Hey folks, Brent Perry with Business on Purpose.
The question on the table, can you do it for a day? 1 day.
I am reading a book right now called Win the Day by Mark Batterson. At the beginning of this book, he poses the question…” can you do it for a day?”
Let me explain a little further. He shares the story of Hall of Fame running back Emmit Smith, who has been known for living the 24-hour rule throughout his football career. Win or lose, Smith would give himself 24 hours to celebrate the win, or lament the loss. And then it was back to the basics, back to work.
So, in your business and in life, what is one thing, one action, one goal, one task that you need to do for 1 day?
One of my best friends is involved in a group called Alcoholics Anonymous. I’m sure most of you are familiar with it... have had loved ones a part of this powerful program, or maybe you yourself. When you ask my friend, who is now over 5 years sober how he does it, he gives a similar response to everyone... along with a few other things... a day at a time. We were driving in the car one day and I asked him to explain that a little deeper for me. He said, it’s simple... it’s too big of a problem to look ahead. Stringing days, weeks, months, years together seem daunting and nearly impossible. But when you can wake up and choose to live 1 day clean, I can do that. Apparently, that’s a common outlook in AA. Powerful.
So we have Emmit Smith’s 24-hour rule. We have a good friend saying a day at a time. What does that mean for us?
Batterson goes on to say, “identify a habit- any habit. Set a goal, any goal. Got it? Now let me ask you a question... Can you do it for a day”? And that’s what we are going to do with your life and business right now.
What’s one action, task, goal, accomplishment, to-do list item, habit that you need to start or stop doing right now for personal and professional benefit. Go on. Think about it.
And then, three easy steps to help us get there.
Thanks for listening. We’ll see you all again soon.
How To Make A Formal Job Offer
Skip called me and said, “I am excited to call and offer you the open position of Sales Representative in Augusta, Georgia.”
Wow, it was really happening.
My first “big time”, full-time job out of my time as a student. Pfizer was allowing me an opportunity to be a part of their mission and I was beyond excited. I can still tell you where I was sitting when the call came in.
The final stage of the core hiring process (before onboarding) is the final offer. This is a time of both explanations, question answering, and a little bit of ceremony.
I prefer doing this step either in person or online face to face.
Before making that call or setting that time, make sure that you have all of your i’s dotted and t’s crossed.
Job role... check.
Notes from the interview process... check.
Onboarding process written out and available... check.
Compensation details and structure... check.
Written offer letter... check.
Employee Agreement prepared... check.
Next steps checklisted... check.
Start date on everyone’s calendar... check.
Now you are ready.
Start off the meeting with the direct reason you are there.
“We are excited to formally offer you the open position of POSITION TITLE here at BUSINESS NAME.”
Then explain what is about to happen.
“We will lay out all of the details you need to know, and then will check in with you to see what questions or thoughts you have. We will then give you two business days to think through your decision and set a follow-up time to take the next steps.”
From there, lay out the job role again, the expectations of that person as an employee, the compensation details, and all of the other checklist items you have prepared and how they get each one of those accomplished.
Stop and ask if they have any questions and then it is time to wait knowing that you have put in the hard work upfront and you have created an opportunity that any candidate will have to remark about as being unique.
You are displaying your care and leadership through the entire process.
If you have been prepared and fair in your role layout, compensation, and expectations and they choose to not accept the position, then you must trust that the candidate would not have been a good fit in the future.
One note about getting into compensation negotiation. All compensation must be built through a view of business revenue and profitability. If a candidate requests an additional 10 percent of compensation, then you must demonstrate how their employment in that role will profitably generate additional revenue.
Do not be a business that compensates based on what the employee “needs”... be a business that compensates on what the business can afford to pay. Of course, your compensation must be fair and generous... and profitable.
This is an exciting time, and regardless of the outcome, you know you have put in the work that will benefit everyone moving forward.
The Most Unique Job Interview
I was sitting in a hut that was around 12 feet in diameter with a palm-thatched triangular roof, mud walls, and a compacted dirt floor.
The soft murmurs of a tribal dialect were casually being shared from family member to family member in an evening of conversation. I understand only what my friend could translate to me.
The Fulani tribe is a complex, migratory and historic community of nomads that are known for their sub-Saharan sprawl facilitating their livestock herds. This particular family was intermixing Arabic with Fulfulde, and an occasional English word to grab the attention and grin of their visitor.
