The real path to scaling your business in 43 min
Summary
TLDRIn this insightful presentation, the speaker emphasizes the critical role of talent acquisition in scaling a business beyond the limitations of personal capacity. Drawing from personal experiences and successful business strategies, the talk unveils the often-overlooked 'Talent Acquisition Funnel' and its three key components: attracting, nurturing, and interviewing the right candidates. The speaker shares practical tactics and scripts to streamline this process, ultimately arguing that leveraging the skills of others is the secret to achieving and maintaining substantial business growth.
Takeaways
- πΌ Leveraging others' skills is crucial for scaling a business.
- π Many conference attendees leave with too many notes and feel overwhelmed.
- π‘ Key to scaling: don't try to do everything yourself.
- π Layla has scaled multiple businesses to over $100 million using this approach.
- π’ Her businesses include Gym Launch, Prestige Labs, and Allen, spanning various industries.
- π Key elements for scaling: who, what, and how.
- π Talent acquisition is just as important as client acquisition.
- π― Use specific job titles that resonate with potential applicants.
- π Diversify your hiring methods beyond just networking.
- π¬ Nurturing applicants through a structured hiring process increases success rates.
Q & A
What is the main focus of the speaker's presentation?
-The speaker focuses on the importance of scaling a business using other people's skills rather than trying to do everything oneself.
What is the speaker's background in business?
-The speaker has scaled four of their own businesses and hundreds of others, having taken home about 1.2 million dollars a month on average since the age of 24, and has a net worth of over 100 million by the age of 29.
What is the core piece that the speaker believes many people miss when trying to scale their businesses?
-The core piece that many people miss is the understanding that they do not have to do everything themselves and should leverage the skills of others to scale their businesses.
What is the 'licensing model' mentioned in the script?
-The licensing model is a business approach discovered by the speaker accidentally where instead of physically going to gyms to sell, they taught gym owners how to do it themselves, which led to easier scaling and less dependency on the speaker's physical presence.
Why did the speaker initially struggle to scale their business beyond $400,000 a month?
-The speaker struggled to scale beyond $400,000 a month due to a lack of capacity on their sales team. They couldn't hire fast enough to contact all the people that were opting in, which was a bottleneck for growth.
Outlines
π Scaling Businesses with Outsourced Skills
The speaker emphasizes the importance of leveraging other people's skills to scale a business beyond personal limitations. They share their journey from attending conferences with a notebook full of ideas to realizing the necessity of delegation. The speaker, who has scaled multiple businesses and achieved significant financial success, introduces the concept of focusing on the 'who,' 'what,' and 'how' to scale a business, which is the core of their company's approach at acquisition.com.
π The 'Who, What, How' of Business Scaling
This paragraph delves into the speaker's personal experiences and learnings in business scaling. They discuss the transition from a service-based model to a licensing model for their company, Gym Launch, and the challenges faced in scaling due to sales team capacity. The speaker's mentor introduces the concept of a talent acquisition funnel, which mirrors the client acquisition process, and this realization leads to significant growth in their business.
π€ The Importance of Talent Acquisition
The speaker highlights the often-overlooked aspect of talent acquisition in business growth. They discuss the light bulb moment when they realized that scaling was not just about client acquisition but also about bringing in the right talent. The speaker shares their experience of scaling their business from $400,000 to $4 million a month by focusing on talent acquisition, emphasizing that a business is only as good as the team behind it.
π οΈ Crafting the Applicant Generation Strategy
In this section, the speaker discusses the first step in the talent acquisition funnel: applicant generation. They compare it to lead generation in marketing, stressing the importance of job titles that resonate with the target applicants. The speaker provides insights on avoiding common mistakes such as using insider language, abbreviations, and generic job titles, and emphasizes the need for specificity to attract the right talent.
π£ Effective Distribution of Job Ads
The speaker addresses the common practice of relying on personal networks for hiring and its limitations. They suggest a multi-pronged approach to job advertising, including outbound methods, paid ads, organic content, recruiters, and team referrals. The goal is to create 'Endless Options' for potential candidates, ensuring a diverse and qualified pool to choose from.
π± Nurturing Applicants for Business Growth
The speaker introduces the concept of applicant nurture, drawing parallels with lead nurturing in sales. They emphasize the importance of a positive hiring experience, the impact of speed in the hiring process, and the need for a systematic approach to sorting and communicating with candidates. The speaker argues that a well-executed applicant nurture process can significantly influence a candidate's decision to join a company.
π― Refining the Interview Process for Talent Acquisition
This paragraph focuses on the interview process as a critical component of talent acquisition. The speaker outlines a five-step interview process designed to accurately assess candidates and align expectations. They stress the importance of scripting and having clear objectives for each interview stage to ensure reliable outcomes and hire the right people for the business.
π Overcoming Fear to Achieve Business Success
In the concluding paragraph, the speaker challenges the audience to confront their fears and biases that may be hindering their ability to hire effectively. They present a stark choice between remaining comfortable with mediocre success or facing fears to achieve greater success. The speaker encourages taking action on talent acquisition strategies to avoid business stagnation and potential failure.
