8 Figure Talent Funnel

Subtitle: 99% of entrepreneurs struggle with talent not due to an inability to bring on the best talent, but due
to the inability to create the best process to recruit, source and hire the best talent.

Your team is the reason you won’t hit your goals. Build an 8 figure team and you’ll earn tens of millions. Don't,
and you’ll be another average entrepreneur.

By Jordan Ross
Founder of 8 Figure Agency
How to Execute the 8 Figure Talent Funnel

1 1. Forecast Talent Needs

2. Identify Ideal Talent Profile 2

(ITP)

3 3. Create Job Description

4. Source Talent 4

5 5. Filter Candidates

6. Interview Candidates 6

7 7. Assess Candidates

8. Hire Talent 8

Precursor: The #1 rule of building a world class team is to ALWAYS be recruiting

At all times, you should have job postings up across the web sourcing talent in advance of needing them

When you do this well, you will source talent and train talent on a fractional level before needing to onboard
them

By the time you onboard talent, they have:

Already proven they can execute in the role

Have already received training and onboarding into your company

Can turn into a FT employee with no training immediately, enabling an increase in your fulfillment
capacity
1. Forecast Future Needs
Forecasting future talent needs is simple. Start by mapping out the current org chart based on the number of
clients. Then, create future org charts for every increment of clients added.

Current Number of Clients 15

Next Org Chart 20

Next Org Chart 25

Next Org Chart 30

Next Org Chart 35

Here is an Org Chart for example

Result: have your forecast on which roles you need to source for
2. Identify Ideal Talent Profile (ITP)
There are 3 things you must identify for your ITP

Skills Soft Skills (Cultural Where they are located

Fit) online

Skills

Get hyper specific on this one (we will come back to this during the sourcing & filtering process)

Break this down with:

I- Responsibilities

Example responsibilities:

Post blogs in accordance to client schedule/package

Create ideas for blog posts based on keyword research

Communicate monthly results to clients
Write keyword specific blogs for clients
Conduct keyword research for clients

Keep clients happy

II-Goals

Example goals:

Each client grows 10% month over month

Clients stay for, at minimum, 1 year. Goal for each client is 36 months and beyond

III-KPIs

Example KPIs:

Complete blogs 2 weeks prior to publishing

Create 4 blog ideas for every 1 blog posted Communicate with clients weekly when blogs go live
Share results with clients from prior month on the 1st work day of every month
Send clients the keyword strategy for the upcoming month and blog topics for upcoming month

Soft Skills (Cultural Fit)

Create a list of values and aspirational values that define your company's culture. These values should be non-
negotiables and should align with your business's DNA.

Create 5-10 values or aspirational values you would like to see from this role

Values should be non role specific and should also be non negotiables to work in your business. You can teach
someone a skill, you cannot teach them to be a cultural fit. Create a list of values that are company specific
that define your company DNA.

Example values:

Earns Trust

Ownership
Bias for action
Delivers results

Aspirational Values

Aspirational Values can either be role specific or company wide. These are not non-negotiables for a
candidate to get hired, but provide a north star on ideal employee behavior.

Example aspirational values:

Over communicate
Attention to detail
Organization

Where they are located online

Where they are located online

Outside of posting jobs on Linkedin, oftentimes, the best talent in a specific field can be found in niche
groups or organizations.

Some examples:

Institutions
Training companies

Slack or discord communities

Facebook groups for paid courses

Find out where you can find your talent to post your job in these places or leverage a specific keyword
3. Create Job Description
Before you can go live with posting your job, you need to create a job description so candidates know if they
are a fit and for applicants to organically find you

Job Description Components:

Title
Description
Goals/KPIs

Compensation
Responsibilities

Two Examples of Job Descriptions:

Example 1​

Example 2
4. Source Talent
Once you have your Job Description, you are ready to go live.

The key to sourcing talent is to make your top of the funnel as large as possible.

There are 3 ways to do this effectively:

Correct Keyword Everywhere All At Referrals

Once

Correct Keyword

Your ITP is searching for specific keywords when applying for jobs, make sure you have the right ones in your
job posting

SEO Content writer vs content writer vs copywriter

Your ITP is searching for specific keywords when applying for jobs, so make sure you run the job title and role
by them

Everywhere All at Once

Sourcing talent is the same as any marketing funnel.

The larger the top of the funnel, the more
candidates that come through to the bottom.

Post your job everywhere you can think of:

LinkedIn
Monster
Indeed
Upwork/fiver

Vimeo (has a job board for videographers and

video editors!)

Referrals

Although you can probably find enough talent organically, most of the times, the best candidates come via
referrals

Internal referrals:

To maximize internal referrals, each time a new job posting goes live, send it to your internal team and ask for
referrals. To further incentivize, if you’re struggling to get the right talent, offer a payment incentive to your
team.

External referrals:

This is one I’ve never seen anyone do. Leverage the marketplace to refer other people to your role. If you are
hiring for an account manager position, identify 50-200 people in that exact role you would like to hire
(easiest to do this on linkedin or in a facebook group).

