When you’re building a Legacy Business, you have to hire the right team. Unlike your peers in a Profit Business, your hiring goal is to quickly find people who are even more amazing than you. In seeking to create a sellable business, you must ensure your business can thrive without needing you to assume critical roles.
So how do you find those amazing people?
Last month in Building Your Business, we talked about assessing your current business roles, picking one position to outsource and preparing to hire by understanding the responsibilities of the role. Now we’re ready to get into the details of how exactly you find and hire that perfect person for your legacy business.
Be Crystal Clear About The Role
With a Legacy Business, you’re not just hiring a temp who’s punching the clock. You’re looking to find someone who will blow you out of the water. Someone who’s motivated to go above and beyond, to innovate and to do a better job than anyone you currently have on your team.
So Step 1 is creating a role description that excites that exact person and deters everyone else.
If you’ve gone through the process of taking on the job responsibilities yourself for some time, you should have a very clear idea of the skills involved, the challenges, the success metrics and the personality traits required. If someone else on your team has been filling this position, involve that person heavily in the creation of a role descriptions.
You’ll of course want to specify the basics–job title, location, number of hours needed, education requirements and other details. But then you want to get very specific:
- What’s an accurate summary of what this role currently entails and may entail in the near future?
- What are the responsibilities and duties of the position?
- Does the person need to have a car? Be able to travel? Be available at odd hours?
- What does success in this role look like, and how is it measured?
- How would you describe the perfect person for this role?
In addition to the polished version advertise to the world, create an expanded, internal version of your job requirements. Include details like
- An ultra-specific list of duties;
- Must-have personality traits and soft skills and
- Desired salary range.
Go Where Your People Are
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Now that you know exactly what type of person you want, where do you find him or her?
If the right person may well be someone in your network, start there!
- Set up a social media campaign to announce the position, summarize the job description and link to the application page.
- Reach out to your email subscribers by including the posting in your regular newsletter, sending out a dedicated email or crafting an email sequence that will announce the role, answer questions and describe the hiring process.
- Tap your members if you orchestrate a mastermind group, have a team of coaches or run a membership group. These incredible people may be just the right fit or be willing to check with their own contacts.
If you need to look beyond your current circles, a little Googling will usually turn up great places to find your future team member:
- Want to get your ad in front of a mass of people? Google popular, industry-specific job boards.
- Need a Virtual Assistant? Look up “best VA companies” or search for specific skills like “Pinterest VA.”
- Looking for a great writer to hire on a contract basis? Google “[YOUR NICHE] blog” to find top online publications in your industry, see which freelance writers are currently contributing amazing content and contact that person directly through social media or the writer’s website.
Implement A Rigorous Screening Process
When you’re building a team for your Legacy Business, it’s essential that you give yourself every opportunity to double-check your candidates’ qualifications and be able to spot traits you definitely don’t want.
Create a step-by-step hiring process for any new person you bring in. For instance, consider including a combination of
- A detailed application form;
- Video applications;
- Phone or Skype interviews;
- A personality assessment (like a DiSC profile);
- In-person group interviews with your team;
- In-person one-on-one interviews;
- Background checks; and
- Reference checks.
Unless you desperately need someone right now, don’t aim simply to hire the best of the available candidates but rather the right candidate. (If you don’t find that person in your search, start the process anew!)
Institute a short-term probationary or trial period for a new hire. Get your new hire onboarded, complete role-specific training and hold a 90-day review meeting. By creating that checkpoint, you’ll give yourself a natural assessment date for highlighting exceptional work, offering advice on areas to improve, extending a trial period if needed or letting your employee go and beginning the hiring process again.
Community Questions: What’s your best tip for finding the right person to fill a role in your legacy business? Tell us in the Business Owners Only Community!
image credit: Bigstock/monkeybusinessimages
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Makaylah Rogers is the co-founder of MindShift.money. She is a Thought Leader for her generation, teaching people how to rewrite their “money rules.” With an extensive background in wealth building and personal development, Makaylah’s path has taken her into executive roles in various fields including launching startups, real estate sales and motivational keynote speaking.