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Training room where we're going live talking about how contractors can improve their game. And today we're going to be talking about recruiting, hiring and onboarding. And the very first thing I want to talk about is the truth pyramid of talent and what contractors think it might be and what it really is. So the best way to think about this is that recruiting. Does not equal hiring, and hiring. Does not equal onboarding. And the truth is most contractors confuse all three of those completely. They think they're all one thing, they are the same thing, and they're all very different things. We're going to talk about that today. But the truth of the matter is that it's not for a lack of talent being available out there to contractors. It's the fact that most contractors aren't equipped to serve that talent well. And we're going to talk about how to equip yourselves so that you can get the best talent to come work for you. With our recruiting, hiring and onboarding discussion today, we're going to try and keep it to 30 minutes or so. But my goal today is by the end of it, you're going to know exactly what to do in recruiting, exactly what to do in hiring, and exactly what to do in onboarding to create an experience that people will not want to leave, they will want to be a part of, actually start to attract people to you. But before I go there, I want to talk a little bit more about this truth pyramid of talent and really a little bit deeper on it on the way that you should maybe be thinking about it. So we're gonna get those erased. I'm gonna do this one more time. We're gonna put some new stuff in there for you. And so let me get my pin back. There we go. Same three things, three levels of this pyramid. But the very first level, the base level that you have to have from anybody coming into your organization is talent. If they don't have the talent, especially when it comes to sales, but also in production or administration, if they don't have the talent to do the thing that it is that you need them to do, you should not hire them. That should be prerequisite. And so what's. What is a talent? Talent or a trait or, or an attribute. You can look at them all very similar. Is something internal to us. We just come to the game with it. Those talents get vary across the board, but it's not something that you can normally teach. Talents include things like motivation, drive, persistency, goal setting, being responsible. Those are things that people come to you Already having either in them or. Or not in them. And we have to develop a program to determine if they have the talents that we need in our organization. And so if we can determine what those talents are, and you can certainly get that, we've done a lot of content on talents and this conversation, we have that available for you in our platform. But if they have the talents that I need, like that motivation, drive, responsibility, fits my culture, things like that, they're character traits that fit us, then the next thing I have to determine is how much of the skills that we need do they already have. Because if they have all the talent in the world that says they're going to be great in this position, but they don't have any of the skills to go with it, your onboarding time is going to take a lot of time. And we believe strongly in this concept called time to money. And so especially in your sales department, if you find the person with the right talent and they're outgoing, they're hungry, they're ready to go. One of the things that we're really looking for when it comes to talent is hungry, humble and smart. Do they have those talents in them? Do they also have that drive that goes with hunger? But even if they have all of that, but they don't have any skills, it's going to take you a long time to teach those skills. And so they're going to have a long time until they make money or at least be proficient in what they do. So we want to look for those skills and skills like in the sales side of the world would be the skill of asking questions, giving a presentation. Those are skills that are all things that can be learned. And you can think of those as external or talent was internal. They just come to the game with it. Skills are something anybody can learn. Some of my best salespeople have been introverts. They weren't extroverts. You don't have to be an extrovert to be a great salesperson, but they had the skills that allowed them to be successful. And so with those talent and skills, I'm going to have to have a third piece. And it really comes from that drive aspect of things or, sorry, that talent aspects of thing is they have to have the will. They have to have the will to do whatever is necessary to be successful in what they want to do. In other words, they got to have a little bit of figure it out factor. They're not coming and asking all the time. They're doing the research and doing the study and they're working outside of the boundaries of practice. They're working and practicing on their own. So they have a will to be successful. And so that is derived from their talent. But I call it out specifically because if they don't have that one, there's not going to be much room for success. Now, let's talk about these three pillars and get to you exactly what it is that we're going to be talking about today to get really clear on this. Recruiting, hiring, and onboarding. But before I go there, I want to do just a little bit of housekeeping. If you're here watching today and you're going to be learning about how to recruit, hire an onboard for your particular business. Get out a pen or get your phone out and get ready to take some notes. Take some notes. As you go through this, just listening to something, you're going to retain anywhere from 7 to 10% of it for just a little bit of time. You know, that first day and then every day after that. If you don't reinforce it, you're not going to remember it, and you'll end up retaining 1 to 2% of what it is that we share today. But if you take some notes, that will increase it to about 25%. If you refer back to those notes, they will constantly reinforce what it is that you learned. I'd also like to get you to ask some questions. Write down any questions that you may have, and we're going to open this up at the end for any questions that you guys may have. So a little bit of housekeeping there. Let's go ahead and move on to the next segment of our teaching today. And we're going to talk about these main components of what we call the talent engine. And this whole idea today is to create this talent flywheel that is irresistible, come to work for, and people just start coming to you. That was one of the beautiful things about running my own business, is that we started having people come to us, and it was because we treated it like what I'm going to be teaching you today. So the very first thing that we have to take care of. I'll get some color here, is we have to take care of the understanding that recruiting is one of the factors in us getting the best talent. We've got this recruiting mechanism that's important. We also have hiring. And so when you're thinking about your talent mechanism or how you're going to hire people, you need to be thinking recruiting, hiring, and then finally onboarding. See if I can spell this correctly. There we go onboard. So we need to onboard people. We need to think of this like an engine. If I don't do recruiting well, I'm not going to hire very well and I'm not going to onboard