034: Give your Hiring Process a Makeover & Get the Talent you Need!

Hey, have you heard there's a new style of CEO on the block. The modern CEO. And she is changing the way businesses are run. She's setting her own hours and her own salary. She's creating a business around what matters most to her. Freedom, family, and impact. And her corner office looks nothing like what you'd see on Wall Street. It's a kitchen t your grandma's lake house, a spacious home office, the living room floor maybe surrounded by kids and crayons or the local coffee shop. Your business, your way. This modern CEO is here to stay. Because when you embrace your role as modern CEO, you will have more freedom, more profit, and more fun. Most importantly, you'll fall in love with your life and a business in a way you've only dreamed. Trust me, this isn't a pipe dream reserved for only a select few. You are the modern CEO. You are creating a business and life you love because a better business means a better life. Hey, welcome back to the podcast. I'm your host, Amber McHugh, and I am really excited to be chatting with you today about how you can start to build your team. What are you going to pay your team? Do you need benefits? All of these things that may run through your mind when you start to add people to your team or when you start to move people from contractor status to employee status. So we're going to dig into some of the nitty gritty today. And you know, I said in our last episode that we might just have two episodes left in our how to Clone Yourself series, but we might need to break this down a little bit because as I looked more closely at this particular content that we're going to walk through, I thought, I don't know, these might be a little bit too long if we cram them all into one, so it might break it up a little bit more. So roll with me if you will, but we're going to make sure that you are ready to get more done in less time through the power of how to Clone Yourself. And of course, as I mentioned, there is so much to go through here to support you in growing your team and being an incredible leader as you work with your team members, that we're going to get as much as we can into this how to Clone Yourself series that we're moving through here together on the podcast this summer. Although summer is fast coming to an end in so many parts of the world, we're doing. We might stretch it. We're stretching a little bit past summer, but we're getting a lot in here. And I want you to know there is more support for you over at howtocloneyourself.com there are tools and templates, and we can even support you if you want someone to walk you through the recruiting process because it hasn't been successful for you in the past or because you just don't have the time for it. I'm not gonna lie. When I did recruiting back in corporate, I couldn't do it for very long because it is an onerous process. It takes a lot of connection and interaction with a lot of people to make sure that we find you the right candidates for your role. And then we move through a hiring process and we find you the right people for your role as well as the right role for them. Right. Because we want it to be a win win. So that takes a lot of energy. And I did not enjoy the process back in the day, but I have revamped that process because the team that we build around you and the team that we build around your customers and your clients is what you what makes the business. The people will make the business. It's not the technology. It's not lead pages. It's not a Facebook post that is going to make or break your company. It is a team of incredible people that brings strategy to life. It's the most important thing that we have going on in the business. So with that in mind, we want to make sure that we find the right people. So we've got to go through an intensive recruiting process to make sure that there is a fit and that it's win win, that this cultural fit and that values are aligned like we talked about in the last episode. And that takes some energy and some effort. So we designed a How to clone yourself recruiting process that totally streamlines this. And it's incredible. I mean, we are blowing our own minds when we do recruiting with our clients. I am blown away at how we get to such an incredible place with our clients and find them the win and find the person that's looking for a role, a massive win as well. And in fact, little behind the scenes. We're going through a hiring process right now in both sides of our business. Amber McHugh and over at Three Boudoir, and we're using this process and we were looking at some of the candidates, and my mind is blown at how well this process works and at the caliber of talent that is out there. So if you are struggling to find good people, definitely connect with us. Over at howtocloneyourself.com. because we are finding the good people, we are finding the incredible talent. Which leads me to the importance of planning when you are gearing up to hire in your business. Because great talent does not wait around. Great talent has options. And if you're not ready to move, if you're not ready to make a hire, if you're not furthering conversations, then you might lose your chance. Now, there's some differences here. I do believe it's important over time. If, you know, one year from now, I'm going to want to hire a business development team member, a salesperson for my team. If, you know, a year that's about a year out, you might start building relationships with people who, you know, do business development. But when you are ready to make the hire and you're having more intensive conversations, think about compensation, think about benefits, think about what this role actually looks like on your team. Because if you go to say, hey, I'm ready to go now, let's do this, and then