EP59: The Question I Ask Every Hire

Most clinic owners hire the same way. They sit across from someone, feel the energy in the room, and make the call based on personality.

I did it for years. And it cost me more than I can calculate.

In this episode I'm breaking down the one question I now ask every single person before I hire them. It's not about their resume. It's not about their technique. It's about where they're going.

The hire that stays and quietly lowers your standard is more expensive than the one who quits. Today we talk about how to stop making that hire.

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Transcript

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This is the Austin Cohen Podcast where we talk real strategies for chiropractors ready to grow beyond the adjustment. If you're building a business, developing your leadership, and trying to build wealth without burning out, you are in the right place. Let's get to work Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. What's up everybody? Welcome back. Austin Cohen podcast. Man, thank you guys so much. It's been cool to hear like what you got, what everyone here thinks are the highest value podcast contents. I got a, I'm still getting a lot though from episode 56, the $2 lesson that I learned at the valet line, by the way. Thank you guys for the feedback. That's the kind of stuff though that helps me navigate and really understand what are gonna be the best topics of discussion. And a lot of it's just sharing stories. Most of these podcasts, the last 50 something episodes, there's gonna be a story in there of something that I did not do correctly, that I was learning along the way. I was talking to one of my clients in my Empire program about this today. It's I wish I had what so many of them have going through what I went through back then. When I was at 2, 3, 4, 5 locations, there was nobody that was doing what I did. And so the lessons that I had to learn along the way were very difficult. And very expensive too as well. So it's been cool to be able to be very self-aware, start learning some of the lessons of the mistakes that I made, but then also being able to now work with some of my clients on that too as well to help them really create this great life. And and I want that for everybody who listens to this. It doesn't matter where you are, it's like you can't compare your chapter two to somebody's chapter 30, and it's very easy to do that as profession, when you're starting to look at what do you think they see? Weekly volume. Some of these consultants that probably are making more money doing consulting than they ever did in their practices. They didn't really scale anything. Actually, their business was dependent on them. So it's like the things you're seeing sometimes online, don't even buy into that. Do you have a good family? Are you healthy? Do you have a good business? Are you happy with where you're working? If you're happy without comparing yourself to other people, then what are you so concerned about? What are you so worried about? And that's a little off script right there, but it's something so common. I'm seeing this profession, and the things that we see online, most of it's not true. I've bought practices from consultants and those practices when you pull back the curtains were not what people thought they were. And it's just crazy that those people are. They're allowed to be the consultants or the coaches in our profession. But, I think people are starting to wake up now. They're starting to see the truth, and I've been very, at least grateful for the opportunity that I've had to serve so many of you in a consulting space. And the next cohort that gets to go through my Ascent program. Yeah, no, I'm really grateful for that. And, my concern for everybody here would just be, just make sure you're asking really good questions, paying attention. Seeing where these people are, is that the life you wanna live or are they just telling you the things that they know they should have done when they were practiced, but maybe they never did do? It's very easy to preach from that from a stage rather than do the actual work. And so that's only encouragement for everybody here. Today what I do wanna talk about was a couple weeks ago I did a conversation, which was all about the three levers that we always talk about in business for hiring and jobs. So I wanna talk about that. And really that's the most expensive hire I think you will ever make. And when I talk about expensive hire, I'm not talking about that person who you hired and then they quit after three months. Or the associate that may open up five miles down the street and, 20, 30% of the practice goes with them. Like I'm talking about the hire that stays, and this is what we talked about in that webinar. The one who shows up every day and they're costing you 40, 50, 60, $70,000, whatever. It's a year to the person you've trained, you've celebrated with them, you've brought them up, you've probably defended them in some of your meetings or in front of other staff. You've introduced them to every new patient who's come through that practice and essentially like this part person. And we're chiropractors. We have a big heart. They're like your family. And over time. Without doing anything dramatically wrong, they essentially drag the standard of the practice down to match where they are. You all know what I'm talking about. That higher costs you more than anyone who would've ever walked out, and the reason why is you never saw it coming, and by the time you feel it, it's been going on for at least two years, and that's really what I wanna talk about today. Is that most expensive hire you will ever make, but they're the one who stays. And many of you guys have heard about a company called En