so as you go through that process, people must feel like

428
00:31:15.760 --> 00:31:20.040
you're genuinely trying to find. Now, when when we ask that

429
00:31:20.040 --> 00:31:23.440
question, a lot of people think, are you asking that my personal

430
00:31:23.440 --> 00:31:26.880
things I've overcome or business things? And we say,

431
00:31:26.880 --> 00:31:30.040
well, which one would you like to answer? And often they'll tell

432
00:31:30.040 --> 00:31:32.800
you, you know, I went through a divorce, or I lost a child or

433
00:31:32.800 --> 00:31:36.600
tell you a really heartbreaking story and how they coped with

434
00:31:36.600 --> 00:31:39.320
that. There's a lot to be learned from somebody who

435
00:31:39.320 --> 00:31:42.480
volunteers that kind of information. But as you know,

436
00:31:42.520 --> 00:31:45.720
legally, you can't ask that kind of information. But if they

437
00:31:45.720 --> 00:31:49.880
volunteer it, you know, let them run with it. But I we're trying

438
00:31:49.880 --> 00:31:54.120
to find out what have you done professionally. So I hired a

439
00:31:54.120 --> 00:32:00.000
young man who, who, you know, was an engineer. And he was in

440
00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:05.800
his early 20s. And but when he was when he was 12, he designed

441
00:32:05.800 --> 00:32:09.920
a new electronic system that used a very sophisticated

442
00:32:10.200 --> 00:32:14.760
acoustic, you know, mechanism. And he designed the electronic

443
00:32:14.760 --> 00:32:17.280
from the ground up built built the thing and he sold it to the

444
00:32:17.280 --> 00:32:22.000
military. And they wrote him a check for, you know, $15,000 or

445
00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:25.080
whatever. And then when he was 16, he did this. And when he was

446
00:32:25.080 --> 00:32:28.080
18, he did that. Do you think I'm sitting there wondering

447
00:32:28.080 --> 00:32:32.040
which school he went to? And whether it was MIT or not?

448
00:32:32.560 --> 00:32:36.600
Seriously, I'm just fascinated by this person. You did that? No,

449
00:32:36.600 --> 00:32:41.080
but you actually put the components in the PC board? Yes.

450
00:32:41.520 --> 00:32:44.040
And you tested it? How? Where did you get the money? Well, I

451
00:32:44.040 --> 00:32:47.320
borrowed 200 from my uncle and so and so and then I and you

452
00:32:47.320 --> 00:32:50.520
just see how they hustle, right? That's what I'm looking for

453
00:32:50.520 --> 00:32:54.520
their second interview. Now we're going to drill down to all

454
00:32:54.520 --> 00:32:58.280
the areas of risk. So what we do between the steps is usually

455
00:32:58.280 --> 00:33:00.120
this person is doing the interview checks in with the

456
00:33:00.120 --> 00:33:02.760
manager and says, Look, these are all the things I've learned.

457
00:33:03.480 --> 00:33:07.200
As the person training managers, I can tell you almost always

458
00:33:07.200 --> 00:33:10.120
step one doesn't get done properly. Almost always, it

459
00:33:10.120 --> 00:33:13.720
takes some skill, it takes some learning, because they back off

460
00:33:13.720 --> 00:33:16.600
and you may need to jump in and be part of that process

461
00:33:16.600 --> 00:33:20.480
initially, if you're the leader, because you really want to press

462
00:33:20.520 --> 00:33:25.000
that first point. Point two is now we really now one of the

463
00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:28.040
most powerful techniques and strategies you can use for role

464
00:33:28.080 --> 00:33:32.080
to is role playing stuff like, hey, we're launching a new

465
00:33:32.080 --> 00:33:36.200
project. How would you approach that? We haven't got much social

466
00:33:36.200 --> 00:33:39.560
media, we want to revamp our entire social media. What steps

467
00:33:39.560 --> 00:33:42.720
would you take to make that happen? If it's a social media

468
00:33:42.720 --> 00:33:47.000
person you're hiring? Things like what do you think the key

469
00:33:47.000 --> 00:33:52.000
factors for success are? If they can't identify upfront what the

470
00:33:52.000 --> 00:33:56.800
key factors of success are, there's a problem with that. In

471
00:33:56.800 --> 00:33:59.760
other words, so a lot of role playing, so we would put together

472
00:33:59.760 --> 00:34:03.400
several role playing scenarios. So one of the fun ones we did,

473
00:34:03.400 --> 00:34:08.080
for those of you know, my friend Pedro Odeo, we were I was

474
00:34:08.080 --> 00:34:12.400
hiring an executive assistant for him. And I asked, you know,

475
00:34:12.400 --> 00:34:14.920
the previous executive assistant to we were doing this

476
00:34:14.920 --> 00:34:17.560
role playing thing. And we were talking a bit when we were

477
00:34:17.560 --> 00:34:22.920
planning it, what would be the most, you know, what would what