you back it up 10 steps, you're going to confuse your candidates and you're going to prompt them to say they're not ready, but I've got this other offer over here and they are ready. And that's looking pretty good right now because I'm ready to make a move. So you want to start to prepare yourself. Whether you're one year out and just starting to have conversations, that gives you a lot more time to think about compensation, benefits, et cetera. Or if you're close and you've already drafted that role description and you're ready to start formal recruiting for this process. This is the episode for you in either of those situations because we're going to help you prepare to make the hires. Now, first things first, where are you going to find your clone? You know, I have heard people say that they don't find great talent on Upwork or Odesk as it used to be, or in freelance communities. And then I would challenge and argue that it's the recruiting process that isn't working because there is great talent everywhere. It's just a matter of finding the win win for your position. So make no mistake, right? You can find great talent everywhere. So if someone said to you or if you were thinking, oh, I can't find that person here, or they're just not out there, we've got to change the game a little bit and look a little bit differently. And that's why, as we discussed in the last episode, your role description is going to so important because it's going to attract the right people, repel the wrong people. So we can help you identify the best people for your role and for your company. Now, you can also find great people on fiverr. I've absolutely used Fiverr before. In addition to upwork, I've networked at events and found phenomenal interns out of those experiences. At one particular event, someone heard me speaking and came over and said, I wanna support you. I love the work you're doing and can I intern? They were at university and we made that work. And Mandy interned with us wonderfully. She was such a gem and such a joy. She worked with us for over a year. I think it was about a year and a half. She was going to school at. I believe it was George Washington University. She might have been at George Mason. I mix up the Georges. I'm so sorry. To the alumni from George Mason and George Washington who may be listening. That is not intentional. And we work together for a long time. But one thing I wanna say about interns is that interns are learning. It's a learning experience. It's a learning opportunity. So be ready to pour into your intern and train them up a little bit. Show them how things can be done. Show them how good business is done. Help them to build a system. I didn't say build the system. I said help them to build a system around the work that it is that they're gonna be. They can be more efficient. And sometimes interns who have all of the right skillset may just be a little bit nervous to step forward into things because they haven't done this before. So depending on the level of your intern as well, you may want to do some confidence building and show them you cannot get this wrong. And that's where building a system or helping them building a system, guiding them to build a system becomes really valuable because you are giving them skills that they can take forward. And let's say they build a system with your guidance and direction and they bring it back to you and say, hey, I think we're there. Does this process look good to you? And you sign off on it and they start implementing that. That not only gets you buy in between the two of you that you have agreed that this is the process and this is what we're going to do. Right? It also accelerates their implementation time because now they've already checked this with you and they know what they need to be doing so that investment time up front in helping the intern map out the process, detail what's going to be done. So everybody's clear is a good investment because after you invest that time preparing the intern to execute, they are going to be able to fly without you. So it's sort of someone I used to work with said don't throw people into the deep end of the pool without floaties. And we would joke, I'm in the deep end of the pool. I need some floaties over here. Can somebody help me out? And this is you or someone on your team helping out interns, helping out our next generation of employees and contractors and freelancers and brilliant people that are going to be serving communities for years to come. It helps them build confidence and a skill set that they can use going forward. So I derailed a little bit. I spent a little extra time on the interns because I love them and I want us as a community of leaders and business owners to be able to support our future generation. Well, and of course, as you're looking for people, right. I mentioned a couple of sites. I mentioned organic ways that things unfold. Like job like when someone came up to me at the conference. But of course you can do job postings as well. Indeed is a great place to recruit candidates. And on Indeed it operates much like Facebook. So you're not paying. In the old days, you'd pay $3,000 to post something on Monster. Indeed has changed the model a little bit and they're using more of a Facebook model where you're posting for views and you're posting for days and you're posting for reach. So it operates a little bit differently and it's really helpful and it's a game changer. Indeed actually started as sort of a site aggregator of job postings that were out there on company sites, on Monster across the board. So they've changed how they operate a little bit and it's really effective. Another great place to do job postings is LinkedIn. They're a little bit more expensive, but professionals are on LinkedIn. People who are building a career are