647 | Before You Hire: 5 Questions Every Smart Leader Must Answer

You can't hire strategically if you're desperate and unclear. Today, we're uncovering the first decisions that make or break your next hire. That is coming up next.

Welcome to The Chris LoCurto Show where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are.

Welcome to the show, folks. I hope you're having a fabulous day wherever you are. Today we're discussing our five critical hiring questions that every leader must answer.

So hiring isn't just about finding a body to fill a seat. We've all done that. We've all made the mistake of putting a warm body in a seat so that we had somebody doing the job.

It's about shaping the future of your team as well as your culture. And the worst hiring mistakes don't happen during the interview. They happen long before it.

So in this two part series, we'll break down the exact steps every leader must take to hire with confidence, alignment and clarity.

What is today's focus? What you need to decide before you even post the job. Make sure missed this and you're setting yourself up for regret.

So let's jump into those five critical hiring questions.

What’s the Strategic Why Behind This Hire? (00:01:32)

Number one, what's the strategic why behind this hire? So let's say you were hiring a project manager.

Are you doing it because you're overloaded or because it supports a 12 month growth goal? So here, this is the core question.

When you decide to hire, let's say again, this project manager, you've got to be asking why? Why am I doing this? Is it because I'm currently drowning in tasks? Is it because I simply just want relief?

Or is it because a project manager is part of a bigger intentional growth strategy? Those two motivations lead to incredibly different outcomes.

So let's take the first one. If we're hiring because of overload or overwhelm, right?

Which many, many leaders do, I'm overwhelmed in this area. I've just got to drop this person in place. I cannot tell you how many times, especially in StratPlan, almost always in StratPlan this comes up.

But in many other situations as well, that I've helped businesses or team leaders to see that they don't need a hire. I'm not talking about specifically a project manager. I'm talking about that they have people that are not being held accountable.

And because they're not being held accountable and because they're feeling overloaded and overwhelmed, they are hiring more people and spending more money and losing more resource because of their current situation.

So the reactive decision, being overloaded or overwhelmed, you End up hiring someone that takes things off of your plate. But it's a short term fix. So this may relieve some pressure.

But without clear alignment to whatever it is that you're doing, right, if it's, again...

If it's overwhelm and you're probably not holding your team accountable to all things, then you may discover that you have folks that are not being tapped completely with their capacity, they're not being used to full capacity.

So you keep hiring somebody or putting more people on your staff because it seems like it's a must. We have to do this. Those are short term fixes, right?

You might put somebody in the seat, but you don't realize that you're losing resources, you're losing money, and you're probably just moving tasks around as well.

Here's the hidden risk. If there's no strategic plan to each role, you can end up paying for that role for years.

And it doesn't even create measurable progress. So you are losing money, you are losing resources. You might take a project manager and they become kind of like a glorified task traffic controller instead of a driver of outcomes.

But they're in the role, they're in the seat, they're doing something and it's taken some relief off of you folks. That is a terrible way to hire and you don't know it.

But you're going to end up losing a lot of resources if you can spend time digging in and getting to that strategic why? Why am I hiring this person? Why is it so important to put a person in this role?

Then you will either discover that role is not needed, you've done a not so great job of holding people accountable and making sure everybody's filled to capacity and, or whatever.

Or you may discover that it has a much better strategic fit. So let's say we were hiring for a, you know, a year long, 12 month growth goal. Well, a proactive decision.

Looking at this by asking the strategic why might mean that you've mapped out exactly where you want the business to go.

And then in the next 12 months, more clients, larger revenue, new products, whatever, scaling the operation, whatever it is, you know, removing problems, which we're always highly suggestive of.

You might discover that with a clear mandate, clear KRAs, clear alignment with the strategy, the vision, the team, the culture, you may discover deadlines get met, you may discover systems are able to be scaled.

You may discover that you hit the very goals that you were trying to to hit, that you were aiming at. So instead of just offloading tasks, you end up leveraging the role to ensure that you get a quality return on your investment.

That's the right way to go. So how do you know if you're doing the right thing? Well, first questions you should ask is, do you have a clear 12 month goal?

Do you have KPIs on this person? Do you have for this role, do you have things that you're going to hold them accountable to?

Is it going to directly contribute to hitting the, the growth and milestones that you've set or is it just going to free up time? If the overload disappeared tomorrow, would you still need the project manager?