Mindmap
Keywords
π‘Digital Marketing
π‘Scaling
π‘Talent Acquisition
π‘Licensing Model
π‘Arbitrage
π‘Capacity
π‘Funnel
π‘Value Acceleration Method (VAM)
π‘Portfolio Companies
π‘Revenue Growth
π‘Profit Growth
Highlights
Leveraging other people's skills to scale over $100 million in sales.
Importance of not doing everything yourself to avoid feeling overwhelmed.
Key to scaling businesses: the who, the what, and the how.
Acquisition.com recruits the who, provides the what, and shows the how to scale businesses.
Transition from a service business model to a licensing model for easier scaling.
The light bulb moment: lack of talent acquisition, not client acquisition, was the barrier to scaling.
Scaling talent acquisition leads to significant business growth.
You need a team to build a large-scale business; one brain is not enough.
Importance of having a robust talent acquisition funnel.
Six ways to acquire employees: network, outbound, paid ads, organic content, recruiters, and team referrals.
Applicant nurture is crucial to getting them bought in before they buy.
Speed is critical in the hiring process; top candidates find a job in eight days on average.
Personalization in communication with candidates increases engagement.
Omnichannel approach in candidate outreach ensures higher response rates.
Structured five-step interview process for better candidate evaluation.
Scripting and clear objectives for each interview stage ensure reliable outcomes.
Learning to sell is essential as you're always selling, whether to clients or employees.
Building a business that doesn't rely on you requires creating leverage through others.
Fear of hiring smart people can prevent business growth; it's crucial to overcome this.
Successful talent acquisition leads to significant revenue and profit growth.
Transcripts
there we go you guys having fun
digital marketing not going to talk
about that today
so today what I wanted to talk about was
how I scaled to over 100 million in
sales uh using other people's skills so
I think that a lot of the time we come
to these events and I've come to a ton
of these events and the speeches are
phenomenal but there's one core piece
that I want to focus on that I think a
lot of people typically Miss which is
not having to do everything yourself and
I think that a lot of people especially
like myself maybe seven years ago when I
would go to a conference I would take
away so much and I would have this
notebook full of paper just all my notes
on it and then I'd be like oh my gosh
how am I going to do all of this and so
if you feel like that my goal with this
presentation is that you don't feel that
way after listening to this today am I
echoing
no just me okay cool that's all that
matters
so what I want to share is really the
secret that's been responsible for
scaling four of my own businesses and
hundreds of others
and so if you don't know who I am I'm
just going to give a quick 60 second
resume
um so since the age of 24 I've taken
home about 1.2 million dollars a month
on average and I'm now 30 and I say that
not to boast but to give you a reason to
listen to me today because every time
that I'm at a speech I'm at a conference
the main reason or the main thing I'm
asking when someone's talking is why
should I listen to you and so if you
want to make more money this is how
I personally built scaled and sold three
businesses so gym launch which was a
service business Prestige Labs which was
an e-commerce business and then Allen
which was a software business
and then by the age of 29 I crossed 100
million net worth
and by age 30 which is now our portfolio
does about 200 million dollars in
Revenue per year
and is comprised of brick and mortar
chains e-commerce B2B SAS B2B Services
B2B services and e-learning
and so what I've actually learned
through not just scaling my own but
especially since we started taking on
portfolio companies is that independent
of Industry typically what entrepreneurs
lack in order to scale their businesses
is the who the what and the how to scale
and at acquisition.com which is our
company what we do is we recruit the who
we give them the what we show them the
how and once the entrepreneur has all
three their business will scale by
default because the right pieces are in
place
and that's how we scale businesses from
10 to 100 million but of course it was
not always like that right so if we
rewind back to 2016.
