Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / How to Hire Effectively with Ryan Hogan

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How to Hire Effectively with Ryan Hogan · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

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  Three, two, one, zero.
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  Ignition.
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  Lift off.
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  Ending small business failure.
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  Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with the number one small business expert, Melinda
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  Emerson.
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  Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
• 0:23
  you need to succeed and live the life you dream of.
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  Now here's your host, the small biz chat lady herself, Melinda Emerson.
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  Have you subscribed to the small biz chat podcast?
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  Well, it's time.
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  Every Wednesday, we offer listeners bite sized actionable tips to start and grow a successful
• 0:45
  small business.
• 0:46
  In just twenty minutes or so a week, you can get a ton of insight and resources to propel
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  your business forward.
• 0:53
  Be sure to subscribe to the Small Bitch Chat podcast today.
• 0:58
  Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast, the show where we help you stay in
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  business by giving you honest and no nonsense advice to grow your small business.
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  I'm Melinda Emerson, Small Business Lady, your host, America's number one small business
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  expert.
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  Now, if you are an entrepreneur trying to scale and grow sustainably, this episode is tailor
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  made for you.
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  Today, we're gonna be diving into must know topics that every small business owner should
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  master.
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  Now, if you love what you hear on the Small Biz Chat podcast, be sure to subscribe, leave a
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  review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast and share this episode
• 1:45
  with another business owner who needs it.
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  We need your help to amplify what we're providing to support our mission to end small
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  business failure.
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  Now it's time for me to introduce my guest, Ryan Hogan.
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  Ryan is a Navy reservist serial entrepreneur and CEO of Talent Harbor.
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  It is a flat fee recruiting service built for growing small businesses.
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  After scaling his business, Hunt A Killer, to over 50,000,000, he had a great exit, and now
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  he is focused on fixing our broken hiring system and helping businesses find top talent
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  without bloated commissions.
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  For more information, go to howtalentharbor.com.
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  Ryan, welcome to the Small Fish Chat podcast.
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  Thank you.
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  Thanks for having me, Melenda.
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  I'm so excited to hear hear from you.
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  Now, first of all, before we get into, the recruiting business, I gotta understand, how
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  did you go from scaling up hunt a killer, and you do need to tell us what that is, from a
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  garage idea into a $50,000,000 brand and how a hiring nightmare convinced you that the
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  recruiter model is broken.
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  So talk to us about your old business and what you learned and how that led to this business
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  that you run now.
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  Yeah.
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  So learned quite a bit and and learned a lot through failure.
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  And probably the most common question that I get nowadays is, like, how do you how do you go
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  from immersive murder mystery experiences, which, by the way, started with something
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  called run for your lives, and that was a zombie infested five k obstacle course race.
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  So we went from zombies to murder to talent, acquisition.
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  And the most common question I get right now is how do you how do you do that or why?
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  And it's really simple.
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  So when we were going through the sale process at Hunt A Killer, essentially, we had
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  investment banker.
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  We're about maybe six months into the process.
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  We had, three horses in the race.
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  And so we knew that there was gonna be some sort of transaction at the end of it.
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  And my business mentor, which is probably one of the most things, there's two things that
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  have changed my life.
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  One is EOS, and two is having some sort of some sort of network to be able to soundboard things
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  off of.
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  And so what, what happened was my business mentor came to me, and he was like, hey, kid.
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  You're not gonna be able to sit still.
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  Go pick your favorite line item now and go do that for a while.
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  And for me, it was people.
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  It was the investment, the development, the coaching, the mentoring, everything people
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  related.
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  But we spent about a million bucks in recruiting, and that industry never made any
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  sense to me.
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  When you look at the recruiting industry in general, it's kind of adjacent on the consumer
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  side to use car salesman.
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  And I thought that there was a better way to do it, and and that's why I started Talend Harbor
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  was this whole notion of expert recruiting truly is a core competency.
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  To be good at recruiting doesn't mean that you're an operations manager or a sales leader.
