The Ultimate Guide to Building an All-Star Team in 2024: 5 Key Strategies for Success

Hiring an all-star team is going to be one of the most important things that you ever do in your business. Because if you have a big goal, a big dream, a big vision you're trying to accomplish, you can't do that alone. You can't get there on your own. You need to have a team of people to help you reach that dream. And so many entrepreneurs struggle with this because you hire somebody and it doesn't work out, and you go back to thinking like, "I gotta do this myself because this just isn't going to work out." So today I'm going to share with you my 5 fundamental factors for hiring an all-star employee. Those are gonna fly in the face of a lot of traditional HR advice, okay? And the reason is a lot of the traditional HR advice is broken. It doesn't work. Think about the people that you've tried to bring on board in your company by following the traditional HR rules and hiring processes. How many of those employees have worked out for you? How many first employees at companies ever stick around? It's almost zero. Because the traditional methods are broken, I'm gonna share with you what really works. So number 1 is stand for something. Your company has to stand for something meaningful, for something important. People don't want to come to work just to earn a paycheck, just to cut code in front of a computer. They want to feel like they're contributing to the world somehow, that their presence at your business is making the world a better place. It's important. If you have a job offer for a computer programmer, or you need someone to do your website for you. They could go work for 100 different companies. Why are they gonna pick you? Because your business means something. People don't go to work for the salary, they want meaningful work. So put that front and center. You should wanna do something important too, right? Your company should stand for something to make you happier, to bring energy into your business. You should have people lining up to wanna come work with you because of the powerful message that you're putting out there. Mine is believe. You gotta figure out what it is for your business. When you have that, that's an instant way to stand out. So people aren't just comparing the salary and the location, they're coming to work for a business that is doing something important. I had a customer last night who bought my complete ZUGA package, and he writes to me, he says, Evan, I wanna come work with you. I wanna volunteer at your business. Tell me what you need help with. I'll do it. I want to be a part of the team somehow. You should get that kind of reaction consistently with your business. You should want people to be attracted to you. You're a magnet because you stand for something important. This is such an important thing that most businesses totally miss. You need to stand for something important to get people's hearts and, and soul into your company instead of just paying them to show up. That's the difference. So number 1, stand for something. Number 2, no resumes, no cover letters, no interviews. The traditional hiring process, I said, is broken because what you're hiring for, the skill sets you're hiring for— if you want a computer programmer, I don't care how good you are at creating a resume. I don't care how good you are at doing an interview with me one-on-one. That's not what I'm hiring you for, right? I don't need a programmer who's amazing at doing interviews, but then sucks at actually programming. You wanna hire for the skills that you need, and the process of going through cover letter, resume, job interviews is broken. Because this is how most companies will do it, right? You post a job ad, you get all these resumes coming in with COVID letters, right? You're reading through them. If you get 100 applications and each one takes you 5 minutes to read through, that's 500 minutes of your time. That's a huge amount of time wasted for you, where a lot of those people don't even read the job application properly. They just see, "Oh, computer programmer? I'm gonna apply." Takes them 2 seconds and it churns your time out. But then you go through that process, right? Okay, I'm gonna weed them out, traditional HR process. I'm gonna weed them out, we're gonna go through interviews. Again, days and days and days of your time. Sorting through interviews and finally you get the right person, right? You think, "This is the right person." You know, we vetted them, we've checked their references, they interviewed with you and anybody else in your team, your advisors, whoever. Finally, the right person. And then you actually put them on the job, and how often does it actually work out? When you go through that 3-month trial period, so many people end up being fired or quit in that process, and you already know within the first day if that's gonna work or not. But you've invested so much into them, into that whole process of hiring, that you are trying to find a way to make it work because you don't want to go back. To what it was before. You don't wanna go and do that whole painful process all over again. So eliminate the process and create a new one that works for you. I've made a video about why the hiring process is broken and how I use it. You should check it out. It's a great resource, but stop doing resumes. Stop looking at cover letters. Stop looking at interviews because those are not the skills you're