I had seen thousands of Fulani across the Nigerian landscape in my travels, but never had I been offered a seat (and bed) inside the hut of a simple, rural Islamic Imam and his family.
This new environment was intimidating and confusing. But when we sat in the dimly lit hut around evening I began to feel a sincere hospitality. Then slowly, one after one, different members of the family would slowly and quietly deliver bowls of freshly prepared food that had been the product of lit fires all throughout their camp.
I had been invited to dinner. First watching my hosts put their hands in the starchy mix that looked like mashed potatoes I followed suit and began to eat with them.
The conversation began to then meander into all varieties and corners of our lives and we learned of each other's backgrounds, cultures, challenges, and joys.
All of the world's major religions have some connection to food. Food helps facilitate relationships and food helps break down walls. Shared food is a way of creating like-mindedness and yet still allowing for our unique differences.
Food, or at minimum a casual gathering, is just what is needed towards the end stage of the hiring process to allow both the employer and the candidate to peer into deeper spaces within each before agreeing to move forward in a deeper employee relationship.
At this stage of the hiring process, it is time to invite your candidate out for a meal together, or if you are meeting virtually, each of you agrees to bring some snacks and a drink and you casually hang out and just have a conversation about each other's interests.
The easiest way to start is to ask, “so when you are not working, what are you most likely doing?” The follow-up question is even easier, “Oh cool! Tell me more about that.”
Again be a human... have appropriate dialogue where you get to know the candidate more and they get to know you more. You are not psychoanalyzing... you are having a conversation that is building relationship.
Also, ask about general things like what has stuck out to them about the hiring process, or what has grabbed their attention about the business.
Of course, you will offer to answer any job-related or company questions they or their partner may have.
We recommend having a significant partner (spouse, colleague, friend) with you and offering for them to bring a significant partner as well. This will allow both you and your candidate to have someone else come alongside and help you both make a wise decision.
So set your reservations, get excited about your favorite local spot, and enjoy a lunch or dinner together with the person who you are about to be connected to for a long time.
This can be a powerful, memorable time... if you make the time for it.
How To Walk Through A Job Description During A Job Interview
The internet is awash in example questions that you can ask during a job interview, it would be insufficient to try and give a thorough summary in a way that would bring value to you.
So we will skip the interview questions and do something better.
We have been programmed as humans to a “one-click” mindset. That one innovative button from Amazon that was patented in 1997 provided a twenty-year runway of revenue and profits that no other retailer would be able to match or come close.
Staple’s easy button and Amazon’s one-click button productizes a mindset that we have been conditioned towards; make it fast and make it easy.
Can you imagine if an online dating service advertised a one-click-to-marriage product or a counseling service marketed an easy-parenting algorithm?
Why does that seem so absurd, but a one-click button to purchase ballpoint pens to be delivered in one day seems reasonable and expected?
Relationships.
I don’t have a relationship with a ballpoint pen. I have relationships with people.
Relationships cannot be reduced to one click, and the ones that are have little value.
Employers have been trying to figure out for years how to automate and one-click their way to a hiring process akin to pushing a metaphorical easy button.
Life is filled with examples of fast living leading to a shortened life, and intentional, slow living leading to a longer life.
Hiring is similar.
Either you will pay the price upfront and maintain the investment through consistent, predictable leadership, or you will not pay the price upfront and maintain your investment through hope, anger, frustration, and unset and unmet expectations.
Throughout the hiring process, you have done the methodical hard work of determining the gap in your business, writing a job role that will help fill that gap, budgeting the role to ensure alignment with revenue and expenses, finding the right people to talk to, casually getting to know those people, sharing your vision, mission, values, and culture, and evaluating their technical skill set and their motivational leadership.
All that leading up to this point of finally sharing the actual job role with the candidate. Pay the price now, and you will enjoy clarity later.
At this stage of the hiring process simply be a human. Pull out two copies of the written job role, one for you and one for them, and begin walking through all of the steps and tasks, and capabilities that this role will require.
As you go, be a good human... interact, ask questions, seek clarifications, field their questions, take notes, go deeper, and thank them for their time.
Provide insight as to who they will be working with internally, who they will be interacting with externally. What does a day or a week in the life of their role look like?