on LinkedIn Facebook, of course, another place where you can do job postings, great resource. And you can also post in groups where your candidates may be hanging out. And we've gotten some high caliber candidates out of Facebook groups. And one more thing that I want to mention about job postings is that I don't actually think of them as job postings at all. They're a recruitment vehicle. But I like to look at them more as an advertisement. You want to bring in the best caliber of candidate that and for that reason you've got to put your Best foot forward and you are recruiting, right? It is a recruitment process, it's not a passive process. So that's why I like to think about it as an advertisement or I'm doing a little bit of marketing to bring in the best caliber of talent. And I'm telling you, this works. This is the way to approach doing a job posting, looking at it more like marketing, right? We've got to be proactive and we've got to think about the investment that we're making in other people and that they will be making in us as we move through the recruiting and the interview process. Another great way to recruit great talent is through referral networks because people do not want to send people your way that they don't like or that they can't strongly refer. So with that in mind, ask your community, ask your networks, hey, do you know anyone who would fit this role profile that you just put together? And then you still gotta go through an interview process because who's great for me might not be great for you. And that doesn't make the person any less qualified, any less fabulous. But that just reflects that we may have different needs in our companies and in our organizations, right? I may need someone on WordPress, but I need someone on WordPress who's available 24 7. That is not the reality. But I'm just making up a crazy example. You may not need someone that's 24 7. You might just need someone who is available from 8 to 9am every morning, right? So our requirements may be a little bit different, our needs may be a little bit different. Certainly our cultures and our values may be different. So you've got to check all of these things as you move through the interview process to ensure it's a win win for you and your candidates. You may operate in a totally different way than that other person and that may not be the way that you operate, may not be in service to how your candidate works best. So again, they could be great, but your working styles just don't match and there is no shame and no judgment in this game. So if it doesn't work, if they're not the right person for you, I encourage you to move on. You want to bring the best people onto your team and you want it to be best for them and for it to work out well for them. So don't hesitate to say, hey, you are so good, but our needs aren't totally aligned right now. Right? Or I've got this other person whose skill set is spot on for everything we're looking for, but I'm going to refer you out. I'm happy to share your contact information and I'll keep you in mind for the future. Do not hesitate to pass when it's not a win win. Now, as we've talked about looking for candidates in all the right places, when you get to the interview stage, you're going to want to ask the right questions. But before we even get to the interview stages and the screening of your candidates, I want you to be prepared from a compensation and a benefits perspective. And is this hourly or is it a contractor position? So let's break those down, starting with benefits. Because not all of us need to or are able to offer benefits right now. We are running small businesses, right? Maybe teams of two or three. So if you're going to bring on an employee into your organization and you're not yet offering benefits, you may want to think about doing a couple of things. You may want to think about giving them a stipend so that they can set aside a certain amount of money that's separate from their salary that goes towards their benefits cost. You may also want to think about benefits if you're bringing on employees and you're paying them by payroll. There are a couple of organizations like Gusto and justworks who you can set up your payroll with and also mobilize benefits. So those are a great couple of resources to look at. If you're at that stage where you're moving people from contractor to employee, or you've got employees and you're ready to start pouring into them and offering benefits, that's exactly the place that we are in with our photography company, three Boudoir. At the start of next year, we're planning on offering and adding benefits through justworks or Gusto. I'm still evaluating which one we're gonna go with for that. Currently, we run our ambermceh.com payroll on Gusto. Smooth sailing. Easy breezy. I've read some reviews that have had concerns about customer service, but I have never had an issue. And they've made this process unbelievably simple compared to what it could have been if I was piecing this all together on our own. So you've got a few options there in terms of benefits. Now, one of the reasons that we are thinking and we are ready to add benefits for our photography team, they've been with us for a long time. And I believe as business owners, as employers, as leaders, we have an obligation to take care of our people. Benefits are a great reason for People to stay with your company. But they're also a great reason for people to look elsewhere. If someone's getting ready to have a baby, they're probably going to want some benefits, right. If they're not getting them through their spouse's insurance. So those are great things to look at as you start to think about how you want to build your culture and how you want to love up your team. Another thing on the benefits front, outside of just health insurance, life