very well. But if I do recruiting and hiring, great, and this one's out of sync. I'm not going to retain people very well. And you need to really think about these things being something that's important for you to attract the right people. Make sure you attract the right people to your organization. How do you do that? We're going to talk about that today. We're going to talk about how to get those people to come to work for you, and then we're going to talk about how to get them to stay. So this is attraction. This is getting them to be successful, hopefully, and getting them on board, bringing them into the equation and then ultimately determining their success through our onboarding and how we go about doing that. Most of you out there think of these as all one thing and they're not really. And they are in an order for a reason, and they're last in our series for a reason. We're going to get to that a little bit later as well. But I just need you to understand the overall mechanism that this is where we get them to raise their hand. This is where we bring them on board and. And then actually into our team and then we onboard them. And from day one, it's an experience and we're going to talk about what all of that looks like today. So next up, let's talk about the recruiting aspect of what it is that we do. Actually, before I do that, I want to do a little reminder here. Sorry about that. I want to do a little reminder of what it is that we're doing for all of you that might be watching this for the very first time. We've been doing a series on this contractor's blueprint up here. And this blueprint is 12 pillars of your business. As a matter of fact, I'll just take this out of there so you can see they're pillars of your business. And we must do certain things at certain times based on this stage of our business. But these pillars are divided into two sections. There is your. There we go. There is your foundational pillars, the first six, which would be leadership, finance and numbers, culture, process, team performance and accountability, those six things. And then the last six things are technology, marketing, sales, production, training, and then recruiting, hiring and onboarding. We have to do certain amounts of these things based on this stage that we're in, in our business. So you can think of this as like a matrix that goes over those pillars saying that I need to do certain things at certain times in my business to be successful. So when I'm down here as a startup, I've got five things that I got to do and I got to do really, really well in order for me to move up in my stage. And those five things don't they have to do with the pillars, but they're not necessarily doing all 12. I've got five things I've got to do, I've got to generate opportunities, I've got to sell those opportunities, I've got to produce those opportunities, I got to collect them and, and I got to do it profitably. If I can do that, I can move up. We call those the million dollar must. Those five areas of my business. We have those on our platform in our AI tool. You can learn all that all on your own without even getting any coaching from us. Like it's out there and super affordable. Same for the solopreneur. But now as the Solopreneur, this person that's wearing all the hats may have a little bit of help from somebody in production, maybe somebody doing some administrative work for them, but they have certain things they have to do and they gotta check those boxes off. So I got a little bit I gotta do in leadership, I got a little bit I gotta do in finance numbers, but I don't have to do the whole thing. And what we've found after 13 years of coaching some of the most successful contractors out there in the country is that a lot of you, when you come to us, you're doing things out of order. You're up here trying to do something big in a growing scale company that has reached 10 million, 15 million, $20 million without doing the things before it that are really important. So what we like to do is we like to help people walk through these things and get them in place. And our, our tools allow for that to happen, to do the right thing at the right time. That's what we're going to be teaching on throughout our time here as we continue to do lives. We're going to be starting a new series after the first year. Can't wait to share that with you at the end, what that new series is all about. So that's the contractor's blueprint. There is a set of pillars that our business is built off of. And at each stage of our business, as we continue to grow and scale and become a little bit Bigger. We need to do a little bit more in each one of those so it's not this big, huge, like, take on everything all at once. Which is, I think the mistake that so many people make and why they don't do it is because there is so much to do at one time. If you're going to try and do all the way up here, that you just don't do it at all because it's too big, too hard, too difficult. So let's knock off the little stuff, and you'll be shocked at how fast you actually grow. So let's come over here. I'll make sure that I stay on track here, and we're gonna talk about this funnel right here. Okay. And what I want you to think about is that we call this the. Let me get my pin back. The talent funnel. There we go. The talent funnel. So this talent funnel, the way that that works. I'll get that off there, because that looks terrible. Let's see if I can draw it in the right spot. There we go. The talent funnel. The way that that works is we have to look at the people that are out there that we want to come to work for us. They have to realize a few things about us. And so I'll pull this over a little bit so we can. Right on the other side of it. I'll try and stay where you can see me. But the very first thing I have to handle. Pin back, the right color. There we go. Is we have to handle awareness. Are they even aware of us? Do we exist out there in the world to them? And so our awareness is created a lot of different ways. A lot of times early on in our businesses, the awareness is in who we know, Our friends, our family, those type of folks. And that's usually the first people that we're hiring. But how do we start to take our awareness out beyond that? Well, we start to brand ourselves. We start to have a reputation. That reputation starts to make you attractive. You also have ads that you might be running on ZipRecruiter, or indeed, you're placing ads in other places that maybe you're marketing out there on Facebook. You got to create some awareness about you, which means that you need to be relevant, which. Excuse me. Which means that you need to be consistent and constantly making people aware that you have openings available. If you're trying to recruit, hire, and onboard some new people, the next thing that we have to do is we have to get them engaged. So engagement. And how do we accomplish that? How do we get them to engage with us. Well, you may have an ad in ZipRecruiter. Indeed. Something like, maybe you have a recruiter working for you. And if your ad looks like everybody else's ad, I'm not going to engage with that. But if your ad is compelling, it's interesting, it leaves a few things out so that I have to engage to find out more. I'm going to have a lot more people respond to my ad than one that says everything. And it's super boring. If it sounds like a place I want to come work and belong to, I'm going to engage with you. If it's just another job description and all the things that I shouldn't do and