uh this is me and Alex if you know my
husband who speaks next
um and these are ads that we were
running because what we did is in 2016
we started our company gym launch and
the way that we started it was
essentially we did the marketing for
gyms and we would fly out ourselves and
we would sit at their front desk and we
would sell people into their locations
and so we were doing that and we did it
for about 11 months as we were living
out of the extended staying at like
clients houses
um we really had no money and it was
that was basically like the eating
moment right
and what we figured out after 11 months
is that we couldn't continue to do that
nor could we continue to pay other
people to do it either because they also
hated eating all the time it's like
you're basically flying out to people's
gyms you're sitting there you're selling
people into those gyms and then they're
basically telling you to off
because they're like I see how much
money you just made on my location
and so what we realized was like hey
maybe that's not the right model of all
of our customers paid us
and so we switched to what we call as a
licensing model okay so the licensing
model was essentially uh discovered by
accident because we called up all the
gyms to tell them hey this we're
not doing this anymore and they were
like hey no I need your help and so we
said okay cool well we will teach you
how to do it we're not flying out to
your gym to save your ass and they were
like cool I'll pay for it and that was
Denmark and so we switched to this
licensing model and everything fell 10
times easier because you guys know what
it's like when you get the right offer
which is why Alex's book is about it's
like once you get the right offer it
feels like things are finally starting
to get easier right
and we finally started to gain traction
after we made that fundamental change
but then we hit this point where we
couldn't scale
and we ended up continuing to bang our
heads across the wall
across the wall and we couldn't break
past four hundred thousand dollars a
month and it was extremely frustrating
um anyone here ever felt that way you
just can't break past certain Revenue
sucks
and so after two months of setting sales
targets and not hitting them something
occurred to me
which was that the reason that we are
missing those targets was not due to the
lack of client acquisition right
it was actually due to capacity on our
sales team
we actually couldn't hire fast enough to
even contact all the people that were
opting in this was back in the day when
Facebook ads were so cheap there was
such an Arbitrage we had hundreds and
hundreds of people contacting us and
applying every day and we could not
reach out to them fast enough
and so just when I thought maybe I
figured out what the issue is maybe it's
playing with a funnel in sales
one of our best reps quit and I was like
my life
so I called my mentor I'm gonna call Bob
today I was like Bob I have no
idea what I'm doing I'm 23 I've never
managed people I've never built a
business I have no effing clue even what
I'm looking at I don't even know is this
a problem
and he was like Layla what does your
talent acquisition funnel look like
I was like the is that you know
like I have no idea
and so he explained he said layla it's
the mirror of every business
see if you want to keep clients coming
in the front door then your talent needs
to continue coming in the back door
and so the reason that we couldn't scale
was not due to lack of client
acquisition it was actually lack of
talent acquisition
you guys are all familiar with this
right
funnel
lead generation lead nurture sales I
would think anyone at this conference
probably knows what that is right
but what about Talent acquisition why is
nobody talking about that
application generation application
nurture interviewing
mirrored funnel
and that was the light bulb moment for
me when I literally put those two
funnels side by side and I was like oh
that's my job
and so as soon as we paired the talent
acquisition with the client acquisition
we scaled from 400 000 a month to four
million a month in 20 months
we didn't change our funnel we didn't
change our sales we changed nothing you
can ask people who saw gym launch they
were like trying to dissect our funnel
it looked like the URL was not even
right
it was because we scaled our talent
acquisition
and then we lived happily ever after
with perfect loss
not actually but Talent acquisition is
what broke us through that barrier of
400 000 a month and took us to 4 million
and what we realized through that
process is that we've always been really
one hire away from all the growth we
wanted all the leverage we needed all
the sanity that we thought we lost in
building the business and all the
lessons that we didn't have time to
learn ourselves
does anyone feel that way it's like you
don't have time to learn all this
yourself
and so here's a thought experiment for
all of you
if someone could come in and do
everything you did in your business
today
and you would have to do nothing and the
business would grow the same
why are you necessary
the answer is that you're not necessary
I'm not necessary
your job is to find the people to do
that
and so your number one job as a leader
is to find the people to help you build
your business this is a mindset shift
that most people can't make and that's
why they never scale
they continue to hit their heads against
the wall thinking I need to work harder
I need to figure this out why can't I
one brain cannot build a 100 million
dollar business
it takes tons of brains to build that
and after all if you wanted to win the
Super Bowl you're not like I'm gonna go
win the Super Bowl alone right
you're like I need offense I need
defense I need special teams coaches
trainers
in other words you need marketing you
need sales you need product you need
customer success teams HR teams it teams
Finance
you need a team
and only us crazy entrepreneurs are the
ones that are crazy enough to think that
we can do it alone
after all Steve Jobs was not the person
who built the iPhone right we know that
Steve built the team that built the
iPhone
so I'm sure you're thinking that's great
for you and Steve Layla but what about
me right
that's what we're going to talk about
today in the short amount of time that
we do have
so if you want to get repeatable
outcomes then we need repeatable
processes we call ours the value
acceleration method or the vam
acquisition.com
and these are the real metrics of
businesses in our portfolio who have
implemented the van since money is what
most people want
this is the revenue growth
there's the profit growth 2.5 x 1.1 x
2.6 x 1.3 X 2.8 x 9.8 x
average in the first year Revenue growth
1.8 x profit growth of 3x average in the