insurance, short term disability, long term disability, Right. The core benefit offerings are things like vacation. Vacation's an interesting thing because at least for those of us that are in the United States, vacation is not well used. And let me clarify what I mean by that. In so many instances in the United States, people have vacation time that they don't actually use. We are a nation of workaholics. It is the reality. And I know that when I was going from corporate to running my own business, I had to really pivot. And it took me about seven, eight, maybe 10 years to not feel guilt about going on vacation, not checking in, or to not feel guilty if I'm sitting on the beach and I'm actually working. That's pretty amazing also. So it was just this summer actually that I was sitting on the beach in Florida working. I woke up early to get a bunch of stuff done so I can enjoy the afternoon with the kids and the family. And it was the first year that I did not feel an ounce of guilt or anxiety or stress or. Oh man, is it really okay that I'm working at the beach and I feel amazing? Yeah, that is totally okay. And right. Considering that as me as business owner was feeling that team members as well are very not likely to take the full amount of vacation. Which is why when unlimited vacation became popular in a lot of organizations across the United States, it was a cool thing. Unlimited, it sounds amazing. But again, if you have a culture and you have a society where people aren't taking their vacation, unlimited vacation doesn't really matter or mean that much. It sounds good, but it kind of does not lip service this idea that I want to give you this amazing benefit and you know, take it if you want, knowing that most people, the majority of people will not take it. The other thing that that did is that most companies, when you had a vacation balance that you weren't using, that would be paid out, whatever, if there may be rollover policies, if you don't use it all, it could roll over to the next year or not only a certain amount rolls over but whatever you didn't use at the time you leave the company could potentially be paid out with unlimited. That didn't happen. So not only did it take away the perk or the benefit that you might get this paid out if you actually leave or are asked to leave the company, but it also we were not using it anyway. So this idea of unlimited is a little bit dicey and a little bit tricky. I want to propose to you something else as you think about vacation instead, which is a vacation minimum. People at our company take a minimum of how many weeks of vacation a year. You have unlimited vacation and we're going to ask you to take a minimum of two weeks a year. We're going to ask you to take a minimum of three weeks a year because we believe that people who are rested, people who have passions outside of work, people who slow down will actually speed up, accelerate, do better work and pour into this company and our customers better than if they were working all the time. There's a lot of data and research and information to go behind the productivity around slowing down to speed up. You guys know if you've been hanging around for a little while that I talk about that all of the time. So I'm not going to go into that here, but I wanted to offer you a few different ways to think about benefits that you offer, including vacation. And then there are a whole slew of other benefits in perks that you could offer. You know, taking the company out, retreat, right? Dinner on me. If you're not in person, dinner on me and send surprise gifts like that. Those things go a long way, so think about them when you're thinking about your benefits. Now, as we start to think about compensation, this is a very big topic. So we are just going to scratch the surface. And of course, if you want to go deeper, we are totally here from you, here for you over@howtoclone yourself.com but when you think about compensation, I want you to think about a budget that you might have. Build your budget. If you do not have a budget or a forecast or an understanding of what your revenue versus your expenses are, do that. It's important and it's going to help us inform our compensation conversation. Now, the other thing that is important when it comes to compensation is that compensation. Compensation is aligned to the role and it's aligned to the things that are important in that role that the person actually execute on. So certainly in many roles there's a baseline compensation, right? $18 an hour, $25 an hour, 40, 50, 60 $100 an hour or a salary. Right. Or a retainer. A lot of different ways you can structure that. In addition, you can layer in variable compensation or bonuses. So variable compensation would be, for example, if a salesperson is on the team, they might receive a percentage of revenue. So if they're enrolling people in your program, if they're enrolling people in consulting opportunities with you, or if they're on the floor of your brick and mortar store doing sales at retail, a location, they may get a percentage of whatever is sold. And that's called commission. So you can do straight up commission. You can do a base plus commission. You can also have bonuses that are flat. For example, if our launch does XYZ and revenue, everybody gets this amount. Or if our launch does XYZ in revenue, you get X percentage of your salary. So I'm just, like I said, just scratching the surface on that to give you some ideas into plant some seeds. But what you want to make sure that you're doing is rewarding your people for the behaviors that need to happen to make this business a success that you've agreed upon as a company that are part of your mission, vision and values. So you want to make sure those things are closely aligned. Now getting a little bit more specific and a little