Today, my friends, we are talking hiring. Between my massage company, my coaching company, my old jobs, and my personal life, I believe I’ve hired like 100 people. So I have a few stories. I have some pointers, and I definitely have things to tell you that you don’t want to do. Okay?

Let’s just say I learned a lot on how to hire from the school of hard knocks. I made mistakes hiring. I wasted a lot of money hiring. I’m positive that I have hurt people’s feelings when hiring through the mistakes that I’ve made when that wasn’t my intention at all. Because I just hadn’t matured yet as a CEO. I didn’t really understand the best communication practices. I’ve allowed people pleasing to run my hiring process, which ended in poor quality employees.

I’ve made all the mistakes guys, and I’m going to talk to you all about them. But I’ve learned so much. My hiring skills are pretty on point now. So this episode is for anyone who is or has hired before, or for someone who has an employee or contractor or a few that don’t quite feel right. They don’t feel like the right person. This episode will help you understand why that is and how you ended up in this situation.

This episode is for anyone who thinks that one day they might hire in order to grow their company or remove workload from themselves. This advice will also translate to your personal life if you ever think about hiring a babysitter or a house cleaner or whatever, right.

Also guys, we are only a few short weeks away from our six month mastermind application window. We will not be reopening the application window for 30 More until November of 2022. So if you’re interested, you do not want to miss this.

The business mastermind is different than anything that you’ve experienced, okay. This is for entrepreneurs who have made at least $50,000 in revenue in the last 12 months who want to transition from workhorse entrepreneur into true CEO. We focus this 12 months on scaling your company and increasing your revenue while simultaneously reducing your workload.

30 More is the only place that I personally coach. We are a small and intimate group, and this group has gained some pretty insane results in the last rounds. We hold high standards to be in here, but we also play, and we have a shit ton of fun. You will leave 30 More with clarity on your business’s direction, how to scale, delegate, and not let your business own you. You will own it like a true boss ass CEO that you are, and you will have fun doing it. Remember fun? You might have even lost fun in the journey of business growth. It’s time to get that back.

This is a $12k investment for six months. You can learn more about 30 More and join the waitlist at hellyescoachingonline.com All right guys, this is episode number 47. I am your host Becca Pike, and it is time for your weekly dose of Hell Yes Coaching. Let’s go.

Hey, guys. I’m Becca Pike and welcome to The Hell Yes Entrepreneur podcast, the number one show for entrepreneurs looking to create their first six-figure year. If you’ve got the drive and you know how to hustle but you’re not sure where to channel your energy, we’ve got the answers. Let’s dive into today’s show.

Hey guys. Hiring. How do you know when it’s time to hire? So number one, let’s say you just genuinely want more time freedom, right. You want more time freedom to do higher level work. This may be a sign that it’s time to hire your first admin or front desk person, receptionist. Someone who can help answer calls, file, create processes, do social media posts, schedule events, reply to emails, clean the office, and do basic sales. Okay.

This is an admin, a VA, any type of front desk person. Someone that is going to help you get a lot of the backend work done so that you can do the bigger projects.

You know you’re ready for this if your $1,000 per hour work is being interrupted by $10 per hour work. Let me say that again. This is important. You know you’re ready for this if your $1,000 an hour work is being interrupted by $10 per hour work.

$1,000 hour work includes planning your growth, hiring, managing people, firing, doing podcast episodes, going around giving speeches, doing your business plan, applying for business loans, marketing, investing. If this work is being interrupted because you’ve got to answer an email from someone who’s asking you what time you open tomorrow, it’s fucking time to get an admin.

Or you might know that you are ready to hire if let’s say that you are on track for accelerated growth, and you are interested in bringing on another service provider. I knew it was time to bring on another massage therapist when I was building Massage Strong when I was like 80% at my physical ceiling. I knew that I was nearing a max out in my future. Like I couldn’t see any more massage therapists myself.

Guys, you do not want to wait until you are fully maxed out in order to hire another service provider. That is the worst time to do it. When you’re maxed to the gills, you don’t have the time or the energy to properly hire or train a staff member. Inside 30 More I teach my students to hire when they are around 70% to 80% maxed out on their books. Then it’s officially time to bring on another service provider if you are in a service providing industry and that you want service providers.