478
00:34:22.920 --> 00:34:27.040
would really test her in this idea with her approach. So I

479
00:34:27.040 --> 00:34:35.600
just had them pull up Pedro's 120,000 unanswered emails in his

480
00:34:35.639 --> 00:34:39.639
Google, in his Google Mail, and she scrolled it up on the screen

481
00:34:39.679 --> 00:34:42.639
and you saw the numbers and she because he had cherry picked

482
00:34:42.639 --> 00:34:46.320
some of them. And she said, and so I said, some of them were

483
00:34:46.320 --> 00:34:50.000
spam, some of them were really serious, some of them. So how

484
00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:54.000
would you approach this? And what do you think the key

485
00:34:54.000 --> 00:34:57.760
factors of success here are? That was a really that

486
00:34:57.760 --> 00:34:59.880
conversation went on for 40 minutes.

487
00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.560
That's trying to get her to see, you know, for us to see how she'd handle it.

488
00:35:04.560 --> 00:35:05.840
She kept great answer by the way.

489
00:35:06.480 --> 00:35:09.880
So the decision we're trying to get to here is, okay, look, it looks

490
00:35:09.880 --> 00:35:10.920
like we're coming in for land.

491
00:35:10.920 --> 00:35:15.040
If you feel like there's just too much risk, there's too much support.

492
00:35:15.040 --> 00:35:16.240
You'd end the interview there.

493
00:35:16.880 --> 00:35:19.720
If you feel like, well, I think there's an opportunity to take the next step

494
00:35:19.720 --> 00:35:24.000
forward, you may say, Hey, look, we have, we have a position, here's the title.

495
00:35:24.520 --> 00:35:28.640
It'll be, you know, be, be reporting to me or one of the team leaders.

496
00:35:28.960 --> 00:35:31.880
Here's, you know, we have a range.

497
00:35:31.920 --> 00:35:33.000
This is the range.

498
00:35:33.080 --> 00:35:34.480
What are your expectations?

499
00:35:34.520 --> 00:35:38.200
And we want to find out at this point that we are even in the same ballpark,

500
00:35:38.200 --> 00:35:42.120
because if they have expectations financially, that is so far above our own

501
00:35:42.520 --> 00:35:46.320
pay grade, but at this point, they're also becoming aware of your culture.

502
00:35:47.000 --> 00:35:51.480
Because in between in step one and two, you're throwing in bits

503
00:35:51.480 --> 00:35:54.880
about what the company thinks, how we do leadership training every

504
00:35:54.880 --> 00:35:56.640
week, how we do this, how we do that.

505
00:35:56.640 --> 00:36:02.040
You're constantly peppering the conversation with your own culture.

506
00:36:02.600 --> 00:36:05.920
Now, interview three is a fun one and it doesn't have to be, I've never

507
00:36:05.920 --> 00:36:09.760
actually seen it go more than two hours, but here's where you're going to

508
00:36:09.760 --> 00:36:12.880
introduce them to the team they would be working directly with.

509
00:36:12.960 --> 00:36:17.200
And before those team members come on, you want to call those team members

510
00:36:17.200 --> 00:36:21.360
and you want them to ask, come up with their own questions that they

511
00:36:21.360 --> 00:36:22.920
would like to have in a colleague.

512
00:36:23.400 --> 00:36:23.680
Right.

513
00:36:23.680 --> 00:36:25.640
I would like to, Hey, tell me how you would do this.

514
00:36:25.640 --> 00:36:27.320
Tell me how you would do that, et cetera.

515
00:36:28.680 --> 00:36:31.720
But then I love the team to ask, answer this question.

516
00:36:32.040 --> 00:36:35.440
What do you wish you knew before you worked here?

517
00:36:36.800 --> 00:36:38.280
And they say, we can tell them that.

518
00:36:38.320 --> 00:36:41.280
I said, yes, you can tell them that you can tell them what you wish you

519
00:36:41.280 --> 00:36:42.960
knew before you worked here at Brilliant.

520
00:36:43.600 --> 00:36:46.400
Well, I knew, I wish I knew it was all remote.

521
00:36:46.520 --> 00:36:50.040
I wish I knew that it was all, you had to be a real self starter.

522
00:36:50.040 --> 00:36:52.960
You really have to take the leadership training seriously.

523
00:36:52.960 --> 00:36:53.960
You have to implement it.

524
00:36:54.400 --> 00:36:56.760
I mean, if you've heard something and it's been two or three weeks

525
00:36:56.760 --> 00:36:58.760
since we talked about it and you haven't implemented it, you're

526
00:36:58.760 --> 00:37:00.040
going to just get lost here.

527
00:37:00.520 --> 00:37:01.520
I wish I'd known that.

528
00:37:02.440 --> 00:37:02.720
Right.

529
00:37:02.720 --> 00:37:05.720
Or I wish I knew that, you know, whatever it is.

