The Recruiting System All Founders Need Before Their Next Hires with Frank Lofaro

In this episode, I sit down with Frank Lofaro, founder of Tank Recruiting and one of the sharpest talent partners I know for founders. Frank has helped companies hire hundreds of A-players, led recruiting for high-growth teams, and was part of a record-breaking $105M weekend launch built on the back of strong people and process.

We break down why most founders treat hiring like a last‑minute emergency instead of a core growth lever, and how to use Frank’s 7-step recruiting system to make your first five (and next fifty) hires without guessing. Frank walks through his talent / time / money audit, his driver–vehicle–fuel framework, and simple ways to treat recruiting like sales and marketing so you consistently attract better people.

If you’re a founder who’s out of time, drowning in work, and not sure who to hire next, this conversation will help you prioritize the right role, design a clear job, and move fast enough to close top talent before you lose them.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

• How to decide if your next move is a hire, a contractor, or just a process fix
• Frank’s 7-step recruiting roadmap: prioritize, define, referrals, launch, fishermen, evaluate, close
• How to run talent, time, and money audits so you design the right role instead of throwing bodies at problems
• How to write job descriptions that actually attract A-players (and why you should model bigger companies first)
• How to use 30-60-90 day plans to interview, onboard, and hold new hires accountable
• How to turn your network into a referral engine with simple scripts and smart bonus structures
• Why hiring velocity matters, and how to shrink your offer process from weeks to days with BAMFAM
• How to use gut instinct in hiring without letting bias wreck your decisions

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Talent / Time / Money Audit Framework
• Identify–Prioritize–Resolve problem funnel
• Driver–Vehicle–Fuel model for evaluating roles and leaders
• 30-60-90 Day Onboarding Plan
• BAMFAM (Book-A-Meeting-From-A-Meeting) principle for hiring speed
• Tank Recruiting – Frank’s recruiting firm for founders

CONNECT WITH FRANK

Instagram (personal): 
https://www.instagram.com/franklofaro/

Instagram (Tank Recruiting): 
https://www.instagram.com/tankrecruiting/

LinkedIn (Frank): 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/frank-lofaro/

LinkedIn (Tank Recruiting): 
linkedin.com/company/tank-recruit/about/

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LinkedIn: 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jpforno/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What is up, everybody? Welcome back to the Higher to Scale podcast. I am your host, JP Forno, and I'm excited about today's episode because we get to learn from one of my good friends, Frank Lafaro. Frank is the CEO of Tank Advisory, which is a company that helps business owners and founders essentially build their people systems. He helps other companies determine who they should bring on board, how they should hire them, how to set up people for success once they're inside of the company. And he has a lot of experience essentially just building and scaling teams. I've met Frank at one of the many workshops that he's done. I think he's done over 120 different workshops around the subjects of talent acquisitions and advised over 1,700 different business owners. And I was one of those business owners who was sitting in one of his workshops and I was in a room full of very successful business operators. I'm talking seven figures and up. And uh they were all taking very avid notes while Frank was talking. And I think it's because I think the advice that Frank gives when it comes to building teams and scaling operations through people is that his advice is not only insightful, but it's also very practical. I think that we try to overcomplicate a lot of things when it comes to building teams. And I think that through Frank's experience and his frameworks and his models, he's able to cut through that and give a strategy for people that is implementable. So in today's episode, we'll get to learn a lot from him how to do end-to-end recruiting, how to get good candidates, how to evaluate candidates, and a lot of other things that we talked about to give you the necessary frameworks as you're building and scaling your team. So I hope you enjoyed this episode and uh the conversation that I had with Frank. Frank, what's up, man? Good to see you. What's up? Nice to see you too. Looking forward to I am so excited about today's call. I think that um, you know, part of the reason why I started this um podcast is because I do believe that, you know, people is one of the best, if not the best, competitive advantage that you can have in your organization. And bringing them, attracting them, knowing how to set them up is so important for business owners. And so I know you have a lot of knowledge and a lot of experience in this area. And so I'm excited to dig in and learn from you, ma'am. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Just to add to that, recently I've been speaking to a lot of HR professionals and understand in the world of business, the HR on a line item is like the lowest thing, right? So, like people are low on line items in business, which is just showing the priority in the business. I believe it should be right after profit. So that's my lane, and that's kind of where we're gonna preach. But I'll say um my job is just to help people get better talent and then make once they're in your walls, like help them grow.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

I agree with you 100%. Like I went to business school and I I'm still shocked that there isn't like a major around like uh there's like HR majors, but like specific going into like recruiting and also like sales for that matter, but that's just like a side issue. But uh, I think people don't are not really as prepared. And and that's kind of like what I guess I want to start off with. And and a lot of the people that I've seen listen to this podcast are these kinds of businesses that are just getting started building their teams. Maybe they it's a founder that had a a good skill in corporate and now they're starting their business, or somebody that just, you know, um getting going with their startup, and now they're at a point where they need to build a team around them. So, what do you think is the number one mistake people make when they're bringing in their first five hires to the team?

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Yeah, this happens more often than you think, and I'd say something that you probably aren't thinking but understand intuitively, which is expectations. So the only reason I've seen any relationship not work between two humans is because I'm not clear on what I want and they're not clear on what I want. So um I'll tell you this: my first five hires in my own company, I've done none of the rules uh that I I uh I preach. I did not have any formal interview processes. Everyone reached out to me and I just evaluated them based on how they reached out and I set expectations of like, I don't need you, I have an internship. So some took internships, some were great social media people. So I think it's working and not working just based on your clarity on what you need, so that when someone gets aboard, you're not throwing them around, like around the the house, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Yeah, and I like the the set of the expectations is so important because some people I don't think that they even know like what they're expecting. They just like I'm drowning in work, I just need some extra sets of hands, but I don't even know like what that even looks like. And so it's not only hard to find the talent because you don't know what you're looking for, but it's hard for them to also understand like how do I show up for this um type of role? Um so it's interesting. Oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

I think where people miss the mark is looking at recruiters as um like a deployable resource, not as a partner. And I think when I work internally and I realize that we are talent acquisition partners, not just the guy that goes gets me talent. Um you leverage the skill set internally. And the only reason you want to do that is it is a craft to develop and define a role. It is not hard to do the marketing and sales of like getting it out there and interviewing people. But the first part, like the first part, is why you want to consult smart people in this space, just like I would consult someone smart in marketing and sales before I do anything, um, like an offer, launch, etc. So I think there's just a repositioning of the information that a recruiter can provide on the front end to help you, which is your first time, take problem to hire like more quickly.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Yeah, and I think it's also like recruiting, like to your point, it's a skill to develop, and it's a skill that has multiple different components and sequence matters, and you have to get good at different sort of facets. It's not like a one uh swim lane that you have to get good at, it's multiple different things. So I watched a video uh where you go over the seven steps in recruiting that people should be able to follow, and it was a super comprehensive guide. Uh, obviously something that we'll share to people. But can you break down each of those steps for someone who is just getting started into the world of recruiting?

