648 | Where the Great People Are (And How to Get Them to Say Yes)

Struggling to find the right people for your team? What if the great ones are out there but you're not asking the right way? 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 are talking about getting the right people and hiring.

Today isn't just about finding someone who can do the job for so many people. It's let's get a warm body in the seat. That is not going to cut it.

It's about attracting someone who wants to do the job with you. In this episode, we unpack how top tier talent evaluates opportunities and what leaders need to change if they want a team that's not just good, but transformational.

So whether you've been burned by bad hires or you're scaling fast and can't afford a misstep, then this is your go to blueprint for drawing in the best and getting them to say yes.

So let's dive in and see if we can't get some great information on what we should be doing or changing our focus on.

Great People Aren’t Looking—They’re Listening (00:01:26)

The first thing that we need to understand is that great people aren't looking, they're listening.

High performers are really not scrolling job boards at 11pm I mean, unless something has happened, unless they're desperate for some reason, they're probably not scrolling job boards, right?

They've already built a life, most likely that they like. What they're doing is that they're listening for alignment somewhere else, mission values, a leader who is worth following.

So when your message resonates with that type of person, with a champion, a high performer, a top tier person, they lean in.

So for example, we had one of our clients that didn't recruit their best hire. They actually attracted her. Now, she had heard the owner who was sharing a vision, sharing their mission, their values on a podcast that, that she was on.

And then this person emailed them the next day. Six weeks later, they were on the team. No job board, no fishing expedition, just clarity that cut through the noise.

So what am I talking about? You need to be doing stuff instead of just posting a job description. Right? We'll talk a little bit about job descriptions in a bit.

But instead of just posting a job out there, you need to be somehow, whether it is on somebody else's podcast, maybe you have a show yourself, I don't know, on your careers page, in your email newsletter.

Somehow you need to be letting people know what your company's about, what your company's about, what your mission is, what your values are.

You need to be getting that message out in a way that somebody who's listening to see what you're about would lean in and want to find out more.

So here's some things that you can do. Literally right now, you can do this. This week. Start by recording a three to five minute video on why we exist and stick it on your website, stick it on your LinkedIn, stick it on.

Well, I don't, I don't know. I don't know social platforms well enough to know. Can you do five minutes on Instagram? Maybe you can, I don't know.

But wherever you could post this, that is. And maybe, you know, you could do a shorter one. For some of the platforms that only allow certain amounts of time, you can tell how much I don't understand the social media platforms that.

Well, I'm definitely not the expert here, but what you need to do is create videos of you talking about your mission. Now, if you've been with me for any decent amount of time, you understand that for me, mission is why we exist.

This is why this company does what it does. We happen to have the platform that consistently communicates our mission, consistently communicates why we exist. So for us, when people come to us that know about us or if we post a job, then people are already.

All you have to do is ask them if they listen to the show, do you know who we are? How did you find out about this?

And some of the absolute best hires are people who already were listening or people who checked us out like crazy and went through, you know, a large number of episodes before they ever got to the interview process with us.

That shows us something super important they want to know about us.

Now, some of you might say, oh, they're just doing that to figure out how to do an interview process. Great. We also happen to have a pretty fantastic interview process that can just interview out a lot of people.

What we are looking for is the person that goes, oh my gosh, I love what you're doing and can tell us what it is. I've had interviews in the early days of the Poimen Group where somebody would come in and it's like, oh, I love what you guys are doing.

And I would just say, what do we do? And they're like, well, you help people. Yes, we do help people. How do we help people? Well, you do events and stuff and then it's just, you immediately know this is somebody who's just looking for a job.

This isn't somebody who knows what we teach, why we teach it, how do we feel about it? Why is it so important to other people?

So they're not really on board with our mission. What they're on board with is that they listen to a little bit of stuff or looked at us, you know, for 37 seconds and they just want a J, O, B. They want a paycheck.

So instead, help people who are top tier, know who you are, get information. Like I say, we, we have tons of information out there. It's easy to separate out the people who really don't care because they don't dig in.

Those that do will as they do dig in. Those are the things that you will be able to find out in your interview process. So put something out there. Here's why we exist.

Make sure that you have your leaders share just one culture story at your weekly meeting. You know, get it recorded. Have somebody just talk about one aspect of our culture. Clip that sucker and post it somewhere.

Allow it to be, hey, this is one of our leaders talking in our staff meeting or in a know, a weekly meeting or a monthly meeting or whatever.