530
00:37:05.760 --> 00:37:11.720
So when, when the, when the candidate hears that the messaging is so

531
00:37:11.720 --> 00:37:17.560
powerful that you're so confident in your culture and that you're willing

532
00:37:17.560 --> 00:37:21.720
to have such an open discussion with somebody new from the outside.

533
00:37:22.480 --> 00:37:24.000
That's very powerful indeed.

534
00:37:24.680 --> 00:37:27.280
And again, the other decision is now at this point, we're

535
00:37:27.280 --> 00:37:28.600
trying to get to land the plane.

536
00:37:28.600 --> 00:37:30.840
So there's chemistry, we're looking for chemistry with the team,

537
00:37:30.840 --> 00:37:33.560
there's chemistry with the team, there's competence we've

538
00:37:33.560 --> 00:37:35.120
established along the way.

539
00:37:35.560 --> 00:37:38.160
We've obviously determined something of their character.

540
00:37:38.520 --> 00:37:42.680
And then the last interview is a vision conversation, which I've never

541
00:37:42.680 --> 00:37:47.040
done a short is 30 minutes, but, and here, what we're looking for is the fit.

542
00:37:47.680 --> 00:37:51.920
And I've, I like to do these interviews myself at the end, because I like to

543
00:37:51.920 --> 00:37:54.920
know, you know, do they really believe in it?

544
00:37:54.960 --> 00:37:57.440
Cause I don't want somebody just looking for a paycheck.

545
00:37:57.480 --> 00:37:59.560
Of course we want to pay them what they worth.

546
00:38:00.240 --> 00:38:03.960
And the way it's set up at Brilliant is we pay lower salaries, but we have

547
00:38:03.960 --> 00:38:05.840
a very aggressive bonus structure.

548
00:38:06.600 --> 00:38:09.600
And we explain that to people and why we do that.

549
00:38:10.120 --> 00:38:14.160
We do that so that if we go through difficult times, we don't have to lay

550
00:38:14.160 --> 00:38:16.080
people off or lay one or two people off.

551
00:38:16.880 --> 00:38:19.440
We don't want, you know, we don't want one person to suffer a lot.

552
00:38:19.440 --> 00:38:24.640
We'd all just suffer a little, but if we do well, we all very, you know, we, we

553
00:38:24.640 --> 00:38:28.560
share, and so we can talk about compensation, bonus structures and all

554
00:38:28.560 --> 00:38:30.400
that stuff in a, in another session.

555
00:38:31.040 --> 00:38:33.240
So at this point we're through all that.

556
00:38:33.760 --> 00:38:35.520
They've, they've agreed.

557
00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:36.880
Uh, they've agreed.

558
00:38:37.040 --> 00:38:40.840
We've sent them a letter, uh, with an offer, which got the high points in it.

559
00:38:40.840 --> 00:38:41.880
They've already signed it.

560
00:38:42.160 --> 00:38:44.640
I won't have the interview until I have that signed letter.

561
00:38:44.680 --> 00:38:48.440
I don't want to waste my time dealing with people who are still considering.

562
00:38:48.680 --> 00:38:52.520
If our team can't convince them and the person they're going to work

563
00:38:52.520 --> 00:38:54.120
with, can't convince them to join.

564
00:38:54.520 --> 00:38:59.000
I don't want to be the person who has to use the power of persuasion.

565
00:38:59.440 --> 00:39:04.000
Cause I've learned if you have to talk them into the job, then you have to keep

566
00:39:04.000 --> 00:39:06.240
talking him into staying in the job.

567
00:39:07.360 --> 00:39:08.520
And so that's a bad idea.

568
00:39:08.680 --> 00:39:11.680
So if our team can't get them there, I don't want to get them there.

569
00:39:11.720 --> 00:39:14.520
So I wait until there's a signed offer letter.

570
00:39:14.560 --> 00:39:15.360
That's just the letter.

571
00:39:15.360 --> 00:39:17.080
It's not the, it's not the full agreement.

572
00:39:17.080 --> 00:39:20.080
We don't go to the expense of doing an entire legal agreement.

573
00:39:20.600 --> 00:39:22.040
We just write it out on a paper.

574
00:39:22.040 --> 00:39:22.680
Hey, welcome.

575
00:39:22.680 --> 00:39:23.920
So good to have met you.

576
00:39:24.960 --> 00:39:25.600
High points.

577
00:39:25.600 --> 00:39:28.640
This is what, this is what your job would be title, et cetera.

578
00:39:29.200 --> 00:39:31.240
And sign you if you're in agreement.

579
00:39:31.480 --> 00:39:35.120
Once, once we got that, the meeting gets scheduled and I go

580
00:39:35.120 --> 00:39:36.520
through the meeting with them.

581
00:39:36.520 --> 00:39:40.560
And then I get my own opinion and then I tell them, look, if there's for some

582
00:39:40.600 --> 00:39:44.680
reason in this conversation, in step four, it could still be a no go situation.