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Sure. So I'd say these are the seven things everyone needs to do, and I'll I'll chunk up to explain the process I'll walk through. The reason it's even important is that you want to do these so that you can be successful with your first hire. It's like simple mechanics. So what I'll think about and I'll I'll frame it is the seven steps are in order. So the first one is prioritization, which is what what role do we want to hire first? The next one is defining. Once we know what role we want to hire first, well, what things do we want in that? You know, must-haves, nice to haves, what are the characteristics, logistics, you know, where will this person be? Remote, etc. We define the rule. Then the first thing we do, my favorite, which we'll talk about, is referrals. I love asking people who they know after I've defined what I want. It is this the highest ROI and the least uh so like actual math behind this, referrals are two times to four times more likely to be better qualified candidates and are like half to like zero cost because it's just a text message. So I always go to referrals first before I spend money broadcasting or putting it online because job postings actually take money, you use them to buy networks, but you have a network. And I'll I'll kind of say like the next point is like how do you launch this position, which is how do you broadcast the role and make sure people understand um that you're hiring, right? Just like if you're offering your sales and marketing um engine, it's like we need to let people know we have an offer. And same way I want to let people know I have a position, whether it's social media, your own your own um like career page, just let's broadcast this role. And then the other two, um, the other two that I'll kind of end with, which is on the evaluation and the the fishermen. This is like who's doing the work before you actually want to go close the person. So the idea here is fishermen are your uh interviewers, so you have to identify like who's the people doing the work. Sometimes it's you, but in fact, as a CEO, you have maybe an admin that might do the first interview, maybe even a recruiting agency. So who's gonna do the first set of fish to bring them on the boat? So you can evaluate. And the reason we evaluate is we have we have a scorecard, we define what we're looking for. We just want to figure out, hey, is this person match? We use this calibration, huge statement. We do not compare candidates to candidates, we compare candidates to jobs. The only reason is every candidate's gonna be different by default. And the worst thing to do is have a Marlin on your boat and say, wait one second, this fish looks great, but I want to make sure there's not a bigger and better Marlin somewhere out there. Heck no, this Marlin is what you wanted. Let's define it to the job. So I would say, let's use what we wanted when we first started this 30 days ago as our benchmark. Can this person do the job? Let's compare candidates to jobs. And then the last thing is once you got your winner, how do you actually close them, right? And the question there is how do you present offers that close? And the idea here is there is a way to strategically close business, meaning you know, a client or a candidate, and there is scripts and steps. And my team likes uh referenced that we believe closing starts in the first step, which is sharing the job salary, and asking that question of like, what are you looking for as far as compensation?

SPEAKER_00 9:24

So I love the fact that I mean, recruiting or talent acquisition is very analogous to sales and marketing, right? It's virtually the same exact thing. And I think that for founders, that's an incredibly powerful frame because most of them are at a point where they need to hire because they've already learned how to sell and started to grow their business. So, like, hey, those lessons that got you your first few clients are also the ones that are gonna help you get your first few recruits. Yes. And so I I love the fact, and also like the closing, like, hey, if you gave the pricing up front and they sat at a demo with you, then that means that they're more likely to buy. The same thing as like if you were clear on the job description, once you're closing them, that you don't have to negotiate that, it's already been established. Yeah. Um, so I I love I the only other analogy that I can find with recruiting is dating, right? Yeah, like the same same concept, right? Like marketing is dating a little bit. Um but um I hit on that two things.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

One is the marketing and dating, the other is the well, the marketing and sales, then the dating. So for the dating, because that's quick. My favorite thing to do here is just explain to people there's something called a huddle. It's an intake process you do when you're working with a recruiter and a hiring manager. Now, this is like working with your family before you go dating, right? I could go out and go bring people back and say, Mom, what about this one? And she's like, Frank, we talked about this. I'm like, okay, okay. And then I go fix it, or we could just talk before and I get the right thing the first time. So that's how I kind of think about the dating analogy and just the reps you need to do, you know, meet the 20 people, have a scorecard and a rubric, be clear, um, set clear expectations. But on the marketing sales side, my favorite thing, if I could share this, is that everybody that wants to hire, this is a gift. Why? That means you did make money, and now the next thing is you can buy back your time by hiring someone to do some other work, or maybe someone better than you to do work that you can't do. And it increases your capacity to solve problems in a business. So it is a gift to be able to say, Oh my gosh, I can hire somebody. Now, doing it right's important so you don't waste money. The thing I'll say after speaking to like a thousand, seven hundred, twenty business owners over 120 workshops is that the most common thing they don't realize is how similar it is to sales and marketing. Right? So you have to do those same functions in a recruiting process. You just change your avatar instead of you're focused on clients. This acquisition channel, you're focused on candidates. You have to market, you have to qualify, you have to interview and close. And it's the same as the client side, which is a breath of fresh air when you're like, oh, cool, I know what to do it. But then let's not be forgotten, there's a consulting lens you need from a recruiter, so you don't just navigate the jungle and waste time, you know, kissing frogs.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

And so I think that like that's super important is to get that consultation or to make sure that you're crafting this the right way. Because just like in sales, is like, why am I not getting deals if what I'm offering is like a no-brainer solution? Then the flip side is also like, why am I struggling to find talent if I'm offering like attractive terms and a good salary, right? So why do you think people struggle with bringing those uh top talent in?

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Yeah. So it's not about the money. Uh, I think that's a component of it and always is a factor, but there's a base minimum you have to pay for certain talent, and then past that is like you can pay them whatever, that's not gonna change much. Um this is the truth. Founders are limiting their ability to hire great talent by their ability to be great talent themselves. So if you want to get better talent, you need to get better yourself. And you have to just be worth following. Like, there is a there is a realization that you know you don't want to work uh for let's say, let's say this, you don't want to let someone drive your car that you're better at driving. So we have this in our own life personally. Like, my mom is never gonna drive my car. My mom and I know we have an arrangement. I'm driving us to New York City and we're gonna be safe. And you know, I will have her the backup plan. We'll have a backup plan, and she doesn't want to drive either. And there's people in our lives, right, that we know it's like I'm the designated driver here. So the idea here is that the the founder needs to be good and be worthy of letting someone say, Hey, you're the designated driver, you're the leader in this this uh arena, and it's worth following you. And I have a frame called driver vehicle fuel. And it's kind of funny because I compare myself to Lewis Hamilton. And the point is, like each one of these is just a component of life and business, which is who's the driver? Say you, the founder, what vehicle, what's the business, the opportunity, and then what resources, what fuel do you got to get there? Now, the most important thing is is the driver. As we all know, it's the jockey, not the horse, as many have alluded to over their illustrious business careers, and I just echo into the into the you know the stands, so to speak. The reason I bring it up is that I would rather have Lewis Hamilton driving a Honda than Frank Lafaro driving a Ferrari any day of the week. And like God forbid we give Lewis Hamilton a Ferrari. Well, in this case, actually, as a recording of this thing, it is actually not going too well in the Ferrari. Uh, but we'll we'll we'll just you know it's Lewis Hamilton.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

No, but it makes total sense because I mean I love those three things, like the the vehicle, the driver, and the fuel, because those are all things that candidates either either like they're looking at it subconsciously or they're looking at it very diligently. Those are things that they're gonna factor in into their decision to either apply or accept a job. Yeah, and I I think Can I say something on that?

SPEAKER_01 14:48

You you know it's true by if you have an interview process and a candidate's like, hey, this is a serious position for me, can I talk to the founder? If for some reason your company is so big that they don't even have the founder doing interviews, big players will be like, hey, this is like I want to meet the driver. When you're small, it doesn't matter because everyone's gonna meet you. But at a certain point, it is the most important meeting they have because they're gonna look at you and be like, you're gonna pay me. Like you, you're there, you're taking care of them, and that's the responsibility of the leader.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

I remember when I was in in college and the stakes were high for me because I was an international student. So I needed to stack up my resume in a way that would make it more enticing for people to sponsor my work visa, which is like super expensive. And so I was in career fairs like, what is gonna be the best resume stacking opportunity that I could take? And what I ended up choosing was not an IBM or an Intel or a CDW internship that all my friends were getting. Instead, I've decided to do a door-to-door gig selling home security systems in Minnesota. And the reason why I decided to do that was the money was okay, right? Like it was comparable to the other options, but it was to your point, it was the driver of the vehicle and the fuel. I was like, oh, I believe in the leaders of this company. I know that I'm gonna learn a ton from these guys who have been doing door-to-door for 11 years. Uh, I know that these guys know what they're doing because like they've been doing this for a while. And I think that for me, like, as long as my basic needs were met from a financial standpoint, what I was looking for is like, how is this contributing to my career and how is this helping me and my journey for skill acquisition? So I think that for a founder's who are like, hey, I'm like just throwing money at the problem, is like, no, you have to become worthy of following, and your organization has to be big enough to fit everybody else's career trajectories in them. Uh for them to be like, yes, I want to work with you.

