MBA1247 Hiring Your First Manager + Free Ride Friday!

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Hey, today is Free Ride from so make sure you hang on to the end of the episode to hear who won this week's free ride. Every Friday we give away a lifetime membership to one of our programs. This month we're giving away easy course, our 30 day course on how to build your own online course over at EasyCourse co. Retails for $500 but you can win it for free by leaving us a rating and review on itunes. By leaving us a review, you enter our weekly random draw. All you gotta do is listen in on Friday once you leave us a review to see if you won't and you automatically enter the draw for every week until you win. It's our way to say thanks for leaving us love on itunes. Alright, let's jump into today's episode. Heyo. Welcome to the hundred dollar MBA Show Business lessons you can use every day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm I'm also the co founder of the $100 MBA, a complete business training and community online. And in today's lesson you will learn how to hire your first manager. Hiring for a manager is a totally different task than hiring for any other position. They're going to be leading other people. They're going to be dealing with bigger responsibilities. They're going to represent your company in many ways. What do you need to consider when you're making that decision? Finding that right fit, that right person for that managerial position? Do you make an internal hire with a promotion or do you hire from outside? Do you Find somebody well experienced or somebody that's hungry. What do you look for? What are some of the soft skills you're going to need to be able to do a great job for your business? That's what we get into in today's lesson. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. For many business owners, hiring their first manager is a daunting task because it's the first person that really is going to have some level of responsibility that you have had. They're going to be making some decisions on your behalf, they're going to be managing people that are under them, and you want to make sure your company's in good hands. Today's lesson is going to focus specifically on your first hire of a manager. I've hired several managers in the businesses that I've built and run over the last, what is it, 17 years now. And I'm not ashamed to say I have made a lot of mistakes, mistakes that have cost me a lot of time, a lot of money. And it's not because I just chose the wrong person, they were a dud or they deceived me. It's because I chose the wrong hire for my business at that time. They probably would have been a good hire later down the line in my business. When you're making any hire, whether they're a manager or not, you gotta hire for the right position for the right time for the right business, your business. Somebody who is the head of sales at Microsoft has a totally different expectation and experience and may not be useful in your startup of four people. It's not what you need at that moment. In fact, when you're starting out, the most important thing other than having the basic skills to do the job is understanding what you're doing at the company, understanding your mission, understanding the product, and believing in the future that you see they have to be bought into what you're trying to do. That's really, really important. Just as important, they need to understand where your business is at and what you need. So you need to make sure that that's clear in the job description. That's clear in the first interview, the first phone call. Hey, this is where my business is at. We're brand new, or we've been around for six months or a year and this is what we've done. Then you got to further clarify and say, this is what we need in a manager. This is our first manager hire. This is what we're looking for. And usually what you're looking for is somebody who is self sufficient, Somebody who is autonomous, that can work on their own, that doesn't need a lot of direction. Somebody who's going to create the procedures in the systems themselves instead of just relying on the fact that there are already systems and procedures like they are in major corporations like Microsoft. So as you can see, this is starting out to be an exercise of communication, making sure that you're communicating the right story, the right perspective of your business, where you're at and what you need. Now, having said all this, if I'm going to be totally honest with you, if there was one piece of advice I had to give, and I'm going to give you tons of advice in today's episode, but if there's one piece of advice I would want you to take away is if you can hire within for that first management hire, that's probably going to be your best bet. Somebody who's already been in the company for a while, that has already built the business, worked with you. If you can make a promotion within, I found in my experience that's usually a good move. Why? Because this person fully understands the history of the company, understands where you've been, where you're going is already sold on. The company has already earned their stripes. You know what you're getting and they know what's needed. They know the gaps in the company. They know why you're making this higher because they work there. So if you can make an internal promotion, that's always best. In the past, I decided not to make an internal promotion in a position, made an external hire. And it wasn't the fact that the hire was a bad move. We could have had a good hire from an external source or from outside. But often the best hire is somebody that's already in the company and that can grow into that position. Now, of course, sometimes you're going to have to make an external hire, especially in areas of expertise that you're not really good at. A good example for me in my software company, Webinar Ninja is our lead developer, Shane. I know a bit of programming language I can mess around with my website, HTML, css, but I can't know the ins and outs of building a full fledged commercially viable web app. When we hired Shane as our lead developer, as one of our managers, I needed somebody who knew their stuff way better than me. So I can hire people that can work with him and he can manage those people. I like to use the analogy of like the head chef in a restaurant. You could be the restaurant owner, but you need somebody who knows their stuff, that knows how to cook and that they can train other people under them to cook the style of food that is suitable for your business, for your restaurant. As a bit of homework, you can take a look at some of the most award winning chefs out there, Michelin star chefs, right. And there's a very good chance that many of them worked in the kitchen of another Michelin star chef in their career. So one of the best ways to improve your team is to get a master, somebody who's really good at their stuff, to lead the team that can oversee the whole project. They can oversee their area of expertise and this could be translated in other parts of the business. Marketing or sales or customer service or customer success. When you're making an external hire, you need to make sure you get somebody who's really good at that job, knows the skill, not just knows how to manage. Now if they are managing people, they have to have some level of