MBA857 How To Upgrade Your Business’ Talent

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Hey oh. Welcome to the $100 MBA show, the business podcast that gives you the real deal with our in depth, real world business lessons. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the Hundred Dollar MBA and webinar Ninja. And today's in depth lesson is all about how to upgrade your business's talent. In last week's episode we talked about how to know it's time to make a change in your business. Often that change is who's in that business, who's helping you build it, who are the staff members that are making it happen. And if you look at any successful company, any successful entrepreneur has built an amazing product, an amazing service, an amazing organization. They have a strong team behind them. They find the best talent, the best of the best in their area of expertise because they know if they want to be the best, they have to have the best. But we all know when you're first getting started in business, you can't have the best. You just simply can't afford it. You got to start somewhere. And hey, I'm the first to admit this. I've started businesses from scratch. And when you're getting started, you just go with what you can afford. As your business starts growing, starts improving, starting to realize you want more you want to actually take it to the next level, but can your team take you there? So in today's lesson, we're gonna talk about how to do that, how to upgrade your business's talent. We're gonna be covering a few things in today's in depth lesson. And the first thing is when to know it's time to upgrade your talent. How do you know it's time to make a switch? Number two, how do you find new talent? Where do you get these people? How do you know they are the people for you, for your business? And then number three, how to transition. How do you make a smooth transition between the previous talent and the new talent? Number not an easy thing to do. Lucky for you, we've done this over and over and have recently done this, have recently upgraded our talent in our business, Webinar Ninja. And we'll be sharing with you actual, real examples of how we did this, how we implemented these three steps. We got a lot to cover in today's lesson, so let's get down to business. All right? The first step when it comes to how to upgrade your business's talent is knowing when it's time to upgrade. So I'm going to give you some signs so you can know, okay, I got to start considering getting new talent on board. Number one, you're hitting roadblocks. You're trying to do something, you're trying to improve something in your business. Now, this is applicable if you have a service based business, a software business, a product based business, a training business, you're selling physical goods, whatever it is for our business, our software business, Webinar Ninja. We were hitting some roadblocks when it came to UI design. We wanted to make a huge improvement to the whole UI of our new software, our new version of Webinar Ninja. Webinar Ninja 5.0. And we're just hitting a lot of roadblocks with our current designers. They're not hitting the mark. They're not really solving the problems we're trying to solve. The next sign is consistent mistakes when you push them to the next level. Now, I'll make this very clear. The person that you're working with currently that you're thinking about replacing, or the people you're thinking about replacing, the whole team, maybe they've taken you to a certain point and things have been fine, but now you're trying to push them to another level. You're trying to clean it up, you're trying to class it up. And as you try to push them, you see more Mistakes happening, this means you're pushing them to the limit. They're actually being pushed to the point where they're making mistakes, where maybe they're not capable. They don't have the skills, they don't have the talents to be able to pull this off. And the third sign is they simply can't do what you're asking. Where you ask them, hey, I want you to do 1, 2, 3, 4, and their answer is, we can't do that. That's impossible. If you start hearing those types of phrases, that should be a huge red flag. One of the things that I say to anybody who joins our team, doesn't matter what they do, whether they're a designer, a coder, a customer service rep, a copywriter, a marketing person, whoever it is, whatever they do, make it very clear that you don't want to hear, this is impossible or this can't be done. You do want to hear, hey, I can do this. We can do this, but we need this kind of money. We need this kind of equipment. We need this to be in place in order for us to do it. Everybody on our team has to be a problem solver. If it can't be done now, how can it be done? So if they're coming back to you and saying, I can do this, this can't be done. They might not straight up say, I can do this. They might just say, this is impossible or this can't be done. That's a red flag. All right, so you have all the signs, and you know it's time to upgrade your talent. There's a few things I want to remind you of before we move to the next step about how to find new talent. The first thing is it's not necessarily their fault that you're seeking new talent, that you're looking to replace them. You simply have reached your limit with them. Like, this is what they can do, this is what they're able to do. And most likely that's what you could afford at the time. And that's fine. That's just a reality of business. That's just a reality of the world. So there are no bad guys in this situation. It's just what it is. The second thing is that you have to respect and recognize that this person, this person that you're looking to replace or these people you're looking to replace, they've brought you this far. That's a huge thing. They've got your business up and running. They actually have helped you make it what it is today. But you also have to respect and recognize how much further you can