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  Like, when you're in those competencies, you're probably really good at selling or marketing or
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  operations, but that doesn't automatically equate to you're great at going out, finding
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  talent, vetting talent, and bringing them into your organization.
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  But all too often, expert recruiting is inaccessible to small, medium sized businesses.
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  And so for us at Hunt A Killer, 10,000,000, we would post on Indeed, post on LinkedIn,
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  ZipRecruiter.
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  And we thought that that was recruiting.
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  And when we could afford expert recruiting, which was 40 to 60, sometimes $90,000 checks
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  for a single hire, we realized that that's what we had been missing.
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  So that's why we started Talent Harbors to make expert recruiting accessible.
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  Alright.
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  So let's talk about what is the biggest, you know, what is the biggest mindset shift that
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  small business owners need to have when it comes to hiring?
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  Yeah.
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  There's a there's a couple things here.
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  So let's talk with, like, two of the fundamental things.
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  When we're looking at requirements so let's say you're a small business and you're like, this
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  is this is what I need.
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  The first step shouldn't be to go rip some job description off of one of these job sites and
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  utilize that as your own.
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  Taking the time to truly define what it is that your organization needs, because what your
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  organization needs is completely different than the job description that was posted for another
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  company.
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  And so putting actual thought into that process, what are the actual day to day tasks
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  that are gonna be accomplished?
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  What KPIs or metrics are we gonna measure this person from a success standpoint?
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  And all too often, what we realize is that when people are going through and saying, hey.
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  I need someone.
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  And, usually, when an organization needs someone, they're already at a 120% capacity.
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  Because very rarely are people like, oh, we've got all this free time.
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  Now, it's time to hire.
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  No, usually you're already beyond your capacity and you're like, boom, I need to go higher and
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  I need this now.
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  And so what happens is you start cutting corners.
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  You want to figure out the easiest way to do it.
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  And we do you don't realize is when you bring the wrong person through like that can cost you
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  a half a million dollars or more.
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  And so taking the time to truly identify what it is you need.
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  What are the responsibilities?
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  How are we going to measure success?
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  That's core fundamental number one.
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  Number two has to do with core values, and and I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about that.
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  But for an organization to find the right human, it goes beyond the resume.
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  It goes beyond the requirements.
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  Half the battle is getting the right core values that align with the internal behaviors
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  of the organization, and that's something that's very specific and unique to each
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  organization.
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  So how do you know when it, I guess you just kind of talked about like small business owners
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  hire when it's urgent.
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  Like we don't have the luxury to really plan out, especially if you're bootstrapping, it's
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  different if you're funded by VC, most of us are bootstrapping and a lot of my audience is
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  smaller than that.
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  So we know that we hire when it's urgent, but what are the biggest mistakes that you see
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  people do in that hiring process?
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  Yeah.
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  That that goes back to just rushing.
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  Like, what happens is when you talk about that level of stress and that level of pressure that
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  the organization already has, Like, what happens immediately is that the hiring managers
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  and the people that need to bring that resource in, you start cutting corners or trying to find
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  the path of least resistance to get a human into that seat.
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  And we get caught up in this.
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  Well, if I just find someone that has the resume and place them in there, then it'll
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  work.
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  And rare rarely does that work.
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  And so one of those mistakes is rushing through the process.
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  The second mistake that we see is core values.
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  In order to go find the right person for the right seat, and this is very much an EOS term,
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  and probably gonna be one of my favorite books that that we might talk about in a little bit.
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  But the right person for the right seat means that you found the person that shares the core
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  values of the organization.
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  And one thing that we find that that a lot of small businesses haven't yet done is sat down
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  to truly define what that vision, mission, and their core values are.
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  And there's this notion sometimes that, like, oh, well, that's for big corporations or that's
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  you have to be at this level in order to put them together.
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  I would argue before you ever start the company, you should sit down and really draft a
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  plan.
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  We're not talking a a 40 page business plan.
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  We're talking a one sheeter.
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  And we're just scribbling in this one sheeter, and we're saying, who do we wanna be when we
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  grow up?