unknown 16:41

Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Yeah. Just to hit on that, like my team, all I think the way to win as a founder is set up a company for everyone else to win, right? So when people start my company, I say, and any company I would advise, I would just say, I hire the person, I'm like, welcome. This company is here to help you grow your career. You have the opportunity and the ownership to develop your own career here. And I'll just say, as long as we are in alignment, that the work you do helps you go where you want to go, we're gonna win. Now, the only reason this doesn't work is you don't communicate to me that you're not happy and not aligned. Andor we grow faster than your ability to scale, and your ability to scale your own talent, which is always an issue if you grow a fast business. Candidly, even me as a person went from recruiter to director of recruiting. I was not ready to scale in a company to be the head of people. I did not know HR law. So there's just limits to the game of how to how fast the company can. If the company scales fast and it outscales your people, that's a good thing. Don't feel bad when you vote your COO. Like, don't feel bad. Like it's it's okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

You see like these small businesses hiring killers because like they know how to like game that part of like opportunity and ownership. And and so it's not something that's unavailable for people who are just getting started. Like, it's just about being smart about how you craft uh the vision for your company.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

And being comfortable, yeah, and being comfortable delegating it because I think there the the realization is the work you're doing, everyone would be happy to do. Like any any CEO I've ever worked with was like, hey Frank, you'll help me out here. I'm like, yeah, what do you need? Like I would I would take out the trash for a CEO if that's what you were about to do. Like if you were about to do that work, I'm happy to do it. And I think where the the let's think about like the pass-off, where it fails, the the the friction is really just the bottleneck is just in the the leader's ability to delegate. I think I will always blame the process in which they delegate first before I blame the employee, to be honest. When it comes to ownership and opportunity, I think if you can pass it off and manage them well, you can you can win if you have a good, good, uh, good teammate.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

And so let's start by, I guess the first step that you talked about in that framework was prioritization. And I want to talk a little bit about that because um maybe a lot of founders find themselves in a position of like, okay, I know I need to increase capacity, I need to bring someone on, but how do I know what my next hire should be?

SPEAKER_01 19:01

Yeah. So the way I think about it is that everyone should think about what problem they're solving first before they go right into hiring. And the reason I say that is you immediately usually have the common theme of people throw people at problems, right? Bodies at problems. So the framework I use is identify, prioritize, and resolve problems. You can think about it as a funnel. And what I do in my organization is I want anybody to give me feedback, clients, candidates, vendors. Um, and I just pour in so I can identify problems. That's the first one. Then I just really ask myself, well, what out of these is actually a problem as the company leader, and I will prioritize. So simply put, I just put a one, two, three, right? Just like filtering for gold, there's some stuff that falls through and some stuff that sticks. Where we get stuck now is when I look at those problems and I say, hey, I know how to do one, two, and three, but number four, I don't have either the talent andor time to do so. So the way I think about it is strategically, it's like, what should my next hire be? It was like, what do I not have the time or talent to do that is a problem that if solved would increase my ability to grow. The reason I say this is problems can be actually sometimes just a process problem or a contract slash project problem. Meaning it's a you know, six months of work, once completed, we don't need the full-time hire. And my rule of thumb is if we don't need someone for 18 months, we shouldn't go put out a full-time job because it is it is just the math's not mathing. Like we can be honest that we cannot project past you know two years because we're a startup, right? But if you know you don't need this job for six months or more, let's just start contract so we can hire the right person with the right expectations.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

Yeah, and and so I I really like the fact that obviously like every hiring decision should always mirror back to the strategy and like what is your North Star? I remember when I exited corporate, I did a little bit of consulting um afterwards. It was kind of one of those things where like they hired you to do something that you weren't really prepared to do. So I was like researching like all these uh Bain Boston Consulting Group, McKenzie, how do they do their engagements? And what I found out is what that everybody was doing, like on a like a basic level, strategy is where am I at right now? Where do we want to get to? What stands in our way, and what solutions help us go over those barriers? And so, like when you're looking at those challenges, some of those solutions may be people, but some of them might be something else. And to your point, I think that I always believe that if you're gonna be hiring someone, you are actually have to take that with a sense of responsibility. Because for somebody who's accepting the job, they're a fork in the road decision. Uh, they're making that fork in the road decision to go somewhere, and that's gonna alter their lives. And so there's a little bit of reverence or or or responsibility with that. And so, to your point, like if you don't feel like this is a long term job, don't sell it as a long term job because they need to know. Right. They'll appreciate you.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

Remember, there's two ways to live in life. You can there's trade-offs. You can take the quick win and you can hurt your career and your brand reputation. And I'd rather just have a bunch of small wins that are true where it's like that guy that you hire for six months on contract that goes away, three years could be your COO. So I just like to maintain the people relationships because here's the headline statement Leaders collect people. If you meet a leader and you say, Cool, like you're gonna join my team, and I ask you who are you bringing with you, and you don't have 15 people you can rifle off, I'm nervous because that means no one would follow you. So I'd be like, why are you considering yourself a director or a COO?

SPEAKER_00 22:41

So, Frank, when when a founder, like sometimes we see founders being a little bit more on the trigger happy side where they're just hiring a bunch of people because they're like, oh, we need we're on a growth path, we need to grow a bunch of people, hire 10. Like we see it in the VA space when somebody is just like, hey, I need eight VAs, and then really like three months from now, when things settle in, they're like, Oh, I just need like two. So sometimes it's not a uh just a people problem. So, like when somebody tells you, like, hey, we need to hire a bunch, how do you stop and analyze whether it's like something that a person can do, or it's something that a contractor, or it's like just a process thing, or it's a project that we need? Like, how do you diagnose what the business actually needs before hiring?

SPEAKER_01 23:22

Yeah, great question. So it's something called the intake process. So every recruiting process, in my opinion, should have this. You have a department, and it's just three steps, which is hiring managers tell you there's a problem. They tell you what they think. They can be right or wrong, but they tell you everything they think. Then you have the CEO or founder and leader tell you, hey, I reviewed it based on this, this should pass or fail. Like they are busy. And then we have a process where we all meet together to define the actual rule. When you have a qualification doc, which is really just a resource internally we use to say, hey, what no person is the same in any company, right? I've hired tons of COOs and tons of directors of marketing. I've also hired tons of I know salespeople, associates, et cetera. Every company has different values, different ways they need that person to behave, and different offers, et cetera. So what we've we've learned is that the way we prevent hiring somebody is the stopgap of we have an intake process, and before we understand what we're hiring, and if we even need to hire, we're gonna define it before we launch the rule. Where people get stuck is that they say, Frank, we need to hire. They skip process, they go right to hiring, but never actually took the time to breathe and just say, What is it that we're hiring, et cetera? So the reason I say this is a recruiting process, the intake process, which is to help you launch the position, helps mitigate around hiring positions you didn't need. And the only way you can identify is by actually getting under the hood and saying, Heard hiring manager, let's see what problems you have. And you're like, oh, dude, you didn't know. Like, there's a new software that solves all this problem.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

And honestly, like, I think this is so tough because if someone's going with a recruiter, the recruiter has an incentive for every problem to be a people problem because then I get more placements. And so, like, if you have a that's where you need to be very careful with who you're partnering with in your company and a recruiter that will be like, hey, I'm looking at this relationship in a long term. I am okay for going a little bit of short-term cash to save you some heartache, because then we I can actually help you build a team that you actually need. And so, like, I don't know if you can speak to that of like some recruiters like just going for the job versus being a consultant of people.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