go with them. Maybe it's a few months, maybe it's six months, maybe it's a few weeks. You have to recognize how much further can you go with them, how much can you go and improve in your business with the current talent? And then thirdly, the third reminder I want to give you is you gotta give this person every chance to up their skills if possible. So if they need a certain training, if they need certain support or a certain tool or certain something to improve, you got to give them the chance to improve. It's always best to invest in the current talent you have before you upgrade them. Now, with some positions, with some jobs, it's very hard to do that. That's not an option because you actually need years and years of experience and you need it now. So you really can't train somebody to be a better designer within a few weeks. The type of designer you actually need or the type of developer you need or the type of creator you need is somebody who has years and years of experience over the person you currently have. So recognize that as well. But if there is a chance for you to upgrade this person's skills and keep them on, please do so. All right, let's move on to part two, how to find new talent. Now, this is probably the most intimidating part of this whole process because people are like, where am I gonna find these people? Where are these great, talented people that I'm looking for that are gonna take me to the next level? Maybe I should just stick with who I have because I don't know where I'm going to find these people. Well, the first thing you need to do which will help you with your search is know what you're looking for, know your priorities, know your values. Also know what are some things that you can sacrifice, things that are not so important to you. So for us at Webinar Ninja, we have three major values. Things that we really, really have to have in somebody that we're hiring. Number one is a great attitude. I can't train attitude. You either have a great attitude or you don't. They have to have a great attitude. A go getter attitude, person that really takes pride in their work, that takes ownership over the project they're working on. The second value that we have is experience. We really value somebody who has the experience, that has the skills and knows what they're doing. There's no way around that if somebody can pull something off that you can't, or you currently can't with your current team, that's valuable. The third value we have is somebody who's a team player that can also be managed. So somebody who is able to work in a team is a communicator, doesn't just like keep to themselves or able to communicate with the rest of the team and can be managed. They're happy to be managed. They're okay to be managed. They understand that you need things in a certain way that might be managed very closely at the beginning, but then given a lot more autonomy later on. So those are our three major values, what we're looking for. Then you have to think about what are the things that you're willing to let go of. Sacrifice. Because it's very hard for you to find somebody that has everything. So we're willing to sacrifice location so they don't have to be close to us. They don't have to be, you know, in the same office as us. Our entire team is remote. Here at Webinar Ninja, at the Hundred Dollar mba, everybody works remotely. So we have people in the States, we have people in the Philippines, we have people around the world in Europe, in Bulgaria, in Poland, in Macedonia. And that's okay because we've kind of built our business knowing that we're going to have a remote team and we have systems in place. We talk about that in previous episodes. How to run a remote team. Nicole did a guest teacher lesson on it. It's great. You should check it out. We'll put it into today's show notes. But for us, location is something that we're willing to sacrifice. Now, obviously there's challenges when they're not close to you, obviously when they're on the same time zone as you. But we're willing to let that go to get a better candidate with great experience, great attitude. That's a team player. The second thing is have a budget. When I say a budget, know your max. How much can you maximum afford? And go for that. Spend as much money as you can to get the best talent. What I mean by this is like let's say for example, you're like, okay, I can afford, let's say $20 an hour. Ask yourself, can you afford $25 an hour? If the answer is yes, then get somebody at that price. Cause I've been doing this for over 12 years, hiring people, finding great talent. And the bottom line is this. You get what you pay for. Stop trying to find a diamond in the rough. Cause they don't exist. It's very hard for you to find this person. That's, you know, very undervalued and they're willing to work so hard and they're going to deliver great work for, you know, pennies. No, it's not going to happen. People that are worth their dollar know it and they have a price and you should pay that price if you want great talent, if you want great work. So make sure you have a budget, have a top tier price, how much you are able to spend, the maximum you can spend and spend on this. This is important. This is not the time to, you know, try to get a deal. This is not the time to, you know, try to get a bargain. This is really where you're trying to spend the most, to get the most. Also have a recruiting budget. Now this might be a budget you're going to spend to hire somebody to find you great talent or a service that actually vets people beforehand and finds you a great fit. Somebody like Toptal. You mentioned Toptal a lot on the show. They're a sponsor of the show. You might need to hire somebody to do some pre interviews or go through some CVs or resumes. So you need to budget, you know, some money for recruitment itself as well as the time it's going to take. So there are plenty of job sites out there depending on what you're looking for, whether it's upwork, whether it's