This is a great time of the hiring process to actually have an example ideal weekly schedule for this role so they can visualize a real-life week, and they can also see that you have put in the hard work of making sure there's a place for them. A lack of clarity on the front end will lead to significant and enduring frustration on the backed with real consequence.
At the time of this training being developed the recruiting and placement firm Monster.com reported results from a survey conducted finding that a staggering 95% of American workers are looking to leave their jobs and a significant number of them reported burnout as the reason.
Burnout is a direct result of chaos in expectations, chaos in planning, and chaos in blocking time. Essentially, we burn out when we see no progress towards the vision.
You can search the internet for the silver bullet question that will ensure you’ve landed the right person, but the reality is that you likely won’t need them and can simply have a helpful, life-giving conversation using the written job role as your shared point of focus.
The right fit is less about their experience, and it is more about your preparation and leadership.
Near the end of the conversation, this is the time to explain the job role compensation structure. This is not the time to discuss specific compensation amounts (salary, incentive comp percentages, etc.). You are simply communicating…
This role is a liveable salary plus a commission of sales and will be paid twice monthly
Or...
This role has a base salary and qualifies for a quarterly bonus and will be paid every two weeks...
... or whatever the structure of compensation is. Again, this is not their job offer with compensation specifics. Just compensation structure.
Once complete with a substantive dialogue using the job role as your foundation and the compensation structure explained, wrap up and confirm no other questions, thoughts, or concerns.
Let them know that you will then take the feedback from this conversation along with the assessments you have had them complete, the feedback from their references, and any other questions they’ve had along the way, and you will put all of that together and invite them to the next step which is a partner interview.
One other word of note, many times it will also be a good idea to invite other current team members who would interact with this role at this stage of the interview process. Your other team members can help you interact with the candidate from their unique perspective. They will also get a chance to weigh in on the candidate since they are the ones likely to spend the most time with them.
We have even seen some employers bring in a customer or two to have them evaluate the candidate during this stage.
Avoid hitting the easy button now, and you will have a chance to hit it on repeat down the road!
We saved for years and made a decision that we were going to buy a new car and do it with cash. All that work saving and grinding, and then in a stroke of a pen, we would exchange it for a car.
You better believe we did our research.
When we hire, we are in effect, taking all of the hard work and energy that we, and others, have put into the business since its founding and in the stroke of a pen on an employment agreement allowing another person to come to operate behind the curtain of the business.
Too many times we do it with a mindset of “just get them in here so we can get some of this work done!”
Going into the hire we tend to spend a disproportionate amount of time on a person's experience, skill, and technical expertise, and less time on the true make-or-break details like mindset, desire, and motivation.
The world of sports is stained with a graveyard of former first round, five-star, blue chip athletes who relied on skill and talent through their amateur play and yet could not harness their mindset for the true challenge of a professional when every other player is as good or better than they are.
You are hiring professionals. Professional oil changers, bookkeepers, ice cream scoopers, trademark filers, superintendents, estimators, and on and on; all skills that can be built and developed on site.
The greater challenge is to find the right fit, the right mindset, the right intangibles. A business can overcome skillset hiccups far easier than overcoming mindset deficiencies. A world-class soccer defender can only bring value if she first cares to bring value and believes the value she can bring is worth the effort.
You are on the hunt for team members who will learn to ask, “what can go right” vs. “what can go wrong”.
Team members who will appreciate systems, structure, and touchpoints, instead of running rogue with an “I work best when I’m left alone” attitude.
Testing for skill is much easier than testing for mindset. Testing for skill, simply provide your candidate with an actual task to do related to the job you may hire them for and them pay them for their time.
Testing for mindset means you pay attention to all of the intangibles surrounding the test project in relation to how they accomplished the task. Did they ask questions? Were they on time? How did they utilize or interact with others? How did they communicate?
Here is the problem, how do you objectively evaluate the subjective motivation of another person?
Business owners are best served when they can hold tangible evidence in their hand of feedback that has been provided both by the candidate and by people who know the candidate well.
Three things you should do during the testing and assessment phase of the hiring process.
First, you should administer some sort of challenge to the person you are about to hire.
If you are hiring a bookkeeper, then have them reconcile an old set of books.
If you are hiring an estimator, then have them bid an old set of plans.
If you are hiring a window washer, then have them wash your windows.