people skills, some soft skills that can be diplomatic, that can talk to people, but also can be direct. So when you're in the interview with this person, you need to ask them for examples of when they had to deal with conflict, when they had to deal with a tough situation, a tough conversation. Tell them to tell you an exact story. Make sure they avoid or you tell them, don't tell me, I usually do this. No, give me an example. In the past, and even if they've never been a manager before, they must have had an uncomfortable conversation somewhere in their professional career where they had to deal with it with their own manager. Maybe it could be now. Remember at the start of the episode, I said that it's very important for your manager to understand the business, the history, the culture, where you're at, all that stuff. Well, one of the signs where you're going to say, hey, well, one of the signs that's going to indicate that an external hire, somebody you're interviewing, is going to get that quickly, is going to really be a part of the culture and understand the company and be sold on. The company is in the interview itself. How prepared are they in the interview? How much do they know about the company? How much do they know about your software or your product or your service? Do they do any homework? Do they have any interests? If they do, they're going to come prepared. The best managers we hired come to the interview knowing more than the average person, read your website back and forth, used your product, maybe even saw some external reviews from other sites, and has some understanding of what you do and has a Bit of a head start. So if they do get hired, it's not like they're starting from scratch. Now the next thing I want to mention is commitment. Now, this is actually a touchy topic. I found out on Twitter when I discussed it last. I like people that are committed to a company. If I see somebody that was working for a business or for a company for five, six, seven, eight years, to me that's amazing. That's somebody that really believes and sees that project through, sees that business through, hopes for the best for that business, and continues to grow with that business. When I see that, I say, okay, if I make this higher, I'm not going to have to worry about this person leaving me for at least five or six years. I'm investing in this person, I'm training them, I'm building a team around them, all that stuff. I want that to really be a good investment. Some people disagree with me and say, no, that's not really an indication. People change jobs all the time. People leave after two years. They want to grow. And you shouldn't penalize somebody for leaving. I'm not penalizing anybody, but I do prefer somebody who's committed. And as a business owner, you have the luxury of making that choice. It's your business. You can hire who you want. And this is based on experience and work ethic. It has really nothing to do with any other discriminatory things. Of course, you would never, you know, make a decision based on those things outside of work. In fact, I highly recommend you have a diverse team. If I ever look at a company and I see everybody looks like the founder, I'm not inclined to buy that product. Diversity really matters. So I just want to stress that I prefer people that are committed and have proven that they are committed in their past job. And of course, when you're making a hire, especially for a job like a manager's position, where they're going to have a lot of responsibility, you need to do your homework. You need to do your reference checks. You need to email and call and speak to at least three or four people that have worked with them, whether they're above them, below them, at the same level. And there's nothing wrong with doing surprise reference checks. You don't have to ask for references. And then they give you these specific people that they already told that they're going to, you know, get a call from you. You can get on LinkedIn, you can get on, you know, Facebook or Twitter and find out yourself, do your homework, look for their manager and dm them and ask them, hey, I'm looking to hire so and so. What's your experience been like? I want to hear firsthand. And you could say in your application, in your job description, we will be checking references. We won't be asking for references. We'll be reaching out ourselves so they know that, hey, if you're applying for this job and you want to keep this a secret, that's not going to happen. You're going to get a much more honest response. This is what we found in our experience that you hear from people that have worked with this person and they're going to give you the good and the bad and then you can make a decision based on that honest and candid answer. Guys, to wrap up today's lesson, hiring your first manager is a big step and you should congratulate yourself. It's a good step to take. Skills is important, but attitude is just as important, if not more. In my book, work ethic, commitment and seeing the same vision you have. There's going to be many times where they're going to speak on your behalf in a meeting, dealing with partners, dealing with clients, and you want to make sure they're singing from the same song sheet. So if you can make an internal hire, that's best. If you can't find somebody that is committed, somebody that has done their homework and has proven to you that, hey, I'm interested. I took the time to research your business and what you do and I actually tried some of the stuff that you offer. Getting your first manager is a fantastic experience because you get to offload some responsibility to them and you can focus on other things and allow your business to grow to the next level. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 VA Show. That wraps up today's lesson. But today's episode's not over. It's Free Ride Friday. Let's see who won this week's Free Ride. Every Friday we give away a lifetime membership to one of our programs. We're giving away Ezcourse this month, our 30 day course on how to build your own online course in 30 days over at EasyCourse. Go. Let's see who won. And the winner is. Bajorn Esser from Germany. Bajorn says he did it again. Five stars. Omar, you've done it again. I've been listening to your show some time back and I'm hooked. Loads of great advice. Actionable, relevant and presented in the way I like. Easy to follow. Thanks, Bajor. And you are a free eyed Friday winner. Your mission is to email me at omar100mba net so I can hook you up with the free ride. If you're listening and you want to win a free ride, just leave us an iTunes rating and review and you enter our weekly random draw. You automatically enter for every week until you win. It's our way to say thanks for leaving us love on itunes. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Hiring is a huge task, so make sure you put some time aside on your calendar to write a great job description, to write a little bit about what your company is all about, where you've been, where you're going to advertise this job, to go through the interview process, several interviews, to check references, all that stuff. The more effort you put into it, the better the result. Don't rush this. Make sure you do this right. Thank you so much for listening and I'll check you in Monday's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.