freelancer, whether it's Toptal. You know, we found our UI designer Arena through Toptal. She's fantastic. And I'll talk more about that whole process of, you know, the interview and everything we went through to find a great, talented UX UI designer. There are plenty of job markets out there. There's plenty of places where you can find great talent. Just Google it. So the next thing is you have to write up a job description so you can track the right clients. Now, the job description doesn't have to be super long. It could be short and sweet. It could be talking about exactly what they need to do, what experience they have to have. Talk a little bit about what the company is all about, give them some links and give them some ways to do some research on you. If you're looking for a framework, find a job that you are hiring for in one of these job sites. Look at their job descriptions and find a job description that you know is similar to what you're looking for. Now don't copy and paste exactly, but at least you'll get the idea of the format and again, you can make it your own. It doesn't have to be Any format. You can. Just keep it simple. Now, once you put the job out, you're gonna get some candidates that are applying. Now, if you're not using a service like Toptal, you're gonna have to go through CVs, you're gonna have to read through these candidates, and you're gonna have to make some choices on who you're going to interview. Now, most people, they look at their experience, they look at their resume, they look at some of the projects they worked on before, and they try to decide if this person would make a great fit for their position. And let me tell you, out of experience, it's really hard to find out if this person is great just off of the material that they give you. What, whether it's their resume, their cv, some of the work they did in the past. You know, it's an indicator, but it's not really everything. And really what you need to do is have an interview with this person. And in my opinion, interviews are not conversations. They're tryouts. Yes, tryouts. Just like when you were in, you know, grade school or in high school and you're trying out for the basketball team or trying out for the volleyball team, Right? The coach is trying to figure out if this person is qualified, if they're good enough for the team. Right. You need to do the same on the interview. Get them to answer questions, get them to produce results, get them to give you advice on whatever you're hiring them for. And the best candidates know this. They actually tell you before you even ask. This is exactly why we hired Irina, our UX UI designer. On the interview, she immediately gave me feedback on how she would improve the UX in the UI of Webinar Ninja of our software. She checked us out, she looked us up, she signed up, she signed in and she evaluated how she would improve our business. Basically, she gave us free consulting so she can prove to us that, hey, I'm the person for your job. Now, if they don't take that initiative, that's okay. Get them to do that for you. Even if you put that in the job description. Hey, check out the site, check out this app, check out whatever. How would you improve this? Come to the interview with solutions. These are tryouts. They're not conversations. That's the best way to know if they're going to be a great fit. If they have the talent to replace your current talent, if they prove it to you, if they show you what they can do or what they want to do in your business. Remember, interviews go both ways. Make sure that they know what to expect from you, how it is to work for you and work for your business. How they react tells you a lot. For example, in our interviews, I'm just straight up and say, hey, this is a very high paced place. We're really pushing hard, we're really working hard. We're constantly on the go. We're always trying to make it better, we're always trying to improve. We're listening to a customer, we're making improvements on the fly all the time. If I have a reaction like, wow, that's exciting, I love that, I would love to do that, want to be a part of that, that's a good sign. If it's like, wow, that's a lot of work, wow, I've never actually experienced that. If it's a little bit on the downside, it means maybe they're not ready for that kind of environment and they're going to struggle a little bit. So just something to keep in mind how they react to your description of how it is to work with you. So once you make that decision, you say, okay, they're a good fit. They've proven to me through the tryouts that they are a great, talented person that can take me to the next level. They have the right attitude, they have everything I'm looking for. You make them an offer, they accept, have a probation period. Now, for us, we have a three months probation period for most of our hires. That means the first three months is just an evaluation. They're working just like they would normally work, but it's time for them to evaluate us and us to evaluate them. And at the end of the three months, we basically give them an evaluation. And if they pass their evaluation, they're good to go. And there's a long term commitment. Now, in their first month, their first month of employment, it's very important, it's very important for you to cultivate a relationship. Make sure they feel supported. Make sure they have what they need to be successful. Make sure you ask them, do you have any questions or any way I can help you. Also just, you know, make them feel welcomed. Tell the other teammates on the team to welcome them to your team. Introduce them to the other players. Hey, this is Fred. Fred likes to joke around, don't mind his bad jokes, whatever, things like that. Have a little fun and let them know that they're part of the family. All right? So that was step two, how to find new talent. What about the third step, how to transition. This is the hardest step, how to transition. The new talent to replace the old talent.