don't have to do, and you're trying to eliminate everybody out of your funnel at the engagement stage, you're going to end up with very few people that actually come to you. And so there's a mechanism there where you can squeeze that funnel down a little bit. But the idea is I'm looking for people that are hungry, humble and smart. That's the reality of it. If they have some skills coming in, that's great. That'll speed up the process. But hungry, humble and smart, those are the people I want working for me. And then finally we have. What's going to happen if you do all this right is they're going to apply. So think of it like this. I need to generate some awareness. That's marketing. So this is what you're doing when you're recruiting is your marketing. You're getting people to raise their hand. And so you're talking about it all the time. You're letting people know on your own personal Facebook page, we're hiring. We're looking for these positions. If you know anybody, you're running, indeed ads, you're running all these things to say, hey, we're in this process of bringing new people into our equation now. Whenever they come in, you want to engage them with something. And so that could be a questionnaire, that could be an analysis or assessment of some type, but something that starts to clarify whether they're a good fit for you. And if they are, let's move on to the application stage. So that's your call to action is what you're really trying to do is you're trying to get them to actually engage fully with you and say, hey, let's do something together. And so engagement can happen. Also through a little bit on your website, you can create a careers page where it shows the success stories of some of the People that have worked for you, you could have a few quick questions and answers there to see if they're the right fit. And so there's some engagement happening. And you see that engagement happening, and you now know that that's somebody you could reach out to and you could encourage them to apply. So that's. That's our talent funnel. And kind of how that funnel works to get people into our mechanism. But the biggest thing that you have to remember is, is that recruiting isn't hiring. And it's not onboarding, it's marketing. And it's not our HR department's job to do that. Well, our HR department is really the onboarding aspect of things, is what they're doing most of the time. They may do some of the hiring, and they're also doing the exiting. That's what HR departments do. And they ensure that those people coming in have a playbook and roadmap to follow. When they're not hitting the expectations and standards, we have a problem. So this is the marketing aspect of this. Think of this. Absolutely. And this is really key that you're thinking marketing here. And your funnel is constantly spitting out leads. You're always looking for the best possible talent. You may have a rock star team of salespeople, but if another rock star was out there, would you want them? So you're in this constant mode of looking for the best possible talent. So think of recruiting as marketing. All right, so next up, Try and shrink this down a little bit so I'm not all over the board on it. All right, there we go. So think of this as the second step. And this is your hiring. And think of hiring equaling sales. Okay. And so this is the candidate. Still have it on there. Sorry about that. This is the candidate. Journey. So you've handled a couple of things so far. Okay, so there's little. Five little stages on here that they. They're going to go through. And the very first thing that we're going to do and we've spoken about already is awareness. Got to make them aware of us. So that's the very first part in this candidate journey. And then it's going to move along here. Think of this part over here as marketing, And this part over here as sales. All right, so we have awareness first, then we have curiosity. So we created the awareness. There was enough that was compelling and interesting about us. It made them curious. So they engaged with us in some shape, form or fashion. Whether it was filling out a form, filling an application, Is it back? All right, It's probably gonna send me out and back in, but sorry, guys. Says the recording has stopped and I need to refresh. Sorry about that, guys. Don't know why my screen is timing out. It's set not to do that. But hey, things. The beauty of technology. We're talking here about our candidate journey. Thinking of the process from marketing to sales. Whenever we're recruiting and hiring people on board with us and so they're going to walk through a little bit of a journey. And the very first thing we have to accomplish is some awareness. And those are through our ads. We've talked about that already in our previous conversation. But those are our ads. They should be compelling. That creates curiosity. This is something I may want to check out. And so that's the marketing aspect of what we need to do. But then we have this part that's really important and this is. And we'll get it into a different color here. Conversation. So we have a conversation that's going to happen. So we have awareness. Hey, you exist. There's a brand that you're out in the. In the market. You've run some ads. They're compelling. Wow, those are cool. I got curious. I filled out a form, I took an assessment, and that created an opportunity for an application which created a conversation. Those conversations can happen a couple of different ways. I prefer two of them. I prefer first one online. I want to check you out. I want to see you, want to ask you a few questions. It's usually short, sweet and simple. Are you motivated? And they always say, yeah. And I say, buy what? And they say money. And I say, why? And that stumps them because they don't know why they're motivated by money. Every once in a while they'll have a good answer like, take care of my family or buy a house or I want to start to understand what their motivations are. I'm also looking for how hard are they willing to work if the earning potential was unlimited. And so the best answer I've ever had about that one was, hey, I would do whatever you ask me. I'll strip naked, go out in the busiest intersection and flip a sign around if you want me to, to make six figures. So that starts the conversation. And that's kind of step one is this early feeling each other out. But if you feel like, hey, this person might be a great fit, then you're going to have a second conversation. We call that the interview in person, one to one. So they come in and we do an interview. Now that interview looks very different depending on the stage that you're in, we're going to talk about that. Towards the end here, we're going to talk about where you start to really move into two conversations and how detailed you need to be in your hiring practice and the things that you'll have to learn to be successful in those conversations. Then we move into, and I'm going to keep this one in yellow competency. So are they competent to do what it is that we're asking them to do? So I'm asking a few questions in this conversation and also in that one on one hiring aspect of things that have to do with those talents and skills. There's a really great book about this that discusses the talent side of things. It's called the Perfect Salesforce by Derek Gatehouse. G A T E H O U S E It's a fantastic book. I got asked about this book because I was hiring somebody and they asked me if I'd read the book. I said no. They said, well, it's funny you