Yes. Well, there's a there's there's there's a lot of things I can say. Number one is it depends on how the buyer wants us to act. I've been in situations where I might be knowledgeable on the subject. My leader or my client was like, hey, Frank, I just want you to do the button, you know, the nuts and bolts, right? Like a carpenter that comes in is like, I just want you to just build the house. No fancy trims. Um, but if they engage and say, Frank, I have questions, I think there's an opportunity to always advise so that you win business in the future. Because the amount of times I told somebody, actually, bro, I don't think you should hire this. They're like, wait, what? I'm like, yeah, you shouldn't even use me. You should go somewhere else. You need to hire like an associate, not a director. Then they call me in eight months when that was the right thing. And then they're like, Thank you for being the only person that told me that. Um, I have a director role now for real. So that's my two cents on just generally treat the project as who we need the business to be successful as a recruiting agency to have continual business. So, like, why would we put a the wrong person in the wrong seat? Like, that means the business will go down. Like, so we are a service-based business. So, like, we are, in my opinion, it is just short-term thinking versus long-term thinking. And I just want businesses and partners that think long-term because technically speaking, if I hire the right person and told you to slow, tell you to slow down and your business grows, I as a recruiting agency will make more money. So it is actually just aligning incentives.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

Yeah, it's business has iterative cycles, so you should never act as if this is the only time that you'll get to interact with some of these clients, prospects, or stakeholders. And um I I I I really relate to that because, for example, we don't describe ourselves as an executive agency or executive assistant agency or a virtual assistant agency. We're a talent solution provider, so like we're going to analyze hey, you're not ready for a VA just yet, or you know what, like this isn't probably like a good fit. This sounds like a two-month project. And then when like they're like, hey, you know what? This we just build a new division, long-term jobs, we want to work with high-quality VAs, like, let's let's talk, right? And so, like, business is iterative, and you know, you just have to treat it with with without sort of reverence to to the relationship. Now, we we we talk about like just now, like when someone's trigger happy, when they want to hire a bunch of people, but then there's like the opposite founder where they're like, Oh, I don't want to hire anybody, or like where they're like, Oh, this is just uh I'll just uh have AI do this for me, or I'll just get a software. And so, like, what happens when someone's reluctant to hire or in denial that they actually need some more hands on deck? Uh, and how expensive can these problems usually get? Bad.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

I mean, I think if someone doesn't want to hire and they want to just try to fix it with AI and stuff like that, it can get it can get expensive because you're just not making money. So it's the opportunity cost. The way I usually frame it to founders is like, what's the goal? So I'm fine if a founder is like, I'm happy uh riding my surfboard, having no people I have to manage, and I make, you know, I make a million dollars a a year uh doing you know 40 hours a week. Like I can't try to convince someone that hiring is a good idea. What I will try to convince people to do is that if you have a goal and your goal is aligned to like growing your business um and you're in the service-based industry, the only way that I know to scale is, yes, the AI and the process improvements, but it's through your talent and your people. Because as you scale a restaurant, as you scale business consulting, as you scale any business, marketing, agency, you scale with your people. So I just look at it and say, what's your goal? If your goal is to grow this business and have people, then the arbitrage is just what are you not good at or don't want to do that we can get someone else to do. And I just play that game all day. And if they look at me and say they don't like managing people, well, that can be maybe the first hire, someone to manage your people. Um, so I think that's the the game, which is just like what's the goal? And sometimes talent is not the right solution. Sometimes you're like you build a five million dollar business being a solopreneur, and that is very popular amongst ghostwriting and Twitter uh fanatics. Like they are really good at that, and I can't put a flame to them. I don't know how to do that. I am a people guy and I already have a team of five 90 days in.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

So yeah, and I rem I remember when like the Naval Radha Khan leverage pyramid first came out as like, oh, there's capital labor, there's there's code and media. And I think that in that language he was saying, like, hey, labor is like the worst kind of leverage that you can have. And I I tend to disagree with it in the terms of like, yes, you can get more leverage or more units per you know, fulcrum when you're talking about like um code and media, but you still need tool wielders to move those levers, yeah, right? So, like, for example, if even if you're doing a media company, you need people to help build that organization, or even if you're doing a software which code ultimate sign of leverage, who's the developer building that, right? Like, and so I think that it like it it is at the bottom of that like leverage pyramid, but they are the tool wielders and they're the ones that actually enact or put action behind those levers. I think it's the foundation, I think it's the dirt and soil.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Like it started with one person who built the company. I think is the most important thing, not because it does anything other than support the foundation, just like a pyramid group or like the base of a pyramid, um, like the importance of that subject. It's more of this is how I think about it. These layers are all important as far as scaling and priority. I think your most important thing is like, do we have process, you know, coding stuff in place so we can have a good offer and scale? But the thing is once you nail the right, like you have a SaaS business, you have you picked the right offer and all those things that Nabal talks about, you have, right? Like any levers you can pull, coding, etc. The last one is the people, which is that they execute the idea. So I say find the right idea, and then you still will always need either you or yourself, sorry, you or someone else to execute. And that's why I believe the while it's at the bottom and maybe the least uh it is not the one to leverage the most. You should leverage everything else first, then go to people, which is why how do you find a high LTV to cac uh machine? Which is like, how do you find a business that is going to produce you a lot of cash and then throw any resource at it to make sure that it keeps going?

SPEAKER_00 31:40

And so one last time like one last thing about like the prioritization or or how to know who to hire. I remember seeing in your roadmap that there's different sort of like exercises that people could practically do to identify like who should we bring on board? And it was like a talent audit, a time audit, or a money audit. So can you walk us through what those are and how they can help someone define who they need to hire?

SPEAKER_01 32:03

Sure. Yeah, this is my favorite part. So this is like the crafting of a role. So it first starts with like, hey, throw your problem in the piper and say, Frank, I can use an example. I don't have enough time to do leads to get um to prospect and engage the leads that are coming in. They just show up on the sales call. So I say, cool. Um, is this a talent problem? Like you don't know how to engage your leads, or you just not have enough time to actually do it. They're like, hey, actually, I actually know how to do it, just don't have the time. Now, why is that framework helpful? Because the way we we want to approach it is that the talent itself is either you or someone else on your team doing the work. And if they're not good at it, well, we want to move them into the next step, which is like, cool, you don't know how to do this, so you spending time on is probably not worth it. So we need a better level talent. So once we figure out talent and time, which is like how bad is this problem? How much do we have the time and talent to even solve it? If it's no, it's not good. And then the last is like, cool, we actually need to hire somebody, how much money we got? And then you realize you got like a thousand bucks, and you're like, okay, like the COO turns into a VA and you call JP. Um like I'll zoom out and to resay, like to res say it's simpler for everybody. I'll say this you just on a scale of one to ten answer these three questions. What is how big is this problem in your business on a one to ten scale? Once you answer that, I'll just write that one to ten. The next is talent on a scale of one to ten. Ten being really confident or like not confident at all, and then one being I'm super confident, I'm number one superstar. How talented are you to solve that problem? If it's a 10, we have a problem. If it's a one, that means you're a superstar and you can solve it. And that's why it's not a big deal and it shouldn't even be in the piper. Same thing with time. You might be talented but not have the time to do that. So then one to ten. Ten is no time, one is a lot of time. And then the last is how much money do we actually have if we need to hire people so we know as a resource what we can throw at it? And the reason you ask these questions is you allow yourself to say, this big problem, we don't have the resources to solve it. Now it becomes something we have to go get externally, which is a hire. And I just like to use all resources and deployables in the company internally first before I try to waste external resources to go acquire talent.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

Yeah, and resources is such an important term here because I mean, like we're if we're all founders, we need to be resourceful. So again, it's almost like saying like I have $10,000 for a marketing campaign, or I have $500 for a marketing campaign. You can still do a campaign, it's just gonna look different in scope. Same thing with your hire is like, hey, we need to solve this problem. I don't have time or the inclination to do it, but we only have this amount of budget. What type of talent can get us to solve it and how can we think a little bit more resourceful? So I think it what you need is a freedom within a framework where you need parameters around your hiring decisions, uh, and then you know what to go out and launch before, right? Like it's like project management, right? Like, I want to build a house, but I only have $20,000. So, like, okay, let's shift the parameter or let's put that parameter around this project and then go out and find the materials or the people who help us build it, right?

