Put Me in Coach: How to Attract Top Talent to Your Small Business

1. Determining Your Hiring Needs
2. Developing a Hiring Plan
3. Writing A Job Description
   

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So you’ve finally grown your business enough to move from being a one-man/ one-woman team to being able to build your roster. Congratulations! That’s a great sign that your business is growing and is worth celebrating.

Unfortunately, there are many challenges that arise when hiring new people, even for teams that already have a few employees already.

Some common challenges that arise with hiring include:

• Attracting the right candidates
• Lack of qualified candidates
• Prolonged hiring process despite wanting to fill positions quickly
• Beating our competitors for top talent
  

Even after we get past these hurdles and bring someone on board, we face the frustrations of:

• Employees not showing up or being tardy
• Not executing the job as well as we’d expected
• Slackers
• Not getting along well with others
  

This is what makes hiring so difficult and when you spend so much time and money into growing your team, you want to ensure you’re getting the right people.

The best way to do this is to start with the very first step in the process.

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1. Determine Your Hiring Needs

Evaluating your needs allows you to be specific about what direction you want your business to go.

• Do you want to increase sales? Then you hire a salesperson.
• Do you want to increase exposure? Then you’re looking for a marketer.
• Do you need someone to help with the day-to-day? Then you’re looking for an executive assistant.
  

If you’re just looking to put any warm body in place, then that’s just what you’ll get. A person who is there who doesn’t contribute much to the growth of the team.

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2. Develop a Hiring Plan

Planning, planning, PLANNING!

We must always have a plan for any new venture we’re pursuing in our business. Doing so will save us valuable time and money.

After you’ve determined who you’re looking for and have done a bit of research on what this role will look like, now you can determine how quickly you want to get them in the business.

Our first instinct is to do it as quickly as possible. We’re excited and ready to get some help and grow our business. But then you’re more likely to hire an unqualified candidate or someone who may not be suitable for your business. 

The average recruiting process in the US takes about 23 days (Lucas Group). Some industries such as restaurants, hire much more quickly, around 10 days. So keep this in mind when creating a timeline for hiring. Our advice is to hire slow and fire fast.

Once you’ve determined the timeline, you can then determine:

1. How will you recruit employees?
2. What job posting sites, if any, will you use?
3. Will you pursue any job fairs?
4. How many rounds of interviews do you want to have?
5. What times throughout the week will you look through the resumes coming in?
   

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3. Job Descriptions

This is one of the most important parts of the process because it determines what people you will attract in your candidate pool.

So, picture this. You’ve finally hired someone they’ve been there for a while, but they are not living up to the expectations you had for them. They are making mistakes. They’re not equipped to handle the systems you need and, overall, not a good fit.

This can be prevented by changing how we think of job descriptions. Instead of having a generic job description that will catch anyone, implementing the concept of Positional Contracts.

Positional Contracts are very specific for what you want this role to achieve. They lay out expectations and goals for this role by stating the KPIs (key performance indicators) in the description. It also details what the daily work-life will look like for that person, the systems they will use, and any important details that will contribute to your business.

What’s great about Positional Contracts is that it is very clear and specific about what the role requires, so it weeds out unqualified candidates. The other great thing is you have the new hire sign it so if after you hire someone and you find they do not live up to these expectations, you can go back to this contract and have a conversation with that person about essentially the expectations that you both agreed on when they accepted the position.

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We must always be recruiting!

When you have unreliable employees, it increases the burden on your business. Especially when no matter how much you train them, they just never improve.  It may be time to let them go, however without a stable of potential candidates in your “Bullpen” you are at the mercy of their employment with you. Otherwise, you risk firing them and not having that spot occupied for a period of time which can delay things in your business. Now imagine if you were continually interviewing for talent in your business even if you didn’t have a specific opening? You would then have a “Bullpen” of potential future employees that you could call and quickly hire if the need arises.  

Watch our most recent video to learn more about the Bullpen concept.

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Company growth is an exciting thing, but can be very difficult to navigate as a small business.

But it’s completely normal to make mistakes and not know the best direction you need to go. 

Consider hiring a certified professional business coach to guide you through the process. There is so much to learn and explore. Having a business coach will ensure you stay on track long-term and evaluate the needs of your business.