00:00 You are listening to this feeling of freedom podcast. I’m your host, Christina Bernhard. And in this episode, we are talking about how I hired my dream team. So my team is a huge component of our success and my sanity, as we grow, have grown that agency. And it’s been a huge part of what I’ve had to do to really bring my business to the level that I want, but also provide the level of service that I want for my clients. And hiring and managing a team and firing and all these different things is definitely, it’s a lot. And with a lot of my clients, I see this as a really big struggle of finding good people. It can be really, really stressful whenever you hire someone, or multiple people and they let you down, or things just aren’t working out, I mean really, really affects you and your business in really big ways. And this is a conversation that I have with my clients all the time, although I’m their ads manager, and we just do their Facebook ads, we often on our calls, talk about their business as a whole and what’s going on. And sometimes it’s just chatting. And sometimes it’s any way that I can help with referrals and things like that. And we also work with our clients teams. So I can see the turnover at times. And it’s definitely a big, big topic. And it’s something that affects I think every business owner at some point. So my background in hiring started in the corporate world, I built a marketing department. And so I did a decent amount of hiring. So I hired everyone in that department, we have had situations where we had to let people go, where things didn’t work out, and definitely had some interesting events happening during managing a team and trying to keep a team together and all these things. So I wanted to share my experience, from not just the corporate background, but also with my business because we do have a team team now that helps me with the agency side of things, as well as our marketing and all that. So I wanted to just share what my process is, and just how I view hiring people. I want to go over how I find people, and vetting them, training them and all of that. So that’s what we’re going to be chatting about today. So if you are in a position where you have a team or want to have a team, if you’re having high turnover, or things like that, um, hopefully you’ll find this episode to be helpful for you. So starting out with finding people. So this is a question I get a lot from my clients, like where should I find this kind of person, and that sort of thing. And some ways to find people as the first one, which I think a lot of people go to first is referrals. So asking your network, do you know anyone that would be really good for this kind of role, and so on and so forth. So referrals are really great for that, because you can have some sort of trust in that person, having someone else that has worked with them before can be really helpful, especially because of the turnover that I see with a lot of my clients, them hiring people that they end up not being able to trust and it just not working out. So referrals can sometimes help that not be as much of an issue or something that you have to worry about. The second thing is to blasted everywhere. So that’s something that we do is whenever we are hiring, we basically create a job posting, and we just put it everywhere. You can try indeed, or Facebook groups can be a great place for that. directories, definitely posted on your social channels. If you have a podcast, post it there, all of your content channels, where you can, we basically just blast it everywhere. And then that’s how we get applicants. And then the other thing is also I do some outreach, just on Instagram, most of the time, we’re looking for contractors. So we can they usually have some visibility on Instagram where I can just go and find people there through my network and get a feel for who they are, and do some outreach that way. So once you find people and you have some applications in hopefully you get a good response and you have a decent amount of applicants to go through, then we go into the vetting. So the things that I personally look for. So vetting is a really important part. And it’s difficult to because you don’t know the person and you’re really trying to go off of your gut feelings and your vibes and things like that. And I also found this really difficult in the corporate world as well, because we would have so many great applicants and you have to you know, after just meeting them a couple of times and going through their application, decide if you’re going to invest in them if you’re going to choose them. And you know whenever you do decide to hire a person, so much goes into it. I mean if you’ve hired a team You know this that, you know, there’s so much that goes into the training them and integrating them and really getting them grouped up for this role. And working with you and learning each other, there’s so much. And so to do that and realize you made the wrong choice,

05:14 or, you know, I guess right choice if you can, because it’s still a learning experience, but you made a choice that ended up not working out after investing all that time and money into it, it’s a lot of pressure to try and figure out if someone is going to be good for this role after just meeting them for a short time. And you know, the thing about meeting people is like an interview, some people are very charismatic, and people are really good at them. And some people just aren’t very good at that kind of pressured situation. So it can really like that first impression can be really off from the type of worker they’re actually going to be. So some things that I look for. So the first thing I look for his skill. So that’s something that’s really important in our agency, most of our roles require a lot of skill. Our roles are very specific to the play, they all play a very specific role in everything, we don’t have a lot of flexible roles of people who kind of need to know how to do a lot of things. Most of them at this point anyway, everyone is very like has a very specific role. And they need to be highly skilled in that specific thing. So skill is really, really important. Another thing that I look for is sharpness. And I don’t know if that’s the best word to describe it. But basically just people who are just mentally sharp, like you can just tell whenever someone is like really resourceful, and they just kind of get it and they’re just, I don’t know, they’re like, really smart, like they’re just really sharp, sharp is the best way that I can describe them. That is something that I look for all the time, I’m always looking for, like, is this person going to be sharp, because I need them