This will help you to actually see, objectively, how they work and with what expertise.
Offer to pay them for the time they committed to the task you provided.
Second, you should administer a personality assessment. We recommend the DISC profile precisely because it is simple to understand for busy business owners and allows you to quickly understand what gives your candidate energy, and what sucks the life out of them.
These assessments are so revealing of the motivation of a person that we no longer give hiring advice without an assessment to go with it.
Finally, you should reach out to a minimum of three contacts that have had significant interaction with your candidate. Simply ask them for a list of 5 people to reach out to with their names, relationship, and contact, and then you pick three you wish to speak to.
You may think, “what a waste of time... they are just going to have me call their friends.”
You will be surprised how many of “their friends” are willing to tell you some helpful insights.
Do not overlook any of these three steps. They will take time, and they will give you irreplaceable insight into both their technical skill and their emotional intelligence so you avoid bringing a fixed mindset of pessimism into the mission of your business.
What do you want???
What do you want? No, really, what do you want? Who do you really want to be as a business? That’s the question I want you to answer today. Thomas Joyner with business on Purpose here.
So... that question, “what do you want?” Is always the first question we ask a business when we sit down to meet with them. It’s a powerful question because it always informs us of if the business really knows who they are and where they’re headed.
Now, why do we ask this? Well, if we don’t know where we’re going... how can we make sure we are going to get there?
Let me put this in practical terms by giving you some examples. I met with a small contracting company recently and asked them this. Their answer was telling…
“Well, I don’t really know. I mean, we were doing great doing high-end residential builds. We were a small crew and kept it pretty tight with the subs we chose. But then we got a great opportunity to start some high-end remodels. So now, we’re kind of a builder who does some high-end remodels on the side. Does that answer your question?”
I kind of laughed, when I said…”NO! You just told me what your business has morphed into. Not what you want it to be.”
And it’s true, right? If we don’t have a clear vision of what we want, who we want to be, and where we’re headed... it’s so easy to get caught taking a detour that we never intended. Now, obviously, sometimes these can be profitable. But, in this instance, the business had to hire another project manager to manage new sub crews, and had to add another admin to keep up with billing and invoicing, and ordering, all to maintain work that they didn’t really want to be doing!
Another story for you…”What do you want? Another client new exactly the sales goal they wanted to hit, they knew the team size they needed to reach that goal, they knew the areas of their market they wanted to penetrate and the potential distractions to avoid along the way.”
I can’t tell you the freedom that brings a business. To know where you want to end up! From there you can work backwards in knowing if your employees are the right people to chase after the VIsion. In knowing if your ORG chart can sustain your vision. In seeing if you’re offering the right product/service mix to reach these goals.
Do you need to cut back somewhere? Do you need to add something? Are you being distracted in a way that is robbing you of efficiency and robbing you of your ultimate goal?
This stuff happens all the time!
Now, it has to be achievable. You can’t throw out some wild, off-the-wall Vision that has zero chance of being accomplished. But, is there growth that is manageable in a 1-3 year window. Then at the end of that time period, figure out where the next growth can land you.
If I could give your business one gift today... it would be a crystal clear picture of where you’re headed. That’s it! And it may sound elementary, but as I said, the businesses that don’t know where they’re going will never accomplish what they want to accomplish.
So, what do you do with this? Well, set a meeting with yourself this week if you don’t know what you want. Put it in the calendar right now. And if you do, set a meeting with yourself to look back at it and see if there’s anything unintentionally distracting you from reaching it.
Ask yourself when you see this vision coming to fruition. Ask yourself if the business is helping you achieve the life you want for your family...and what is that life you want for your family? Ask what revenue and margins you want to hit. Figure out who you need in your business to make this happen. What products and services you need to offer... and then finally, what culture you need to cultivate to accomplish all of this.
That’s the starting point... and so much more. If you can’t answer these questions, you run the risk... day after day... of getting pulled away to a vision you don’t really want.
So set the meeting with yourself... write it down. Revisit it often. And build a plan to get there... on purpose.
I hope this was helpful, make sure to follow us on YouTube and our the mybusinessonpurpose podcast.
Have a great week!
In- Person Interview Questions
I walked into an ice cream shoppe in Cincinnati to enjoy two scoops of Cotton Candy ice cream in a waffle cone with sprinkles on top. Yes, I am a grown man, and yes cotton candy with sprinkles is my preference.