interview this way. And what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to ask questions that aren't leading questions. I can't tell you how many times I've watched somebody do an interview and ask them, well, do you consider yourself a hard worker? Who says no to that? No, I'm not a hard worker. Nobody says no. That's a leading question. You told them the answer before you even finish all the words out of your mouth. But if you were to ask a question more along the lines of, hey, tell me about the busiest day you've ever had at work. Well, you know, Heather had this. This. Oh, well, how did that make you feel? Did you enjoy it? Was it, was it too much? Was it stressful? And you start asking this and they tell you a full story around that thing and you start to see the talents, they're motivated, they're hungry, they're responsible, they're working towards those things that fit who it is that we need. And we have a whole section on this, have all the questions that you should ever ask an interview. But it's not something that we give to somebody whenever they're at the startup or solopreneur stages. It's when you start moving into friends and family and getting serious that you really need to understand that very, very well. And then the last aspect of this, and I did this in various colors for a reason. So you can kind of see, oh, commit. I got to get them to, I got to close the deal. I'm in sales here. I've had a conversation. They were competent. Now I got to close the deal with them. And that is the journey that people go through whenever they're looking to come to work for somebody. I am aware of you guys. You look pretty cool. It seems like things are hunky dory and I've seen you around. Oh, that's really compelling. I can make good money. I could work in a great environment. You're going to challenge me. I'm going to grow. Hey, man, I'm curious. Let me check you out. Let me fill out a form. Let me take an assessment. Okay, that fits. Hey, let's set up a time to talk. So we talk and we ask a few questions and those are great. And then we bring them in for a one on one. And that shows us competency. Can they actually do what it is that we want? And when we decide that they do, we don't hire them that day. Stop doing that. Quit hiring people the day of. We need to make sure that we guide. The decision. We don't beg. So many of you are out there begging for people to come to work for you. They got a pulse and a breath. Come to work for me. Whenever you set that up, whatever you bring into your company, that's what's going to continue to be your company. Whenever you bring people that are low performers and they can just fog a mirror, the problem that you're going to have is that when somebody is talented that comes into your equation and sees the low quality of the people around them, they're not going to stay very long. And that's why we don't beg anybody to come to workforce. It is a privilege to come to work for your company. We're going to talk about why it's a privilege here in just a minute. But you've got to have that attitude when you're out there recruiting and hiring people onto your team that this is a special place to work and why is it special? Why is this thing special that they come to work out? And I'm going to move this up just a little bit, see if we can find some room here. There we go. Why is it special? Well, it's special, number one. All right, number one, we have identified. Their motivation. In other words, their motivation wasn't money. It was what they could do with the money. There's a tool, that's all money is. And so we've identified that motivation and we can fulfill on that motivation because of who we are and what we have available to them. And then we're going to clarify expectations. And so many of you mess this one up, it's not even funny. So many of you have been burned so bad by hiring people that whenever you clarify the expectations, you clarify them in a way of all the negative, all the hardness of what it is. You're going to have to learn all these CRMs. And are you willing to do that? Are you willing to be outside and. And climb on a roof or measure things, whatever it is, you clarify all the negatives. Are you going to be able to follow up? Are you going to get all the things? You also need to clarify the greatness. That is what it is that we do with our hard work. We get great reward. So we've got to clarify those expectations, both the cons of it and the pros of it. I like to start with the cons a little bit like, hey, we're going to expect you to work hard. We're going to expect you to show up early and stay late. We're going to change your life and help you grow. And with that, this is how it's going to change your life. So I want to set those expectations. Number three, I've got to sell the vision. So this is where those positives really come in. What the opportunity is by coming to work for a guy like me or a guy like you or a gal like you, either one. Sell the vision what is. And that vision isn't what your company is going to be, it's what they're going to become by working for your company. Are they going to be able to go from a door knocker to a junior rep to a senior rep, to a team leader to a sales manager to a vice president of sales. Sell that vision of their growth and they will want to come to work for you. If they can't grow, they're not going to want to come to work for you. You want to sell the vision of how it's going to change their life, how they're going to be able to buy that car that they really need, rent that apartment that they haven't been able to get, buy that house, do those things in their lives that are their goals without sacrificing everything that matters to them. We want to work hard, and when we work hard, we do a great job of it. But we also need our time to take care of our bodies, take care of our families. So sell the vision of what it looks like to come to work for you. And then number four is the clear path. So I want you to think of these Things as the identified motivation. This is if you're, if you're in sales and I'm just going to grab a different color here so we can differentiate. Hopefully this is need. All right, so think we're literally putting together a sales process. They have a need, they're motivated by something, they need to fulfill that motivation. And then clarifying expectations is where we're doing some discovery. Are they a good fit for us or not? Is what we do something that fits them well? Is the pros and cons balanced enough that you want to become a part of what we do? And then this is the story, this is the story of how their life will change by coming to work for us. So you can see a very sales type process to this and then this clear path over here, what this is solving and I'll just write it out to the end here is the solution. So think of this as a roadmap or a playbook that this is what we're going to do. Week one, week two, week three, week four, month two, month three for the full year. This is what your path to success looks like. If you can't explain that clearly and what the outcome is going to be, they won't do the hard work that's necessary early on to get there. So you've got to be clear on the clear path to the ultimate being competent, confident in what they do and being successful. And then finally the fifth thing, show culture. And this is your community. So not everybody's the right fit for every community. There's some people that are engineering minded and stuff like that and they come into a sports minded place and