Hiring: The Talent Scout

Let’s get some new blood in here.

Professional sports teams are always looking for new talent. If they can get an ace pitcher into the rotation, they send the journeyman on to pursue excellence elsewhere. If they find there’s a better point guard available, they go after them. They have an Always Hiring Mindset.

Why? If you follow baseball season enough you’ll understand. Team X’s pitching gets them into the late innings but they consistently don’t have the relief pitchers to seal the deal. Team Y has good hitting – at the front of the order. After that, they can’t buy a hit. Or take football. Your team’s defense smothers your opponents, forcing punt after punt, turnover upon turnover. But when you have the ball, well…let’s just say most of your games are pretty low-scoring for both teams.

That’s why the talent scouts are out there at every opportunity, radar guns in hand, taking notes, working the numbers, working toward the Dream Team. It’s a competitive market for the best talent, but these guys believe in their team and they want to win. The same holds true for the most successful home improvement, home repair businesses. That means the only reason to keep low performers onboard your team is if you haven’t actively been searching for someone who can do the job better.

Why is it so critical to get the wrong people out and the right people in? It’s simple really, remember what we said about your weaknesses becoming the ceiling of your growth? Poor hiring is an organizational weakness that needs fixing and great hiring isn’t just the cure for what ails us – it’s rocket fuel for our business:

Great talent helps you move forward faster than any other factor.

Poor talent is the greatest detriment to your growth.

Be Always Hiring, Always Growing

Chances are you have some employees that you would not hire over again. So how fast can you get someone to replace them? Now that doesn’t mean just hire anybody, we don’t want to act rashly and hire the wrong person (remember our goal isn’t just to hire a replacement it's also to fix a Poor Hiring choice – let’s not hire poorly again and just hope for the best with the new guy).

We need a hiring process that is going to seek out and attract new talent, screen potential candidates with patient care, and onboard them well after everyone on our existing team says “Hell yeah!” to their future team mate.

Are we only hiring when we’re fixing a problem? No. If the best people make the best teams that make the best businesses, why wouldn’t you always be on the look out for new talent? Just like professional sports teams, if we adopt an Always Hiring Mindset, we’ll be on the lookout for opportunities to elevate our game. We become the Talent Scout, working toward the Dream Team.

If you’re the Leader Who Others Follow, sharing the vision with your people and leading them onward, you’re going to attract the best people. And those high-quality people are going to create a high-quality business that other rising stars want to hitch their wagon to.

Sound like a good enough reason to always be hiring? See you soon.