583
00:39:44.680 --> 00:39:48.440
I know we offered you a letter, but if there's any red flags, my team

584
00:39:48.440 --> 00:39:49.880
missed, I want to let you know.

585
00:39:50.800 --> 00:39:54.360
I'm going to reserve the right to still call, you know, to, to withdraw the

586
00:39:54.360 --> 00:39:57.600
offer because there's no legal binding contract at this point, there's

587
00:39:57.600 --> 00:39:59.880
just a high level agreement, that's why.

588
00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:05.440
no agreement at this point. That's really important from a legal viewpoint. Now, there is a lot of

589
00:40:05.440 --> 00:40:09.600
ideas. You might say, I don't know which questions to ask and so on. So I'm going to pause there for

590
00:40:09.600 --> 00:40:18.240
a second. And then I'm going to go through exactly what to say in every call. I'm not going to read

591
00:40:18.240 --> 00:40:22.000
through the whole thing. I'm just going to show you where it is on the cheat sheet so you know

592
00:40:22.000 --> 00:40:26.080
where to go. And I'm just going to make a couple of comments. So let me pause for a second.

593
00:40:26.720 --> 00:40:28.080
Team can give me some feedback.

594
00:40:31.680 --> 00:40:34.720
Jalen, you said your first interview was three and a half hours? Yeah.

595
00:40:35.360 --> 00:40:43.360
Yes, it was. It was a good interview. But I also wanted to say, Dion, how you were sharing,

596
00:40:43.360 --> 00:40:47.760
you don't want to convince someone to join the team because you'll be convincing them to stay.

597
00:40:48.480 --> 00:40:54.080
And I think that was also something that felt very unique in my interview because I never felt at any

598
00:40:54.080 --> 00:40:59.760
point as if Jenny, who was interviewing me, was trying to convince me to join. It was more, hey,

599
00:40:59.760 --> 00:41:06.000
this is what our company is like. You can ask questions, hear some advice. But never at any

600
00:41:06.000 --> 00:41:13.120
point did I feel as if she was trying to woo me. If anything, once I knew the details and the big

601
00:41:13.120 --> 00:41:18.720
picture of the company and the vision, it just gave me an opportunity to think of that for myself.

602
00:41:18.720 --> 00:41:23.600
Is this a place that I want to be? And then when I decided yes, it was just all that much more

603
00:41:23.680 --> 00:41:28.640
exciting because I chose it. I didn't feel like I was kind of being like tugged in that direction

604
00:41:28.640 --> 00:41:34.800
anyway. So I thought that was a really good note that you said that. Thank you. Any questions from

605
00:41:34.800 --> 00:41:42.320
the team? Any questions, anyone? All good. So I know you're sitting listening to this, maybe,

606
00:41:42.320 --> 00:41:46.960
and you're thinking, well, I may not hire people. Listen, if your group grows,

607
00:41:48.640 --> 00:41:53.440
you're going to be hiring people. And at some point, learning to hire people might be one of

608
00:41:53.440 --> 00:41:58.080
the most powerful leadership skills I know of. I've hired several CEOs. I've hired several

609
00:41:58.080 --> 00:42:03.520
presidents. I've hired a lot of senior executives. And the biggest team I ran with the technology

610
00:42:03.520 --> 00:42:08.160
firm, I had 11 people on my senior management team. It was me as the CEO. There was a president,

611
00:42:08.800 --> 00:42:14.320
very capable guy. We even had our own attorney, full-scale CFO, the whole thing. I had the whole

612
00:42:14.320 --> 00:42:21.600
group. And my chief operating officer was the guy who just retired from the military. And he ran,

613
00:42:22.160 --> 00:42:27.280
you know, as I've shared before, he ran the whole electronic war for the first Gulf War.

614
00:42:28.000 --> 00:42:34.240
The commanding, the commander who ran all of that in the war. And you say, how does a little

615
00:42:34.240 --> 00:42:42.160
company in Atlanta with, you know, 70, 80 people hire a person like that? And this is how we did

616
00:42:42.160 --> 00:42:49.200
it. People wanted to be in an environment that they got up every day, where they were appreciated,

617
00:42:49.200 --> 00:42:54.880
where they could grow. And you say, well, he was retiring. Yeah, but they retired him pretty early

618
00:42:54.880 --> 00:43:00.640
out of the military. So he had a lot, you know. And I also learned, by the way, for those of you

619
00:43:00.640 --> 00:43:07.840
who are looking for high-powered leaders, do not be afraid to pair a really high-powered leader

620
00:43:07.840 --> 00:43:13.280
with a young, inexperienced team. That's a really good idea. I think I may have shared this before,

621
00:43:13.280 --> 00:43:20.080
but I did hire two ex-IBMers. They both worked directly with Lou Gertzner, the CEO,

622
00:43:20.080 --> 00:43:26.720
later the chairman of IBM. And both of them had, one had built a $400 million project. And here I