that doesn't work very well and the reverse doesn't work very well either. And so you need to go show your culture and what that's like to be a part of. I like to take them around and meet people on that first day. I like to show them what our core values are and talk about them. I like to talk about the vision of the company and where it's going, what it looks like to work here, what a day looks like working for us, what the results of that are. So the incentives and rewards and bonuses and cool stuff that we all do together. I want them to see who we are, what we're all about and why we do what we do. And then they can decide if that's a community they want to belong to. Because that's the truth of the matter. People want to find a place that they belong and are heard. It's that simple. If we can Find that for people and find the right talent and skills to fit our community. We're going to have a team that's absolute killers. And so we have to walk through this process to get them to the point of asking for the sale. So, hey, and I want to go back to that. Do not hire the day of you've interviewed this person, you're super excited about them. That's number one. And we're excited about everybody most of the time. They're going to be wonderful. They're going to be great. They sold us, they gave us a good pitch and we're like, they're going to be awesome. Don't ever hire anybody on the first day. You look desperate. Let them know you've got a lot of other people to interview and you're only hiring the highest and most qualified two or three people and that you'll give them a call back on Friday. But if you do and you give them the call back, is this the place they want to work? That's usually my last question. Is this the place that you want to work? Yeah, it is. All right, great. I'm going to keep that in my notes. We'll talk to you on Friday. Regardless, if I don't hire them, I call them. Hey, thank you for your time. I really appreciate it. And let me explain to you why I don't think this is a good fit for you at this time. And I appreciate your, your effort and the time that you took out of your day to investigate us. The ones that I do hire go, hey, super excited, ma'. Am. You qualify. Qualify to make our team. And training is going to start on Monday. We talked about that at the event. So I want to get you on board, get you scheduled and need you here at 8am sharp. He goes, great and he's on board. If there's any kind of objection, which can happen just like sales, we got to defeat those objections. My wife doesn't like a commission based deal. She wants a salary. Hey, that's great. Maybe this isn't a good fit for you. Just know that if you're going to have a salary, your commission and earning potential is going to be limited. A lot of times I will actually give them the firepower to when they go home and talk to their significant other of how to handle that conversation so they defeat the objection before it ever gets to me. So this is your process to sell somebody on the idea of coming to work for you? All right, so that's the hiring part, the sales part. Always think hiring as Sales. So let's come down here and talk about the all important part, onboarding. See if I got enough room there. There we go. Good. So there's my new guy and I've got to onboard that person into my equation. So what's that going to look like? Well, think of it this way. You just hired this guy or gal and the world is bright, everything's wonderful. You sold them, you had the sales. But remember, you marketed them, they raised their hand, they said they were interested, they came in and you closed the deal, you got them hired. But if you don't fulfill on what it was that you said you were going to do, it's not going to be a sunny day anymore. Those storm clouds are going to start to roll in over your sunshine. Now here's something that's really important for everybody to know and understand is that 92% of new hires. Quit day one. You're like, what do you mean they quit day one? 92% quit day one. Studies have been done on this extreme study, like thousands and thousands of new hires and they were put through a survey and 92% of them decided that day, that first day that they came to work, that that was just a job. It's a stepping stone to the next thing. It's not a career, is not where I'm going to stay. I'll work here and make some money while I can, but this is not where I'm supposed to be. And the reason for that is because your onboarding roadmap stinks. You bring them in, set them down, put a bunch of paperwork in front of them and then attempt to train them, which we talked about in our last segment of how to do that. Well, you attempt to train them. It wasn't what you said it was. You didn't fulfill on your promises that you made during the sale. And so what you end up with is a unhappy customer or new employee, new teammate. And that person's unhappy, but they're going to stick it out for as long as they can because they're trying to find the next thing. And so that's how we get into this thing of, hey, they're going to turn out okay and they never do. And you end up dragging it out forever. So you've heard the saying before, hire slow, fire fast. I believe in that strongly. I want to make sure that I have the right person. But when I bring that right person in, I'm going to ensure that they have an onboarding experience unlike anything they've ever seen. Got another book for you. It's called the Power of Moments, introduced to me by a great guy. His name is Matt Grassmeyer. He said, man, I think you'll really like this book. And this is where that stat comes from. 92% of new hires quit day one. And the reason they quit is because they. The community that was promised to them and the growth path that was promised to them isn't real. It's boring. It isn't what I thought it was. I thought this was going to be exciting. Cool, awesome place to work. I pulled up day one, walked inside, nobody knew who I was. I had to let the receptionist know I'm here for my training, and she says, oh, yeah, Jim's busy. Let's have you fill out the paperwork. So I go in, and it feels just like any other job where that could look very different. It could be a celebration that there's a new teammate joining our team. You got balloons out there on a parking spot with their name on it. They come in and park. Everybody's waiting for them. And they all know who the person is. They know a little bit about them because you shared it, and they're welcoming them into the equation. Man, you're like, this is awesome. I've never been to work anywhere like this before. And then when they come in, we don't go straight to filling out paperwork. We start introducing them to the people that work with, that they're going to be working with. And they start telling them, hey, man, you need any help, you need any assistance, come see me. When it comes to production, I got you. When it comes to administration, I got you. And, wow, man, there's a lot of support around here. This guy that told me about this, it really isn't. It's better than what he said it was. This is awesome. And then they walk into the training room, and you bring them into the training room, and there's a gift waiting for them wrapped in your wrapping paper with your ribbons and bows and everything on it. I'm like, what's that? That's for you. Welcome to the team. Everybody needs the tools to be successful. And so here's your tools. A couple of shirts, a hat, maybe an iPad. A couple of fun things in there. Like, I used to put an IOU for a beer