to be, you know, independent and resourceful. And, you know, if I put, if I have an issue, or they come across an issue, are they going to be able to just take care of it? Or are they going to need a lot of guidance and hand holding. And so that’s going to be huge for me and how I work. I’m very far from a micromanager. So I know that that is something they absolutely have to have. Because I’m not going to be watching over their back every single day, by any means. So sharpness is something that we definitely look for. And then another thing I look for is just their energy, I make sure that we are definitely an energy match. Whenever you are working with someone, even if they have great skill, they’re super sharp, and all of that, if you’re not an energy match, it’s just not fun. Honestly, it’s not fun. And if you want to work with people who are just really enjoyable, I love my team. And a lot of times our meetings go longer, because we’re just chatting. And we just, that just seems to happen. And I love that. And I always want to keep that in my company. Because I think that building those relationships with my team, it’s really just enjoyable for everyone, and we just have a strong connection. And that’s really, really important to me. So if we don’t have an energy fed, it just all around won’t really encompass that kind of vibe that I love to have with my team. And then the last but not least, is their value. So we do have our company values, and they’re really, really important to me, they’re very integrated with my own personal values. And I, you know, make a promise that I will uphold those values, and anyone that I hire will also uphold those values. And that’s really, really important to me, I’ve had to make sure that I vet for these things, and that we talk about them upfront, so that there’s no you know, miscommunication, or there are no surprises later that we don’t actually uphold the same value. So that’s going to be something really important in the beginning. It’s also a pretty simple way to weed people out, because it’s a deal breaker. So if they don’t uphold the same values, then it’s just an easy, no. So you can just weed people out that way as well. So that is finding people and then vetting them and vetting them is super difficult. Because you do have to just kind of put all these things together and kind of go with your gut feeling there’s no specific way on like the best way to do it, because everyone has such different needs as a manager as a business owner, and as the the needs of the role. So it’s all going to look a little bit different.

09:35 So another way that I feel that we have is one of the reasons why we have such an amazing team is because we train well. So one thing that I’ve held my the standard that I’ve held myself to is that whenever we are hiring, I make sure that I am available, like you have to be available. I don’t really want to just throw someone in to have Roll and just kind of disappear and hope that they figure it out themselves. Not saying that there’s anything wrong with that, because people can be independent and resourceful. And sometimes that’s what you need, you just need someone to get in here and just take care of this. And I totally get that. But I try really hard to not be in that situation. And the way that I do that is I hire before I desperately needed. And that’s something that has worked out for us really, really well. I really like to hire ahead of time when I have the space to do that. So I can really pour into them and be there to support them. So this is different from, you know, having to handhold them or things like that, like I don’t want to deal with that. I want them, like I said earlier, to be super sharp, be really resourceful. That’s all really, really important. But I also want to make sure that they have all the resources and everything that they need to be the best at what they’re doing. So while I want them to be resourceful. But in the beginning, I’m also super here. So I’m going to be really available that way, we can make sure that they’re trained really well on the ways that I want things to be done. And that’s really important, especially because as I grow the team, you know, I started out my business, where it was just me. So as I’m growing the team, they’re all extensions of me in their own unique ways. And so I do want to make sure that we’re super clear on how things work and how I want things to be ran. And this really also goes alongside the values as well. And just the decisions that we make, even the micro decisions that we make, that are all aligned in what kind of service we want to provide our clients. So I want to make sure there are no miscommunications or anything like that. Because once they’re trained, and they’re, you know, out there doing it, they’re going to do it. However they’ve been trained. And that’s how it’s just going to always be done. So I want to make sure that everything is super, super clear. With that. Another thing that I like to do whenever I’m training them is that if they ask a question about something, I stop, and give a lot of time to give very thoughtful answers to their questions. So I explain why things are the way they are. That way they have an idea of you know why they need to do something a specific way. I like to paint the whole picture for them so that they can understand why they’re doing things this way and why it’s important. And that usually it just makes a gets the point across as to you know, why they need to do things that way, but it helps them realize that they do actually have to do it this way, because of like x y&z So I think that’s really important to not just answer their questions, but also just really give Thorough explanations of things and thorough answers to their questions. So I don’t just quickly answer them. Again, this kind of goes down to, or goes back to making sure that you have the space and the time and the capacity to train in this kind of way. Because if you need someone if you’re already in over your head, and you need someone who can just jump in and like take this stuff on, and you really don’t have the time, you’re not able to really do things like this, which is why I always recommend to hire much before you actually need it. And it does cut into profits. Because if you don’t have the client load, or you’re not in a place where you know, you desperately need it, your revenue might not be, you know, at a place where