If the overwhelm with the idea that you needed somebody in this role was gone tomorrow, would you still hire the project manager?

Those are things that you have to ask. So make sure that you're asking the right question. What is the strategic why behind the hire?

If you can't link a role to a strategic outcome, you're hiring emotionally, not intentionally. That's a fast road to regret.

What Are My Cultural Non-Negotiables? (00:07:13)

Number two, what are my cultural non-negotiables now at the deployment group, our business right, relational excellence is key. Someone who's great at systems but is toxic in communication is an absolute no for us.

That person will not fit. We want people to be great at everything that they do. But if they are terrible in the way that they treat team members or clients or vendors, they don't fit, they don't work, not going to happen.

Now it is highly probable that you have hired somebody and discovered later on that they're not a good cultural fit with communication because you can't always, you can't always interview that out.

It's very difficult many times to interview out are they going to really be terrible at communication and, and you know, or even being toxic.

I will tell you, we have had people slip through in businesses that we run for, you know, over the years we've probably had, gosh, there's only one person coming to mind right now, but I'm sure somebody else has that.

On the interview process in the front side, everything was one specific way, everything.

Even the scenarios we were throwing out, there were good responses. The key is you've got to make sure that you're putting the scenarios in place to find out how are they going to respond in specific situations.

You will probably get some red flags. You might get some red flags in there, you might not. But if you will do the best on the front side. And again, you've got to figure out what your non negotiables are.

For us. You Better treat the internal and external client very well, period. If you don't, you don't get to work here. You don't get to be a part of this team anymore. Sorry. Not sorry.

You don't get to be here because you're killing our culture and that's unacceptable for us. Nobody gets to kill our culture. We are incredibly intentional about how our culture needs to be.

And for every one of you that's ever been to one of our events or Next-Level Life or StratPlan or part of our Next-Level Mastermind group, you get this. You understand this.

You can see that we are huge on making sure that every team member fits our culture. And if they don't, they don't get to work here. Why is that so important?

Because it will not only kill your culture, it'll kill your sales. It'll kill how people interact with you. If one person is struggling with one person inside of your business, then they will probably stop doing business with you.

Maybe, maybe they'll be nice enough to raise a red flag and talk to you about it and hopefully you will be smart enough to handle it appropriately. Not every client is right.

Sometimes clients are wrong and they're complaining about a team member that isn't doing anything wrong. Make sure that you ferret that out. But what if they are? What if they are right? Then what do you do about it?

I don't care what the skills are. Skills get attention, but values keep people define what traits must be present and what red flags you won't tolerate and do something about it.

Culture killers often come disguised as top performers. But if they don't align with your values, they'll erode your team from the inside.

What Does Success Look Like at 30/60/90 Days? (00:11:01)

Number three question you have to ask yourself. What does success look like at 30, 60, 90 days?

Now, I'm going to use an example like hiring a marketing coordinator. One of the most difficult. I hate, I really, truly hate the hiring of certain marketing roles. Why?

Because I've lost an incredible amount in of money, hundreds of thousands of dollars over my decades of hiring people in this. This area that people say isn't very tangible. That is not correct. That is not accurate.

Hiring somebody that says, oh, I can make this happen, and then you put them in the seat and then it's like, well, it's going to take me six more months and then it's going to be, well, I need to hire three people to make this happen.

Or, well, this, this, this, nope, unacceptable. So I'm using that role. We have great marketing people on our team. We love our marketing people.

But I have had to go through a good number of people to get to quality people that actually do what they say they're going to do. And I man, it just, I can't tell you the thoughts that are the memories running through my mind right now.

But because so much money was tied to the waste of time. The waste of time and the people that just did not, were not able to accomplish what they said they can do. Right.

So what do you need to do on the front side? You have to have an idea no matter what the role is. If it's hiring a marketing coordinator, if it's hiring an admin, if it's hiring a salesperson, what does success look like at 30 days, 60 days, 90 days?

Now, success at 30 days may just be onboarding, it may just be, you know, strategy intake. It might just be getting them up to speed on things.

But what about at 90 days? What are the, the measurable campaign results we're looking for from a marketing coordinator? What should we be seeing? What should we expect? How much money should we have expected to have spent up until this point?

How many changes have they made since they walked in the door? How many things were not doable right after they were doable when they're in the interview process but once they got in the door?