So today, I’m gonna shoot off some of the mistakes that I see people make when they are hiring. Just remember if any of these ring true to you, it’s not a time to feel crappy about yourself or your past or what you did or what you should have done. Okay, none of that. So we’re all here to learn, not judge. We’re just moving forward with new information. Yeah. Okay.

So mistake number one, business owners often don’t want to spend the time it requires to actually find a great fit. So they only interview like a fourth of the amount of people they should be interviewing. You guys want a big pool of people to choose from.

When I began Massage Strong, I would just accept the first or second person that applied. Usually a friend of mine that heard about it like on a Facebook message. They didn’t even like go through a hiring process. I’d be like okay, that’s a wrap.

It was coming from this thought that I could train the shit out of them, and really also coming from a thought of like I don’t have time to search high and low for someone amazing. This person will do just fine, and I’ll train the shit out of them.

So with both of these thoughts, what I was really doing was putting more workload on my future self. Like future Becca will just train the heck out of this person. But if present time Becca would just take the time to find someone that is a better, more high quality fit, future Becca wouldn’t have to pick up her slack and train on repeat. You know what I’m saying?

So when I just recently hired a VA, I did a lot of research first, and eventually accepted in nine interviews total. I took the time to find the right person. I cleared my schedule for a week. I spent a lot of time doing it. It was so different than the way that I used to hire. Then I found the right to VA for me. Shout out to Nicole. You’re my girl.

All right, mistake number two. I see entrepreneurs who hire because they think that the person that they’re going to hire will fix their problem instead of themselves troubleshooting and problem solving, and then having the new hire implement what they problem solved. You get what I’m saying?

So there’s a difference between head and hands when you have employees and contractor. Most people at the level that you and I are at, we are hiring hands. That is people that are going to put in the labor that we are going to request that they do. When you’re hiring heads, that’s usually like a COO, a CFO. This is someone that’s coming in with a lot of experience, a lot of knowledge, and they’re coming in to help you solve problems in your business.

So if you’re just hiring an admin or another service provider, you’re usually just hiring hands. You’re not hiring them to bring on problem solving skills. The last thing you want to do is say, “Hey, we’ve got this problem. I’m going to hand it to you, this admin, and I want you to solve it.” It will never work out the way that you want it to. You have to take the initiative to solve the problem first, and then tell them to implement it. All they do is the labor behind the implementation of the problem that you have already solved.

All right mistake number three. Allowing people pleasing into the room. Let me paint a picture that I know so well. Let’s say that you need more service providers. Let’s say that you own a spa, and you know that you need an aesthetician on the weekend and evenings. But when you interview the person that you really want to hire who seems like a great candidate, they can’t work evenings and weekends. But you hire them anyway because you can’t imagine them not working on your team.

This, my friends, is people pleasing and lackful mindset. I have done this. It is important that we know exactly what we need for our company and that we stick to it. Otherwise, we waste our company’s money and time. If you need nights and weekends, you only hire someone who can come in nights and weekends. You need someone with a special certification. You do not veer from that need.

Let’s say you want someone with great grammar and punctuation skills because you know that they’re going to be the first point of contact via email every single day for your customers. But when you meet this candidate, you just love them so much you throw it out the window, and you don’t even test their grammar and punctuation skills. Have y’all done this because I know I have. Which brings me to my next mistake.

Mistake number four. Biggest mistake, top dog. Not writing out exactly what you want your person’s role to be. If you’re iffy, they’re confused as fuck. If you aren’t detailed, they aren’t detailed. This is a follow the leader scenario okay. If the leader says, “Hey get us more people on our email list,” but doesn’t show the person how to do it or the exact steps to take, the person could spend a lot of time wasting their own time, their own energy, your company’s time, your company’s money, your company’s energy.

Before you even interview, you should write down minute by minute exactly what they will be doing with their time, how much time you want them to spend on implementing the solution to the problem that you’ve already solved, exactly when you want their lunch break to be right. Or you can be flexible with their lunch break, but like how long are they allowed on the lunch break?

All of these boundaries have to be so well written and understood so that there’s no big lack of communication. So that they can say no to this position if they don’t want to work for you. But they have to see first what you’re expecting before they are capable of agreeing or disagreeing for working with you. You have to have it on paper so that you know whether or not they’re a good or not a great candidate for working with you. All of it has to be written out beforehand so that both parties can decide.

