Hey there.
Dan Martell here, serial entrepreneur
and investor and creator of SaaS Academy.
In this video, I'm going to share with you
how to build a pipeline of talented A-players
in your business.
So if you've been frustrated with having duds show up,
waste your time, and having to fire them,
I'm going to teach you how to not only source
better candidates, but also have them hit the ground running.
And be sure to stay at the end where
I share with you my hiring scorecard
framework on how to get that, and also the talent pipeline
process.
I'm actually going to give you the specific steps that I
use for all of my recruiting to hire A-players.
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So I don't know about you, but people problems are legit.
You've got friggin political issues.
You've got infighting.
You got folks that are under performers.
They don't have the skills.
They're complaining all the time.
It can be draining as an entrepreneur.
And, honestly, my first two companies, compalies,
were complete failures, because I know for a fact
now that I was just accepting anybody that
showed up into my business.
I was looking for a designer.
I just hired the first person that got referred to me.
I was looking for another programmer to help me out.
I just hired the first person usually.
Like, I had no system for recording, or recruiting.
Essentially, it was like, hmm, is there a pulse?
Are they willing to work with me?
You're hired.
That is not what I'm talking about.
What I want to share with you today
is how I've been able to not only hire hundreds of people
across all my companies, but also make sure
that those people show up, are enthusiastic,
they want to work, they've got the capabilities,
and they're actually going to deliver value from day one.
So I want to walk you through the steps
for doing that in the right way.
Number one, prep the position.
I think that if you want to hire A-players,
the first thing you need to do is actually define
what you're looking for.
And this is the hiring scorecard I talked about
at the beginning.
To do that, you need to understand
where do you want to go in the next 16 months for that role.
So if you're hiring a marketing person,
it's not about hiring somebody that
can do the marketing that you need today, it's
saying where are we going to be in 16 months
and what would that person look like?
What would they have had to accomplish?
And if you want to make sure that you don't have duds,
that you don't just have a warm body show up,
you need to make sure that you set the criteria
for their previous experience based on that 16 months
into the future.
Like, I'm all a fan of training people on the job
and hiring people who are enthusiastic,
but, at the same time, there are certain roles
where it makes no sense for you to just try
to train these people that have no experience.
They can be the most enthusiastic, positive, culture
fit person, but I'm a big fan for certain, especially
executive leadership roles, they have
to come with some level of experience doing the thing.
Because the whole point of hiring
them is to take things off your plate,
not to add more coaching, and mentorship, and leadership
conversations with them, but to have them come in and go,
oh yeah.
At my previous company, we did this, this, and this
and move it out.
So that is prepping the position.
That is being clear as to the roles, and responsibilities,
and expectations that person needs to have,
from an experience point of view, before they show up
on your team.
Number two, build candidate pipeline.
One of the biggest reasons that hiring fails
is because there's not enough candidates
in the top of the funnel.
OK?
This means you actually have to do some heavy lifting when
it comes to sourcing.
For me, first place you're going to want to look
is amongst your existing team base,
actually promoting your team and asking
them to go through LinkedIn, to go through Facebook,
to ask them, hey, we're trying to hire this role.
Do you know anybody?
I've even hired my recruiter to sit down with another engineer
and go through their whole LinkedIn profile
to say, like, hey, this person, what do you know about them?
Are they good?
Is this somebody you'd want to work with?
Does this person inspire you?
Sourcing is a full time thing.
So you can either get leverage through hiring a contract
recruiter to help you with this, or you
can block it into your calendar, because to me, as the founder,
your job is to make sure you have
the right people on your team.
So we want to source through existing employees.
We want to source through job banks.
People say, well, great candidates
aren't looking for a job.
That's not true.
I've found incredible people that
had jobs, and were just, kind of, dissatisfied
and kind of went online.
So there is incredible technology today
that allows you to publish to thousands of job banks
online to build even more top of funnel.
And then the third thing is sniper rifle.
Like, find companies that you admire
that are further along that you know
have great training programs, great recruiting practices,
and just go directly to those people and ask, like, hey
who's the best product manager you've ever
worked with at that company?
Get some names, call them up, ask to speak with them.
Go for the advice angle.
Hey, I'd love to get your advice on our new product design.
You're obviously very talented.
Do you have five minutes to just quickly review and give us
some thoughts?
And start the conversation and relationship.
Great people are going to take a while
to get over into your world.
But to do that, we need to build top of pipeline for candidates.
Number three, quick to qualify.
I think too often people spend time with mediocre folks that
just waste their time.
And that's probably why at the end of the day, when
they're on a timeline to hire somebody
and they need to make it happen, they
pull the trigger with somebody that just isn't great.
What I do instead is the first thing I ask my candidates to do
is submit a video and follow the instructions.
Why do I do that?
Well, A, if they can't figure out how to shoot the video,
feel comfortable communicating in this format,
I'm talking like on a laptop with their phone, whatever they
want to do, answering some simple questions
about who they are, and following the instructions.