Just speaking about one aspect of our culture. You know, you could pick whatever it is for us, we actually have a process where we go through each one of our core values. And you know, Joel Fortner is usually the one teaching on that.

He will just give a, here's what this means. Now, everybody's been with us for a very long time, so they actually already know this stuff. But whenever we have new folks, we make sure that they understand it.

So it's a great opportunity for you to be bringing your team back up to speed on our core values and using that so that you could post it somewhere for people to see.

Also replace, as I do my air quotes, we're hiring posts with here's the impact we're making posts. Okay, don't just put out a "We're hiring". Don't just put out a "Come work with us".

Put out posts, especially on your career page.

If you got a career page on your website that says here's the impact we're making and literally does a deep dive into the impact that you're making into people's lives that will help people to understand what your culture is and what your mission is, before you post a role.

So why is that important?

Because it helps people who are paying attention to you really dive in even more before you have a role.

One of the best things is when somebody comes to you and is like, I want to go do this, you know, I believe in what you're doing here. Here's my qualification.

And they're already giving you all the information you need, even before you have a role to hire for, that tells you this is somebody who's probably still going to be there in a handful of months when you do have a role to post.

So good things to do, make sure you're communicating your culture, your mission before you post a role.

Your Culture Is Your First Interview (00:08:46)

Number two, folks, you got to understand your culture is your first interview. Champions, top talent, they interview you long before you interview them.

So once again, let me go back to the people that I've asked, you know, well, they're like, oh, I love what you do, what do we do? And they can't answer the question.

That's not a top tier person, that is not a champion. Right? That's not somebody who even did even a modicum amount of diving in, digging in to find out who we are. Top tier champions.

They're going to audit your website, they're going to audit your tone, they're going to audit your response times, they're going to take a look at your team's energy online. They're going to see if your culture is fuzzy.

If it is, then they're going to pass. So make sure that you're focusing on getting your culture out there in a way that people can see it.

We had a strap plan leader who rewrote their culture statement from corporate fluff, which so many people do, it drives me nuts. Listen, you don't need a--

You're not looking for a statement that goes on a plaque on a wall. You're looking for a statement that every single person who works there can show up and go, yep, that's why I'm here today.

So they took this corporate fluffy statement, redid it, made it in plain English with their values, gave some real examples of, you know, how those values show up daily.

And their engagement from candidates jumped dramatically. Fewer people that came along and were just, you know, kicking the tires to see and more people who actually fit the, the job description that they were hiring for. Why?

Because again, the culture is the piece that a champion is going to look at before anything, somebody who knows what a good quality culture looks like or a champion who's been sitting in a bad culture long enough, they're not going to want to go to another bad culture.

They're gonna want to see that where they're going is someplace that they can be appreciated, someplace that they can do a great job, get a pat on the back, get a paycheck and go home.

And not go home stressed out and not go home dragging, you know, 600 pounds of their day with them to their family, right? They're gonna, they're gonna check you out, they're gonna see. So here's what I want you to do.

This is another thing you could do. Put your culture on a one page, you know, three to five core values, whatever you've got, each with a this is what this looks like here type of bullet point.

Get that on your website, get that on your career page, get that wherever, send it out, post it on. You know, you can put that out on Facebook. You can get this on your social media platforms as well.

Also audit your digital front door. What does your homepage look like? Too many people, I can't say this enough. Too many people do not look at their website to find out what the experience is like for other people.

So whether it is your client, if you've not walked through your buying experience, you know, you should have some secret shoppers walk through your, your sales process to see where it gets stuck, where it's terrible, where it's fantastic.

But you should also do the same process, walk through what it's like to try and get a job at your business.

If this is difficult, if it's painful, if it doesn't explain what, what we're doing, why we're doing it, how we're doing it, you know, what the impact is. If I can't see those things, then you're just another J O B. You're not a place I necessarily want to land.

So does it feel like the experience that you have with your team or with your clients or in your team meetings, when things are going well and people are communicating and we're accomplishing things and we're talking about the, the client that we just helped out in this big way over here.

Can I experience that as somebody who's never worked inside of your business? If I can, then that will give me a huge idea of what it'll be like to be there on a daily basis.

If I cannot, then I might look at you as just another job. So make sure that you're helping me to see that. Also make sure you tighten up your response times.

A players, they notice speed and they notice professionalism.