second year 2.3 x Revenue 4.7 x profit
clearly it works
so the van really comes down to three
things it's the who it's the what and
it's the how
okay today we only have time to talk
about one and so we're going to talk
about The Who
so let's Dive In
all right if you can acquire customers
which I assume many of you can if you're
at this digital marketing event you can
acquire Talent
there are three Key activities in the
talent acquisition funnel okay you're
familiar with these the applicant
generation the applicant nurture and the
interview process
so we're gonna start with applicant
generation what is applicant generation
it is lead generation which is getting
people to want to work for you not
getting people to work for you getting
people to want to work for you
if you can market and find customers you
can market and recruit Talent it is
literally the same skill set anytime
someone who's a fantastic marketer tells
me I just can't find good people I'm
like me you just don't see it yet
you have both the skill set uses is used
on both sides of the funnel
and so here's an example for you is that
the job title is the equivalent to the
headline it is as important in capturing
the attention of your applicants as the
headline is in capturing the attention
of clients and ads
okay let me explain so here's an ad from
our company gym launch or the one that
we sold okay notice how we say gym
owners we're not saying personal
trainers we're not saying Fitness
enthusiasts we're not saying yoga bar
owners right we're saying gym owners
people who identify with being a gym
owner
what does the person you are already
looking for already call themselves
it's the same when you're at putting an
ad out for a job people put names out
that make no sense but the question is
the person that you're looking for the
intelligence level they have the work
ethic they have what do they call
themselves already
and so going deeper into that there's
two pieces to the lead generation
there's the at and then there's where do
you put the ad
so the ad here's what most people do
one is they're unclear on who they're
talking to they just like throw out they
like Google something and they come up
with a job title and they're like that's
what I'm gonna call it and the reality
is is that they're not really thoroughly
thinking like what does this person call
themselves where do they live what do
they do for fun how do they dress what
do they look like like they're not
really envisioning it as much as you
would for a client and what you want to
do is you want to be in a narrow Focus
to think what does this employee look
like just to the same extent that you
would as what does this client look like
the second is that people include
abbreviations they use Insider language
and they use way too many words
that doesn't mean much until I tell you
what it should look like
so here's what we do one is we're
specific we always know exactly who
we're talking to the moment that I get
on interview with someone I could tell
it right away I'm like this is the
person who isn't the person even just by
the way they dress because I've already
decided in my mind what it looks like
so I'll give you some examples so we had
a company that was searching for an
analyst
two and a half months in can't find an
analyst I'm like guys this is not hard
to find this is one of the lower level
roles in your company
and so I look at the ad and I was like
well what kind of analyst are you
looking for they're like well we need
someone for more experience I was like
yes and what kind of analysts they're
like well financial and I'm like why is
that not in the title
the moment that we put in senior
financial analyst getting super specific
on who that person is literally within a
week they hired the person
the moment after we changed it
the second piece is that typically
people get lazy they don't think about
this when you're advertising to acquire
clients you're not going to abbreviate
things yet people do that in job titles
the irony of this is that anywhere that
you post a job title that's specific for
jobs Indeed Glassdoor LinkedIn they down
regulate you for abbreviating
so you can't actually abbreviate it's
just going to show you to less eyeballs
the third is using Insider language so
this is an example from one of our
portfolio companies she came to me the
CEO and she was like Layla we need
Student happiness lead and I was like
is a student happiness lead
and she was like you know there's
someone to like you know invest in our
customers make sure they're succeeding
like make sure they like the product
make sure they're doing well like you
know get the customer journey in place I
said that's ahead of customer success
and she's like well we don't call them
customers we call them students I said
that's good once they come in but to
advertise for this person nobody knows
what student happiness lead is so again
the moment that we changed it literally
within a week she got her ahead of
customer success
uh last two which is customer support
representative versus customer support
Rockstar so this is something that back
in 2016 when I was advertising in gym
launch to acquire people if you put
Superstar Rockstar you know badass
people would always apply and you got
more applications now it's the opposite
which is they actually down regulate you
for using those weird words so that's
one thing you don't want to do anymore
and lastly similar to that is sales
representative versus I see this all the
time sales rep 100K minimum base again
it's going to down regulate you on the
platforms you don't want to put the
actual uh salary amount in the title
and not long ago this actually happened
to me and I was reminded of this myself
which was I was looking for a customer
success executive
how many people how many people here in
the room have heard of a customer
success executive at a PE firm
I'm gonna be like one they don't exist
really not really okay I got nothing so
for the one person who did raise their
hand you're a unicorn
so I changed it to portfolio operating
partner I called him my friend he said
Layla what PE firm advertises for a
customer success executive and then I
realized I was like I'm calling it a
title that fits with my old company not
my new company a PE firm doesn't use a
language right as soon as I changed it
before the operating partner I got
inundated with resumes and I hired a guy
within a week
so the bottom line if you see the
pattern here is that you have to keep
the main thing the main thing you have
to remember who you're talking to people
get this when it comes to acquiring
clients but for some reason it's
something that's left out when you're
thinking about acquiring employees
and so that is how you do the ad now the
second question to that is how do you