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All right, let's talk about transition. How do you transition that new talent to replace the old talent? The first thing you need to do is you need to have an honest chat with the existing talent. You gotta tell them, hey, this is where we're at with the business. We need to grow. We need to make it happen. And we've done these steps to try to help you grow with us, but unfortunately, maybe it's not working out or maybe, you know, you've gotten us to this point and we're really grateful now. You gotta give them the game plan for transition. Tell them, hey, we need you on board for at least the next six months. You're gonna transition. We're going to have some new teammates come in and help us make these improvements. And your experience is important to us because you're going to help them be able to take it to the next level. And those transitions often take longer than you expect. You might think it takes a month or two, but usually it takes a little bit more. Especially if you're in a transition and you're doing some sort of launch or you're upgrading some part of your business, you want to make sure that they're still around to answer any questions or help them out with any other things they're doing while they're taking on this new responsibility as a new talent. Now, the earlier you tell them this transition plan, the better. Even if you tell them before the new talent starts, this is not an easy conversation. But it has to be done. It doesn't have to come from a place that's angry or upset or stern. You can just give them the facts, just give them the truth. People will understand and they'll appreciate the fact that you're giving them so much warning. But it's important to show them that you value them and that you're going to give them what they deserve all the way to the end, because you need them to stick around, right? That transition period is very important. Second thing is that you need to introduce them to the new talent. Now when you're introducing them, the new talent needs to realize that this person means a lot to you. It means a lot to the business. They've brought you to this point in the business. So don't be afraid to talk them up. The existing talent, in fact, I encourage it because there needs to be mutual respect. You as a business owner and the new talent need this person's help because they're the one that's gonna help you transition and take you to the next level by handing things over. Now, the next thing you want to do and something that I highly recommend, something that we do at we own our ninja is announce and explain the change to your team. The people that are going to be affected with this change, people that work with this new talent. This new team member, whether it's customer service or, you know, a writer or whatever it is, it doesn't have to be elaborate because it'll be like, hey, we have some new team members that are coming on board. Our new team member, this person's job is so and so. They're working with the person they're replacing, but they're working with this person to transition and they will soon take over those responsibilities. It's important to have transparency and honesty in these moments in your business. Lastly, keep communicating with all in your business. These transitions are very delicate. You want to make sure that people feel supported and that all questions are answered. Now that we've gone through all these steps, you could tell that I'm not trying to sugarcoat this. This is a challenge. This is not easy, but it has to be done. If you want to take your business to the next level, it has to be done. I mean, one of the things I've learned from the books I've read this past year, whether it's Elon Musk by Ashley Vance or Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, is that your business's biggest asset is the members of your team. The better your team, the better the chances of your success. The better you're going to be in the marketplace, the more competitive you're going to be in the marketplace. So invest in a great team, whether that's improving the skills of the people that are existing in your team or hiring new talent. I hope that was helpful. I hope you loved today's in depth lesson. A couple of really important announcements. Tomorrow we have a bonus episode that's coming out. It's a guest teacher lesson by Danny Inny. Danny nee is the CEO and founder of Marriacy.com and he's going to be teaching you how to create online courses to make an income, how to use online courses to build a revenue stream. The second thing I want to mention is next week's episode. One of the biggest challenges I've had or things I've been working on for the past, I'd probably say six years as an entrepreneur is becoming a better leader. As you start growing your business, as you start adding people to your business, as you start hiring new talent, leadership becomes the most important thing above anything else. I would even say leadership is more important than management because people by nature need to be led. They're looking for the leader. When they get hired on a team, they want to know who's the person that is leading us. That's just natural. And if you're the company's founder, if you're the CEO, that's you. Are you leading them? Are you being the leader that you need to be? So in next week's episode, we're going to talk about how to evaluate yourself as a leader. Are you a good enough leader for your team? And if not, how do you improve? What are the steps you got to take so you can become the leader your team needs you to be so you could take your business to new heights? Can't wait for that one as well. I'll check you tomorrow in the bonus episode as well as next week's episode. Thank you so much for listening to the 100 MBA show. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much for leaving us. Ratings and reviews on itunes, as well as subscribing means so much. That's it for me today, guys. But before I go, I want to leave you with this, like, with everything that's really hard to do once it's kind of done, you feel so thankful you did it. When you make that transition, when you upgrade your business's talent and you start seeing that new talent in action, improving your business, your mind just starts to get blown wide open. You're like, wow, this is exactly what we needed. This is exactly what the business needs for the future. You start getting excited and you start feeling, I should have done this earlier. And that's a good feeling to have. That means you made the right choice. It means that you're doing the right thing and you're on the right track. So I just want to give you a little bit of a preview of how it feels when you finish this kind of difficult and challenging task of upgrading your talent. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. It's not super simple, but it has to be done. And when it is done, you're thankful it is. You're thankful that you've done it, and you're encouraged to do it again in the future when you have to. All right, I'll check you in the next episode. See you then. Take care.

ADP knows anything can change the world of work. Like what if a blocked shipping port caused a worldwide coffee shortage? Suddenly, businesses are scrambling to manage an increasingly drowsy workforce. Productivity slips 20% just due to the extended time it takes to conduct a job interview while yawning. Anything can change the world of work. From HR to payroll. ADP helps businesses take on the next anything. ADP always designing for people.