SPEAKER_01 35:14

Yeah. Any recruiter that's watching this that's weight worth or weight in gold or has done it for a year or more knows recruiters are like project managers. Like, you know what I mean? Like it's so cool because that is how how we operate. There is like we're managing the client, which is our our team, and then sometimes it's the the candidate process, which is it's two processes at the same time. So I think there's just a a really big opportunity for everyone to realize that you can totally improve your whole hiring process overnight by just fixing the process like you do with sales and marketing. Like have a VSL, have a landing page, just consider simple things that are low-hanging fruits. Because not talking to your candidates for 52 hours like you didn't talk to them for three days is just unacceptable. Because would you treat a candidate, a client like that? No. So let's not treat candidates that way because you're trying to hire them anyway, if it's a lead. So I just try to like zoom out for everybody. It's like you guys can totally win. If anyone's watching this, you can totally win if you have no idea what you're doing. Just just tackle the little stuff, right? Like clean your room, right? Clean up the room.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

Yeah, and going back to the the auditing part, I we say it all the time is I again, I know I need help. I don't know what what I need help in. It's like do a time audit and like just measure your week in 15-minute increments, 30-minute increments, and really start writing things down. I always use this uh analogy that it's very similar to when you start counting calories, where like people are like, I'm eating healthy, like I'm I'm not like going very like I'm not doing a lot ton of fats or sugars. I was like, all right, start counting your calories and then we'll really see, and then be like, shit, like I'm really like not eating as healthy as I thought I would. It's the same thing with your time. You don't feel like a lot of time is going into things that you shouldn't be focusing on until you start counting it. So it might be tedious, but it is a pre-step if you want to hire the right person and have them do the right things.

SPEAKER_01 37:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 37:10

And there's a lot of resources out there of just like how to do a quick time study.

SPEAKER_01 37:13

And it's super simple. Just literally do two things. One, if you don't want to do a time study and you're like, Frank, I don't want to spend the time, just look back at your calendar if you actually organize your calendar well, and that's a representation of where your time's going. Or just do the quick little like, hey, every 15 minutes, am I doing something tactical or strategic? Like, am I doing like built paying bills or am I doing like an offer call? And I think the main goal of even doing anything that JP and I are talking about is that so you can get clear on the three main responsibilities of the hire. So if you can figure out someone's gonna come in and hire, you're gonna hire somebody, you know what they're gonna do, maybe you don't need to do an audit. But if you're unclear of how you're gonna get work off your plate, these are the resources so you can get clear with the expectation that your output is that you understand the three main responsibilities of any hire anywhere in any company. That's how we operate. If you don't know the three things someone's gonna do, I'm like, wait, like everybody from CFO to you know the janitor, it's like the three main responsibilities. From CFO, it's like you manage the internal uh finance of this company, you help us make deals, and then you do some legal. Like, I can simplify 15-paid job descriptions into just three bullet points, and that's the clarity everyone needs in a hiring process, so that both the candidate and the company hire the right person.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

And I think that's such a good segue because let's say, oh, okay, we did these audits, we did this analysis. Like, does the business need this? Okay, it is a person, but okay, so now it comes to the point where like we let's define this very well for people who are applying and let's define it really well for us so that we can evaluate all these options that we're gonna have. And so I think you talked a little bit before about your qualification document. How does that compare to the job description? And how do you go about drafting both?

SPEAKER_01 38:53

Yeah, great question. So when making any of these documents, you have to consider why we're making the document. So the JD, which is the job description, is not internal, it's an external document. You consider it like sales copy. It's for the candidate. You're trying to attract them like bait. So when you think of it as that purpose, you write it differently. Like a like a sales page, a landing page, et cetera. The qualification doc is more of an internal document. It's like a scorecard. No one externally should ever really see that. They'll just experience it because you're gonna be asking questions to evaluate if they're fit for the job. So how we operate is that every hiring process starts with, hey, what are the three main responsibilities? What's the scope of work? Let's put a draft job description together. And the way you make it better, in my opinion, the simplest thing to do for anyone listening today is just go to a company that's 10 times your size, look at their careers page, copy and paste what they do, and then rewrite it in a format like yourself. Because the main thing that they've realized, they've spent the time, the pain, the money to know that, hey, candidates that don't get this information don't get hired. So look at someone that's making 100 million in your industry, copy their job descriptions, reformat it with your values, your et cetera, um, and then then post it. Now I'll add two things that everyone I work with does to increase the likelihood you get more candidates. Number one, at the bottom, actually share the salary range and be transparent. So so that candidates can say, like, yeah, that's a fit, and then we can use that as a closing mechanism as well. Obviously, you have a budget. If you have a budget and your budget is this to this, I always tell people just do 10% less and post the whole, don't post the whole budget, a little bit less, post it online. And that gives you the opportunity to make compelling offers. Um, if you have a company that's like, hey, we're willing to overpay, well, then you know that when you get people in the funnel, if someone's really good and they're 10x the freaking output, they're worth sometimes double. So it's okay. So just pay it. Yeah. So job descriptions are really gonna be that's the first, put the salary, that's an easy win. That is stats from Indeed in 2022 said 56 or so percent of jobs still don't even have job postings, and candidates are rebelling against it. Now that's 2022. I've not looked it up since then. That's not even count. Well, that's just getting the state. Yeah, I agree. That's like the state law, like zero to 200k. It's like, bro, um four million dollars. But I'll say one thing about the job description that most people mess up is the first paragraph. You have to like sell it, you know, you have to like speak to the that's why you want to know who you want to hire, because then the first sentence can be like like an open hook. And then you want to onboard them like here's the opportunity you get, here's our company, we're a rocket ship, and then role responsibilities, etc. That's the bor boring but important stuff. But we have to think about the job description and sales copy and write it in the with the idea of how do we compel the person to both work with us, see the opportunity, and understand what scope of work they'll do for what compensation. So we just need clarity. The qualification doc also needs clarity. That's just from the hiring side where we come together as a company and just define if it's like dating, you know, the person we want to marry, right? So we just say, here's the three to five must-haves, here's the three to five nice to have's, and then characteristically, what do they think they'll behave like? Like, you know, bubbly, maybe it's a fine this person's little bit more stern. And you want to describe these things and then walk through what's a pitch. My favorite is like when this person's in front of us, why do they want this job? Like, what are we gonna say to say attract them for the shop? Then you outline in the qualification doc the actual interview steps. So it's like one, two, three, who's owning it, what we're assessing. It's very simple. It's just a it's like just a I can send everyone this that's listening, it's free. It's just a a document that look sorry, it's just a graph, like a chart. It just says step one, interview, screening, technical culture, who's doing it, and the three bullet points at least, what we're assessing. So we have an understanding of like why do we even have a step, what's happening? And then I I, as a recruiter, have the last section be what I call the Normandy plan. Um, it's just a launch strategy to let a position get out there. And they didn't invade Normandy um without a plan, right? They didn't just go like, let's go out and launch uh each. You know, we're not gonna go launch a position without a plan. So I have a a process to like catapult the position into the universe so that we can get all the time we need in the first two weeks. And I've strategically done this over the course of my career, and that's why our time to fill is so fast. And the only reason that's true is you intuitively will understand this if listening. You guys pull levers when you think you need them, right? Post a job online, ask our network, okay, it didn't work, let's go over agencies. Like all the levers that I know, I pull them all at the same time in sequence, and it just launches a position so that we can win earlier on. Um, which is the only reason we can spend resources and time like that is because we know we need to hire, which is why you start with prioritization. Um, but that's my two cents. Job descriptions are sales copy, qualification docs are scorecards to evaluate talent.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

We actually started uh treating uh job description a little bit more like a VSL, right? Where we're like, so for example, like I was um I had one of our good clients ask us to hire an in like stateside uh executive. Assistant for his office. We typically don't do that. So we were like, okay, we're gonna do the same sort of principles. Can you record a video as to like just explaining why would people want to work with you? And that's what he did. He did like a uh 90-second clip of like, hey, here's what we do, here's why this position matters, here's the growth that you have, like what's in it for me. And then we posted that at the top, just like a VSL has the video at the top and then the copy at the bottom. And it's like it is way better because you can see like that leader, you can see it's not just like words on a screen. It's like, oh, I could actually see the person that I'm gonna be working for, and I believe in what he's saying. He looks genuine, he looks nice to work for. Um, so I think but going back, hammering that analogy of like it is sales copy, and then your internal document is a little bit more of a lead lead score guide. It's like, should we be spending time with this lead? Should we book a demo? Or this like doesn't even look like a qualified lead. So let's just get her out of our pipeline. It's the same thing with recruiters. It's like this doesn't look like someone though who could fit the job. Um, so I I always say, like, hey, treat this this job description as your North Star. Like, it's not just like a formality to get people to apply, it is what you're gonna be using as a rubric to assess who who is gonna be hired. Well said.