Reach out to all of these people leveraging the below script to attempt to get a referral:

Hey!

I am paying $500 to anyone that can refer an account manager to my company. I saw you were sitting in a
similar position in your company and was curious if you knew anyone? If you may be the right person, we can
allocate this $500 to you!

Thanks for your time. LINK TO JOB POSTING.

If you send this to 200 candidates on linkedin and 200 candidates from facebook groups, your odds of getting
a referral or finding the appropriate person increases dramatically.
5. Filter Candidates
At this point, you will have A LOT of candidates and without a formal process, you will have anxiety.

The goal of this step is to filter out 80%-95% of candidates via a test of competency.

Typically, for a higher level role, there will be two tests.

Test one: Basic Understanding

Display basic understanding of the role and functionality. Prove you are not a spammer and have some
specific technical skills

We do this to:

Filter out spammers

Have candidates demonstrate they are qualified for the role based on current skills

Test two: Job Execution

Assess candidates' ability to perform the job tasks beyond a reasonable doubt. This test should mimic the
actual job execution and may require a paid assessment.

Display you can do this job beyond a reasonable doubt. This test will most likely have to be paid as it should
take 1-2 hours to complete.

Scenario based situational (tactical) questions and how to solve them

Specific problems they would experience on the job (technical problems)

Projects/tasks they’ll be responsible for in the role

This step should be thorough and show us that the client can do that job

By the end of these two tests, we have filtered out 80%-95% of all candidates and move onto interviews.
6. Interview Candidates
Interviews are an opportunity to assess cultural fit and ensure candidates align with your company's values.
Ask scenario-based questions based on your core values and aspirational values to evaluate candidates'
problem-solving skills and mindset.

Core Values Aspirational Values

Create scenario-based questions that reflect your
core values. For example, if one of your core values
is "Ownership," ask candidates how they would
handle a situation where a client demands
immediate action on a Friday afternoon.
Create scenario-based questions based on your
aspirational values. These questions provide insight
into candidates' behavior and mindset. For
example, ask candidates how they prioritize over
communication or attention to detail in their work.

Interview:

The purpose of interviewing candidates, based on my model, is to identify a cultural fit.

A cultural fit is someone that aligns with your business's DNA. Your business DNA is the non-negotiable
intangibles that create your ‘culture(values shared within the group)

Referencing the values you created earlier, we will want to create future scenario based questions based on
your core values and aspirational values (10-20 questions is sufficient).

IMPORTANT NOTE: The reason we do future based questions and not “tell me about a time when” questions
is to assess how the candidate truly thinks and solve problems. Tell me about a time questions often times
leads to practiced answers which doesn't truly demonstrate cultural fit.

Fun side note: When I was in college, I fluffed the shit out of these answers. I made something mediocre seem
extraordinary, proving my point.

Question Examples:

Core value: Ownership

Scenario based question: It is Friday afternoon, you’re getting ready to take off for the weekend and a client
reaches out to you. Their facebook ads account just got shut down and theyre pissed. They demand you get it
back up asap. What do you do?

Create 10-20 of these questions, and then create your grading rubric.
7. Assess Candidates
Use a grading rubric to assess candidates' performance in interviews and ensure unbiased evaluations. Assign
scores to each question and set a minimum score for hire eligibility. Trust your instincts and consider your gut
feeling when making final decisions.

Question Values: Question: Score

#: :

Question 1 Ownership It's Friday afternoon, you're getting ready for the 2
weekend & a client reaches out to you. Their FB ads
account just got shut down and they're pissed. They
demand you get it back asap. What do you do?

Question 2 Bias for action You're managing a project, and your team encounters an 1
unexpected roadblock that could potentially delay the
project. How would you handle this situation?

Question 3 Deliver results Imagine you're in charge of a critical presentation, and 2

the computer crashes just before you're about to start.
What steps do you take to address the issue and continue
smoothly?

Question 4 Diving deep You're responsible for coordinating a major event, and 0
one of the keynote speakers cancels at the last minute.
How do you adapt and ensure the event's success?

Question 5 Earn trust You're a manager, and a key team member suddenly 1
resigns on a crucial project deadline day. How do you
address this personnel challenge and meet your project's
goals?
8. Hire Talent
My ideal hiring process is one in which the candidates doesn't have to start full-time immediately. This opens
us up (in fulfillment/operational roles) for mistakes with clients and decreased profitability.

In an ideal world, we source our talent in advance, and give them fractional work to work on part-time.

Example: An ads agency is coming up on their capacity

Instead of waiting until they need a hire, they interview 3-4 months out, onboard a media buying strategist in
advance in a part time function.

This strategist works on 1-2 accounts, getting trained and onboarded into the company.

This also allows us to assess if this talent is the right fit for us and if we are the right fit for them. After a month,
we conduct a meeting with this PT contractor and build a plan to move them into a FT role as we scale our
clients.
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