distribute the ad
what most people do is they ask their
Network we talked about 25 30 businesses
a week that are doing anywhere probably
usually below 10 million right and the
number one way that they acquire
employees is that they ask their Network
the number one problem they have is they
can't scale
so here's why it doesn't work
one you exhaust this fairly quickly and
people get annoyed if you continue to
ask them to use their network over and
over again
two is that you will give someone the
role even though they're not qualified
because what are you comparing them to
maybe one other person that you've
gotten through your network you don't
have options
and then typically you end up hiring a
bunch of like-minded people
because they come from one group of
people rather than having diverse
thinkers
a lot of people talk about diversity in
terms of like how we look at ethnicity
and all that I talk about diversity of
thinking is what you want a company
and so if you wouldn't rely on your
network to get clients then why would
you rely on it to build your team
I don't know
so here's what we want to do instead
there's six ways that you can get
employees the first is your network you
can when would you use your network when
you are in an industry-specific Niche
where you have a network right so say
that you're in wholesaling and you need
to find someone that it's a very
industry specific role maybe for that
role then you would reach out to your
network to try and find somebody
the second way that you can acquire
employees is outbound
typically you're going to use outbound
when you don't have a brand
okay if you don't have a brand and
you're a small company and you need a
special role or a higher level role
outbound is typically the way to go
the third is paid ads So Paid ads are
best used when you have a high volume
highly transactional role that you're
trying to fill so think about like Molly
Maids it makes sense that they run ads
to acquire Maids because it's such a
hard position to find and fill and that
is their strategic Advantage their
strategic advantages not even
necessarily their marketing it's the
fact that they can actually keep and
acquire mates
the fourth is organic content so I would
consider this brand or inbound
so if you actually are already putting
out content think about how you can use
that to your advantage to acquire
employees not just clients
the fifth is recruiters so again if
you're small and you have a lot of cash
flow I don't see a problem spending on
recruiters to get a couple high level
rules because they will edify you before
you can edify yourself
and then the last is team referrals
because people who are referred by a
teammate are five times more likely to
stay
the reason that I say that there are six
ways to acquire employees is because I
lived through only getting them through
my network
so when we first build gym launch
amazing team but it wasn't the right
team to scale the business because what
I didn't realize is I was just picking
from whatever I had there which was my
network so for example that sales team
the first sales team that we ever had
that flew out to all these different
locations to launch these gyms
they were my friends from college
and then they brought more of my friends
from college who brought more of their
cousins and aunts and uncle and then it
just turned out to be this whole network
of people who all thought the same they
all acted the same and we continued to
feel like we were the smartest people in
the room
and so I had to learn it the hard way by
having to do
a lot of self-reflection on what makes a
good culture on how to actually inquire
the right kind of employees and how to
build a really strong Talent acquisition
art
and as soon as I did start using all
those six methods we tend Endless
Options
and that is what I tell people I'm like
you want Endless Options because think
about if you had endless lead flow in
terms of clients and you also had
endless lead flow in terms of employees
and talent
how much better would your business be
and so the bottom line is we want to use
every method available to get the right
person cast a wide net and create
Endless Options
Endless Options
and that's the distribution
so if we do those two things then we get
lots of qualified applicants right
that is applicant generation
now the second piece to this is
applicant nurture okay what is applicant
nurture
it is getting them bought in before they
buy
right just like you wouldn't just have
someone opt in and then immediately take
a sales call there's a nurture process
in between we do the same with employees
and so get this 68 of candidates state
that the hiring experience has the
largest influence on whether or not they
take the job I see this for myself all
the time we recruit for R we have 12
portfolio companies that we're
constantly recruiting for I see the ones
that have a great experience they get
the best candidates the ones that don't
one of our companies has the highest
revenue has the hardest time acquiring
candidates because they still haven't
locked this in
and it's obvious that if you generate
clients you must have a solid lead
nurture process to get them and get the
hardest our highest Roi however most
people don't actually acquire or apply
this to applicants
so the average hiring process takes
about 23 days the top candidates find a
job in eight
so speed is King
and most people believe that the
experience itself is the interview but
that's like thinking that a sales
process is nothing but the sales call
itself
and so to get the lead nurture process
what you have to understand is there's
really two sides to this okay there's
the sorting and then there's the
communication
so sorting here's what most people do
wrong okay one they don't really read
the resumes because that sounds boring
as right
they don't really look at the past
experience and check to make sure they
actually work there because again that
would be time consuming and boring as
they don't really look at the length
that somebody's at a job because they're
just skimming the resume because again
it's boring as they don't look at
the fact that they hop jobs they ignore
the lack of progression and they ignore
literally all the red flags
you're so focused on relieving the pain
you feel because you want to fill this
role that you accommodate
here's what we do we read every resume
which is boring as
we take out everybody who has unmatched
experience who job hops who's never
moved up who hasn't done in a long time
had a business similar to ours
it's a ton of work
but How likely do you think it is you
could find a winner if you did that
very
and so just so you know if I get a
hundred applicants for a role I'm
typically going to screen seven to nine