Oh well, that's not going to work. I have to do this, this, I have to change this. How many things are you seeing? Right. The problem is you can't spot a great candidate without a clear picture of what great looks like.

So success needs definition before the rest, the first resume. What do we expect success to be from 30, 60, 90 days and so on? Right? Some of you sell some high ticket items that have a big ramp up period.

So what does success look like at the end of that ramp up period? When should I see things or how much time can I fund this process? But by gosh, by this point I better be seeing some absolute results.

So if you don't know what success looks like, you won't recognize it when it walks through the door. You've got to plan this out ahead of time before you start the hiring process.

If you will do that and you will sit down and you will create those non negotiables into what success looks like.

You know, we've got to have this, we've got to see this, this has to happen over here, then you will have a much better hiring process and you have a much greater chance at putting a solid person in the role.

Do I Have the Bandwidth to Lead This Person Well? (00:14:39)

Number four question you have to ask, do I have the bandwidth to lead this person?

Well, now let's say you are. You want somebody who's a self starter but you yourself are in meetings all day long or you yourself are doing tasks all day long. Even the best hire is not going to be able to make it.

I mean, unless this is something that they have done consistently for a long period of time at a different business and they're just literally stepping into the same role in a different, in a different business, then they are going to flounder.

Without them having a level of guidance, a level of direction, then they're going to flounder. Folks, you have got to be honest with your capacity to lead somebody to success.

You can't just hire a person and because you saw a good resume and you had a good interview and they told you they could do the job, just expect that they're going to do it. You can't. I am sorry to say it.

There's very few people who say they can do the job and they can step in without zero guidance or zero help. As a matter of fact, I don't know if I've ever seen anybody that I've hired into a role that didn't need to be led.

Well, what I have seen in over three decades of leading people is that every single person needs a good amount to potentially a great amount of leadership so that they are successful.

And the more time I will spend or one of my great leaders will spend guiding them to success, they become successful. The great thing is, is when you do it the correct way, they will outgrow your expectation of what success looks like.

I have phenomenal team members once again. Any of you who've been here and experienced my team, you know that that's true. I have people all the time trying to hire them.

So they're great, they're phenomenal. But they didn't just walk in the door phenomenal to what I wanted or what I expected. It took lots of leadership.

So great people walked in the door and great people were led to great success in their role. So now I have a phenomenal team of great people with great success and great outcomes and great deliverables.

They do an incredible job that takes a whole lot of your time. Oh, Chris, I don't have time to do that. Well, then you're going to stay exactly where you are and you don't get to be surprised.

I will tell you. I do not spend my time in the day to day. I have not since shortly after the beginning of this business. When I started this business from scratch, I started with one team member, Brian Alex. Shout out to Brian Alex.

And we busted it. I knew I could not accomplish the admin and I had to do events and a show and, you know, everything else, sales and whatever else.

So I had a strong admin person helping me out to make things happen. And then as I grew, I made sure that I was not stuck in The Leadership Crazy Cycle. We call it The Leadership Crazy Cycle. I've been killing The Leadership Crazy Cycle for decades.

And I made sure that I had time to grow and train and teach. And I have a teaching culture inside of my own business. That's how we're able to teach you so well. This is what we do for a living.

But I didn't allow myself to get overwhelmed. I didn't allow myself to get overloaded. I made sure I stayed focused on where I needed to be. Well, that's great, Chris, but I've been in this business for five, 10 years and I'm overwhelmed and overloaded now.

Great, then keep listening, keep following us, keep digging in because we're giving you the tools to get out of that. We're helping you to get out of that.

So one of the things you have to realize is if you stay overloaded and overwhelmed, you're never going to be able to lead your team to success.

So you have to be honest about your current capacity. Don't hire someone who needs support if you're not ready to give it.

Don't put a person in the seat if you can't lead them. That's one of the things we say all the time. Never hire a person who doesn't have a leader. If they don't have somebody to lead them to success.

We're wasting our time. So you don't just need to make space on the team, you need to make space in your leadership or they won't thrive. You have to make sure you can lead somebody to success, period.

Otherwise you're wasting their time. I've experienced that. I can think back to times that I worked somewhere that I didn't get help.

I was a great self starter and a great go getter, but man, I had to figure things out on my own and spend time and I'm sure it wasted the company's money until I got my own self up to speed. Guess what? There's very few people that are able to do that.

Most people, and I am very aware of that. I'm sure I wasted the company's money because I didn't have a leader leading me to success.