Now, I will tell you, we have had times of a players that were looking to work for us that we could not interview them because something we had an emergency go on, especially with the person doing the interview process.

And it was just a very difficult thing. We had to communicate and say, hey, listen, we're not going to be able to get back to you for a bit.

Here's kind of what's going on. Just to let you know, it's going to be a week or two before we can solve this. It was that bad. It was that big of a deal that was going on.

So by communicating, that allowed the, the champion that was in the hiring process to hold on. We're not trying to make people hold on because we're lazy, because we're slacking.

That's terrible. That's stupid. Cut people loose. If you're not going to hire them, right? If you're not going to move forward with them, cut them loose so that they could go on with their lives. But we had a situation that was like, hey, this is all our bad.

We. I mean, it wasn't our fault. It was a family emergency, but we couldn't do anything about fixing that. And it wasn't going to go to somebody else to do the interview process. Right.

This was specifically in this one area. We needed that leader on board. And so. And it was that leader that was having the family emergency. They had a parent who passed away. And so we said, listen, we need some time.

We understand if that's not okay with you. We get it. But this is what. Where we are in the moment. And just by communicating, we got the response, no problem, I will check back in.

Or let me know when you're ready to move forward. And that's exactly what we did. So that is the exception to the rule. Right. Something terrible went on. But if you're not getting back to somebody, you're going to lose that person pretty quickly.

Even if you just communicate what's going on in the process, that will help them to make decisions on whether or not they stay.

Job Descriptions Must Inspire, Not Intimidate (00:15:16)

So number three, job descriptions must inspire, not intimidate the best. People don't want. They don't want a chores list.

They don't want to see, here's the 47 things you're going to do every day. They want to see a mission. They want to see clear outcomes.

What does this look like if I do the 47 things and how they get to grow in the process? A laundry list.

If you put that out there, that just repels fantastic people, you might get people that love it because they're just looking for a place to, you know, put their head down and knock things out.

But that doesn't mean that you're going to get an A player. That doesn't mean that you're going to get a champion.

So if you will spend time, maybe rewrite your job posts as a growth invitation, here's what outcomes look like, here's what ownership looks like, here's what winning looks like, here's what the first 30, 60, 90 days looks like.

Then you're going to be amazed at how many more applicants you get because you're dropping the noise, you're dropping the, we need you to come and do this, this, this, this, this.

And instead you're painting a picture that somebody wants to come be a part of.

So shift, shift your posting, change it from here's responsibilities that include data entry and, and reporting and scheduling, and shift it to something like you're going to own the customer onboarding experience or you're going to be turning new clients into raving fans in their first 30 days of coming on board.

Success in this role looks like a 95% onboarding customer satisfaction score.

You know, by getting this done in, I don't know, so many, 10 days, five days, you know, 30 days, whatever it is, show them what success looks like.

If you're doing these things and setting our clients up for success so they're onboarded really well, then here's what success looks like after this timeframe.

So you already know, stepping into an interview process, you've already got a really good idea of what the mission is, what the role is, and what success looks like.

You will triple your potential candidates. I mean, you will be blown away by the people that are like, oh my gosh, now that's a picture that I want. That's something I want to do.

And side note, side note to, to some folks, even if the role you are hiring for is something you would hate to do, do not sell it short, because there are people out there who would love it.

I've shared the example, I think multiple times over the years of how I hired somebody way back in the days, gosh, almost, almost 20 years ago, that literally stuffed tickets and invoices in an envelope by the hundreds and would ship those out every day.

And I just, I remember one day just apologizing. I was walking by and I'm like, oh, gosh, I'm, I'm so sorry. I know this is a very, you know, simple, consistent role, something that I could not do.

I would not be able to sit there for eight hours a day and do that. And she was like, oh, my gosh, I love this. I was like, you do? And she's like, yeah, I take these home at night and I finish them there.

I'm like, whoa, you what? She's like, oh, yeah, this is exactly what I love doing. And it just changed my perspective. Even though I understood her personality style, my struggle was my own issue.

I couldn't do it, so I couldn't imagine anybody else would want to do it. So if I would have posted that, and I think she came, if I remember correctly, she may have been a referral. I can't remember.

Maybe it was a job posting. But sometimes with that kind of situation where it's not a job you would want to do, your posting is probably going to be terrible.

You need to post this in a way from the perspective of somebody who would love to do the job.