and then maybe move two to three passes
screening so that means 100 people that
have applied for a role that I'm only
going to move two to three to a full
interview
these are average stats too
and so the bottom line is that this is a
volume game and if you don't have
Endless Options you can't play it
and so that leads us to
how do we get in touch with them
so we've got the Sorting we understand
that we have to do the boring work now
what about the communication what do we
say
here's what most people think because I
have thought of myself too
which is if they really want this job
they're going to do these 27 steps in
order to get it right
they should respond to me after one
attempt of reaching out I emailed them
well didn't email me back
I don't need to follow up
they should follow up with me
and they should already know about us
because we're a big deal
right and then I'm not going to give any
communication on next steps because they
should understand this because
it's not complicated
I'm gonna go really slow and not get
back to them because I'm really
important and busy
and I'm going to make it extra
complicated it's only get the Smart Ones
right how many people do this
it's like we think this should I think
this should sometimes always be doing it
and I'm like I'm doing it
again right
here's why this doesn't work one ego
thinking people even know who you are
right like I think that people know who
we are and like then I'll hire someone
they come in and I'm like oh we're at
the store and like someone came up and
said they're like people know you guys
it's cool I'm like you work for me
and you don't even care right
second is laziness which is making a
good process is hard saying people are
stupid is easy think about how many
times someone builds like a software for
example I saw this all the time in SAS
and they'd be like these stupid
customers can't even figure out how to
click the button I was like I can't
click figure out how to click
your button it's so complicated
right terrible ux
the third is assumptions
which is assuming that all these people
think about is you
right and working for you they're
thinking about finding their dream job
they don't know if it's you especially
nowadays there's so many options out
there and listen you're not just
competing against the competitor or the
similar business you're competing
against side hustles side gigs you know
opportunities they could pursue on their
own
starting their own business
and lastly is Distortion which is
assuming they don't have other options
let me tell you if somebody
doesn't have another option you should
not hire them
and so what we want to do and what we
want to understand is that's not just
customer experience that we need in the
business it's candidate experience
so there's four aspects of the
communication that if you can embody
these you can get the best candidates
okay so this is the applicant nurture
quadrant the first is speed
same day next day
would you leave a lead in your pipeline
say it's a two hundred thousand dollar
per year deal would you just let it sit
there for 24 hours
they opted in they said they want what
you've got two hundred thousand dollars
would you just let it sit there for a
day what would you say to your
salesperson
if you're like follow up the
now
right
yet we're trying to get employees that
were maybe paying a hundred thousand
dollars a hundred fifty thousand dollars
two hundred thousand dollars a year and
we won't even call them for three days
we're like I'll get to that on Friday
the second is volume which is
understanding that you need to have a
hard choice at the end of the day the
reason that you want volume is because
you are more likely to make the correct
decision if you have two to three
candidates to choose from
if you don't then you're just going to
pick whatever seems right it's like the
same as dating right it's like if you
live in a small town
a girl who's like you know maybe a
six-son in Newport is like a 10 when
you're in like Oklahoma or something but
you go to Newport and you're like
I got all these tens over
here
the third is personalization
right and so again if you had an
Enterprise client worth two hundred
thousand dollars per year opt-in are you
going to send them an automated text
message
no so if you have somebody apply to be
say your CFO who's gonna get paid 300
000 a year why wouldn't you send them a
personal text a personal email
but people don't they just like Oh
indeed in LinkedIn they send these great
little templated things I'm like that
looks like
you know they're like you really
want me to work for you and you send me
this template people can tell
and then the last piece to it is that
you have to take an omnichannel approach
okay who hears had a sales guy who's
been like I mean I emailed him and you
know they didn't email me back
right and you're like dude call
them
it's like we do the same with candidates
but we don't see it we're like I emailed
him and he didn't email me back I'm like
call him get him on LinkedIn get
him on Instagram like you see his
right like they have options if they're
good employees they have Endless Options
too
and so when you do both
you can actually get a hold of the best
candidates fast and actually hire the
people that you need to grow your
business
and here's what happened when we did
this with one of our companies we
implemented an applicant nurture process
it was a course business they were on
decline the revenue is down about 60
percent they were doing 1.8 million a
month when we started with them
everything was on fire
they had no brand no brand awareness
nothing to work with in terms of
acquiring Talent
and we had five missing roles we had a
CFO we had a VP of sales we had a head
of customer success we had a head of
Tech and then we had a CEO
so over the next six months we kicked
off the recruiting process implemented
the candidate nurture for all the five
roles with heavy nurture
we filled those slots within six months
the CEO felt immense relief and by the
way the CEO is a world-class marketer
because he wasn't putting out fires all
the time because he actually had a team
that business is now doing 12 million
dollars a month
18 months later
team by the way didn't change anything
about the sales and marketing
weird
so not everyone's going to explode like
he explodes but if you could even have a
tenth of that maybe go from 1.8 to 2.8 I
feel like that would be worth doing this
so that is applicant nurture now the
third piece to the funnel is the
interview process
okay so this is selling them on the
company and the vision and the impact of
their role
so just like you sell customers on life
after they buy your product you also
sell employees on life after they take a
job with you
and so as you level up in your company