inside of mine. There was two of them in every single one of those gift boxes that we handed out. And they knew that no matter what, unless the place was burning down around me or I was in a private meeting, they could use that IOU and go have a Talk with me. We were fortunately located right across the street from a pretty cool, like, community restaurant bar area. We'd walk over and hang out and talk about whatever it was they wanted to talk about. And I always let them know, hey, there is no such thing as a tough discussion. There's only discussions that aren't had. So we need to have those discussions. If you're feeling anything that isn't supportive for you or this isn't the right thing for you, come talk to me. I open that door. And a lot of times after they use the second IOU and they're like, hey, can I get another one just in case? Like, absolutely. Anytime. Come get me. I'm here to serve you. I'm here to help you be successful. I want you to reach your goals and reach your dreams. Now, I don't show sympathy when people are making excuses, and I will call them out and we will walk through those excuses and we'll turn those excuses into actions to help them be successful. So we have to make sure that we make that first day amazing. And then a roadmap. So I'm going to write that on here, too. Give me another color here real quick, I hope. There we go. Okay. Another color. Sorry about that. And so I have to make sure that I develop a roadmap. After day one. So what happens the first week? I've got that developed. Second week, what does that look like? Third week, fourth week. And you don't do all of this at one time. Let's just get the first 30 days handled. When you're small, as you get bigger, let's handle 60 to 90 days. When you get even bigger, let's handle the rest of the year and what that looks like. But I need to have a roadmap for them to follow so they can see that not only was today like it is, every day is like that working for us. They're all like this all the time. This is a culture I want to be a part of, a community I want to participate in. I belong here, and I'm heard here. It's the number one reason people leave places that they go to work for. They don't feel like they belong, they don't feel like they're heard, and they don't feel like they're growing. Those three things will drive people out of your business faster than anything else. It's not the money. Money's actually number 11 on the list of real reasons why people leave a place that they're working for. Here's how you know if you have the right onboarding aspect going on after your onboarding and whatever training you do, they hang out, they like to come to the office, they want to be at the office, they want to be together, they want to be in community with each other, but they're checking out the second they can check out and leave. You got something wrong with your onboarding because he didn't create that moment, that culture, that place, that community that they want to belong. So that handles our onboarding and what that should look like, that there is day one is important and then a roadmap for the foreseeable future of what they need to do next to be successful. So that's going to bring us up here. Yep. And we're gonna talk about those six stages. Make sure I got the right pin here. We do. And this is stage. These are your stages. And we're talking about pillar number 12. So it's number 12 for a reason. The reason that recruiting, hiring and onboarding is number 12 is because I got to get all the other stuff in place. If you've watched this series, you know, I talked about training last week. In other words, how can I recruit, hire and onboard somebody if I don't have a training mechanism to ensure that they're successful? And if I have that training mechanism, how are we going to produce everything that we sell and then how are we going to actually sell the things that we market and how are we going to create those opportunities that we need and what technology works in order? Those pillars all have a sequence. They're related to each other, and certain things need to be done at certain times in each one. So we're going to talk about what to focus on in pillar 12 and the actions. I'll move that over just a little bit more here so I got a little bit more room that we need to take. And we'll try to grab a different color here to keep it interesting. All right, so in the startup, that's what that says down there. I know it's a little hard to read. It's in red. Startup. Remember, there's five things, five things you've got to do. So your focus is on those five things. And so this is some clarity over here. When it comes to recruiting and hiring and onboarding, you're going to start to get clear on who it is that's a right fit for your particular business. You want to start to think about that, like, hey, who's like me, who has the drive, energy, hunger, all those things. I want to be really clear about that, of what I need. And then I want to define roles. I don't need to hire anybody yet. I just want to get clear on, hey, what do I want to hire and who should I hire? And then I want to define what those roles are. Now, one of the biggest mistakes I see with startups moving into the solopreneur or operator stage of your business is that they get really, really frustrated because they're trying to move into this, but they don't know who they're supposed to get. And they make the biggest mistake they can make. They hire somebody just like them. Not similar, but just like them. So they're a sales guy that has started up a business, they're going to hire another sales guy, they're a production guy, they're going to hire another production guy. And so you need to think about this, that whatever you're great at, you need to be supported to draw the revenue up and hopefully create more profit so you can invest back in your company. So if you're the salesperson, what help do you need in production? That's why you heard me say as the solopreneur, they usually have some part time help, which is somebody leading a crew, production and maybe somebody doing some paperwork to get the paperwork off them because they're not great at that part of it. That's what you should be thinking about first. And so your focus of a solopreneur is who's first. All right, who do I hire first? Well, I'm going to hire somebody that does all the things I don't like to do. I don't like doing those things that allow me to go do the things I really enjoy doing. And so you're going to need to figure out your ideal teammate. That's your ideal teammate. The other thing that you're doing as a solopreneur and we're just going to put over here culture, starting to define your culture. Like what is that? That's my focus. I want to get focused on my culture and then I want to start to install a couple of things, maybe some guiding principles. Think of those as the things that you hold near and dear that are non negotiable. I can't change any of that. That's who I am. And I don't want anybody that's not like that of the same character coming to work for me. So now we move into the friends and family or entrepreneurial stage. I call entrepreneurial because we're not really a real business yet. Yeah, we got a business license. All Other good stuff. We're still kind of almost winging it a little bit. We're starting to figure out some of the stuff that we need to do. And so what do we need to focus on when it comes to hiring? And we need to document. The process. Need to document our hiring process. So, hey, I got marketing, I