Enron before in 2001. This was like the Future of America. If you've ever heard of Fortune before the magazine, which I'm assuming you all have, they were named the most innovative company in the country for six fricking years. Their CEO. Jeff Skilling had one philosophy, and his philosophy was hire the smartest people in the room. So he was always hiring people like Harvard MBAs, top people of every class, Ivy League. They were very sharp, articulate, and obviously in interview process they were very impressive. Here's what he didn't hire for direction or what values. Or really any sense of where these people were trying to go and what they were willing to do to get there. You all know the story about what happened? The whole thing went under. People lost their life savings. A lot of the executives went to prison. And this company, Enron, that looked like the future of American business actually ended up being one of the biggest frauds in history. Personality Without Direction is a ticking. Time bomb for your practice. And I'm gonna get to that concept, and that's something we talked about at the webinar. There's another company you've all heard about. Maybe this was more relatable for those of this generation, but you've all heard of a company called WeWork, CEO. Adam Newman raised $47 billion. It was like the cool company, right? So people were investing in this guy basically on vibes. For those of you guys that followed him, whether it was on social media or you've read some of his articles, like dude's got a lot of energy, very magnetic personality. People joined that company because how he made them feels, he had a lot of different investors who gave him hundreds of millions plus dollars. Why? Because how he made them feel. There was zero foundation of that business under that feeling. There was no direction for that business. The values were not held together when things got hard. And you guys all know what IPO is when the IPO came, the whole thing fell apart. Not in years, but in weeks, in a $47 billion company, which was evaluation when he was getting the funding got dropped all the way down to 8 billion almost overnight. So charisma, which us as chiropractors are very attracted to, is not a hiring filter at all. That is 100% a complete distraction. If you take the opposite and you look at a company like Southwest, one of the best companies I love to study, they've been one of the most profitable airlines in history, and they've turned a profit for 40 consecutive years, and that's including years when other airline companies were hemorrhaging money or they were actually going bankrupt and having to get government money. But here's what their hiring philosophy is, they hire for attitude. They can train skill. They cannot train who you are. When the founder built Southwest, he made a decision early. Hire people who fit the culture first, then teach them the job. Hire people who fit the culture first, then teach the them the job. And it worked for four freaking decades. It worked like there's just some principles that are gonna stand the test of time. AI can't replace certain things. And this is like one of those things right here because the people who show up every day in the right direction with the right values, with the real reason to be there, they will outperform the brilliant ones who are there just there to clock in and clock out every single time. And here's where I was getting it wrong. Like once again, like I always said, like I just didn't have that mentorship from somebody who was in the shoes I was looking to build and looking to create. And I would sit across from someone in interview. It's I felt it, like the same feeling. You all know they're sharp, they're smiling they almost feel like they're finishing your sentences. Like you say something about your vision for the practice and they light up oh yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. This's exactly what I want to do. And I'd walk outta that meeting within the earlier interview and I was all fired up. Like I remember calling a friend after an interview. And this is not that long ago. It's probably five or six years ago. 'cause it was during COVID and I remember everything in 2020 basically. But I was like, dude, I just met our next hire. This person is gonna change everything. And I was hiring on that feeling, unfortunately more times than I can count. And what did that feeling do? Every single time? It burned me. Like you have patients, you adjust and they get so excited after their first adjustment and, oh, I'm gonna refer everybody in here. This is the greatest place to be. I need all my friends to come in here. Four, four weeks down the road, I'm feeling better, doc. I dunno if I need to be here, Steve, why do I need to keep coming anymore? But here's what I miss in the hiring process, is I was buying excitement and I wasn't buying persona. I was buying excitement, and I was buying their personality. That was my issue. I never once asked them where they were going. And for those that were on that call last week, that was lever three we talked about and there was a particular person that we hired, energetic. I don't wanna use names 'cause I know a lot of my team listen to this, but energetic, charismatic, very smart, and in the interviewed, had answers for everything. Talk about building a career, the impact about growing the practice like I was sold. What happened 18 months later, going through the motions? Patients like this person wasn't doing anything wrong technically, but had zero fire left. Stopped growth, hit a ceiling that I was comfortable with and honestly was really just content to sit there and the team around this person, guess what? Aided to as well. They settled to that level. Level as well. And that was 18 months it cost me and