Here's how you will grow in this role, you know, which, you know, stuffing tickets, you might not see growth path, but praise God, she became a phenomenal part of growing other aspects of our business from that administrative side.

So talk about skills, talk about mentorship, talk about ways that they could possibly grow, but rewrite it in a way that includes your mission and includes your, you know, here's the outcomes, what it's going to look like.

It includes ownership, it includes growth, development opportunities. If there are some, try and figure that part out. So get all that into your new role, your new posting, and make sure that it's more missional, not a checklist.

The Right People Say Yes to the Right Vision (00:20:07)

Number four. The right people say yes to the right vision. Now, compensation must be fair, but it isn't the magnet, meaning is the magnet. If your vision is vague, money won't keep them.

I'm telling you, if your vision is compelling, then champions will make bold moves to get there. Make sure that you're using the whys. Again, my air quotes the whys in every conversation that you're having.

So why now? As you're having conversations in this hiring process, right? In this interviewing process, Help them to understand why now, you know, specifically for us, our market demand is spiking.

And so if we build this capability in the next six months, then we set the standard in our market space, help them to see that this is a big goal, this is a big mission.

This is something that we're trying to, to accomplish. Why this, this role that we are looking to hire is. It's the hinge on something that we've promised to our customers, which is faster value, fewer headaches, yada, yada, yada, right?

So we had a time where we were hiring to help out in our coaching area, and we laid it out simply, we are hiring. Why is this role being hired?

Because if we don't bring somebody in right now, then we are going to get task saturated in an area and it's going to slow down and affect our clients.

It's going to slow down our hiring process, it's going to slow down the way we deliver. We just shared, here's why this role is so important, why we're doing this.

Another why, why you? Right, if you're talking and interviewing somebody, why you?

Why. Why are we looking at you as a candidate for this role? Well, you're. Your track record when you did such and such over here or the way that you did this in that role.

This is exactly what we're looking for. This is what excites us because we think that you're going to be able to help us accelerate this process. You know, again, make sure that you're digging into.

Great question asking. I'll hit that in just a second. But put together a great, you know, one to two minute script, you know, three minutes max if you can, on these Why's, why now?

Why this and why you. Even though you may not be speaking, this is something you may be putting out with the role. Why you? Because you, you have a track record.

You know, if you're the person who has the type of a track record that does this or this or this, and you know, kind of explain the outcomes that you're looking for in the role, create that vision pitch and then load it up so people can see it.

Because the right person will go, I absolutely can do that. I've done that. I've been able to use it in your interview processes. The three whys, why now? Why this? Why you?

The more that you do that, the more exciting it will be for the candidate. And if they are a champion, they will be glad to tell you all the things that they've done that align with this role.

DISC = The Culture Fit Filter (00:23:24)

Number five, the DISC. You gotta use the DISC. Now, you don't have to use a DISC on every single person in the interview process, but when you get down to those last two or three, you absolutely, I mean, this is just a must, folks. It's a must.

It's... You're trying to find out if this is a culture fit. It's kind of like a culture fit filter for your business.

Now skills get you in the door, but wiring determines whether you thrive in our environment.

So we use the DISC to match role demands to natural behaviors, you know, and how it, how it builds on how they normally respond act, react, give information, receive information.

We want a balanced team. We want to make sure that every single role is balanced according to the personality style. So the last thing that we want is natural styles that clash.

You know, natural or adapted styles in the DISC that clash with what we're trying to accomplish. I don't want to take a role where you're stuffing, you know, live event tickets and invoices into a envelope and I'm going to hire a high D or a high I.

No, nothing is going to get done. This is something I need somebody who can stay on it consistently. I need a high C who is heavily focused on do the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again with excellence.

If I put the wrong personality style in that role, I'm going to run into pain. Pain for that person, pain for the leadership team, the people working with them, pain for the clients, the vendors.

If they're working with vendors, you've got to make sure that you're applying DISC pack properly. So just quickly, if you look at the high D, which is the driver, they're going to be, you know, super fast at making decisions.

They're going to own things if nobody else is going to step up and own it. They're going to own the outcomes. They can bulldoze. They can be a bull in a china shop as well.

So understand that if you're looking at the high I, the influencer, they're going to have a lot of great energy. They're going to make a lot of connections. They will talk and, and discuss things a lot more.

They're going to be, you know, not so great on the details, but they will evangelize vision, you know, if that's something that you're trying to get across. Maybe they're working with, you know, clients or vendors or whatever.