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  What's the mission here?
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  And what are the three to five core values that are fundamental to the success of this
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  organization?
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  I find it interesting that you think people haven't thought through their mission and
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  vision, because that's not where I would actually think.
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  I actually think that some of the biggest mistakes people have is not having thorough job
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  descriptions for one.
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  You know, like, I think people know who they are.
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  I don't know that they have thought out what these people need and or what people need to be
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  successful.
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  And I'll give you an example of what I mean.
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  Sometimes I hear all the time, oh, I need to hire a salesperson.
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  Like, oh, I need to, you know, I hear this constantly.
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  And my pushback is always, well, do you have a defined sales process?
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  Do you have sales enablement tools?
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  Do you have a tech stack for your salesperson?
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  Because, know, salespeople are good at selling themselves.
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  And I have seen so many small business owners hire somebody at, you know, a 100 plus
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  commission, and then, like, six months later, not a lot has happened because A, they're over
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  reliant thinking that this salesperson's gonna come save their business, or B, they didn't
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  really have a defined process nor did that founder know how to manage a salesperson.
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  A 100%.
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  I see more of that than the sort of like, these people don't have a mission, vision and purpose
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  statement.
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  Like, I think a lot of people that are at the point of hiring a senior level person probably
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  do have that, but I almost think it's a little deeper than that.
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  And certainly the KPIs and goals that they're gonna be measured by, 100%, but I think it's
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  about really thinking through, are they ready to have this level of person come into their
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  business?
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  And that's what I actually think might in fact, be a big mistake that I see people having.
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  I I agree.
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  A big mistake.
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  I I would I would challenge you and say you're probably in rare air.
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  If the people that you're hanging out with, most of them already have that stuff put
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  together, that's incredible, and they're one step ahead of the game.
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  Last week, I flew down to Houston as we onboarded a client.
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  And the only reason that I flew down there, it's a $15,000,000 consumer product company.
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  Not one core value was yet addressed or yet listed, and that is 50%.
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  50% of the challenge of having a successful placement is ensuring that that person shares
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  the core values.
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  Every time that I've gotten hiring I've hired 200 plus people throughout my entrepreneur
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  career.
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  Every time I've got hiring wrong, it's not because I was illiterate and I couldn't read a
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  job description and say this matches the requirements of what we're looking for.
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  It's because I failed to bring in the right human every single time.
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  Full stop.
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  I will say that a 100% of our clients that are operating on some sort of business operating
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  system, they already have that stuff done.
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  And it's been really interesting to, like, jump in.
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  So most of the clients that we serve are small to medium sized, believe it or not, home
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  service businesses.
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  And and we find it all too often than not is, like, the first thing we're doing is sitting
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  down during kickoff day and really helping them define some of these things that that you and I
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  might consider basic.
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  Alright.
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  So how do you how can a small business owner compete for talent when they don't have these
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  big corporate perks and, you know, super big salaries that they can offer?
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  Yeah, and that's a big one.
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  So you were talking about sales earlier, and and we focus on sales.
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  And exactly what you just said, salespeople are great at selling.
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  And salespeople can sell themselves.
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  That doesn't mean that that salesperson can sell that product or service that your
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  organization is selling.
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  And so, like, that's a very kind of interesting dynamic throughout the process of this.
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  I'm gonna I totally spaced on the question as we came into that.
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  What was the question again?
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  The question was how can a small business owner compete for great talent when they don't have
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  corporate perks?
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  So the the first thing that that you have to you have to understand is what are the motives
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  of the person, that you're going out and hiring.
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  So for instance, like, if you don't have the perks that incentivize the behaviors that you
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  need from, from an individual, then, like, that individual's not going to work.
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  And so, like, the first thing that we do, because recruiting is selling.
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  Right?
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  Like, good recruiting is you're going out.
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  You're not posting on Indeed, LinkedIn.
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  You're not posting on job sites.
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  You've identified from a database of, like, a target a a targeted list of people that you
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  believe match the requirements.
