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www.PiranhaCentral.com
From The Desks Of:
Joe Polish and Lisa Wagner
Dear Friends & Clients,
Winning In The Game Of Business.
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When the economy shifts from charging ahead, to unpredictably
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And the fact is:
If you are reading this article, you value talent, you really GR%XWLI\RX¶UHOLNHPRVWPDQDJHUV
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screening people, resumes are deceptive, so-called competency interviews are easy for
candidates to fake, and candidates only want reference checks with their buddies.
Surveys of thousands of managers show that only 25% of people they hire turn out to be the high
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The good news is that you can dramatically improve your hiring success by using commonsense
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their hiring methods, borrowing some of their successful methods, adding some ideas of my
own, and for three decades have fine-tuned the most practical advice. The following five best
practices are briefer than Cliff Notes, but even so, you can immediately begin hiring better.
1. Instead of a vague job description, use a job scorecard. A lot of mis-hires result when
WKHPDMRUVWDNHKROGHUVGRQ¶WDJUHHRQZKDWWKHSHUVRQZLOOWUXO\EHKHld accountable for.
For VP Sales, for example, maybe the President wants revenue growth, the VP Finance
wants only profitable sales, the VP Marketing wants new customers, and the VP
Operations just wants to keep current customers. Good luck ± the VP Sales is frustrated
and quits or is fired, because most of the team members say the VP Sales is failing.
Suggestion: Get four or five of the managers who have the most at stake in the hire to
agree on measurable accountabilities, and be sure finalist candidates know them.
2. E arly in the hiring process, let candidates know that in order to get a job offer, they
will (at an appropriate time) be asked to ar range for personal reference calls with
former bosses. High performers, the people you want to hire, will be happy to do this,
and C player candidates will withdraw. Perfect! This is what we call the TORC (Threat
of Reference Check) technique. Not only do the best people want to apply, but all
candidates will quite honest in interviews, knowing they will be arranging reference calls.
Suggestion: If you use recruiters, require them to tell candidates this requirement.
3. Recruit from your networ k of high performers you know or have personally wor ked
with. 7KHWKRXVDQGVRIKLJKSHUIRUPHUV,¶YHZRUNHGZLWKVD\WKLs is quick (high
performers are in your PDA), effective (candidates are already prescreened), and
inexpensive (no recruiter fees).
My son Geoff Smart is CEO of the largest topgrading company, and the book Who: The
A Method for H iring, co-authored with Randy Street, shares how dozens of billionaires
and Fortune 500 CEOs packed their teams with high performers and the answer is ± you
guessed it ± KLULQJIURPWKHLUOLVWRIKLJKSHUIRUPHUVWKH\¶YHZRUNHGZLWKDQGPHW
Suggestion: Require all your managers to stay in touch with high performers and
sources of high performers.
4. Use the chronological Topgrading Interview as the most powerful hiring tool. If you
use round-robin competency interviews, keep them because good candidates want to talk
to several people and ask them questions. However, just realize competency interviews
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manipulated by candidates that they produce only 25% high performers hired.
a) What were your major successes (and how did you achieve them)?
b) :KDWZHUHPLVWDNHVRUWKLQJV\RXZLVK\RX¶GGRQHGLIIHUHQWO\"
c) Who was your boss, and what were his/her strengths and weaker points?
d) What would that boss tell me were your strengths, weaker points, and overall
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The chronological interview reveals patterns of how the person evolved over time, and
THAT is what enables you to clearly understand what the person is apt to be like in the
near future. Greg Alexander, my co-author of a new book Topgrading for Sales, used
these questions and in one year took the #12 (out of 14) region at EMC to #1 in sales.
Suggestion: Use a tandem partner ± two heads are a lot better than one and the two of
you ask more follow up questions for the most recent jobs.
5. Ask finalist candidates to ar range personal reference calls with former bosses. This
is the TORC Technique in action, and it works!
Suggestion: You and your tandem interviewer simply make half the calls each, after the
candidate gives you the times references are available and the numbers to call.
SU M M A R Y
Use these five of the ten most important Topgrading best practices, and you will join the ranks of
thousands of managers who have found the solution to the chronic problem of hiring the best
people available for the pay. You will improve your hiring success.
Would you like to learn all Topgrading methods, and improve your hiring success even more?
You can download the free 50-page eBook, Avoid Costly Mis-H ires: H ire 90% H igh
Performers with Topgrading Best Practices at http://smarttopgrading.com/ebook/.
Keeping Score.
2QFH\RX¶ve gone through this process, and have chosen who you feel is the
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success. This means the new hire, and the new boss, need to both know
ZKDW³VXFFHVV´ORRNVOLNH6SHFLILF measurable, metrics. A scoreboard.
³<RXPXVWinspect what you expect´
± Wyatt Woodsmall
:H¶ve hired great people at Piranha, but we have yet to find one with
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© 2008 Piranha Marketing Inc. 7 www.PiranhaCentral.com
after. It is the responsibility of the business owner to define the rules of the
game, and how the players can score and create a win for the team.
If there is no scoreboard, then no one knows if their efforts are making any
difference at all. It goes back to what we always say over and over again in
our coaching calls«WKDWeverything measured improves, and everything
measured and reported improves exponentially.
Scoreboards need to exist for each employee, for each division in the
company, for the overall company, and yes«HYHQIRUWKHRZQHUV And the
³VFRUH´GRHVQRWKDYHWRVROHO\EH³GROODUV´WKRXJKGROODUVDUHLPSRUWDQW
7KH³PHWULFV´FDQEHZKDWHYHU\RXIHHOLVD³win´ for the position ± number
of leads converted to Carpet AuditsQXPEHURIWHVWLPRQLDOVQXPEHURI
marketing pieces sent out the door, number of projects completed.
Internet marketer Alex Mandossian tracks these 3 things daily for his
company: # of leads (who knows us?), # of first sales (who likes us?), and #
of 2nd sales (who loves us?).
(EHQ3DJDQDOVRKDVVLPSOHGDLO\³VFRUHERDUGV´IRUKLVFRPSDQ\# leads, #
sales, $ in and $ out. He also asks for a daily summary from every one of his
65 employees ± they need to answer these 3 questions: (1) what results did I
create today?, (2) what challenges did I have?, and (3) what questions do I
have for Eben? With these simple questions Eben can immediately gauge the
progress, and the obstacles, in each area of his company.
(Both Alex and Eben, by the way, utilize virtual employees and have no
³DFWXDO´RIILFHV7KLVLV an opportunity to hire a very skilled person for
specific tasks without having to hire a full-time person within your office
walls. This is a great idea for services that can be delivered by phone or
email ± from customer service to scheduling to bookkeeping to website
maintenance. For more information on outsourcing, listen to the Genius
Network interview with Tim Ferriss, author of The Four Hour Workweek. )
* * *
The moral here is not that hiring people is going to solve all of an
HQWUHSUHQHXU¶VVWUXJJOHV+RZHYHUKLULQJWKHright skills and qualities will get
you to levels you cannot reach on your own without giving up an awful lot of
your time, energy, and sanity. Most small business owners are just one or two
great hires DZD\IURPGUDPDWLFDOO\LPSURYLQJWKHLUFRPSDQ\¶VIXWXUH We hope
this issue helps you set up a system to help you do exactly that.
Until next month, keep it ELF!
P.S. Visit the ELF 1-2-3 area of PiranhaCentral.com for a list of all of the
resources mentioned in this Money Map (and more) to strengthen your hiring
systems, and resources on creating a strong results-based team environment.
© 2008 Piranha Marketing Inc. 8 www.PiranhaCentral.com