All right, mistake number five. Hiring cheap because you’re scared to spend money. It’s going to give you less committed employees, higher turnover, more energy, and time training new people, and will waste money from your company. It is less expensive to hire and pay well once than it is to hire and pay cheap multiple times. Let me say that again. It is less expensive to hire and pay well one time than it is to hire and pay cheap several times in a row because your turnover rate is so high. All right. Pay your people well.

Mistake number six. Owners hiring before they have watched their candidates work. So this is completely based on my own opinions. A lot of places do not follow this rule. A lot of CEOs don’t make this happen. They will hire someone and start them immediately as an employee of the company. It doesn’t matter which way you do it. You got to decide what way feels best for you. There is no right or wrong, okay.

But for me, there’s always like a testing period of time with every person that I hire. So like with massage therapists, I would always allow this like two week window of probation period. We both knew that they were going to work for 14 days, it was very clear. At the end of the 14 days, both parties could decide if they wanted to continue.

So I got to see a lot of what they were like in those 14 days. Sometimes people would be late like two or three times just in their 14 day window. Like they couldn’t even hold it together for the probation period. Sometimes they killed it during their 14 day period, and it made me realize how excited and thankful I was to go through with the full onboarding process at the end of the probation period.

You probably want to word it differently than probation period. I can’t remember what I used to call it. I never called it a probation period. I called it like a test run or I don’t know what I called it. But it was very clear both parties understood that this is what was happening and why I was doing it. I spoke it to them as if it was a perk for them. It was.

I truly believe like listen, you don’t want to get yourself into a job that you don’t like. So why don’t you come on for 14 days. You decide if you like it. At the end of the 14 days, neither one of us are tied to keeping this position. But if we both choose that we enjoy working together, that we both like the way that this partnership is going, then we move forward with the full onboarding process.

Also, if you’re an online company or if you’re hiring like an admin or a VA, don’t be scared to do something along the lines with this as well. It might not be like a 14 day time period. It could be that you give them some sort of very small project to see how they accomplish it before you fully onboard them. Okay. It could be like a small task. You’d be surprised how many people say that they want a job desperately, but then when you ask them to do this very small project that takes 20 minutes to see how their work is they just like ghost your ass.

But listen guys. If you’re a business owner and you are managing or hiring people, there is so much to learn through trial and error. Like I said, I have learned a lot through all the people that I have hired and managed and hurt and got myself hurt and lacked communication and all of it. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I do my best not to beat myself up over it. I move forward as a better CEO, and that’s the best I can do.

What I learned is that the few people that have gotten hurt by me as their boss was because I wasn’t courageous enough to be direct or to be clear. My people pleasing or allowance of certain things or the biting of my own tongue, those were the things that actually created the riff in the end, right.

Like that’s why I’m such a big advocate now of having the hard conversations. The conversations that make you feel uncomfortable, you know. Having very clear expectations and boundaries when you’re hiring because the more clear that your boundaries are, the more room there is for freedom and creativity. Your hires aren’t just guessing what you want or if they’re making you happy or like anything like that, okay.

So, it is very important that if you have a future or if you are currently hiring, that you understand how to hire and manage people because you are dealing with other people’s lives, other people’s emotions, other people’s well beings, other people’s paychecks. It is important that you put time and energy into learning how to be a proper leader so that you can build your company. But you can also simultaneously give someone a really good place to work that feels really good to them, and their quality of life changes because of the way that you are leading your company.

But all of that is leaning more into the managing side of staff, and today we’re just mainly talking about hiring. If any of this feels like you just understand it, you enjoy it, you want more of it. If you know that you have potential of having more people on your team and you want your company to be as efficient as possible, I urge you to apply for 30 More this round.

When you apply you get access to my video vaults teaching exactly how to hire, who to hire, when to hire, and then managing your team as well as how to fire if that is to come up in your company. We begin our mastermind in July, but you have to pay and reserve your seat between May 1^st and May 5^th. That is only a couple weeks away. You can find all that info on our website hellyescoachingonline.com.

I will see you guys here next week. I hope that this episode was quick and useful and helpful and all the things that your little hearts needed. See you guys soon. Bye.

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Hey, thanks for taking the time to listen to today’s episode. If you’re looking to get more clarity and momentum for your business, visit hellyescoachingonline.com. See you next week here on The Hell Yes Entrepreneur podcast.