hiring for. Number 3, hire passionate problem solvers. The number 1 ingredient that you want in a new employee coming on is someone who is passionate. There's an expression that, you know, I'd rather have somebody who has ignorance on fire instead of knowledge on ice. You want the person who is burning to be in your business, the person who will bust through brick walls, will solve any problems, right? As an entrepreneur, you're running up against a million problems every day, right? It's not a defined set of problems. It's going to change as you grow and build your empire up. And you need people who will be resourceful and will find solutions. And people I've had on my team may have had zero skills in the area that now they're gonna get into, but they're willing to dive in, all in, figure it out, and not be told, "Here's how to do it, XYZ," because they are passionate problem solvers. I've hired people who are— they're total misfits. They look terrible on paper. Nobody would give these guys a chance, but they work hard, they love what they do, they're committed to what my business is all about, and they'll, they'll invest anything to go out and find a way to make something happen. That's what you need. So stop looking for specific skills and look for people who are passionate problem solvers, because often the guys who look the best on paper end up being the worst employees. Number 4: Give opportunities to explore. There's nothing worse than coming to a job and doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over again, right? Would you like that? That's probably why you left your old job. So why are you being that kind of boss to somebody else? Give people opportunities to explore what they're good at, what they love, because you are not the genius of everything, okay? You are not the expert at everything. Give people a chance to explore what they're good at, explore their creativity, and bring that to the business, because they'll feel a lot more fulfilled and you'll end up with a much greater product than if you're just slapping wrists and saying this is the only exact way to do it. So an example that you guys can relate to, I put out a video not too long ago with the Beatles success story, and my initial vision was to have, you know, the Beatles, just their video playing, and me popping in text talking about their early struggles and how they overcame them. And Christina, who's my video editor— hey Christina— she, she did that and then added her own feel to it. She added Beatles pictures in there and sometimes blocked out the picture completely, and, and she made it way better than what I had in my head, right? I could have said, "No, do it exactly like this. This is the only way I want to do it," and it would have made Christina feel restricted, not happy, but also we've had a worse product, right? Give people that opportunity to explore. The reason why I hired Christina in the first place was in that first job assignment that I gave her, and I gave 20 other people who are applying to be my video editor, She didn't just do what I asked. Most people just gave me what I asked, right? They did the bare minimum. They did, they did what I told them to do. That's not good enough. She went beyond and she took the video that I asked her to do and added some Christina Spice and Magic to it. Like, yes, the one person who did something different, who explored, who pushed the limits, who thought of new ideas so I don't have to do everything myself. And that's why I hired her, and that's why she's awesome, and that's why she's still working. And going crazy making these videos for us. So you need to give people that opportunity to explore. And number 5, make sure you have the time. You have to make sure that you give yourself to your team, right? There's nothing— it's so bad when an employee comes to work at a business and they're thrown in, they don't know what they're doing, they don't have the training, they can't access you, there's no way to connect with you really, and they're feeling hopeless and a little lost. You gotta make sure that when you're bringing somebody on board, you free up your time to really train them and answer their questions and support them. And when they're struggling at the start, be there, guide them, motivate them, remind them of what they're doing, right? That, that one-to-one resource is huge. And I know a lot of entrepreneurs, you know, you're, you're running crazy businesses, you're putting in so many hours, you know, you're hiring this person to take work away from you. Now you gotta invest time into them. You may feel like, you know, I don't want to do all that. Well, if you're not willing to invest in your team and be there for them, you're not going to be a great manager, and that team's not going to love working for you. So especially at that start, you gotta make yourself available. You gotta be there to coach them and support them and mentor them and teach them and train them. And don't just throw them to the wolves. That'll help you attract a lot more of an all-star caliber employee. Believe. Those of you watching, like the video, you can subscribe to the channel below, and thank you so much. I'll see you soon. Psst, make sure to check out my newsletter. You're gonna love it.

Hi, I'm Jason J. Ros Fonseca of RiseOnline.com, and I want to say Evan Carmichael's newsletter is consistent, fun, inspiring, and it's the only newsletter I prioritize and look forward to, period.