Eric Siu and Neil Patel break down how to hire top marketing talent using a three-level A-player taxonomy and the WHO framework. Neil targets LinkedIn candidates from competitor companies with multiple promotions and long tenure. Eric stresses defining concrete outcomes like $10M P&L responsibility and building scorecards before any outreach.
Today, we are going to talk about how to recruit A-player marketing talent to grow your revenue. So A-players, so actually it gets a little complex here. There's actually a book called StrengthsFinder. So an A-player, there's actually 3 types. Did you know that, Neil? No, you're muted.
I did not know that.
Okay. So before we go into this, there's 3 types of A-players. You have an A3 player, an A2 player, and an A1 player. Okay. An A3 player is someone that can do the job really well, But they don't necessarily want to become managers, nor do they want to, or they don't. Yeah. They don't want to, nor are they like really qualified to. Okay. So that's A3. A2 is someone that could be promoted one level. And then A1 is someone that could be promoted 2+ levels. These are your superstars. So when we talk about A players, we're talking about it from A3 through, through A1. We don't want to talk about the Bs or the Cs.
Okay.
Neil, what are your thoughts first?
The easiest way that I've gotten A players is I go to LinkedIn. I go and see who's worked for a competitor, not like someone who has marketing experience at a different random company. I'm talking about direct competitors. And I look for someone who's actually got promoted multiple times because that shows me that they were seen as being valuable to get promoted. And I look for someone who stayed at that company for a long time. And I look for someone who has been at multiple companies. They don't all have to be competitors. They stayed for a long time and they got promoted at both of them for a while. Because if they stick around for a while, they're loyal. If they got promoted multiple times, that someone finds them being valuable. Because when you interview people, they all say that they've done well and they're amazing and they produce amazing results, but promotions actually show that someone finds value in them. And by them working for a direct competitor, which is the third thing, that the chances are if they can do it for a direct competitor, they can usually do it for you as well. That's our recruiting method. You go to LinkedIn, you hammer, you hit up a ton of people. It's a numbers game. That's who you look for. And those are the people who tend to do the best for you. And they tend to also know other A-players and they bring you more over time as well.
Yeah. There's a book called Who, that's W-H-O with a question mark. There's an entire framework on this. And what I like about Who is oftentimes we might say, oh, we need to hire, but okay, what are you trying to hire for? So it's really important to define the outcomes. So maybe someone that's managed like $10 million P&L. That has recruited a team of VPs before. Maybe they've pitched RFPs. So you want to define exactly the outcomes that you're looking for. Maybe it's 3, 4, 5 outcomes. And then you want to also identify the competencies, right? So what are they actually good at? And then from there, you have a definition and then you can go reach out to these people, to Neil's point. Where I've screwed up before is giving people that haven't done it before a chance and a chance for too long. And that actually ends up setting the company back. So what you want to do exactly is define the outcomes first. Have they done this before? If they haven't done this, then don't even do it. Because if you have to grow them, if you have to do the job for them, if you have to keep looking behind your shoulders, that says they're not doing their job. And at the end of the day, it's your fault for hiring them. Okay. Having a process like WHO, again, WHO with a question mark, that's the book, setting the scorecards up, having a good hiring process, and then just reaching out to the people that have done it and then asking your network too. Or let's say at Neil's company, if I have people on my team, let's say my executive team, I might just go to their LinkedIns and look for 10 people that I think are great to talk to. And I'll be like, hey Neil, I looked at these 10 people on your LinkedIn. So who should we talk to here that would be a good fit for the company? And that makes it easy. That's also known as referral recruiting. Okay. Anyway, Neil, I'll turn it back over to you.
Last thing I have from my end is what we learned is when you're hitting people up on LinkedIn, those A-players, It's hard to get them if you just pitch them directly. It's easier to get them if you ask them if they know anyone like them. And a lot of them will just say, hey, I'm actually interested in the job. And then you can end up getting on the phone. But when you do a direct approach of saying, hey, do you want this job? I know I'm cutting it short, more so you would send them a nice paragraph or so with some fluff in there. But we've just found that doesn't work as well as more so asking them, do you know anyone else that would be a good fit?
All right, so that is it for today. Go to marketingschool.io/live, that's L-I-V-E, and to hang out with Neil and myself, September 19th to the 22nd, and we'll catch you later.