people always say like oh you know I
stopped selling Etc I'm like you never
stop selling you just change who you're
selling to you sold to your clients now
you sell it to your employees
so who here has actually sold a client
but you did like a really shitty sale
like they weren't sold well and so they
just were like a client for forever
anyone yeah so right
that's what you get when you don't sell
an employee the same not bought in
not engaged not loyal
and so the question is what does the
ideal sale actually look like
there's again two elements to this
there's the process and there's the
scripting so we're first going to talk
about the process
here's what most people do might sound
familiar one overestimate your ability
to judge character
what I like to say is that everyone
thinks they're really good at judging
character until they have to hire people
because what you find out if you're like
me and you've interviewed literally
thousands of people and hired thousands
of people in your life is that nobody's
that good at judging character nobody's
going to be a time out of time
the second is that most people conduct
one to two interviews because again it
takes a lot of time you just need to get
someone in you're in a lot of pain I get
it
third is that utilize usually only one
person which is usually yourself to make
the decision
didn't mean to click
fourth is that you delegate it to
someone who doesn't know the role
because oftentimes we're like well
this I'm so busy
running this business somebody else can
go hire these people
which leads to number five which is
thinking that is a waste of time to do
hiring as a CEO and leader
and so here's why that doesn't work
one is there's a reason that the top
companies have robust interview
selection processes in fact the top 26
identify with having robust interview
selection processes
two is that companies that are reactive
and fragmenting with their hiring
process are in the bottom 14 of company
performance overall
I don't think that's a coincidence
three is that 63 of candidates reject a
job due to lack of information during
the hiring process
I see that all the time
and lastly is 85 percent of people lie
on their resumes
I checked that like six times I was like
seriously
so here's what we do we do a five-step
sale essentially
the first is the screening what you can
think of in terms of the screening is
you can think of this which is if you
had an Enterprise client are you going
to schedule a 90-minute call with them
without doing a pre-screen
no you're going to make sure they
actually have the money that they can
actually pay and then you're going to
push them to the next call
it's the same with the interview process
that is the purpose of the screening
make sure they're not a crazy person I'm
gonna blow up your business
the second is the expectations and
culture interview
okay expectations culture it's literally
aligning expectations making sure the
pay is right all that and making sure
the culture is there
third is the skill test interview
skill test interview is making sure they
can actually do the job
this is again one that most people Skip
and we're going to get to what you can
actually do tactically so that you can
actually make sure you don't skip this
part
fourth is the alignment interview which
is like is what you want is what I want
same thing
and lastly if you are a big enough
company if you have over 30 people
typically then it's a CEO interview
and so after implementing this process
in my last company gym launch
we doubled our acceptance rate we had a
50 reduction turnover and we had a
hundred percent time to productivity
increase
time to productivity is like time until
that person's actually producing the
role has taken it over
that's pretty good because what all that
means is that you save money
and so the bottom line is it actually is
going to cost you more not to do this
than it does to do this but in the short
term a lot of people think the opposite
though this is going to take my time
this is so many interviews Jesus
this on stage but like in reality
in the long term it's going to save you
money
which brings us to the last element
right which is like okay I get the
process now Layla but what do you
actually ask them
scripting
screening call
first thing and you guys just screenshot
this if you want it because I don't want
to read all these out to you that'll be
boring
first is you want to clarify the role in
the company right what you're going to
see is that this is going to be in every
step of the way clarify the role clarify
the company right
why do you want this job what attracts
you to this company are you flexible
when could you start
non-negotiables that's what you want to
hit on there so you can just weed people
out immediately make sure I'm not a
psycho
the second is the expectations and
culture interview
okay so for this one this is
understanding are they a right culture
fit for the role a good example of this
might be you know what do you consider
your ideal day to look like they're like
you know wake up around nine maybe work
for an hour or two then like go do
Sports this I'm like dude you're not
gonna work at this company like
we're working at six
right so these are where you want to ask
questions to understand does your ideal
see in this dare ideal scene align and
that's gonna be different every company
I might just said that for some of you
that might make sense that's fine
the third is the skill test interview
this is the one where most people go
wrong because they're like well Layla
how am I going to test skill on a COO
it's an operator role I'm like what were
the problems that you had last quarter
that if this person was there they would
have solved
ask them those questions so what you
want to do is present the problem you
had last quarter ask them how they would
solve it literally you could do that
with any role and I have hacked this
because I came up with so many different
tests over and over and over again that
were like tactical and I would like send
them out little papers and all this I
was like this this takes way
too long what's the problem that I had
last quarter that this person would have
solved give it to them right there
the fourth is Clarity or is the
alignment interview which I look at this
one as basically saying are we aligned
on what the future looks like you
wouldn't get married to somebody if your
vision of what marriage looks like and
their vision of what marriage looks like
we're different would you
so if you want to retain someone for a
long time and not incur the cost of
turnover then you've got to do the same
with your employees which is
understanding what they want for your
future what they want for their future
and what you want for yours and are they
aligned