623
00:43:26.720 --> 00:43:34.800
am, at that time, I had 25 people. And here I'm trying to hire him. And honestly, I had so

624
00:43:34.800 --> 00:43:40.880
many young programmers there in their 20s, and some couple in their 30s. I also hired the two

625
00:43:40.880 --> 00:43:47.920
guys who wrote the original Java manuals. There were two guys from in California who wrote the

626
00:43:47.920 --> 00:43:53.680
original, when Java was a brand new programming language. I hired them and brought them to Georgia,

627
00:43:53.680 --> 00:43:59.680
these two guys, and paid them more than I paid myself as the CEO. And the reason I did that was,

628
00:43:59.680 --> 00:44:07.440
I wanted to see the company with incredible talent, because I knew a very powerful thing.

629
00:44:07.520 --> 00:44:14.000
And this is the thing I learned when I was studying the best practices. I learned from Gillette,

630
00:44:14.000 --> 00:44:22.080
the shaving company, Gillette. And so when Gillette needed a new CEO, they hired this new incredible

631
00:44:22.080 --> 00:44:26.640
CEO. And then they had a board meeting, and the board said, so what's, you know, first month,

632
00:44:26.640 --> 00:44:31.040
what's going on? What's the plan? What's the vision? He said, I don't know. They were like, what?

633
00:44:31.600 --> 00:44:35.200
And next month, the same thing, next month, the same thing. So finally, he said, what do you keep

634
00:44:35.200 --> 00:44:40.000
saying? You don't know. He said, no, no, I'm going to go and find the best people in the world.

635
00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:45.520
And it's taking me time. He was literally flying all over the world to find the very best leaders.

636
00:44:45.520 --> 00:44:49.840
And then I'm going to put those best leaders in a room. And then together, we're going to decide

637
00:44:49.840 --> 00:44:58.400
what to do. First who, then what? And this was, it was so powerful that Collins, who wrote Good to Great,

638
00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:06.400
about this this particular experience and I followed this up and I thought if you can solve

639
00:45:06.400 --> 00:45:13.440
first who, then what, here's the bottom line. The company you start will go through many twists and

640
00:45:13.440 --> 00:45:20.320
turns. You'll try expanding into a new area, into a new region and it will or won't work. You're

641
00:45:20.320 --> 00:45:25.040
going to try new products and they will or won't work. I've only, I've been here at Brilliant

642
00:45:25.040 --> 00:45:32.480
coming up for four years and I can tell you that in that time we've pivoted several times and where

643
00:45:32.480 --> 00:45:37.360
we are today, we're actually three organizations, not many people know that. We're a full-scale

644
00:45:37.360 --> 00:45:44.240
church, we're a leadership company, Brilliant Leader that runs all of this leadership company

645
00:45:44.240 --> 00:45:50.400
and Brilliant Perspectives with our self-development programs are all there.

646
00:45:50.960 --> 00:45:55.360
But that's not where we started and when I first came there were two companies, there was also

647
00:45:55.360 --> 00:45:59.920
Brilliant Bookhouse and I merged the two companies and made them one and I brought the two teams

648
00:45:59.920 --> 00:46:08.560
together. So when we did all of that, it always comes down to how good is your team and so when

649
00:46:08.560 --> 00:46:16.080
you're hiring people, don't rush this, don't rush the process and if you're finding that you're a

650
00:46:16.080 --> 00:46:20.960
little uncomfortable but you can't quite put your finger on it, give yourself permission to go back

651
00:46:20.960 --> 00:46:29.040
to step one. People will get worn out by it but at least you made sure. So Robin.

652
00:46:31.600 --> 00:46:39.520
Yeah, we're right there. You know, I've gotten this information from you once before

653
00:46:39.520 --> 00:46:45.600
and we are currently looking for a spokesperson business developer to kind of take my place for

654
00:46:45.680 --> 00:46:51.760
going to the shows and presenting and developing our things and we're also trying to hire a

655
00:46:51.760 --> 00:47:00.560
full-time inspector and just going through this actually a second time, it just seems like a

656
00:47:00.560 --> 00:47:09.360
little overwhelming for me and it's like I feel like I just have to, I don't know, I don't know

657
00:47:09.360 --> 00:47:15.680
where to go. I just want, we haven't even gotten the ad together and we also

658
00:47:15.680 --> 00:47:22.320
have our inspector who may be on the line and he's presented us with an offer but

659
00:47:22.320 --> 00:47:27.680
it's a little pricey. We're not in a place to afford it so I've got to get with

660
00:47:27.680 --> 00:47:33.040
him and kind of talk to that. So we're in the thick of this right now, Dion, and all of this seems

661
00:47:33.840 --> 00:47:40.080
seems overwhelming. It is overwhelming but you can be reductionistic and the reason it's

662
00:47:40.080 --> 00:47:47.040
overwhelming is because I've taken the time to see where leaders get stuck or managers get stuck