Waiting in line I noticed the manager of the shop come around from behind the counter and sit with a lady who had just walked in wearing workout gear. My first assumption is that it was a friend or family member coming into say hello. As the two sat down the manager pulled out a piece of paper and began awkwardly asking questions…
“What experience do you have working with customers?”
“What jobs have you had before?”
“What do you think you would like about working here?”
I did not time their conversation, however, there is no way it lasted longer than 2 minutes. It was noticeably brief and the conversation was vanilla (sorry, the dad joke just came out!).
The interaction will be remembered as a waste of time for all involved.
In-person interviews tend to either be too robotic and templated, or too meandering and wasteful.
There is a better way.
The business owners that tend to experience less chaos are the owners who have a mapped out, purposeful, sustained hiring process that walks potential candidates through the various attributes of the business.
The exposure creates either desire or lack of desire. Imagine being guided personally throughout the various worlds of the Magic Kingdom at Disney. You don’t ride the rides, but you take in the sights and the movement.
At the end of your tour, you either love Disney... or not.
Most in-person interviews are akin to showing someone a billboard about Disney and then asking them if they are ready to commit their lives to the cause based on a crafted, pass-by advertisement.
In order to earn the right to have a great live, in-person interview, you must first have gone through the hard work of the first sections of your hiring process:
If you skip those steps, you are setting yourself, and your candidate up for a billboard-style job interview.
Once it is time to bring the person in face to face (or via video conference if remote), you will resist the urge to talk about the actual job role.
YES! You will resist discussing the job role.
Instead, you will focus on sharing the things that matter most: a) where you are headed as a business (your vision), b) WHY you do what you do (your mission), and c) how your business makes decisions every day (your unique core values).
You sit down with your candidate and hand them a written copy of your vision, mission, and values, and you will start to walk through each one pausing periodically to see what questions or thoughts they may have.
In the first in-person interview you will discuss ONLY the culture of your business.
Why?
It is of no value to discuss the role or compensation if you come to find out that this candidate has no desire to head in the direction that you are going.
Why would we share the details of their involvement in our trip to Kogi State, Nigeria, if we come to determine that our candidate would actually prefer to travel to Sarasota, Florida?
At Business On Purpose we do things a certain way with certain elements and it can feel invasive even though our entire team is remote. We are in each other's business and are obsessed with predictability and consistency through the tools we have built and expect each other to use.
Many businesses have the mindset of “get the work done however you get it done.” We do not. For some that does not sit well... For others, they thrive with it.
A client of ours, a mid-level Architecture firm in the Southern United States came with this idea of only discussing culture in the first sit-down interview. Once complete, the candidate looked across the table shocked, and simply said, “wow, that helps so much”.
As the employer, YOU lead the way. YOU set the tone. This is the culture that YOU and your team are building and it must be both protected and shared with thoughtfulness and preparation.
During the phone conversation, it will be best to let the candidate know the entire flow of your hiring process by simply saying,
“This is a six-step (or whatever) hiring process that will likely take 3 to 6 weeks (name your duration) to complete. After a casual phone interview where we start to learn your background, we will then invite you to an in-person live interview where we will focus our time on the vision, mission, values, and culture of our business. To be clear, we will not be discussing the specific job role or compensation details until the 2nd in-person interview (or whatever step that is for you)...”
The more structured you are in the hiring process the more confidence you will breed into your candidate as to what they are signing up for (or not).
You will constantly fight the urge to want to “move fast” to hire someone because you need their help.
Relationships rarely benefit from HASTY starts.
Your first in-person interview is about sharing culture, and then evaluating if that person matches the right ingredient profile of the culture you are growing.
How Do You Manage Expectations?
How do I manage expectations? With employees, clients, everything... Let’s talk about it. Good afternoon, Thomas Joyner with Business On Purpose here.
If there’s one thing I’ve seen this year, it’s the businesses that manage expectations the best are the ones who have the least issues with their employees and the least issues with clients.
So... let’s break this up into two pieces. First, how do we manage expectations with employees?
I think it all starts with what we say. Do we honor what we say or do we tell people what they want to hear, hoping it will buy us enough time to figure out what to do? Don’t do that! Slow down, mean what you say.
