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Why Hiring is the Entrepreneur’s Achilles Heel, Ep. 70

Nov 1, 2018

On today’s episode of Just the Tips, Dean finally comes clean, months into our contest, that he’s just not going to get his book written. But that’s okay! I’m still in a groove with mine, and on today’s episode we dig into the subject of the chapter I’m currently writing, which also happens to be one of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs. As you’ve probably heard me say on this show, systems are all about people, process and tools. So today we’re digging into people, how to recruit them and how to hire them. Also, I reveal the tentative title for my book, but you’ll have to tune in to find out what it is.

The one thing every entrepreneur says about hiring

How many times have you said, or heard another entrepreneur say: I’m terrible at hiring, or I’m just no good at managing people? It’s a constant refrain. And for some reason, entrepreneurs just chalk it up to some sort of innate deficit, rather than something they could improve upon. But there are skills you can develop, and there are ways of behaving when managing people that you can learn that can actually make you better at it. So if you find that recruiting or hiring or managing—or all three—is difficult for you, this is the episode of Just the Tips you need to listen to.

Why is managing people the entrepreneur’s Achilles heel?

Dean told a very revealing story about his own early struggles with hiring and managing people. His first foray into hiring came when he signed on a virtual assistant. But it quickly became clear that he had to spend a good deal of time training and then managing that assistant. And as he says, pretty soon he wasn’t able to do it anymore, and it even went so far as he stopped responding to the VA’s questions. And this leads into one of the root issues as to why managing people can be so hard: Conflict is difficult. There is going to be conflict, and you’re going to have to face it, but no one ever likes to. So we give you a few ideas for how you can address conflict before and after it happens on this week’s episode of Just the Tips.

Don’t be afraid to say what needs to be said

A huge part of why conflict can seem so daunting to entrepreneurs is because a lot of people are scared of saying what needs to be said. That’s really what it boils down to. And that’s really what leadership is all about. Not every employee is going to be a diamond in the rough, but you can’t sit around and hope that someone reaches their potential. You have to set expectations and then help that person meet those expectations. This may be a bold thing to say, but I truly believe that poor leadership stifles people in their careers more than just about anything else. How do you avoid that? Listen to this week’s episode of Just the Tips to find out.

Do you need to recruit and hire the best?

One great question that Dean raises on this episode of Just the Tips gets to the heart of the hiring issue: Do you need to hire the absolute #1 possible candidate for a job? The answer of course depends on the position, but often it’s no. What you need is someone who will be a good fit, who is a team player, who is enthusiastic about your mission, and who understands their objectives. Every hire is going to be different, but if you do the work ahead of time, before you even start looking to hire someone, then you’ll be in good shape.

Outline of This Episode

  • [4:30] The single sentence every entrepreneur repeats
  • [10:45] Why hiring is so difficult
  • [13:30] People avoid hiring because they don’t want to lead
  • [16:32] What to think through before hiring someone
  • [18:46] Do you need to hire the top candidates
  • [24:00] We are the creators of our own worlds
  • [28:50] The number one thing you can do right away to improve your hiring
  • [33:15] The biggest mistake we make in running our businesses

Music for “Just The Tips” is titled, “Happy Happy Game Show” by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

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