663
00:47:47.040 --> 00:47:51.200
when they go through the process and to literally all the training I've done over many years

664
00:47:51.760 --> 00:47:57.200
and captured it and put it down to exact questions what to ask and so on but the way to think of it

665
00:47:57.200 --> 00:48:02.880
is to be a bit reductionistic. If I can figure out how they think and how they're driven,

666
00:48:03.840 --> 00:48:10.400
step one, if I can figure out how will I need to support this person. Well, I don't

667
00:48:10.960 --> 00:48:16.080
I don't know much about computers or whatever. If we're an online company, you not knowing much

668
00:48:16.080 --> 00:48:22.080
about computers might be a problem unless you show that you're really willing to learn and you're

669
00:48:22.080 --> 00:48:27.360
willing to grow. I mean I've hired a lot of people who are older and were willing to learn the new

670
00:48:27.360 --> 00:48:34.400
tech so I just want to know what the support is and then the third thing I want to know is will

671
00:48:34.400 --> 00:48:41.440
the chemistry work with our team. So I think with those three things I can go a long way.

672
00:48:42.080 --> 00:48:48.400
If I know that you're driven, you can learn, you're interested in your own growth, I don't want to be

673
00:48:48.400 --> 00:48:55.040
more interested and have a bigger vision for your life than you have. I don't want to

674
00:48:55.040 --> 00:48:59.840
hire you and then I get all excited about all the stuff you can become and you're like yeah

675
00:48:59.840 --> 00:49:08.640
whatever you know so and I've had that and I find that all that happens when I hire someone

676
00:49:08.640 --> 00:49:14.720
where there's that issue going on where they're not and I'm not looking for somebody who's like

677
00:49:14.720 --> 00:49:19.440
perfectly driven obviously but I am looking for somebody who wants to grow is leaning forward who

678
00:49:19.440 --> 00:49:24.160
you know what I'm talking about you see that in them but if they're just looking for a paycheck

679
00:49:24.160 --> 00:49:30.640
and they want to trade some I've got 30 years experience I can tell you I've made more mistakes

680
00:49:30.640 --> 00:49:37.280
hiring the guy with or the woman with 30 years experience than I've had taking a risk on somebody

681
00:49:37.280 --> 00:49:40.720
who has no experience. I don't necessarily mean they're younger I just mean they have no experience

682
00:49:40.720 --> 00:49:47.200
in this kind of job. I've made more mistakes going for the big names and I've also found hiring a

683
00:49:47.200 --> 00:49:53.760
pre-Madonna man there are a lot of work to manage and I've done that I mean I've had

684
00:49:53.760 --> 00:49:59.360
I've had incredible you know people but sometimes loyal

685
00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:05.640
focused, someone who's willing to learn with character and fits our company might just

686
00:50:05.640 --> 00:50:09.360
be the better long-term play, just saying.

687
00:50:09.360 --> 00:50:15.600
So what I would do is to write a list of what for you are the top three things, what are

688
00:50:15.600 --> 00:50:19.720
the three negotiables from everything I've said, and you can go through, pick out questions,

689
00:50:19.720 --> 00:50:22.840
pick out whatever to help you think it through.

690
00:50:22.840 --> 00:50:27.600
What are the three things that matter to you?

691
00:50:27.600 --> 00:50:38.080
And I can tell you that for those of you that have a natural gift for exhortation and encouragement,

692
00:50:38.080 --> 00:50:44.920
you are your own worst enemy in the interview, because you will encourage them and it's so

693
00:50:44.920 --> 00:50:49.640
exciting and you need to be here and you don't mean to do that, but you will literally be

694
00:50:49.640 --> 00:50:51.600
talking them into it.

695
00:50:51.600 --> 00:50:57.840
And yes, you want to promote it well, but at some point you have to stop and see, is

696
00:50:57.840 --> 00:50:58.840
this person going to be a fit?

697
00:50:58.840 --> 00:51:05.600
So think of the actual cost of having the wrong person and then doing the rehire in

698
00:51:05.600 --> 00:51:07.280
six or 12 months.

699
00:51:07.280 --> 00:51:09.680
Just think about the cost of that.

700
00:51:09.680 --> 00:51:11.280
That is hugely expensive.

701
00:51:11.280 --> 00:51:16.680
A lot of people say, well, you know, I've gone into deals where, you know, somebody

702
00:51:17.680 --> 00:51:24.200
And for those of you that, you know, ever find yourself in this situation, I've gone

703
00:51:24.200 --> 00:51:28.400
in and somebody wanted to hire me and they offered me something.

704
00:51:28.400 --> 00:51:34.720
And I literally asked for 70% more than they were offering me.

705
00:51:34.720 --> 00:51:36.280
And they were like, what?

706
00:51:36.280 --> 00:51:37.800
And then I explained this to them.

707
00:51:37.800 --> 00:51:41.680
I said, look, you're not buying my hours.