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  Now you have to go sell them to go through your internal recruiting process.
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  And the first thing that we're doing, if we can convince them either through text, through
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  email, or through phone call to have an initial conversation, the first thing that we are
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  trying to identify in that conversation is what motivates that person.
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  What what are their own personal goals?
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  Because we'll know immediately.
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  Like, maybe the compensation plan is not there.
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  Maybe there's not a ping pong table in the office.
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  Maybe they like to work remote and this is in office.
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  And so, sometimes it is challenging to compete.
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  Once you find what motivates that human, then you can start to key in on that.
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  So for instance, what we find a lot is upward mobility.
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  Like, people people get stuck in roles, and let's say they're a sales manager.
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  They've been a sales manager for five years.
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  They're ready for the next level, but that next level doesn't exist inside of their current
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  organization.
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  You can immediately go back to the client and be like, this person wants a new title.
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  Compensation can come in, but what they value is upward mobility.
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  And so maybe there's some sort of, like, junior or senior manager or director level.
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  So long winded there.
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  How do you compete?
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  You have to you have to match, like, what motivates that person.
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  And sometimes you just you can't.
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  But that's why you're going to a pool of, you know, a thousand plus people and and trying to
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  find the right one.
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  Okay.
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  I'll take that.
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  Should you hire a person based on their experience, potential, or personality and why?
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  This is gonna be this is gonna be very near and dear to me.
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  So this is gonna be personal.
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  There is probably so many debates, on this.
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  Like, I want above all else.
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  I wanna see personality traits.
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  I need someone that is curious.
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  I need someone that is self motivating.
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  I need someone that can listen, not someone that's coachable.
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  Because at the end of the day, I can put together programs and teach anybody anything.
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  But if they do not have or possess the attitudes needed to learn, to be coached, to
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  drive forward, to succeed, those are things that we can't we can't train.
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  So at the end of the day, what I'm looking for first and foremost is personality traits.
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  Yes.
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  If I can find this amazing human, then I'm like, we can we can build on that and they've
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  got the requirements.
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  Great.
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  But if you showed me a resume and they meet they matched everything, but they they don't
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  listen, they're uncoachable, and you showed me someone that doesn't have the experience, but
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  possesses those attributes all day long, I'm going after the behaviors.
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  Interesting, interesting.
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  Now let's talk about contractors versus W-2s, because this is a big one.
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  I think a lot of small business owners hire contractors because they can't afford what the
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  fringe benefits are, but it's kind of against the law to do now.
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  So can you talk a little bit about dating with a contractor versus going all in with a full
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  time hire and and the pros and cons of
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  that.
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  Yeah.
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  For us, it doesn't so when I think about we we call our internal what most people look at
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  their your organ their org chart or their organizational chart.
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  We call that our accountability chart.
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  And on the accountability chart, it doesn't have titles, but it basically has the
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  functional areas.
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  So every business has possesses three different types of core functions, sales, marketing,
• 18:06
  finance, operations.
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  And then based upon that, you've got nuances, and that's how you get your layers inside of
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  the organization.
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  And so instead of saying, like, director of operations, it's just operations.
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  And then maybe you've got fulfillment.
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  It doesn't matter whether it's a contractor, a full time hire, or an agency.
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  That that entity, that human, what whatever it is, fills a seat and is managed just like
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  everybody else inside of the organization.
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  So the first thing that that I'll say is, one, there's a certain amount of, like,
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  accountability and other things that have to go in, and you're also matching for the same
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  things that you would be looking for for people that you bring through.
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  Now to the the morals and the legalities, you know, for us, there's a couple things there.
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  One of the things that we were able to access very very early on at Hunt A Killer was
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  incredible senior executives.
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  We had the chief accounting officer from T Mobile.
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  We had the chief information officer from McAfee Security Services.
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  Like, we were able to tap into that type of talent through fractional services.
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  And so what what I would say is if you are looking at a route in which there's some sort
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  of staffing component which would get to your contractor, what I would do to make sure that
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  you're staying above board is go find an entity or go find someone that does that for a living
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  and helps kind of fill that position.
