When you look at your team, do you think you hired superstars. Well, if they are not superstars then you are doing a di-service to yourself, your customers and to the whole reason why you are in business.

I am a big fun of going for the best in the market. If you are in business, what I want is for you to be able to serve at the highest level.

It costs a lot of money to have under performers on your team.

Harvey Mackey says, it is not the people that you fire that are the problem, it is the people that you don’t fire that are a problem. Do you know that on average, it costs you over 120,000 dollars a year to keep somebody in a role where they are not fit or high performers?

If you keep them for 2 years or more, you can imagine how much it’s costing just to have a person who doesn’t perform in a role which is a high-performance requirement rule. This is what I am saying, fire them and employ the best people. Get the best people in.

Get people who are going to create the kind of business that you dreamt of. You cannot say you are going to make a difference if you are just going to employ people for the sack of employing. You are doing a di-service to the rest of the people who care about you and your business. So, what can we do to find you in a position where you are hiring superstars?

Well, do you know that the best indicator of future performance is past performance? So, when you’re thinking about getting somebody who’s going to be part of the team, look at what they did before. Ask them to show you what they have done.

One of the greatest ways to employ is to push somebody. And, I am going to give you some steps going forward in terms of;

• How do you really get the best out of your team?
• How do you attract the best talent?
• How do you recruit the best talent? Because when you have the best talent and star performers, your business goes to the next level.

Richard Branson was asked a question. How do you create multi-billion-dollar businesses every year? He said, “I go and hire the best people out there, I paint a fantastic vision for them and then I get out of their way and allow them to perform and execute. Guess what? He hires the best people in the business and then he gets out of the way.

• How are you hiring in your business and organization? How is your team formed?

Caution! It’s not going to be easy. It is not an easy thing. On average, it takes you about 40 interviews to get your number 1star performer. How many of us, me included have the patience to go through 40 of them? If you care about your business and you are the kind of person who wants to leave a great legacy, you must pay that price. It’s not easy.

Understand who a superstar is.

What do we mean by a super performer? The greatest way I have had this explained was by a gentlemen Chet Holmes. He said, “A superstar is a person you bring in when you are not at your best, when conditions are not the best, when they don’t have the tools, when they don’t have the great facilitation that they should have and you bring him in. He gets to work under those crappy conditions and, within no time you find that, they get to that level where they are beginning to out-perform your best performers.” That is who a superstar is.

That is the kind of person you want to be looking out for. That is the kind of person I want to bring in to be able to take this to the next level. So, how do you do it? Before I tell you what to do or suggest some ways of how to do it and how we have helped other companies to do it, I want to give you some don’ts;

• Don’t do group interviews. Make the criteria extremely stringent. You tell the people in the panel, I am looking for the best, I am looking for somebody who is going to create light at the end of the tunnel.
• Don’t rush it. Take your time finding that person. A gentleman called Harvy Macy has been recruiting for over 35 years. He knows something about recruiting and he says, before I recruit somebody, I interview them more than 8 times, why? You don’t want to make a mistake, you want to be sure that, your heart and head have zeroed in on the right person. You’ve got to do so much to find that it goes beyond just interviews.

There are certain people who are great interviewees. They are so good at selling it to you. They’re smart talkers but action is zero. Don’t rush it. Find out, what have they done outside of what they say. What have they done outside of what they have written then, you will find out if this person can do it or not. 240,000$ is wasted if you hire the wrong person. You think about it. Is it worth it? I don’t think so. Another 2 to 3 weeks of interviews is a better bet so, don’t rush it.

• Don’t personalize it. Don’t interview people because you like them, no. Think about; What is the goal? What do you want them to come in and do? You want them to come in and push then look for that person. You don’t have to necessarily like them, you can get to the stage where you’ll like them because guess what, you will end up liking each other because he’s a performer and you are a performer.

I always tell great entrepreneurs and leaders, don’t hire people who are like you. Hire people who are totally different, who are going to come in and compliment you, who are going to come in and add something that you don’t have. So, don’t personalize it.

• Don’t be fooled by people’s first impressions.

The do’s;

• Relax about it. Go into the interview knowing, am going to relax and allow the process to attract the kind of person that I want. Write down the kind of person you are looking for and somehow, you will attract them.
• Push them hard. If it is a salesperson, when they come in and they say they are best salesperson tell them, no they are not. If they get back to you then you are missing an opportunity.

Then you know they’re the kind of people you push. But if you push them and they crumble, those are not the kind of people that you want on your team. You want people that are going to stand up, why? The market out there is sophisticated. It’s getting harder. You want somebody who’s going to be out there and stand and push and push.

• Probe them. Find out if they have the tenacity and then find out, what were their greatest failures. Ask them to tell their real life’s failure. It’s been said, your comfort zone is equivalent to how much you earn. You want to earn a little bit more, increase your comfort zone, push it out and step out every time.
• Attack them. But in a sophisticated way. Attack their personality and see how they get back at you. Attack them in such a way that you really test every nerve that they have because, you want people on your team who are warriors. Now, they’re certain leaders who say, coach that is going too far.

You want to make a difference; you bring in top performers. Top performers thrive in situations which are challenging. The world out there is challenging, the customers are getting sophisticated. You bring in people who are not strong enough, what is the point? Ultimately, you pay the biggest price. So, those are the four do’s that I suggest to you.

If you really want to make sure you have the right person, during their probation period. I suggest to you that, during the 1st month, ask for a daily update on how they are doing and ask them just 4 questions;

1. What did you do today and what results did you get? Every day they should give you that report. Entrepreneurs and leaders, this is what will separate you from doers, mediocrity and people who leave a legacy.
2. Ask them what challenges or problems occurred during the day. What challenges did you find? Make sure they write down 2 or 3 of the challenges that they went through that day.
3. Ask them what questions they have for you. Let them tell you the questions they have as they are beginning to warm themselves into the company.
4. Finally, ask them, what area of improvement do you see or what do you see as an area of improvement in the organization. Which is that one area that you say we should improve?

Now, think about the fact that somebody gives you that every day for 30 days. You will get to know that person so much so well that within 30 days, you will know whether you made the right choice or not. And isn’t that what we are looking for as entrepreneurs.

Isn’t that what rapid influence is about? Isn’t that what you want an organization to be about?  Where you know your people, you know how they do what they do, most importantly, you’re only getting the crème DA la crème of high performance.

So, get some top performers in and I guarantee you, you will see how your organization begins to skyrocket. Because, you have people who are performing at their best. They will be driving the organization and will be doing things that you otherwise would be doing. Then that will leave you to focus on strategy, the big things and the big movers that make the organization tick.

Stay awesome.