SPEAKER_01 45:15

Yeah, we just to be clear, I've worked with some big companies and we go through like three to four iterations of the job description. It takes two to three days, probably hours of people's time, so that we get the best copy. So I just want to emphasize there is real value in it's it's a resource you throw out. Like, remember, like you just throw it out like a fishing net. You might as well set it up once the right way.

SPEAKER_00 45:36

And I thought that it was really smart that you're like, use somebody else's due diligence process. It's kind of like when people are saying, like, where should I buy a house because it's all about location? You just go where like Whole Foods has put a store because they've already done their assessment of like an affluent place. So same thing with like the the recruiting copies, like they've already hired rock stars, they know what converts. Go out and model after that, right? I thought that was really smart. Thank you. Um, so going back to like also like gaining clarity and expectation, and you talked like the job description and then the internal document is about gaining that clarity, but you also could use other things that not only help you gain clarity on who the person should be, but also how to onboard them. So I I've heard you talk before about like the 30, 60, 90 day plan, uh where you're like not only saying, like, here's what we would like, but no, here's what we expect for the first three months. So, how do you deploy a 30, 60, 90 day plan within a recruiting process? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 46:33

So the way I think about it is that I do not actually send this document nor even create it until the person's hired. Because every 30, 60, 90 day plan as a people operations leader knows it will be slightly different based on the talent we hire, right? So at the end of the day. But while we think about 30, 60, 90 days out, even one year out, is because we're looking for outcomes. So, how we think about strategically bringing the future, right? Hey, they're hired, what are they gonna do to the recruiting process is just by asking ourselves, what do we expect this person to know how to do without much training? And what do we expect them to accomplish once they've trained, like they're set? So I think about it as the 30, 60, 90 day plan is just an extension of the interview. And when you onboard someone, we're still evaluating if they're fit. If anything, we're now not guessing, we're seeing. So interviewing is kind of like guessing. You're like, yeah, you seem like you're like a good person. We want to look for people that are consistent, and we can't really tell how someone behaves until they're in the business. So I use the 30, 60, 90 day plan to just evaluate the talent I hired and make sure that they actually know what they said they know. Day 90 is when they own their role and then they create outcomes for the next nine months. And on my job descriptions and in my uh recruiting process, I just say, What outcomes do we want this person to achieve? And then what we're gonna do is interview for that by saying, Hey, what have you done and how did you do it? Because past performance predicts future success.

SPEAKER_00 48:02

Yeah. And can it also indicate like what are some of our priorities so that you can better answer some of the questions? Like, for example, what we started doing with our whenever we onboard a new client that wants to get an executive assistant, we do a 30, 60, 90 day plan with them. And we have the typical milestones by day 30, we want 10 hours off your plate. By day 90, like 20 hours off your plate. Those are like the big ones. But like, we're like, okay, so for the first month, let's focus on having them in your inbox and calendar. They're fully managing this. And in 60 days, they should also be managing your traveling schedule and your um, you know, onboarding process for your new clients. Whatever it is, we can then take that 30, 60, 90 and be like, hey, candidate, this is what we're expecting from this role. How would you do this? How would you start owning a calendar that you have no idea what the unwritten rules are? Like, how would you do this? And so, like, you start seeing like their answers tailored to business outcomes, as opposed to like just like trying to guess, oh, is this thing that you did in a different company context with resources that are different? Is this going to be transferable here? Like, it gives you just a little bit more context. I love the fact that you said, like, again, this is how it's like related to dating, where like you're just dating someone and then you get married, and like the effort is gone, you're no longer dating your girlfriend, like or your wife, right? You're no longer trying. And so it's like the relationships that work are the people that after they get the job, they're actually pursuing the opportunity as when they were applying for the position. And so that's that's sort of like the important part of finding someone who would actually do that after they get hired, right? If you want to use the dating analogy, I can say when you're in alignment in hiring and in dating, it gets better after the initial phase. Yeah, exactly. It should, right? People should feel like, oh, marriage is way better than when we were just dating, right? Yeah, uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:54

I believe strongly in if I hire an 80k person or someone whose salary is 80k, I want to be able to use my people operations knowledge to make an environment so that they work like 120k person. And that is the arbitrage of people operations and also of hiring good talent because usually they're so good that like they actually undervalue themselves because they want the opportunity. And you're good at selling, right? As a recruiter.

SPEAKER_00 50:19

So let I want to double-click on your step three, which is referrals. And I also agree with you 100%, lowest hanging fruit that people could do, and honestly, like very powerful. It's kind of like guerrilla marketing when you don't have that ton of budget, but you can still make a lot of noise. Um, but it's not just like, hey, who do you know? Send them this link, right? Like, how do you think about referral? How do you make a referral um initiative within a recruiting process really, really pay dividends?

SPEAKER_01 50:47

Yeah. So there's three buckets internal, external, and then center of influence. All that means is that there's three types of referrals. There's your team, internal, there's your network, external, warm and cold, and then there's centers of influence, which is like whether you know them or not, there's just people in the space that can move mountains and they just know everybody. If you make one phone call to them and actually know one, that's a great resource. So once we label the three sections, internal, external, COI, we then start with the three, you know, a process where I say we should know what we're looking for, right? That's the definition. So then we just define it, hey guys, I'm looking for this, right? So once we know what we're gonna say, then we identify who we want to ask, which is gonna be our internal team, our external team, and then centers of influence. So I just ask my leadership team or my hiring team to say, hey guys, obviously we're gonna ask the whole team, the whole company. Externally, do we know anybody we need to ask? And does anyone happen to know a center of influence? And we make a list, like 15 to 20, 40 people we will reach before we even really launch the position or the day we launch it. Then what happens is we prepare the steps and the scripts and send it to the team. So we teach our team how to be fishermen. What that looks like is we say, hey team, we're hiring a new blah, blah, blah. Their rule is XYZ, super important. If you know anybody, please um we ask that you reach out to your network using this script, just copy and paste this script to your network. Um, how you can do that is you create a list of internal, external COIs, you tell them, like, you're your family, you have your you teach them how to do these things, and then you deploy them. Now, how do you get extra leverage on that, right? Your team might you might activate 10, 20 of your company to like help you refer, right? The loyal followers, right? And they just send you people always, right? And sometimes they're green, sometimes they're not, but at least they try and you love them for it. But how do we activate the whole company or at least 80% of the company, not you know, or 50%, right? How do we activate more? People talk about referral bonuses. So to be very clear, I have a strategy where it's a referral strategy where you can get people excited because they don't get paid $500, they get paid like $25,000 to refer somebody. And it depends on yeah, it depends on this thing called lifetime gross profit per employee uh to cat, it's cost to acquire talent. It's just a marketing candidate, it's like a marketing frame of LTB to cat CAC to reposition for talent acquisition. And all it is is like if someone's worth $300 a million to the business the first year, it's like, what are we gonna will to pay to get that? And the only reason as a referral bonus I can pay instead of $500, I can give like $2,500, $25,000, is that I change the terms instead of paying you when they start, I pay you when they are four months in. So that gives you incentive. I'm like, hey, if like if they're that great and they crush, like I'll pay you. I probably made the money back because they've been on the team. And then what I do is as well, if you want to make it super sexy, um, is you can do that same referral strategy externally, right? You can say, hey guys, I'll give you my network 25k if they refer some boat. Now, these are things I do in order, meaning like I don't use the external lever of giving money away first. I don't use the referral internal bonus first, but I always ask my team for help. And the scripts when I reach out externally to people in my network is just hey, like when I'm teaching my team, this is the script. Hey, I'm hiring a very important person. Their roles to do X, Y, Z in the company. You have the exact experience I'm looking for, or probably know people that do. Like you're the exact experience I'm looking for. And I just say, Do you know anyone like you? Question mark, right? So the reason you do this, the two approaches, either you're gonna reach out to candidates as referrals, like people you might be a fit, but you wouldn't ask them for, hey, do you know anybody? And they're like, Well, I'm I'm somebody like that. Or you reach out to people that are not the candidate but might know the candidate, which is considered a referral, and then you play the game of like this is what I need. You probably know the people. Um, who I like to be specific. Who from XYZ company that you worked with? Hey, you worked at X this company. The reason I've even reached out to you is you probably sat next to some really cool engineers. Um, who's the best engineer you know? So I'd say the best thing you can do when reach out to referrals is teach your team to be specific, which just allows you to prepare, right? If you're reaching out to a human, because you have them on your name, on your list, which is 15 people, most likely you can look up their LinkedIn and be like, well, why are they even how can I help them help me? So I like to be specific with reach outs in general.