got recruiting. I'm sorry, I got marketing, I got sales, I got fulfillment, or I have recruiting, hiring and sales. What does that look like exactly what I want to do, not what am I doing, what do I want to do recruiting wise, okay, I got that defined now how do I want to sell them or hire them? And then ultimately what can I do in onboarding? And so the thing that you're going to be creating in this friends and family are the things that you need for that process. So you might have some interview. Questions. So this is where that book really becomes helpful. We've added on to that book on the questions that you would ask to find the skills. And we help all of our clients figure that out. We're going to have scorecards. We have scorecards. And you may have a few other things that help you with your, with your recruiting, hiring and onboarding, but you're not getting crazy just yet. Now whenever you get into the business side of things, like, hey, this is usually where we go from that 1 to 3 million kind of area down here in friends and family, maybe pushing up to five, but now you want to get to eight figures. And this is where it does get serious. It's where you actually become a real business, not just a business in title, but you actually function like a business. And so at that point you're going to build that talent engine because you're going to need to keep the gas in that engine at all times, bringing new people into the equation. And, and so whenever you create that talent engine, you are thinking recruiting, hiring and onboarding. What are all the pieces I need to have so I can make this repeatable over and over and over again to be successful? And so this is where you really step into, hey, it's a system, it's a process. It's the exact way that we do things. Now that you've got that put into place, and just so you know, I do keep myself in order over here I have another screen that helps me do that. We get into this idea of growth and scale. So how do I do that? And we install. The systems that we created down here. We built this and we were ready to go. Now we're going to really grow and scale it. This is when you start moving into the, I don't know, eight figures, maybe even 15, 20, 25 million. You're starting to install these types of systems to be really, really good. And they're focused on KPIs and metrics. So you're actually analyzing, okay, you're analyzing, hey, our ads working, we're improving those ads all the time and finding different and new and innovative ways to do things. Do we have the right amount of people working? Are they hitting the right numbers? If they're not hitting the right numbers, how do we exit them and bring new people in? Everything's based off of analysis of KPIs and metrics. As you start to grow and scale your business. And then finally you put leaders in place to start to grow your business even further. Because when you expand, you have one of two options. You're either really great at this and you've created this well oiled machine that does it over and over again in your market in whatever trade. Epoxy, floor coatings, roofing, siding, fencing, whatever it may be. And now I have to develop some leaders to expand because we do roofing, but we also want to do fencing in our market. So I need a leader for there and there. So I've got to get those leaders ready to go. And so that's my focus is on those leaders. And those leaders, what they're doing is they're being trained. This is the action that you're doing. You're training them on this talent engine exactly how to do this in their space for their vertical. Now the other option on expansion is, hey, we might go create a new location doing the exact same thing. I still have to have those leaders trained in this system to be successful. So those are the things that we're doing based on the various stages that our business is in. Hopefully this has been helpful to you guys. Hopefully you wrote down some notes, you have some questions and things like that. But this takes care of our discussion today about what it looks like to recruit, hire and onboard people in stage based, like, hey, when do I do what? And then also what it looks like in the end to have a place that everybody really wants to work. Now if all that's a lot and you're not exactly sure, like, hey, what do I do next? Oh wait, let's, let's finish here. What you're doing. Overall, this is what we call the talent engine flywheel. I want to make sure I don't miss that. Almost missed it. And so we've got Our talent flywheel. And so you got to think about this. Like, if I do this in this order and I keep doing it over and over and over again, I'm going to have some of the best talent in the world out there. So what's the first piece of this that's really important that you've got to understand? I've got to attract people. And how do I attract people? Well, I have compelling ads that I have out there. I have a compelling place to work. It's a place that people can grow. They have seen my brand. I'm out there in the world and I'm attracting people that could be one on one, that could be in groups. It could just be knowledge of your business. Like, man, everybody that works there looks happy. They drive great vehicles, they're enjoying what they do. I want to check that thing out more. So I've got to attract people. One of the things I'm always doing when it comes to recruiting, hiring, onboarding, I'm always, always looking for talent. No matter where I'm at. If I walk into Best Buy and somebody's talking to me and they seem pretty good at what they do, man, I start asking some questions. I ask questions like, hey, are you happy working here? Is it fulfilling your life? Are you able to make the income that you need to achieve your goals? You have some talent and I can see it already. I'd be interested in talking to you about a new opportunity. Would that be anything that would be interesting to you? It depends on what it means. Well, there's opportunity to earn more, there's opportunity to grow, there's opportunity to learn skills, there's opportunity to lead. Is there something in there that you would like to achieve in your life? Yeah. Well, let me tell you a little bit more about what we do. I tell them a little bit more, I say, hey, you know what, the first things first, why don't you take this assessment? I always carry it with me. Take this assessment. If you take that assessment, give me your cell number, I'll send it to you. Right, send it off to them. They take it. Boy, they engaged. I attracted them. I marketed to them and they engaged right back. They're curious. And now I can bring them in for that first conversation. Like, hey, let's hop online and talk a little bit more. Hey, let's come on in for a one on one. I could maybe skip the video call first because I've already talked to the person, but I've got to attract people. So that's piece number one. Then I have to vet people. I got to vet them to make sure that they have the talents and skills. It's irresponsible of me to hire somebody that doesn't have the talent. First off, it could also be irresponsible of me to hire somebody without at least some base skills because they might not get to where they need to be quickly enough to earn the money to stay working for you. So I have to vet people pretty well to make sure that they are successful, and then I have to develop. And another word I really like to use here is equip. We talk about this a lot. And I talked about it in the leadership wheel, this education aspect of things back in the