and then the last one if you are a big
enough companies to say you have over 30
people I find this helpful which is the
CEO interview right which is edifying
the importance of this role helping with
a personal career pack aligning the
trajectory and then setting expectations
if you don't have a company of over 30
people I don't think you need that one
the bottom line is that we want to have
a script and objective for every
interview
okay when you say the right things and
you have a clear objective you're going
to push the wrong people out and pull
the right people in
if you can script and choreograph the
sales process to acquire clients then
you can script and choreograph the
interview process to acquire Talent
it's funny because a lot of people like
they would never let their sales person
get on the phone without having a clear
script and yet they let their employees
and themselves get on the phone all the
time with future employees with no
script
if you don't have a script and you don't
have a process you would not get
reliable outcomes
and so I love this quote by Mark Cuban
which is learning to sell because you're
always selling in business
and so just like I said in the beginning
just because you're not selling new
clients doesn't mean you're not selling
to your employees and I think as we
continue to build our businesses if we
want to build a business that we can
truly sell we can scale it doesn't rely
on us then this is the skill that we
have to learn
and so here's what happened we did this
with one of our portfolio companies
we had a niche certification business it
was stuck at like 400k a month notice
that number a lot of businesses were
stuck at that point
it was a charismatic founder he was like
a genius with a thousand helpers really
good guy but like couldn't take his
hands out like very controlling
um kind of like one of those like if you
want to get it done do it yourself type
person
he had like an operator in there who was
one of his like best friends and nobody
had scaled the company past that point
and so what we did was we kicked out the
old operator we kicked off the
recruiting process we found a new
operator who had scaled a business past
that point we gave the what and the how
and we scaled that business to 1.2
million dollars a month within six
months
didn't change the marketing didn't
change the sales in fact they literally
had the same ad in the beginning and a
year later and I found that out later I
was like you've been running the same ad
on Facebook
right they changed nothing they got a
different person in there
and so that is the interview process
which is the third piece
so what we covered
is really why Talent acquisition is the
missing funnel in your business and how
every problem you have can be solved by
the right person
how to attract the right applicants
using the right ads and the six ways to
get Talent
how to nurture the right applicants
using the sorting and decision-making
processes
and how to sell the right people using
the interview process and the five steps
and Scripts
so here's a quick reminder of why this
actually works
money
money
I know that's all that anybody cares
about like I swear this will make you
more money
this is the boring that will make
you more money in the long term before
any tactic and it pains me the amount of
people that come to these conferences
and they're such genius
marketing and sales people but they
won't do this and so forever
they'll build a business to maybe five
or maybe 10 million and then that
business eventually Capps because they
can't hire people and then they go do it
again I see it all the time
so the reminder is that you don't build
the business if you build the people the
people build the business
Zig Ziglar
so
If we're honest
actually is going to do this
a few psychos
the reason I know that a lot of people
won't do this is because my own CEOs who
I'm invested in their companies
I can't get them to do it
it is easier for most of us to continue
to do the work rather than to find other
people to help us
see what happens in the beginning we
build a business what we typically do is
we train ourselves to work very very
hard
but we do not train ourselves to create
insane Leverage
and the question is really like why do
most CEOs never actually create leverage
why are they constantly bottlenecked by
themselves
they refuse to give up control
they believe the lies that their brain
tells them to keep them safe from
imaginary threats that don't even exist
anywhere about their brain
right what if I hire them and they're
actually worse than me that'll happen
what if I hire them and then we make
less money and I can't afford them
sometimes happens too
what if I hire them my current team
hates them because they're
better than my current team
definitely will happen
what if I hire them and they see them
not even as smart as I've seen happens
to me all the time
what if I hire them and they steal from
me
some people will do that
so here's a thought experiment that I
would ask all of you to really think
through
which is what if you let your fear
prevent you from implementing this
process and hiring smart people
seriously like what if you never
do any of this
what does your business look like in
five years if you never do this
best case in my opinion is you become
the genius with a thousand helpers which
what does that look like typically
mediocre success is like people like wow
this person is really coming up blah
blah blah and then like eventually they
like stagnate Plateau de Quan
right
because you can only get so far with one
brain
worst case you aren't here in five years
seriously like I say this because I'm
like I'm not lying I see so many
people go out because imagine if you
have to carry the weight of your
business for five years by yourself
because you can't hire people
one brain cannot grow a hundred million
dollar business I stand up here talking
about how to build one I didn't do it
myself half the time I'm like I
feel like a fraud because it's all these
people on my team
so the choice is really yours that I
would give you today which is you can
remain comfortable get mediocre
or you can face fear and succeed
to learn more about how we grow
companies you can go to acquisition.com
or you can search Layla hermosi on
platforms
there's stuff
that's all let's give it up guys
[Music]
Browse More Related Video
PROVEN Ways To SCALE A Service Business
Looking for a job? Highlight your ability, not your experience | Jason Shen
Iβve Hired Hundreds of People, Hereβs Everything Iβve Learned
How To Start A Coaching Business in 2024
Alex Hormozi on Scaling SMMAs (FULL INTERVIEW)
Week-2 Masterclass - Market Opportunity - Saurabh Chaubey - Importance of Market Segment
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)