SPEAKER_00 55:02

I I just love a lot about what you just said that because like it is it is such an easy lever to pull if you have a little bit of structure behind it. We did the same thing, like whenever we were hiring executive assistants, what we started doing was having an internal and an external sort of campaign. And our thought was good people know good people. And so the only thing is like they need to have both an incentive and to the right tools. So we gave them like the um the graphic design post or the static post or the video. We gave them like here's like the script, here's also the compensation if they get hired. Like we gave that, and we then distributed that to our internal VA and EA pool and external people. Because even like from what we know, like indeed, monster, all these LinkedIn are are big, but I think like 50% of the people that apply apply through WhatsApp groups, like in our in our case, right? Like, so you're like, let's tap into this, like let's give them the tools, let's give them the script and the motivation, and they'll be the ones who are finding the people for us.

SPEAKER_01 56:07

Yeah, it's just going back to what uh Nabal said, like I'm using the lever of people, and just they're in individual nodes of recruiters that can help us find the talent.

SPEAKER_00 56:15

Yeah, in fact, somebody that's if anybody is looking for like an executive assistant, here's what I usually say the idea from an executive assistant probably came from a friend of yours who's an entrepreneur who loves their executive assistant. So ask your friend to ask their executive assistant who else do they know? Because that person's gonna know another rock star. I 100% guarantee it. Uh just leverage also like from your friends and your network. It doesn't have to just be like your internal team, but to your point, externals. I would go to like my friends' uh or my friends and and their executives, if they can help me uh recruit because they've hired a rock star who they like, they're gonna be like also very knowledgeable about who else can do the same thing, you know.

SPEAKER_01 56:58

Yeah, great point. Just to hit on that, like I lean on my network so much so that like if you're hiring a position, you saw your friends just hiring that position, I'd be like, yo, bro, can you give me everything you know and maybe any backup candidates you can move forward with? And also if I do my final interview, can I if I don't know between A and B, can you meet that?

SPEAKER_00 57:14

Yeah. And so that's why, like, hire like to your point, hiring a good fisherman is someone that already has a network. That's why like there's recruiters in niches. Like, I do oil and gas, and that that's all I do for recruiting. I know every single player in this field or somebody that can get them for me. So, like, that's why like hiring a recruiter can save you tons of time, energy, and effort just finding the right people.

SPEAKER_01 57:37

It's like getting your own referr. Like, imagine it's like a super referrer. Like, imagine getting a recruiter on your team, you're getting access to their whole list of people they use of as referrals. Like, of course, JP and I as a recruiting uh like I don't want to say experts, it's not fair. Recruiting people that are trying to become continually better every day. Because someone's always told me, you're not an expert until you have 20 years. I'm like, okay. Um, but we are always trying to become um well networked. And like if you use recruiting agencies or recruiting partners, they have a list of people they would hit up. That's why I could fill positions so fast. I just text my network, my my top two people. I'm like, hey, who do you know? And then they answer because they're not gatekeeping because we're friends, and you have like you have those people too in your network, anyone that's listening and watching.

SPEAKER_00 58:22

You'll see it on LinkedIn too. Like people who are like recruiters or headhunters, they have 20,000 followers, 15,000 followers, because like everybody follows them because they were like, when a new job comes out, I'm gonna follow these guys because they're gonna be like promoting new roles, right? So, like, I think that's that's super important. I want to talk about a concept um recruiting velocity or talent acquisition velocity. I have seen a lot of processes that are like six six months long to hire a CEO, like a series of interviews, like super drawn-out processes. So, what happens when you draw out your hiring process in such a long way? And what could a better alternative be to have a very tight, succinct process?

SPEAKER_01 59:04

Yeah, I would just akin it to like customer experience. So I don't know anyone that likes to wait on the lines to go to the grocery store or to board an airplane. Um and if we don't strategically think about our town acquisition funnel like a sales funnel, we're gonna lose, we're gonna have leakage. So when you take six months, candidly, I mean, I don't know any candidate that's gonna wait six months. Now, taking six months to hire somebody and find them is different than saying once we've found them, how fast we move. So when he speaks about velocity, talent velocity, like or speed through the process, I measure conversion per step and candidate process, candidate velocity. Because I will time to fill is a different metric. Position open, position closed. I focus on when we met the right person, how long did it actually take us to move through all the steps and hire them? Because that's important. So I go like here's a stat. Two and a half years ago, I hired five directors, right? And the five directors I hired that month or that week or whatever it was, when I did the the study, when I met them to when they got the offer letter and accepted on the phone, it was eight-day average, an eight-day average from when I first screened them to when my two to three interviews, meaning at my company, plus the final of the COO or CEO, which means we did a four-step or three-step interview process. No, it was four. We did a four-step interview process with director positions in an average of eight days. Now we didn't fill the positions eight days. The time to fill was like 35 or 28, or some of them were 17 days. But like the idea here was that we when we met the candidate that was right, we moved quick. Just like when you meet the the right girl or the right boy in life, you move quick. So we use the speed as king method. So when we have a scorecard, which is like a qualification doc, when we meet a candidate, and if it's like green, green, green, we just move him to the next step. We bam fam them, say, Hey, you want to meet John tomorrow? That's it. We don't do anything difficult, we just do red, yellow, green. When you meet a great candidate, we say, This one's good. John, you meet them. If this one's yellow, I'm like, hey, John, pause. Can you review this one today? Or red, they're just out. And the reason we have this is because our process allows us to be quick because we have everything set up on the front end. It's like, hey, you're gonna ask these questions if they pass, because good answers look like this. Move them on. And the only reason we want to do this is that it isn't a stat that I've preached and others have preached for years, which is top talent is off the market and on average eight dates, meaning they don't even do interviews, they don't even do interviews, dude. They the best people I've ever hired, literally like, bro, this is my first interview ever. I just get referred places. I'm like, that makes sense. That means we're good. So where when you find a rock star, just like you don't like waiting to check into a hotel for two hours, like, no one likes waiting to correct, be courted in the interview process for six months. Like, if you meet someone good, the only reason people go slow is they compare candidates to candidates. If your North Star is the scorecard, then you just meet people that fit, pass them through, and then we slow down at the end. I do not slow down while we're in the ride of the town acquisition funnel, just like you never slow down in the middle of a sales funnel. At the end, we're like, is this person qualified and do we want to hire them? I'll debrief with everybody for real, real before I make an offer. But if they're good and they pass all the metrics, like let them go through the speed traps. Like I'm fine with it until the end.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:16