708
00:51:41.680 --> 00:51:44.380
You know what one of my hours is capable of?

709
00:51:44.380 --> 00:51:51.300
And so I had to explain to them what they were getting in me and that I could deal with

710
00:51:51.300 --> 00:51:53.860
several functions at the same time.

711
00:51:53.860 --> 00:51:58.740
And then I just stopped and said, okay, let's say you go and hire someone who's cheaper

712
00:51:58.740 --> 00:52:00.540
and in six months time, you have to hire someone again.

713
00:52:00.540 --> 00:52:03.620
Well, it turned out in this particular case, they'd already done that.

714
00:52:03.620 --> 00:52:05.420
And so I asked, how much did that cost?

715
00:52:05.420 --> 00:52:09.180
You don't give me the dollars, but just take a second to tell me how much did that cost

716
00:52:09.180 --> 00:52:10.180
you?

717
00:52:10.180 --> 00:52:13.820
And I said, I bet you it cost you more than the extra money I asked for.

718
00:52:14.260 --> 00:52:15.500
And they said, okay.

719
00:52:15.500 --> 00:52:16.740
And so they agreed to it.

720
00:52:16.740 --> 00:52:21.260
I wouldn't budge a bit of what I knew I was worth.

721
00:52:21.260 --> 00:52:24.740
But what that said to them was, I also had to sell myself.

722
00:52:24.740 --> 00:52:29.140
So if somebody, short answer, if somebody's asking you for more than you prepared to,

723
00:52:29.140 --> 00:52:34.120
it's up to them to show you that they are worth the additional value.

724
00:52:34.120 --> 00:52:39.780
It's not just like, it's not a shouting match as to who can negotiate the best, right?

725
00:52:39.780 --> 00:52:46.660
So let's say you and I are role playing this and you want 100K, but I've got 80K to give

726
00:52:46.660 --> 00:52:47.660
you.

727
00:52:47.660 --> 00:52:51.580
It's up to you to tell me why you're worth more than the extra 20K.

728
00:52:51.580 --> 00:52:54.860
And if you can, that will show you might be worth that.

729
00:52:54.860 --> 00:52:58.340
And I might have to go and find the money, right?

730
00:52:58.340 --> 00:53:04.420
Or if you're struggling to show me that, then I don't know that you are worth that.

731
00:53:04.420 --> 00:53:05.420
Just saying.

732
00:53:05.420 --> 00:53:09.300
I mean, if you're that good, show me.

733
00:53:09.820 --> 00:53:14.060
And often I will go back to point one, let's drill down again into that great thing you

734
00:53:14.060 --> 00:53:18.580
said you did in the industry.

735
00:53:18.580 --> 00:53:20.300
And I want to see if they really know them.

736
00:53:20.300 --> 00:53:29.140
I hired a woman who was senior executive, big insurance company, a senior VP of marketing.

737
00:53:29.140 --> 00:53:30.300
And then she came and worked for us.

738
00:53:30.300 --> 00:53:31.980
We were literally 15 people.

739
00:53:31.980 --> 00:53:39.380
And I hired this huge, impressive marketing director.

740
00:53:39.380 --> 00:53:44.020
I genuinely could not afford her, but I found a way.

741
00:53:44.020 --> 00:53:47.100
And nine months later, I let her go.

742
00:53:47.100 --> 00:53:51.740
And the reason I let her go, I'm just pointing out that stretching isn't always the right

743
00:53:51.740 --> 00:53:52.740
answer.

744
00:53:52.740 --> 00:53:56.300
And the reason I let her go is because she came from corporate America, man.

745
00:53:56.300 --> 00:53:57.580
So where's the HR department?

746
00:53:57.580 --> 00:53:59.260
I said, that would be you.

747
00:53:59.260 --> 00:54:00.420
And how do we get lunch?

748
00:54:00.420 --> 00:54:01.420
That would be you.

749
00:54:01.860 --> 00:54:04.460
And you make your own tea, and you do this, and you do this.

750
00:54:04.460 --> 00:54:05.460
We're 15 people.

751
00:54:05.460 --> 00:54:06.460
Who did you think?

752
00:54:06.460 --> 00:54:07.660
You think I'm going to come and do that?

753
00:54:07.660 --> 00:54:09.700
So they were like, do we have like a...

754
00:54:09.700 --> 00:54:10.700
Who writes contracts?

755
00:54:10.700 --> 00:54:11.940
That would be you.

756
00:54:11.940 --> 00:54:12.940
And who?

757
00:54:12.940 --> 00:54:13.940
That would be you.

758
00:54:13.940 --> 00:54:16.020
She was not geared for that.

759
00:54:16.020 --> 00:54:18.460
She did not like that.

760
00:54:18.460 --> 00:54:22.300
And when she did the corporate, she asked me, what's my marketing budget?

761
00:54:22.300 --> 00:54:23.300
I said, a budget?