I can't tell you--
I'd say 80% of the people that submit a video,
so a lot of people don't even get past the application
process because they don't even submit a video.
The people that do submit a video
don't listen to the instructions.
They don't answer the questions or they go over time.
And to me, if you can't follow that as an applicant,
then I don't want you on my team,
because you're just going to frustrate me as a team member.
I mean, that's just the reality, so I
think you should be quick to qualify using videos.
Everybody is now adding this as a feature
into their applicant tracking system.
So, by all means, you can keep it simple.
Ask them to--
I don't even tell them how to do it.
I'm just like, send us a link to your video.
You can figure out how to upload it to the internet.
It's almost a bit of a test.
And then review the videos because, man, I'll tell you,
I can learn so much by watching somebody communicate over
a video then I can probably get in person,
but I just have the time to do that, right?
And then that way, as the applicant
goes through the different departments,
they use the video to get a really good sense
of the candidate.
Number four, simulate the work.
I still find it crazy that people go work at a company,
essentially get married before even going on a date.
How are you possibly going to know if this company is
everything they say it to be?
Or if you're hiring, how do you know
if this candidate is everything he says or she
says that they are?
So one of my rules, and I got this from Seth Godin,
is I can't work with you till I work with you.
It's just a belief.
It's a practice.
It's a principle.
And to do that, I always offer up a test project.
So in the pipeline process, there's a test project.
OK?
And I've got a bunch others.
I'll tell you how to get that resource.
But the test project is simulating the real work.
So whatever it is, if it's writing code,
if it's designing, if it's an assistant,
if it's a marketing person, it's actually doing the real work.
OK?
It's not like, hey, go to this website
and kind of tell us what you think.
It's like, I want to see the work product.
I want to know that you're capable.
I want to see what you can produce and evaluate that.
And here's the trick for test projects,
all candidates have to do the exact same test project.
Why?
How are you supposed to compare people?
If you're hiring a new VP of marketing,
and you get each one of those candidates
to do a different project, how are you
supposed to compare the quality of their work
or the quality of their thinking?
So I highly recommend to find one test project per role
and have everybody do the same one,
so that when they submit them, you can actually
have your review team analyze them and compare them
to each other, not have separate test projects.
Number five, sell the future.
Now look, at the beginning, you're
building a top of funnel, you know, candidates and people are
applying, and you're trying to qualify, and see
if they're fit, and checking for values,
and doing all this stuff.
But at a certain point, when you get into,
kind of, first level interviews and eventually
with the CEO and myself, there is this trade off of you
want to assess them but you also need
to sell them on the future.
So one of my favorite questions--
I even heard recently that the, I think--
what is their title?
Gary Vaynerchuk hired a people culture person at VaynerMedia,
and they have this same question that they
asked in their, they did a quick write up,
is in five years, what do you see your day looking
like or your job, you know, in a five year period?
To me I need to understand what their future and what they have
a vision for their life, A, that they have one,
B, that they can articulate it, and three is
that their vision for where they want to be
and what I need them to eventually grow
into ideally align.
And if they're not, then we need to figure out how to,
kind of, massage that.
It might be a different role.
It might be whatever.
But you need to sell the future.
You need to talk about what they want,
talk about the compensation, talk about the fit, the fun,
you know, the opportunity for equity, all that fun
stuff, the team.
I think that's a big thing.
People want to work with other incredible people that
inspire them.
But then also talk about what they
want to accomplish in their life and how you're going
to support them to get it.
Because I truly believe that people will go, and push,
and fight for you if they know that you've got their back
and you want to see them succeed in life outside
of your own goals.
So that, to me, is a big part of getting the right A-players
is selling the future.
So the five steps to build a talent pipeline of A-players.
Number one, you have to prep the position
and know the roles and responsibilities you're
hiring for in 16 months.
Two, build the candidate pipeline,
have a ton of people applying.
Number three, quick to qualify them.
I like to use videos, but don't spend time
with unqualified candidates.
Four, simulate the work.
Again, I can't work with you until I work with you.
And five, sell the future, because you
need to make sure that their vision aligns
with yours for what you need them to do into the future.
So as I mentioned at the beginning of this video,
I want to share an incredible resource called the hiring
scorecard.
So, essentially, it's the four different criteria
that I defined before I hire somebody and use that
to help the hiring manager, and the different team members that
are going to be involved in that process, grade the candidates
against those criteria.
And I'm also going to give you the talent pipeline process
so that you can understand the different steps in the pipeline
that I use.
For example, test projects, assessments.
I use profile assessments, et cetera.
So you could potentially implement those
into your process.
The link is below in the description,
so you click that and get a copy of the scorecard and the talent
pipeline process.
I'd love for you to implement that and let
me know how that worked out for you in your business.
Again, the link below.
Click that.
Get your copy.
If you'll like this video, be sure to smash the Like button.
Subscribe to my channel.
If there's somebody you think this video could serve
that you care about, feel free to share it with them directly.
And, as per usual, I want to challenge
you to live a bigger life and a bigger business,
and I'll see you next Monday.
So I'm at--