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  Otherwise, like, you can check local local laws and regulations, but every state is different
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  on this.
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  I live in California.
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  California is very strict between the definition between a full time and and a
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  contractor.
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  And so I think the
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  IRS is very strict about what contracts as a what what what passes for a contractor versus
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  an employee.
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  So I get it, completely.
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  And then, what are some of the red flags to look out for, I think in hiring?
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  I mean, I understand the not being coachable, you want people to be confident, not you know,
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  obnoxious kinda thing.
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  But but what are some of the red flags that you think people should look out for when they're
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  when they're
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  high?
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  What what we're so we do two separate interviews.
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  We do three interviews total.
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  Two of that go into detail.
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  So we've got the introduction call, and that's where we're just trying to figure out if this
• 20:27
  is a mutual fit.
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  Then we've got the experience expertise interview, and then we've got the core values,
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  core behaviors interview.
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  One of the things that you're that you're keying in on here probably is a great example
• 20:37
  to talk about the core, about our experience and expertise interview, which is you wanna go
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  back inside of their past, inside their history, and you actually wanna hear about
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  performance.
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  You wanna you wanna change the this is where I was at.
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  This is what I was responsible for into the actual outcomes that were achieved in those
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  specific instances.
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  And so you're looking for real numbers.
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  You're looking for real contributions that had significant impact before.
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  And a lot of this is intuition.
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  So I will not sit here and pretend to be a recruiter.
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  I have an amazing cofounder that is an incredible recruiter.
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  I was not a game designer for hunt the killer.
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  I was not an obstacle course race designer for run for your lives.
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  My superpower is being able to identify a problem and then bringing the right people
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  together to be able to drive towards some solution.
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  But I will tell you that there is a lot of intuition that comes into recruiting.
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  So as you're looking for examples from their past to translate those examples to things that
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  you're trying to accomplish inside of your organization, What you're really looking for
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  there is credibility, honesty.
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  You're looking for the twinkle in the eye.
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  You're looking for them to light up.
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  You're looking for them to be enthusiastic because these are some signs and signals that
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  as you're going down the story driven path that maybe maybe all of that doesn't doesn't quite
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  line up.
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  Alright.
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  Last question for you.
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  What is the best business book you have ever read?
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  Oh.
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  Or not the best business book.
• 22:10
  Excuse me.
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  What is the best business advice you have ever been given?
• 22:19
  I I would say it's this idea of of business as a vehicle.
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  There's a lot of people that that confuse business as their identity, and and it's it
• 22:30
  becomes their baby.
• 22:31
  And that's that's not the point.
• 22:33
  Everybody that started a business I don't know I don't know anybody that said, like, I wanna
• 22:37
  start a business because I wanna work every single day.
• 22:39
  Like, you start a business because there's some outcome.
• 22:42
  There's something that you're trying to achieve.
• 22:45
  And if that stays at the forefront, it'll help you not get sucked into the business.
• 22:50
  Because what I see all too often with entrepreneurs that are trying to scale
• 22:53
  businesses is they're doing everything.
• 22:56
  You cannot scale a business doing everything.
• 22:59
  And so there's this idea of, like, if the business is not your identity and the business
• 23:03
  is just a vehicle for you to accomplish your dreams, it it provides this, like, layer that
• 23:09
  you can put between you and the business and drive the success and problem solve, but not
• 23:14
  make it a part of your identity.
• 23:17
  Love it.
• 23:17
  Love it.
• 23:18
  Well, thank you so much for being here.
• 23:20
  Ryan, you have been really an amazing, amount of knowledge and I love learning about all the
• 23:27
  different vast experiences.
• 23:32
  Thanks for listening to the Small Biz Chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
• 23:37
  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, and join us next Wednesday for
• 23:42
  more fantastic information and interviews.
• 23:45
  You can find more sources and small business success strategies by visiting Melinda's
• 23:50
  website, succeedasyourownboss.com.
• 23:53
  Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.