beginning, whenever we were were talking about leadership. And that's equipping people. It's equipping them with the training, the tools, everything, the processes, documentation, everything to be successful and then to have in place their growth, getting 1%, 10% better every single day. There is a aura about my business that we're here to get better each and every day because I'm here to develop you. That's my job, is to help you achieve your potential while working for me. Because you're not going to work here maybe all your life. I hope you do, but if you don't, I want you to leave here better than you showed up. So I got to develop people, and the next thing I've got to do is I need to retain people. So how do we retain people? Well, we create an environment they want to be a part of. Remember what I said earlier? They need to be. They need to feel like they belong to a community that they can win in and that they need to. That they're able to grow. So if I can create all of that, I've attracted the right person, I've vetted the right person, I'm developing the right person. Retaining them becomes easy. As long as you adhere to your culture, you set the proper example, whether it's you or one of your leaders to somebody else. They need to set the example of what it looks like to work here. If they don't set the example, you're not going to retain people. You tell them to do one thing, but you do a different thing. That's not going to retain people. And then finally, the last component of this, the component I really enjoy a lot, is I need to multiply. So I'm going to multiply. And what that means is all these people have attracted, vetted, developed, and equipped to be successful retain them. I want them to Recruit new people into. I want more people like them and that's who they hang out with. So I want to multiply off of this base of people that I've created more people like them to come to my team and go win the championship. And so this is how you get this multiplication and then you go right back to attraction. You're always in this talent flywheel. If you can accomplish this, you're going to be very successful at recruiting some pretty awesome talent. If you want to create a talent flywheel like this and you're not so sure exactly what to do first and when to do it, that is what we do here, is we walk people through exactly what to do and when to do it. When it comes to your recruiting, hiring and onboarding, whichever stage you're at, that is what we help people do. And no matter where you're at, we can give you those next steps of what I need to do as a solopreneur to move on, what do I need to do in friends and family and then move up. We have it roadmapped out. We've done this for years and we've been highly successful with it. And if you want some help with that, we actually have a way for you to get that help in a couple of different ways. And it's going to make me crazy because I have ocd. There's a little dot on there. There we go. Great. And one right there, too. All right, so you can choose one of two routes here. Okay. We'll make that where you can see it. It's all on the board. There we go. Good. So you have two different routes that you can take. And our suggestion is that if you are in the startup to solopreneur to maybe early friends and family, you might want to go check out contractor Sage. It is our AI tool. It's got over 32 million words in it. So lots of time and saving of information, from coaching calls to tools to anything and everything. You can literally go in there and say, hey, I am a solopreneur and I'm just getting started with my business, or I'm in friends and family. We do this much in revenue. This is my goal. This is where my pinch points are. This is where I have issues. This is what I'd like to achieve and it's going to start spitting out to you the next things that you need to do. So you think of this as like the do it yourself model. And it's available 24 7. It's like having a coach in your Pocket, you can get me anytime you want. You can actually chat with me and talk with me like you're on a phone call if you like. And so this tool right here can really help you early on. Now if you're more of somebody needs some hands on, you're starting to get friends and family and getting serious and moving into those other stages that are higher, you might need some one to one coaching. This has been our bread and butter for 13 years is how we coach people. We've coached some of the most successful contractors out there in the industry and we'd love to coach you. What you can do with this QR code is you can actually take an assessment. This assessment is going to tell us everything we need to know about your business according to those blueprint pillars and this stage that you're in. So that when we hop on a free call with you, it's going to be a coaching call, not a discovery call or question answer session, anything like that sales pitch. It's not any of that. It's hey, based on your assessment, it's taken us hundreds of hours to put together. These are the next two or three things that you should do in your business. If you like coaching, great, we'd love to have you as a customer. But if you don't and it's just not the right time or we're not the right fit, that's okay. At least we help you take a step forward and that's all we really want to do. We want to help and serve this industry in any way that we can. With that said, thank you very much for being here today on the final episode in our series, the Contractors Blueprint and Scaling matrix where we understand the pillars of our business and the stages that we go through. If you have any questions, hold on, we'll get those answered. And thanks for being here. We'll see you after the first of the year. We're going to be starting a new one called Mind the Gap. And it's the gap between revenue and cost and that thing in between is called profit. How do we keep that gap where it needs to be to make all this that we do worthwhile and justifiable? Because right now there's a big problem out there in the world. There's economic fear, there's situations with material and labor prices rising. And so we're getting up against the top of the line on what we can sell things for. We have all these things down here costing us more and more and that gap is squeezing down. We're going to talk about that. We're going to teach you how to increase that gap over the first quarter of 2026. So with all that said, we're going to open up the mics, ask your questions. I'm here to serve. Let us know how we can help you on any question, whether it's about recruiting, hiring and onboarding or. Or anything else that you might have. Who all we got out there? We got Jeremy. Feel free to unmute yourself, open up your mic and that type of stuff and ask any questions that you may have. Anything in the chat area, Braden. Oh, good. Okay. So go close those deals. Good deal. All right. I don't see any questions happening right now. Those of you that are watching live on one of the platforms like Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, anything like that, go and put your questions in there. I check all those. I answer them here. Like I said, here to serve. Just want to see you guys do well. Hope you have a great new year. It's 2026 coming. And forget about all those resolution things that you're going to do something new and great and different and better. How about just do 1% different and better each day? You don't have to eat the elephant in one bite. Take the first bite. It's important.