Just for people listening, well, when Frank mentioned the Bam fam, that means book a meeting from a meeting. So, like after you're done with the interview, just and if you can make judgment calls because you probably have a scorecard right next to you. I could be like, oh, meets the threshold. Let's book another interview from this interview so that it they already know what the next step is. They're not waiting for what the next step is.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:36

That saves on average 24 hours to the 48 hours of your hiring per step in your hiring file. Per step. Me as a recruiter, if I do the bam fam, I immediately book you tomorrow versus I go talk to you. I say I like you at the end of my day, I send you an email, you answer. Now we missed the emails, now it's three days out. That's the truth. I can get some I can shrink time from because of the the bam fam that JP alludes to.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:01

So thank you for what you're really talking about is the difference models and decision making. So, for example, uh the technical terms is I think satisficing versus maximizing. Where maximizing, you try to like see all of the alternatives that are possible before you make a decision, whereas satisfising is as long as you meet my criteria, I pick the first person that meets my threshold. And it is very important. Some of these decision-making models work in different contexts. Like if you're watching a Netflix movie, maximizing is a huge waste of time. You have to look at the entire library for Netflix before you pick something. Your food is already cold, right? So you're like, okay, I want to watch a comedy less than two hours with Adam Sandler in it. As soon as I find a movie, just watch it, right? Same thing with like recruiting. If you're waiting for the perfect candidate, your cycle will never end because there's always someone better out there. And so, like, you have to be like, okay, first let's do a process of elimination from the hundred people who apply. Let's eliminate people who are not just they don't meet the criteria, and then let's deploy a satisfacing model. Whereas like where sometimes maximizing does make sense. Like if you are evaluating three candidates, or if I'm going to a car dealership and I'm in between like three cars, like, yes, by all means, maximize your choices. But it is gonna get you into a limbo if you don't make a decision and you're always waiting for the next best thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:20

Yeah, well said. I would I I like the double clicking on like when you got a couple candidates, yeah, go deep and understand each one. And what we're saying, guys, what JP's saying is not that you don't get access to the best talent. We are hiring the best talent. I and JP in our lanes hire the best talent, and we use this method to give us clarity and get you speed and quality. What we're saying is that like there's gonna be five to 20 candidates that can be a perfect fit for your job. When we find one, we just want to hire them so that you can solve the problem you initially started with, which is you don't have time or talent. So I still have to say because sometimes people can hear, like, ah don't just take the first one. Trust, if they if you defined it well and you have clarity and you meet them, you always go for the you know, when dating, if you see the woman across the bar or the guy across the bar, like take your shot. So, like the whole point is um the scorecards help you if you didn't define them well and you have clarity, don't feel like, hey, I need to see another option. If you meet the one that meets what you want, make a decision.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:20

One of the last things I want to talk about, or the I guess the last question I want to talk about is something that I battle with back and forth on, and it's like gut feelings. And what role do they play within a recruiting process? Do they help or do they harm? What is your thoughts on like implementing gut feelings in your decisions? Okay. This is a dangerous answer.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:41

You should use it, but we have to like test and verify. So you want to be like a journalist, which is like say that was a weird conversation, and then that could be your headline. I'm fine with that. But I'm gonna look at you and be like, cool, why? What did you observe objectively that makes you say that? And then how can we use a poke and pull method? To get more details. I'm never going to bother. I will never just be like, I don't like they were weird out. I will use it as like if something feels weird. Let me use more questions to get an understanding so I can be a journalist and get to the bottom of it. And the truth of it is you have to use it because we are humans and we are calibrated with an internal tuning fork. The more reps you have with people, the more you can actually be correct and find the patterns. The reason you don't want to use it is that you don't know recruiting, you don't do interviews, you don't know people well, and then you're just quick judgment and guessing. That said, I believe that every single human on earth understands when someone is good and bad. And I think if you understand that someone is not a good fit for you or something not is a good fit for you, I would say lean in on the feeling and then just have data to back it up so that you get clarity and not confused. Because I we all have seen someone that looks like a fit. And I just like to use the poke and pull method. I and I don't judge books by cover.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:00

I love that because I I do think that your intuition can do calculations that your cognitive, you know, present brain cannot. And so I it's more of like a warning, and or something's off here. Let's dig into it. Because sometimes like it's warning you, but it's one of those things where it's a bias, or it's something that like our reptilian brain is showing up a little bit. Like, for example, sometimes like when you're about to do something dangerous, you feel this feeling of like, hey, stop and think about it. And sometimes that feeling can save your life. Whereas in other cases, you might feel like, oh, this is dangerous, but it's just you getting out of your comfort zone. So the feeling might be the same. So I'm like, oh, should I take this as a no, this is a good time to lean in, or this is a good time to retract and I shouldn't be in this place. So, like, I think it's good to use it as a marker, but then question it and try not to be biased, where like, oh, I want to find evidence just to make sure that my initial gut feeling is right, right? Just like look at it from an objective standpoint, but it is a good warning to to heed, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:02

And I'll say this someone more successful than you and I, who has built great teams, uh named Steve Jobs, says, intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion. End quote. He says that, not I, and I'll say this we all I agree. I think we all agree.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:23

So, Frank, this has been an amazing uh conversation. Thank you so much for for your time. Uh, I just want to like wrap up by you telling us like what's got you excited right now? What's going on in your life that you want people to know about?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:34

I appreciate that. Um, it's people, like my lane has been people since I was probably born. Uh so um I'm in the let's say lane of trying to develop my career in helping and coach people. And I had a big achievement back in the day, um, not too long ago, where like against World Record was a part of it. We made $105 million in a weekend. And with that team, uh, I learned that prepared people with process win. So my goal is just to champion that message and share it that if you want to win in life, as long as you're prepared with the right process, you have the right people around you, and you have a winning playbook, um, that is a good recipe to set yourself up for success. And the only things you can do is get more better people, more better prepared, or more better playbookslash process. So that's kind of the the mission I'm on, which is help get people what they want through the lane of talent. Right. So I shall say it differently, which is what I'm working on right now is scaling companies through scaling talent, and it's just putting process in place to get better people. So those people do the work to build your business.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:38

Yeah, and I'm maybe a little bit biased here, but I've actually seen Frank on stage and and with in a stage where I see or or all the expectators or participants were like really successful business owners, everybody taking notes, very insightful, and these are things that everybody struggles with. So if anybody out there just like is listening in, I highly, highly recommend uh reaching out to Frank and seeing what else you can learn from him. So, where can people find more about you? Where can people find you if they're uh listening and want to just connect with you?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:10

Yeah, uh the main place would be Frank Lafaro, probably on most platforms, but Instagram and then tankrecruiting.com, tank recruiting on every platform.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:18

Awesome. And also for those listening, Frank was kind enough to share a lot of the internal SOPs, a few of his playbooks. I'm gonna link all those things in the show notes, or you could just DM him and say uh higher to scale podcast, and then I'm sure that his team will send you some stuff. But um, Frank, again, thank you so much for your time, your energy, your effort in being here. I we really learned a lot from you and hope we could do this again sometime. Thank you. A lot of fun. I appreciate it. Awesome. All right, everyone. That is it for today's episode. I hope you really enjoyed my conversation with Frank. As I mentioned in the intro, he is very, very knowledgeable about scaling and growing organizations through people. And so I hope you were able to take some notes on his methodology, his approaches, best practices, because those are the things that actually work in this job market. As always, we're gonna be leaving his information uh in the description notes as well as some of the resources that he shared with our team in order to share with you. And I really strongly encourage you to follow Frank in his social media. He's very generous about the information that he shares with people. And I know that I always learn from the content that he's posting out. So uh thanks again for tuning in. We're gonna be continuing to do more episodes around recruiting uh as well as training, managing, and growing talent to help you guys build a team that's gonna help you scale your organization. So thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you in the next episode.