They're great evangelists for what you're doing. The high S, the steady, amiable person. They're going to be great for consistency, support systems, all the behind the scenes stuff. They don't want to be center of attention, they don't want to be out in front of people.

They want to be, you know, at bare minimum the number two person who's doing the support. They can resist change, so make sure that you're watching for that as well.

And then the high C, the conscientious, detail compliant person. They are phenomenal for accuracy, for analysis, for quality. They can overanalyze.

You've you heard the phrase analysis paralysis. That can happen as well, but they're going to be phenomenal at the details and the accuracy.

So what do you do? Make sure that you're interviewing at this point, when you get down to the last two or three, you should be interviewing according to, you know, creating prompts according to the style.

So, you know, a question you might say is, hey, tell me about a time you had a shift in priorities three times in your week.

You know, what did that look like? And you're going to pretty quickly see if that's somebody who's a D, I, S or C by how they respond.

You know, walk me through your, your process. What did you do that week? How did you experience that? If they're like, that's never happened to me, then you're probably pretty sure where you are but what you're looking for.

And you can do this before giving the DISC to kind of see what personality styles you have. But definitely when you have the DISC, we want to see how they make decisions. Right?

Walk me through your quality control process. You know, if you're looking at a high C, how do you do this? What does that look like? How do you handle that?

If you're looking at maybe a high S one, plans change late in the day, late in the process, how do you communicate? How do you stabilize? How do you help to get to the right outcome?

Even though the plans have changed, you're looking to see how they respond on every single one of these, Right?

So make it real. Add DISC to your. If you've not added DISC to your hiring process, it's a must.

Go to our website, chrislocurto.com and go to the store and get your DISCs. Just make it happen. It will change your hiring process and it will definitely help you to make sure you're getting the right people in the right seats.

Again, you don't have to do that on everybody in the hiring process.

But you get down to two, maybe three, definitely you should be pulling a DISC on those.

Action Items (00:28:38)

So what do we do? Things that you can do right now. Do a culture. One page. You know, what's our mission? One to two sentences. We win when we do this.

You know, what are the outcomes? Give me three outcomes that matter, that show the team member, the potential team member, how we win.

What does that look like? And by the way, this might be great for you because maybe you haven't thought through this before. So write down what three winning outcomes look like.

Do some cultural hits, some core values, how we behave. You know, here's one of our Core values. And here's what it looks like when it's walked out here, here's another one, here's a third one.

You know, put those kind of things into this one cultural one-pager and then help people to see that there is growth beyond just the role that they're stepping into.

You know, do we have a growth promise to our people? Is there coaching, is there teaching, is there a specific cadence? Or maybe some of you have certifications that you put people through, help them to see that.

So what could a good post skeleton look like? Why this role matters?

You know, do your mission in three to four lines, what you'll own three to five outcomes with metrics, what winning looks like in 30, 60, 90 days, how you're going to grow here, who thrives here.

You know, give some good culture bullet points to tied to disc to values. You know, help them to see that.

Put in your compensation and your benefits, you know, range the perks, all that kind of fun stuff and then tell them how to apply, you know, with a, with a kind of a value based prompt.

You know, give us, share with us a two minute, you know, writing video, whatever on the customer problem you most love to solve and why.

Now they may not be dealing with customers, but obviously mold it to whatever role that you are doing. So if you will do these things, you will have a considerably different process.

So start auditing your job descriptions. Now. Do they sound like invitations or do they sound like chores? Make sure again you've got a good clarified vision statement. You know, can your team repeat it back to you with excitement?

You know, create the culture video that we talked about. Get that out on your social media posts, get that on your website, put it on wherever you post jobs, right?

And if you do these things again, you will change the pool of people who are coming to you.

Additional Resources (00:31:19)

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'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 misshires.

Now you can find great people, you really can. But only when you become the kind of leader and create the kind of culture that great people are looking for.

Conclusion (00:32:11)

It's time to stop settling by putting out weak job description posts and start aligning with great people. Attract greatness by becoming unshakably clear on your mission, your culture, and the kind of impact you invite others to.

Well, that is all the time that we have for today. It's a lot.

Again, make sure that you go to chrislocurto.com/podcast, find today's episode 648 and get the culture aligned job description builder that will help you out immensely.

As always, take this information. Change your leadership, change your business, change your life, and join us on the next episode.