- Is this shirt, is a buttoned, is it too much V?
Do I got too much V?
(upbeat music)
Five steps to scaling your team.
You know, I'm going to share with you guys how to get over
the frustration of having people on your team
that don't share your vision.
Or maybe, you've trying to grow, you've tried to grow,
and then you've realized you're working twice as much,
and you're making less money.
Or, that you're always putting out fires,
this is a real issue.
You know, I've been fortunate over the years
to have been responsible for hiring over 500 people
across my different companies.
And I really had to learn this the hard way,
because the first two companies I started,
Maritime Vacation at 17, NB Host at 19, they both failed.
You know what the common denominator was?
No employees, no people, nobody else on my team
that was even there to support me in my vision.
But when I started Spheric Technologies,
the company that eventually grew 150% for four years
year over year and eventually getting acquired,
I started with four other people.
Now, if you've ever started a business with partners,
within the first month one of them didn't work out,
and then the other three ended up being
more operational leaders, and one was a co-founder,
than people that were like, real partners.
But it doesn't matter, at the end of the day
if you can get people on your team,
shared vision, shared alignment,
motivated, excited about where you're going,
then that is how you scale a team.
So, I'm gonna break it down into
the five S, or the five steps to scaling a team.
The first one is Story.
Now, there's a whole bunch of sub, kind of, areas
that you need to nail in the story,
and really for each one of these different areas, or steps,
but I'm gonna give you one great example.
The first one is, what wrong do you want to right?
In your business, as you build the company,
when you started off, you need to ask yourself,
"What wrong do I want to right in the world?"
You know, for me, when I started with Clarity,
I just thought it was wrong that there was, you know,
ten times, a hundred times more tech entrepreneurs
around the world starting software companies
that didn't have access and connection
to the smartest minds in Silicon Valley that was there,
that I had access to,
that I've learned from.
I mean, I believe that success has a million fathers,
and I wanted to create a way for them to connect there.
That was the wrong that I wanted to right,
and I think that it's important for you
to ask yourself in your business,
maybe you don't have this and maybe you know it,
but you haven't told it lately,
but it starts with story.
Figure out that story, what wrong you want to right,
and share it with your team.
The second S in the framework is Sourcing.
And again, there's a bunch of different ways
to source great talent
but one of my favorites strategies
that I want to share with you guys is deputize.
You know people in your life that are connected,
that go to events, that talk to a lot of people,
maybe it's a salesperson, another entrepreneur.
You need to deputize them.
Actually be like you're anointed
as the person to discover great talent
and bring them into my world.
So, I've known,
many times when I've been out in the world
and I've come across those incredible employees.
You know, the valet guy, the waitress at the restaurant,
the person that works at the bank teller,
and if I had a position in my company
I would hire them on the spot
because they just had the right attitude,
the right skill set, the right, whatever it was.
But what I want you to do is,
do the same thing for, amongst your friends
and say, look, if you ever find somebody
that in this industry,
it's a technical person,
or a marketing person,
or an operational person,
I want you to give them permission
to send you an email with their name and the company,
and it's your job to go find them.
So, deputize is the strategy for sourcing.
Three is Selecting.
How do you select the right person?
Again, multiple strategies,
my favorite one is really based on a lesson I learned
from Seth Godin.
I met with him once when I was starting off Clarity
and he really gave me some incredible advice,
but one of the things that he shared was,
"I can't work with you 'til I work with you."
That's just a rule that he's had in his life
and I've adopted in my business,
that unless I've done a project with you,
worked with you, tested,
simulated the actual working environment,
then I can't work with you.
So, that strategy is test, right,
and every position that I hire
there's always a simple, up to ten hour test.
I pay up to $500 for that person,
you know, 'cause I respect their time
and the value they're gonna create,
but it's the same test.
Every person takes the same one,
and that way I have a very clear benchmark
to baseline them versus previous people taking the test,
or maybe the cohort of people that they're
in the running for for that position.
So, make sure that you test.
That is one of the best strategies
for selecting top talent to scale your team.
The fourth area is Selling.
Okay,
now, most people think that it takes money
to hire great talent,
and I will share with you,
that is the fourth most important thing
that a person needs to understand.
It really comes down to selling, right.
So, first is the fit.
You know, is this the best fit for their career.
Two is freedom.
Do they have the opportunity to be free
in their decisions?
You're gonna delegate.
You're gonna give them the authority.
You're gonna give them the responsibility and resources
they need to be successful.
Third is family.
Make sure you incorporate the family
'cause so many times when entrepreneurs are hiring
they don't think about the partner.
You know, the wife, the girlfriend,
that other significant person in their life
that really are gonna be involved in making this decision.
And if you don't incorporate them
in your recruiting process,
it's gonna be really hard to get them on board.
And then the fourth is fortune, right,
which is really the money component of the business,
compensation, structure, whatever it is.
It is not the most important, it is the fourth.
And last is fun, fun, fun, fun.
You gotta make sure your work environment
is gonna be a blast to work with,
or these top people, these A-players,
they don't need to work with you.
They have other options.
They could do their own business.
They could keep doing what they're doing.
So, it's your job to make sure it's fun
in all these other areas, including the fortune
is key for selling somebody on joining your team.
The last one is Structure.
Okay, so how do you manage A-players?
And there's a bunch of different strategies
that I share,
but I really want to leave you with this one
because I think it's really important
when you think about,
how do people get alignment in their actions?
Everyday they get up and they say
I could work on a hundred things,
but what would you want them to prioritize,
what would you want them to focus on,
based on these hundred things and your leadership?
And, to me, it's done through a quarterly theme.
In your business, every quarter,
you should be doing a planning session.
And that planning session
should look in the previous quarter
and successes and lessons learned,
and also start looking for the next 90 days
in your business.
But, part of that planning at the end,
once you've kind of figured out the strategies,
is setting a theme
so that everybody else in your company,
think about this,
if you could get, you know,
if you have 10 people, 20 people, 100 people
in your business,
and they're pulling on different pieces of rope,
different priorities,
but they're all pulling in different direction
the business is gonna slowly move and grow forward,
but if you can get them all aligned
and you've got 100 people pulling in that same direction,
the change will be astronomical.
So, you need to make sure you give them a theme
for the quarter,
so they could,
you know, one of my good buddies,
his theme working for this quarter is "stress the NPS,"
the net promoter score.
It's a growth number that you can test.
You can go Google it
to find out more about the NPS score.
But, stress the NPS is his theme
for his team
to focus on all their activities to improve the NPS score.
I think that is probably the most powerful
when it comes to the structure
of how do you manage
and really lead A players.
So, my question to you,
what I want to hear from you guys below in the comments
is what have you done to build your team,
from a culture point of view,
from a leadership point of view,
from even, maybe,
a compensation and recognition, or rewards level.
What have you been inspired
to create inside of your business?
Leave me a comment below, 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.
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