762
00:54:23.300 --> 00:54:27.180
Yeah, we don't really have one of those, but let me think about what should it be.

763
00:54:27.180 --> 00:54:30.740
And she came back with this elaborate thing, like we were an insurance company.

764
00:54:30.780 --> 00:54:35.540
And I was like, man, hey, we're just a small company in this industry.

765
00:54:35.540 --> 00:54:39.540
You're going to have to get a lot more creative than that.

766
00:54:39.540 --> 00:54:46.980
So I think she wanted like $200,000, and I said, how's 5,000 sound?

767
00:54:46.980 --> 00:54:47.980
So I think...

768
00:54:47.980 --> 00:54:53.060
So if I had known what I knew now, I would have role played all that with her up front

769
00:54:53.060 --> 00:54:55.340
and not hired her and then figured it out.

770
00:54:55.340 --> 00:54:56.980
I would have thought she comes from a big company.

771
00:54:56.980 --> 00:54:58.580
She has certain expectations.

772
00:54:58.580 --> 00:55:00.180
I can't deliver on those expectations.

773
00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:09.040
I was so flattered to have her as part of our team, I went, so there is no shortcut to this.

774
00:55:09.840 --> 00:55:15.600
Well, all the rest are there. All the questions are there. What you can ask. Performance questions,

775
00:55:16.240 --> 00:55:22.880
role playing, trying to find who they are. And I even put several positions and examples. I did

776
00:55:22.880 --> 00:55:28.080
a social media manager, and I threw through all that information. I threw in, you know,

777
00:55:28.080 --> 00:55:34.000
supplemental questions you can ask. You can go through that process. There is a tremendous

778
00:55:34.000 --> 00:55:39.600
amount of helpful, practical information. But as you said, Robin, at some point,

779
00:55:39.600 --> 00:55:42.960
you just got to cut it down to the top three things that are not negotiable for you.

780
00:55:44.960 --> 00:55:48.960
And if you genuinely can't afford them, no matter how good the three Cs are,

781
00:55:48.960 --> 00:55:56.000
maybe you just genuinely can't afford them. And by the way, if it's purely an issue of money,

782
00:55:56.000 --> 00:56:00.800
there are creative ways to structure money. Hey, how about I pay you this now? We hit this

783
00:56:00.800 --> 00:56:06.400
milestone, I up it to this, that milestone, and you agree to milestones, and then have a more

784
00:56:06.400 --> 00:56:10.240
generous bonus structure. That's another way a small company can hire great talent.

785
00:56:10.800 --> 00:56:16.000
A lower base than they're used to, but very generous profit sharing or some other method.

786
00:56:18.480 --> 00:56:22.240
I wouldn't trade shares, though, in the beginning. I wouldn't give them stock options right up front

787
00:56:22.240 --> 00:56:25.360
until they've been with you for a while. I wouldn't put that on the table.

788
00:56:26.480 --> 00:56:29.680
Not in a small business. I've seen that backfire too many times.

789
00:56:32.160 --> 00:56:39.440
Questions? Anyone else? Well, I hope that was helpful. I hope that from all this training,

790
00:56:39.440 --> 00:56:44.480
you're able to hire one great person. Maybe you're just trying to hire your first employees. Anybody

791
00:56:44.480 --> 00:56:49.120
trying to hire their first employee and you're thinking, or their second? You know, like, I don't,

792
00:56:49.120 --> 00:56:55.360
I don't know. This will definitely help. Maybe your first employee should be an executive

793
00:56:55.360 --> 00:57:02.560
assistant. People say, I'm not big enough for an executive assistant. You'll be amazed. Here's the

794
00:57:02.560 --> 00:57:06.640
logic, and if you give me another few seconds, I just want to, I should put this in up front.

795
00:57:07.760 --> 00:57:11.840
If your first employee or one of your early employees is an executive assistant,

796
00:57:12.400 --> 00:57:17.280
it will free you up. What's your time worth? What can you contribute to the organization?

797
00:57:17.280 --> 00:57:23.040
Nobody can contribute to the company than you can. And if you can free your time up,

798
00:57:23.040 --> 00:57:27.920
and it may be worth hiring somebody at a lower pay grade to free up one of your other people

799
00:57:27.920 --> 00:57:32.880
who are in your culture, are growing, who are leaning forward, and free them up to take a new

800
00:57:32.880 --> 00:57:41.440
role rather than hiring someone in sideways. Anyway, with that, we will end and we will see

801
00:57:41.440 --> 00:57:47.360
you all next week. Thank you, and don't forget to fill in the survey afterwards. Really appreciate

802
00:57:47.360 --> 00:57:53.120
it. Over to you, Jalen. Nope, that was everything. Thank you all for joining. We are out of time,

803
00:57:53.120 --> 00:57:57.440
but do fill out the end of call survey and let us know what thoughts you have and what

804
00:57:57.440 --> 00:58:02.800
questions you have. And we'll see you next week. Bye, everyone.