bit more practical because there's a lot in there and you got to kind of sit down, work with it, map it out, and again, there is help out there, a la how to clone yourself. You are not in this alone, but I want to talk to you about getting someone who is more junior or getting someone who you pay a little bit less because you've got to build a leverage model. I'm not talking paying them less and taking advantage. I'm talking about being a smart business owner and aligning pay with the value of the role and being mindful of your budget. So in the big scheme of things, I like to think that someone who can just come in and get it done, and they're a subject matter expert. Let's say that you need to get some PR done. You can either hire an intern, you can hire someone junior who has a process around this, but it's not really their thing, right? Or you can hire a PR pro, a total master. None of these is the wrong thing to do. Whether you hire an intern and you build up the process with them and you execute on it with them, or you hire someone that's more junior, who's done this, who can do it, and who's had some success with it. But it's not their core thing. Or you hire someone who this is all they do all day, every day. None of those are wrong, none of those are bad. But there'll be differences in quality of work. There'll be differences in time to implementation. Right. Someone who's already got a system built is going to be able to get out there a little bit faster for you than someone who does not have a system built. And the pay scales will be different. So an intern might be lower because they're learning. Someone who has done this before, but it's not their core thing. Might be lower because it's not their core thing. Right. You're gonna go through some bumps and you're gonna pay for that. And you might be paying less, but you're also gonna pay a little bit more time, potentially because they're gonna work through this with you and it's not gonna be as smooth versus someone who is a total whiz at this. You might pay a little bit more, but it might be a little bit more streamlined and you might move a little bit faster because they know exactly what they're doing. So that's how I think about the pay scales. I call it the what to pay scale. If you've got someone who's operating in their zone of genius and they're going to market and working on this fast, right, you're going to pay more. If you've got someone who is learning, you're going to pay less, but you're going to learn with them. Similarly, if you've got a role or a task that's for example, highly systematized, highly routine, sort of copy paste, click right data entry, things like this, that's a lower level skillset activity and you might pay a little bit less. I often find people paying much more than they need to for activities that are pretty routine and could be systematized. And you can build yourself a better leverage model as a business owner. And again, on the flip side, I've seen people who are paying way low for what they're getting. Or I've had people come to me and, and say, hey, this is the price. And I say that is way too low. Please add a couple hundred dollars to this or I'm behind already. Please add your delay fee, your late fee to my work because yeah, I know I was supposed to have this to you two days ago and I'm behind. So I want you to be really mindful about your budget and about being fair to the work that is being done and the person that is in that role because when we invest in each other, we 100% grow together. I firmly believe in that. And you're probably hearing that come out as I talk about internships and pay and all of these things. We've got an eye on your budget as business owner and we've got an eye on taking care of people. And sometimes it's tricky to strike those balances. Sometimes people on our team don't have the visibility or they don't see things the same way we see them. That has certainly happened to me in the past and it's sometimes difficult to work through, but it is possible to work through and get everyone to a place where they are in that win win situation. So there's also some hybrid opportunities where you've got someone who's a total rock star in this one thing and they're learning this other thing. So you're going to make the investment in them while they learn. Let's invest in each other. Let's pour into each other. And you've got to remember if something is really a high priority for you. Right. Going back to that PR example, if this is a really high priority, like the stakes are high for the growth and the expansion and the success of a project, you might want to make the investment. And talking about hybrid opportunities, you can have someone who's more junior on your team work on that project with the more senior level person. And again, we start to pull each other up and rise together, together so we can build better leverage models, so we can support each other better and we invest in our futures together. So little bit idyllic, little bit philosophical and a little bit practical. So we're going to move now from pay to so we covered benefits, we covered how to pay, we talked about how to pay through payroll, we covered what to pay. And now I want to talk about this idea of full time versus part time versus contractor. When you go to recruit, I want you to be very upfront on whether you're looking for someone full time, part time, and whether it's an employee or a contractor position. Right. Part time could be employee. Contractor full time is usually employee, unless it's for a short amount of time on one specific project. And if you have question about what it is to be an employee versus a contractor, definitely check with your attorney. Definitely check with the IRS guidelines that are out there that define or your local tax authority if you're