13:28 you can just hire out all these people. But it has paid off, it does require that faith that you will eventually need this person on a desperate level. But it’s it’s really, really worth it. In my experience and my opinion. Another thing that we do with training is we have an overview training of our entire process so that they can see their role in it. Now this is different for every role, because there are you know, overviews of entire processes for different like, you know, departments or sections of the company. But for our Client Services, we have an overview of the entire client journey all the way through, like building out a campaign to sending them their reports to like, their calls, everything like there’s an entire journey that happens every single month. And it’s all very intentional and planned out. It has a lot, a lot of details. And there are a lot of people we have, you know, a copywriter, and it’s signer and count manager, ad manager. We have the, my OPM, I’m in a part of it too. Everyone’s kind of playing their own little role into the entire process. And so it’s really important that we have an overview training so everyone can see everyone else’s role as well. And it just makes it make sense why they’re doing what they’re doing and doing it the way that they have to do it. And so it’s just a way for everyone to kind of understand The entire process, understand their role in it and be able to really serve in the way that we all need to, to kind of come together with our own individual pieces to have this whole holistic process for the client so that they can have a great experience. So that’s something that’s been really, really helpful for us, we update that quite pretty often. And that’s been really, really helpful as well, we do it on a call. And then we record the call. And we have that training in our SOPs, so anyone can access it at any time. So the last part of hiring my dream team, that I have learned, and this is something that I will, like, be fully transparent. This is definitely my flaw. And when I think back of you, when I first first started hiring in the corporate world, when I think back then I’m like, this is always been my flaw. Like, this is something I’ve always kind of struggled with. But I’ve like the lesson has been the same every time. So I don’t know how many times I need to learn this lesson. But it is to fire fast. And I’ve heard people talk about this, like I know this, like, you know if someone is not a good fit, to just let them go right away and rehire. And that’s always been difficult for me, because I usually just find ways where I’m like, Well, no, this could work or whatever. And there are some scenarios that, you know, absolutely, they’re just, they don’t get it or you know, maybe your systems are flawed, even your training might be flawed, like, it’s not always just them in, there are ways that you can troubleshoot the issue. But so I’m not talking about that I’m not talking about where there are these little miscommunications or flaws in the system or, or whatever, where you can actually troubleshoot those things, fix it, and then it’s all good to go. I’m talking about when you just know, in your gut pretty early on, if someone’s going to be a good fit or not. And it could be for a variety of reasons, like maybe you are thinking it’s not really an energy fit. Or maybe you’re like, This person isn’t as, like, resourceful as I thought, or I don’t really like their like natural instinct like judgment. You know, just things like that. There’s so many reasons why your gut feeling might be telling you that someone’s not going to be a forever fit. And so that’s what I’m talking about. And it’s really hard to not give people a chance, or overlook some of those things, because some of them might be kind of minor. But it’s like a situation where it’s, you know, if I could have someone who was like them, but didn’t have this one thing, that’s kind of a big deal, I would totally take that other person to replace them. That kind of situation. While it’s hard not to give people a chance. Every single time I’ve had this feeling about someone from the beginning, it’s always ended up being like, the ultimate truth, and we’ve had to rehire them. For one reason or another, it just runs its course. And you realize you were right all along. So that is something that I’m always still learning and figuring out, I think I’ve gotten so much better at it. But I used to hang on to people and just think, you know, maybe you know, and some of it was also like, because it is a gut feeling. And like an energy thing. Sometimes

18:25 I wonder, you know, like, I could just be wrong about that. Let me just see how this goes. But literally every time I’ve had that gut feeling, it has been right over time and has shown me that that person ended up not actually being a fit, and we had to let them go and rehire them anyway. And it’s honestly probably just easier to just end it right away. Because usually the person that I replaced them with is someone so much better, where I’m like, Man, I wish I had this person or someone like this this whole time, you know, and you realize what you missed out on, by holding on to this other person that was not an actual, like, you know, perfect fit for the role for you or for the company, whatever. So that is something that I’m always learning. And it has rang true for me every single time. So firing fast is huge. But that is what I have for you today. So we went over finding people, vetting people, my thoughts on training and how we’ve done it and then also just the thought about firing fast and making sure that you know, whatever you do have that gut feeling it’s probably true and it’s better to just let them go and rehire so that you can have the right person in that role from then on forward. So that is how we have built our dream team and I’m really really happy with my team. I love them so much. We have I believe our newest hire is still been with us for almost a year so not I haven’t had to deal with a lot of turnover yet. But a year I know is very short still so, but everything has been working out. So so well, our systems are super perform really, really well there since they’ve been in place. And I just couldn’t be happier with the team that we put together. And I will say even in the corporate world, the department that we ended up building was full of such amazing people, very, very talented people, that we all got along really, really well and had a great company culture, in our culture, even just within our department. So really happy with those things. I definitely learned a lot of lessons and they were great lessons and I am continuously learning and will learn as my team gets bigger, and I have to become a different kind of leader but I just wanted to share what’s gotten me to this point and just my viewpoints on some of these topics. But I hope you found this helpful. And I will see you guys next week.