The day I hired a superstar who changed my life

Six years ago my life changed.

I was one year into clawing my way back from the edge of bankruptcy.  

Working 12-hour days, 100 days back-to-back before a single day off.  

And then starting my streak again… 

It was brutal.

(but weirdly exhilarating because I was making progress)

During that time, delivering bread was part of my day. 

I’d spend hours in the delivery van from 3 am pondering all of my past mistakes that led to losing every dollar I had in my previous business.

And on one particular day, I was focused on resolving what I’d done wrong with recruiting in the past.

Surprisingly, the answer came to me.

It was that I hired too many people from the bottom.

You see, I was wildly idealistic back then. I dreamed of a company that didn’t need typical managers because, if people just did their job, there would be no need for traditional managers right?

So I set out to hire a cracking team of people to work alongside each other in my business. 

I’ll spare you all the details and just say… it was an absolute disaster! 

Everyone wanted to be managers and nobody actually wanted to do the work. So salary budgets blew out, our service sucked and there wasn’t any room left in the building because there was so much ego.

So, at that moment while I was delivering bread to people’s doorsteps in the dark, I started to piece together a better strategy for growing the business by employing the right people.

You see, it wasn’t their fault back then. It was mine. 

I’d set the place up for failure by not recruiting properly and then not outlining a clear structure.

Finally, I could clearly see my error from the past.

So I immediately posted a job ad for a ‘Superstar Admin All-Rounder’

But this was no ordinary recruiting ad.

It would have caused the wrong applicant to involuntarily projectile vomit onto the screen while reading it and others would have closed it before they finished saying the words “F**k That!”

But I didn’t want just anyone. I wanted THE one.

Someone to help steer this ship I’d started building.

And the minute I posted that ad I felt nervous.

I thought “Why on earth would they want to come and work at a company like this?”

When I looked around at the time, we were still using borrowed equipment, makeshift furniture, our office was inside the cafe, we had no systems, no money and no support. 

It was a bit of a shit show to be honest Jarrod… 

But I reminded myself that the right applicant would love the opportunity to build something from the ground up and own their impact.

And that’s exactly what happened. 

I found someone so unbelievably brilliant and immediately hired them.

And looking back, it’s been the single biggest factor that led to our success.

ONE exceptional person.

Why?

Because together we could move mountains when before I was just another small business owner pushing shit uphill.

We divided responsibilities and started to accelerate growth immediately and look for another ONE brilliant person at a time.

My entire world shifted and I felt more confident. We attracted great people & clients, and since then I haven’t looked back.

Thankfully, they’re still the driving force behind the company.

Enough about why you should find your ONE. 

Let’s talk about how to find them.

The critical element is shifting your mentality in two ways:

1. Think WHO, not HOW.
2. Recruit top-down

Let’s pull them apart…

See, if you’ve got a business or you're thinking about starting one, chances are that you’re pretty good at one or two things. 

You’re probably used to doing it yourself and being the expert on those topics in your circle of influence.

So naturally, when faced with a challenge, you back yourself to figure out the answer - The HOW.

But as your company grows, your time becomes extremely limited and although you could figure out the ‘how’, it comes at the price of not doing something else that’s probably more important. 

So instead, you must shift your focus to becoming excellent at finding the WHO that can figure out the HOW with you. 

Trusting and empowering that person to seek out the answers allows you to continue to focus on something else that moves your company forward. 

But only if you don't micromanage them.

(Leave them to do their work and get on with doing the thing that gets you to the next level.)

The next point is recruiting from the top.

See, I used to only fill lower-level positions in the company and everyone reported to me. 

It’s easy to do in small businesses.

But after a while, you realise you can’t keep working 7 days, aren’t getting to everything and you’re hamstringing your company’s growth by not being available to solve problems like you used to.

At that point, you’ve got a decision to make. 

Do you want to keep growing or do you want to stay small?

If you stay small, it’s a good opportunity to pause, put your prices up (maybe lose a small percentage of customers) and work on quality and efficiency. There’s nothing wrong with this - it’s a great life.

For me, I knew I wanted to push through the small business phase and become bigger. I believed that bigger would mean we had more talented people working on solving challenges within the business and we could have a bigger impact.

So I decided to recruit someone to help me with the operational side of my business first because I could see that building a bigger team required better leadership, communication and systems.

How do you decide on the skillset you need to recruit for?

It’s about your weaknesses + the future weaknesses of the company.

As I explained above, we were going to recruit more people and therefore we needed someone brilliant in a leadership position. 

But in addition, I’m not a great ‘finisher’. I take it to 75% finished pretty well and then force myself to get it closer to 85% resolved. But that last 15% that I really value is not my strength. 

So I looked for people who have the ability to see a project through to completion at a high standard. 

You need to be honest with yourself and find the weaknesses that let you and the company down.

Then begin the process of recruiting for that.

The key message is, don't overcomplicate it. You're only looking for ONE superstar. Then ask them to help you find one more, and so on...

That’s all for today.