somewhere else around the world. That helps define and explain what the difference between employee status is and the difference between contractor status. Employees are People who have set working hours that are pretty much defined by the company, equipment is provided to employees, they're doing work that's directed by the company and they don't have a lot of, there isn't a lot of liberty, right Versus Contractors are kind of doing their own thing. They've got their own process, they're going to run with it, they provide their own equipment, they do work with other people as well as you. So these are just a couple of bullets that differentiate between employee and contractor just to give you some sense here. But definitely look at this a little bit more if you have question here or if you are unsure because this is something you want to get right, right? Then as you think about your employees versus your contractors, there's going to be a pay difference there. Contractors typically make a little bit more because they carry the tax burden. Employees, the tax burden is built into payroll processing, payroll taxes, Medicare, fica, right? There are a whole slew of employer paid taxes that you will take care of when you run payroll for that individual employee. When we were just starting out and it was only very recently that we started to bring on actual employees into our organizations because we had multiple contractors doing very defined pieces of work that they had subject matter expertise in, right? Facebook ads, digital marketing, executing on very specific processes that they ran, providing direction on some things to even us, right? As consultants and as advisors, even our photographers and our shoot stylists in the photography business, they bring their creative style to it, they pick their hours, they provide their equipment. So there are, it's definitely part time, right? And very focused defined work. So there are some different ways that you might want to think about this short term in your business when you're bringing maybe starting with contractors, starting with virtual assistants and then eventually over time you may move to employee status. Now with that in mind, I want to recommend that the recruiting process you use is still as robust regardless of if you're hiring an employee or a contractor. Regardless of if you're hiring an employee or a contractor, I want you to leverage a highly robust recruiting process. So it's a win win because you're going to put a lot of energy into recruiting people. You're going to put a lot of energy into training people. It is a little bit of short term pain, but there is absolutely long term gain. If you invest your energy and you focus on finding win wins and you do the work that we have been talking about here in this how to Clone Yourself series. This will help you and it will go a long way in Building a happy team, an engaged team that serves your clients and your customers and your business well and with love. In fact, I am not just making this up. Businesses on the s and P500 that have engaged happy team members, employees perform better overall. So if we have happy companies, if we have happy team members, our success, our potential and opportunity for success goes up because we rise together and happy people help make other people happy. So there is a layer in here. Yeah, we definitely want to take care of our people and we want to make sure we're finding the right people, regardless of if they're contractors or employees. So you've prepared, you've looked at your budget, you've thought through what your compensation model will be. You've looked at benefit options. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I know this is a lot as I'm sitting here listing this and I'm rethinking everything we just went over. We covered a lot of ground. Now you are ready to start talking to people, to start receiving those applications, those candidates who are interested based on the role description you posted, and start breaking it down. Start talking to them. Start going through those resumes to identify who looks like they're a fit. Right. In the how to Clone Yourself process, we have some recommended application flows, and we have some ways that you can simply and easily screen your candidates so that you are not spent. I want you to get a lot of candidates in. Right? I want you to have a lot of candidates and a lot of options you can find that win, win for you and for them. And that takes a lot of rigor and a lot of focus to go through. So we streamline that through the how to Clone Yourself process. And I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, to bear with me, we might need to break this down into a couple of different episodes, and that is indeed where we are. Because you've got things to do. This is important, but I don't want to keep you here all day. So with that in mind, we are going to wrap up this episode and we're going to pick back up next week talking about that interview and that recruiting process. I'm going to get you through as much as I can in this podcast series and then we're going to back you up with all sorts of other support. Over at howtoclone yourself.com I am your host, Amber McHugh, and I have so loved spending this time with you here today chatting about the cloning process. I want you to find your perfect partner in crime. I want you to experience growth and I want this to be filled with as much joy and as much ease as possible. With all of that in mind, I'm going to leave you now and let you ruminate on this a little bit. And we're going to pick right back up in the next episode, talking about how you actually screen people so you can make sure that it's a fit for both of you. I'll be back again. This is Amber McHugh, and I have loved chatting with you today. Talk soon, Sam.