I had a client recently who had an employee leave. Just out of the blue, submitted their two-week notice and took a job elsewhere. At the exit interview, they drilled down on why they were leaving and all the employee would say was, “There are just a lot of unmet expectations from the hiring process.”
So, at our next coaching time, we spent the majority of the time going back to listen to what exactly was communicated throughout the hiring process. I looked at their process top to bottom and it jumped off the page to me. “Potential for profit sharing and buying into the practice.”
It sounds great on paper, right? Profit-sharing and offering ownership to key employees to give them more of a stake in the company. So, I looked at the business owner and asked him, “Did you ever profit share or allow them to buy in?” Well, not exactly. We were trying to grow and thought we could table it for a bit until the right time.
“So when is the right time?” Because what that communicates in the hiring process is that it’s not a possibility, but a 100% option for the employee. That’s the breakdown in communication right there.
Without intending to offer that, it sounded like a great idea that he could figure out in the future when the time was right. A great way to get a quality person on the team and then figure out how to keep them happy on the back end. But... that’s misleading and not managing expectations well at all.
How else do we do this? Well, we tell employees we will train them and then feed them to the wolves. We tell them we’ll have meetings to check on their progress and answer questions and then don’t prioritize them ourselves so employees are left feeling unimportant. We tell them there is room for growth in the business, to give them more responsibility in their career and then bury them in their current job.
What if it looked different though? What if we scheduled training times with employees and gave them an onboarding time to ask questions about their role. What if we were prepared, ready, and engaged in new employee check-ins. What if we gave employees metrics to hit, with crystal clear expectations for what you’re looking for in order for them to move up in the business. IN a way that you both know if they hit it or not.
You see, I think we’re not careful about the things we promise, which in turn get our employees' expectations moving a direction we never intended. Be clear. Painfully clear in the expectations you set and watch the overall employee morale improve on a daily basis.
So if that’s how we manage it with employees, how do we manage it with clients. Well, the exact same way! Do what you say you’re going to do and know what expectations you are setting before you put them in place.
I have a friend who always feels like they are being attacked by clients. But here are the expectations he sets. Every time an email pops up on his phone, he answers it immediately. Every time a voicemail is left, it’s answered as soon as possible. Texts, can’t get to them quick enough. It’s no wonder his clients get frustrated when it takes an hour because he’s trained them that every text or call or email they send him is treated like an emergency. He is setting the expectation every day that he is available 24/7 to them.
Now if that’s the message he wants to communicate, ok. But I will sometimes read emails, and if they are not an emergency I will leave them until the next morning. I want to be 100% clear in setting expectations that I block out time for email every morning and cannot orient my entire life and schedule around other people’s minor inconveniences.
“But they’ll leave!” Maybe... but the ones that leave are the headaches to begin with. The ones probably not worth working with anyway.
“Well, that’s a very narrow-minded way of doing business?” Is it though? I want the people I’m face to face with to know I’m focused entirely on them. Not being distracted nonstop at all the things vibrating on my phone.
Let’s talk about this practically. I asked for a quote from a contractor recently. I needed some work on my house and they came out to inspect. On the way out, the contractor said, “I’ll send you a quote to your email.” Great... thanks!
The next morning, no quote. 3 days later, no quote. Monday of the following week I finally called. “Hey, just making sure you’re sending that quote.” Yessir, I’ll have it to you soon.
It took 2 weeks to get the quote. I was frustrated. Zero expectations were set, so I had zero confidence in what would be delivered.
Imagine if this happened. On the way out the door the contractor says, “It’s probably going to be 2 weeks before I can get this proposal to you. Is that ok?” If it’s ok and I’m in no rush I would have said yes. If not, at least I have the option and feel respected enough to make my own decision. It would also put the picture in my mind that this contractor must do good work or they wouldn’t be booked out this far.
I did the same thing a few weeks ago. I had a sales meeting with a business and it was the Friday of 4th of July week. “Great, send us a proposal for us to look over.” No problem, I said. Just so you know it will be Monday afternoon before I can get this to you as I’m about to head out of town. Is that ok? Yep, that’s great! We’ll look forward to reading it then.
Expectations, guys! Manage them. In every aspect of your business. They matter so much! They can give you a great reputation. Or can completely tarnish it. They can buy you freedom from work, or chain you to your business at all hours of the day.