still this person had to go and it's just an expensive lesson. Vision. So a few years ago I changed. One thing about how I interview 'em, and now I ask every person I hire before anything else, one question, where do you want to be in three years? That's it. Like very basic, not what are your strengths, what are your weaknesses? Hey, where do you see yourself in three years? And I don't mean like where do you see yourself professionally as far as Hey, I'm not your career coach. I'd like to, no. Very specific what does your life look like? What are you building? What is your, what does the practice look like? Your income, your family, your health. Tell me the, I want to visualize a picture. Okay. That's all I wanna do is I wanna be able to see that they're painting a story for me that I can visualize and then I listen and I'm not even looking for, to me, there's there's no right answer. All I wanna know is whether they have an answer at all. Because there's two kind of people that are sitting in that chair. The first kind lights up. They get specific, they tell you about the practice they wanna be a part of, and that they want to open a specific city. Maybe there's a debt they're trying to eliminate a lifestyle. They're working toward something they're building, like the details are theirs and I can tell that they thought about it, which I love. The second person pauses. Hey, where do you see yourself in three years? I just wanna keep growing. I just wanna be in a good place. Honestly, I'm really open to whatever the opportunities lead what, right? Like the first person I can build with that person. I wanna be able to see the story. I wanna be able to see the picture of what they just painted for me, why they have a destination. And if my practice helps them get there, they will pour into it. They will actually care about the practice. They'll show up very differently than someone just collecting a check. The second person, regardless of how much I like them, one thing I've learned to do is to pass on them. And sometimes it's very hard to do because the feelings are that they're gonna be this amazing person. And it's not because they're bad people, but because there's no friction between where they are and where they want to go. And without that friction, this is very important. You guys understand this concept. 'cause without that friction, there's no drive and without the drive at some point. Guess who's carrying them? You are. This is the exact reason why I'm so excited for you guys listening to this right now that are coming to Adventure Summit. This is the stuff I can't teach. You're all coming to Adventure Summit for a reason, for a purpose, and I'm assuming it's for leadership, for family. I'm assuming it's to show wife or children or kids or your practice members or your team, like who the kind of leader you are and what hap, what do you do when things get hard? Because you keep pushing a lot of people like this second kind of person right here, they don't just quit. You're literally carrying them, and that costs you a lot of money because they're checked out and you're paying them for 50% of the work effort. So if you're paying somebody $60,000 a year and they're doing 50% of the work, you're getting a $30,000 person for 60 K. That's not good. Now, here's the follow up question to that. When you ask them, Hey, where do you see yourself in three years? So once they give me that three year picture, I ask them, but how does this role help you get there? If they can answer that, and they can draw a line between working in my practice and the life that they're building now, I know they've actually thought about this before. In their brain, they see that this as a step toward something. This is not just a job for them. This can be a career. That is the person who I want this person to use this opportunity as fuel and who needs to win here because it's connected to something bigger. That's who is gonna give me their best. So I say, where do you see yourself in three years? And I'm looking for a picture painted. And then how does this role help you get there? Those to me. Are gonna be the most important things for sure to get that answer. And I'm gonna close with this. The best hires I've ever made were people who were building something. Lots of doctors in my practice who build every single day they were there. They cared about patients, the culture, the standard, and things matter them. Things matter to them personally for the life that they're looking to live. These are the people that have, a lot of these people have grown into some of the best docs I've ever worked with. There's something bigger than themselves for why they're working here and they feel that drive, right? 'cause it helps them achieve the life that they're looking to build. And they can see that, how, they can see how working here and what that's gonna do for them. The worst hires I've ever made, who interviewed very well and I had good feelings and had no direction, which I can't blame them because I'm the person who put them in that seat. Like I got excited about the energy in the room. Skip the most important question. So I ask it. Ask it to every person who sits across from you before you get into their resume or their chiropractic technique. If that's what the role you're hiring for or their personality, you ask them where they're going. If they know you have something to work with. If they don't, no amount of talent is gonna fill that gap. And so that would be the question to ask every single hire, and I promise you it'll change everything. Hope you all have a great rest of your week and I'll talk to you all in May. To learn more about building your business, leadership, and life on purpose, visit chiro one eighty.com or follow Austin on Instagram at Dr. Austin Cohen.