So it's not me wasting the company's money, but I could have been better if somebody would have just sat down with me and said, we need you to do this. This, this, this, this. Here's what it looks like. Here's accountability to the process.

We what questions do you have from me? How can I help you? Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I would have been up to speed a heck of a lot faster. That's why I'm an entrepreneur.

That's why I don't work for those people and have not for many, many decades.

What Will It Really Cost Me If I Get This Wrong? (00:20:42)

Number five question you have to ask yourself, what will it really cost me if I get this wrong?

So, for example, a poor leadership hire cost somebody I, a leader I know $85,000 and three other top team members.

So not only did this hire cost this person a lot of money that was wasted, it also cost them losing top team members. Folks, that is such a painful day. That is such a horrible situation.

When you hire from stress, it leads to cultural leaks, cultural breakdowns, wasted time, wasted resources. And for the love, the regret compounds over and over and over again. Clarity up front prevents long term fallout.

So when you ask yourself, what's the worst thing that could happen here? It needs to lead you to great interview processes, great interview scenarios, great, you know, key results that you're looking for.

How is this going to. I'll tell you, I will never again. I made this mistake many decades ago and to this day it is. I hate regrets, by the way, if you don't know this about me, I'm an 88S.

I'm a 89 Altruist. I can't stand regret. I hate it. And I hired an island once because another leader said, oh, this is going to be a great team member for you.

This is somebody that's going to be phenomenal. And they were leaving their team, which should have been a big red flag, but the answer they had was, oh, well, that totally makes sense. They're going in a different direction.

And here is a champion who's going to be a champion on my team for the love. To this day, decades later, still a--

I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't live in this, but the memory comes up as I'm talking about something like this, that that is a. That is a regret that I will not repeat.

I will not hire an island again. Somebody who is not a good team member, somebody who doesn't work well with others, somebody who is always focused about themselves, somebody who only cares about their outcomes.

That is not somebody I ever want on my team again. It affected my team. I had my team coming to me going, you know, this person is a jerk. Right.

You know, this person won't work with us. They're telling us what to do. They want us, they expect us to do their stuff. And, you know, they won't be a part of the things that we need them to be a part of.

That. That kind of ridiculousness can affect so much. Well, it's not just me. Like I say, this other leader lost 85 grand just in paying this and then lost three top team members.

You have to think about this at a time. If I get this wrong with this hire, whether it's the wrong role or whether it's the wrong person. Right? Because, oh, look, they've got these skills and abilities.

Yep. Are they a cultural fit? Proud, not perfect. Well, then that should be your first red flag. Are they a team member? Uh, you know, they do a good job working by themselves.

That should be another red flag. Unless you're hiring for a role that you need somebody to work by themselves, that should be a red flag. So this isn't about saving a few weeks. It's about protecting years of momentum.

That's the real cost of getting it wrong. Put the wrong person in the seat and not only does it affect your resources, your money, your time, your lost opportunities, it could literally cost you quality people.

Action Steps (00:24:46)

So action steps that I have for you right now, I want you to block one hour. One hour. Put it on your, your schedule to reflect on your next hire. Why it exists and what it should should achieve.

Why it exists and what it should achieve. Write down three non negotiable cultural traits that your next hire must embody. Then define what success looks like at 30, 60, 90 days, even if the role isn't open yet.

And finally, audit your leadership capacity. Are you ready to lead someone new or will they get lost? Now, this October, we're handing you the full Smart Hiring Framework. One powerful resource at a time.

You'll listen, apply, and by the end of the month, you'll have a complete system to hire better, lead smarter, and protect your culture. You have to sign up by filling out the form at chrislocurto.com/hiringframework one word hiring framework.

Once you're in you, you'll automatically receive all the resources throughout the month. Remember chrislocurto.com/hiringframework.

You won't want to miss what's coming. This framework could save you months of stress and thousands in costly miss-hires. Hiring the right person isn't about luck.

It's about leadership, clarity. Get these first decisions right and you set yourself up for alignment, for retention, for growth, for so much more. If this gave you clarity, next week will give you traction.

We're walking through how to write a job post that actually attracts a players and repels the wrong ones. That is all the time we have for today. Join us next week. Get the tools. Get the things that you need.

Get on the list. We'll be sending this information to you. As always, take this information. Change your leadership, change your business, change your life. And join us on the next episode.