So, a question for you to think through today. What are the expectations you need to appropriately set in your business to give your employees and clients the expectations you want them to have?
If I can help answer that question at all, please let me know. We build processes out for all of this to help make sure you are communicating everything the right way. Alright, thanks for joining have a great day, and make sure to subscribe to our podcast and YouTube channel.
Common Phone Interview Questions
You show up for that blind date, and within an hour your date asks, “so you want to get married?”
Country songs glorify fast love and love at first conversation, but the way of wisdom encourages time and intentionality in two people deciding to dive into a relationship.
Certainly, commitment can drag on too long at times, but more often than not, having a solid boundary of time for a relationship to root and grow will give the runway it needs for longevity.
As you begin the process of finding potential team members to hire into your business, it is necessary to have times of coordinated conversation. As important is to make time for casual, interactive, soft-skill revealing conversation.
Because we are usually desperate to find good people, we tend to make the initial phone interview a catch all for everything we need to learn from the new employee candidate.
In reality, the initial phone call should be just that, an initial phone call to help us get a feel for the person on the other end of the line.
It is meant to be casual, free-flowing, meandering, and insightful.
We are asked continually, “what questions should I ask?”
Our response, “what questions would you NORMALLY ask anyone the first time you met them on the phone?”
Where are you from?
Tell me more about that…
What is your background?
Tell me more about that…
How did you hear about us?
Tell me more about that…
What other work have you done in the past? Where? What did you like about it or not like about it?
Tell me more about that…
What are the things that you most like to do in life?
Tell me more about that…
What are the things that you don’t like to do in life?
Tell me more about that…
Tell me more about that…
Obviously, you may not ask questions that are inappropriate (age, race, gender, relationship status, etc.) Again, would you ask those in a first phone call with a new acquaintance? Probably not.
The opening phone call should be used as a simple get-to-know-you.
You want to know if they have done their homework on you. You want to know if they can hold their own in a conversation and think on their feet. You want to know how they can respond to open-ended, general questions.
You want to know enough so you can answer this question for yourself…
“Based on what role we are looking to fill, is this someone I would want to continue to walk through our process?”
The initial phone call is simply a very broad filter to determine if you are ready to invest the serious time of the rest of the lengthy hiring process.
I can hear some of you now, “but we are just looking for someone with a pulse to come and show up for work, we don’t need to take them through this entire process.”
Whatever commitment you put into this process becomes the ceiling of commitment that you will likely get back from whoever you hire. If your ceiling of effort is a one (this is a made-up scale), then do not expect the level of commitment of your new hire to be any higher than a one.
Your commitment will help determine their commitment.
Most of us need a commitment level much higher than a one if we are going to collectively go after and achieve the mission that we have for our business.
Consistently, I hear frustration from employers who went too fast and hired the wrong person.
Rarely do I hear regret from an employer who makes the time for extended, intentional conversation.
3 Ways to Ensure a Successful Hire
Who isn’t hiring today? And how do you make sure your new hires actually stick? Well, let’s talk through 3 ways to ensure your new hire is a success.
Good afternoon, Thomas Joyner with Business on Purpose here. Thanks so much for joining!
I recently sat in a coaching meeting with a business who had made some really important hires. But they were frustrated!
“It just seems like they’re spinning their wheels,” they said. “They haven’t really begun to own their job yet and I feel like I’m doing half of their work for them.”
“Well, walk me through how you set them up?”
It quickly got very quiet. They realized that they hadn’t done close to enough to set them up well to succeed in the new role.
This story is all too common. We know we need to set our employees up and our new hires up for success, but we just don’t do it for some reason. Now, many times it’s because we don’t know exactly what we want them to own when we make the hire.
We realize that we’re overwhelmed and we think more manpower immediately will help the problem. But that is nowhere close to true. Well-equipped manpower, well-trained manpower will help, but throwing more manpower at the problem is like handing someone a bike with flat tires and telling them you can get somewhere faster now. Yes, that’s true, but you need to pump up the tires and give them ALL the tools they need to succeed. Before they can truly get where they need to go!
So what do we need to do to ensure that our new hires thrive? Not just survive? It’s what we all want to know because everyone is hiring.
So…
1. Write out a Job Role
It MUST start here. So often, we make a hire and put a few thoughts down, and wing it as our new employees start. “We’ll just see what they’re good at,” we say. Instead of asking…”What does the business need them to do?” That questions should inform you of what needs to go on the job role.
So write it all out. What are they responsible for owning? What does their day to day look like? You can even script out their first 2-3 weeks. Every hour, so they never have to guess what they should be doing! If it’s not written down, it doesn’t exist. That means if you don’t write a Job Role down for a new hire, they will never know what they are held responsible for and, unless you make a 1 in a million hire, they will never accomplish what you hired them to do in the first place. But if you write down the Job Role, tweak as needed, and train on their responsibilities, you guarantee that they will at the very least know what they are being asked to do.
2. Build out their first 90 days of expectations
It never fails. Well, we had an employee evaluation at 90 days and they are barely keeping their head above water. Why? Because they don’t know what they were supposed to have learned in that time. Other than a few day to day items, odds are they don’t know the technical skills you’ve asked them to learn, the systems they were supposed to impact, the meetings they were supposed to lead.
No, we fail our employees when we don’t tell them what the goal is at the end of 90 days. So they can ask questions and ask for help or clarity if need be. They have to know what our expectations are for them in the first 90 days so we can accurately tell whether they were the right fit for the role. If we don’t set them up accordingly, their failure is on us.
So what do these expectations need to have? Well, a weekly schedule for them, technical skills to know like sales software, industry contacts, workflow systems, you name it. The next set of expectations is on deliverables you need from them. Any accounts they need to sell to? Any budgets they need to work through or processes they need to write out? Lastly, what meetings and trainings do they need to attend or become competent in. If you can give them expectations for each of these, they will be led to the standard, not left to wonder where it is!
3. Schedule a weekly onboarding meeting to make small course corrections along the way.
You have to check in on them along the way. Set 30 minutes on the calendar and a meeting that neither of you can cancel. Ask them some simple onboarding questions. What are you seeing? Capturing their eyes at the beginning and seeing what they see is amazingly powerful. What questions do you have about your job role? Again, always supporting, always providing clarity. Do we have any blind spots? Allowing them to speak and put words to what their seeing and maybe improve an area you didn’t know needed it! And lastly, here’s what we see. A chance for you to praise and critique. To make small course corrections instead of sweeping your frustrations under the rug for months until the next employee eval. Give them small windows of things to change and then you have a record for months down the road.
That’s it! If you can give them a detailed Job Role, build out their first 90 days of expectations and have a weekly onboarding meeting to course correct, you show them the pathway to success. Because here’s the thing... Yes, this takes time. Yes, this is hard work.
But you know what takes more work? Starting over with a new employee. We have to equip the employees we have, equip the hires we make, not always give up, and looked for the already equipped hire! When we understand and act on that, we give our team the key to success. Clear expectations, detailed training, and a system to thrive within.
I hope that makes sense and I hope you can put this into practice the next time you make a hire. Thanks for tuning in, make sure to subscribe to our podcast and YouTube channel right now!
Thanks
The State of your Attention Determines the State of your Life/Business
Hey folks, Brent Perry here, and I am one of the coaches here at Business on Purpose. Let’s take a quick assessment.
James Redfield has a quote that states: “Where Attention goes Energy flows!” Take a few minutes and think over the past few weeks of work and life. Especially you business owners out there. Where has your attention been given in your business? Where has the energy, if you will, been flowing? Are you in a season where your attention is being focused on all the wrong things? Putting out fires everyday. Glued to your computer because you're drowning in emails and proposals. Finishing the day and already dreading the next? If that sounds like you, I promise you are not alone.
John Mark Comer has a quote in his book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, “Because what you give your attention to is the person you become.”
And he even follows it up again on the next page saying, “But again: we become what we give our attention to, for better or worse.”
Where is your attention?
Story of Brad and his golf game... going pro!
As a business owner, where does your energy need to be flowing? It’s time to take a step towards working on your business, and not just in your business.
Do me a favor next week…
Write down 3 things in your business that deserve your attention. Maybe it’s training for employees. Maybe it’s time to budget for your next project. Maybe it’s hiring an HR manager or a bookkeeper to clean up those books. Maybe it’s a team meeting that you have been putting off.
These are the types of things that need your attention as you lead your team and business into the 3rd quarter of this year.
Thanks for listening.