Ready to Hire?

Here’s a sneak peek into my upcoming book: How To Hire the Best: The Entrepreneur’s Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top Performing Team Members (Releasing September 15, 2020)

CASE STUDY: ANDREA WALKER, SMARTLY ORGANIZED

Understanding Your Real Needs

Andrea Walker, the owner and founder of Smartly Organized, LLC, learned how critical the interviewing process for entrepreneurs is during her participation in our How to Hire the Best Course, and soon used some new questions for her potential new A-Players. “I wanted to make sure the people I was hiring shared the Immutable Laws I created,” says Walker. “Then I was able to put a little structure around the actual hiring of titles.”

Before How to Hire the Best, Walker was just looking for “professional organizers,” without taking into account that thousands of such people proliferate the country today (thanks to Marie Kondo and the KonMari Method), with pretty Pinterest posts—and not necessarily the unique expertise Walker was seeking. “I didn’t differentiate between a junior, senior, and leader,” she explains of the distinct roles that would not only help her business succeed but also create a career path to attract A-Players. “It encouraged me to think through the responsibilities I’d outline.”

Create the Process

Walker says she now is able to build more around the interviewing process and determine what questions she should be asking to determine if potential hires would be too attached to their own organizing style, or would just sign on to collect a paycheck.

“Initially, I was focused on standard interview questions, as I have a corporate background and was used to the typical résumé review,” says Walker, “I have now turned to these types of questions to get to what I need them to bring to the job.


The Right Questions

During her interviews, she asks such questions as:

  • Tell me how your household runs?

  • What tricks and strategies have you discovered/applied to make it more efficient?

  • What is your favorite/least favorite household task and why?

  • Tell me about your favorite organizing products?

  • What projects have you done in your home that you are proud of?

  • How do you feel when things aren’t perfect?

  • How do you juggle activities and time?

  • Are you typically early, late, on time?

  • Tell me about your laundry process.
  • Explain your meal planning and getting dinner on the table. 
  • What's your comfort level with organizing and managing large volumes of belongings?

  • If at a client’s home (or even a friend or family members’ home) and you see a pile of belongings or a project of some sort – what is your reaction?

Says Walker, “I have to find out who they are at their core, in their homes and life.”

What’s an A Player for YOUR Business?

Beyond resourcefulness, you need to go a few steps further in defining what an A-Player  is for your business. You also need to consider how the candidate fits with your Immutable Laws or your non-negotiable standards. In addition, you need to consider the personality strengths needed to deliver the results of each role exceptionally well.

This requires some forethought before your next hire.

 
For tips on how to work through these problems and coach your team more effectively, please be sure to check out How To Hire the Best:The Entrepreneur’s Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top Performing Team Members, releasing September 15, 2020.

Dr. Sabrina Starling, The Business Psychologist™ and author of the How to Hire the Best series is the founder of Tap the Potential. At Tap the Potential, we work to free business owners from the constant demands of a growing business. We believe work supports life, not the other way around. Through our proprietary Better Business, Better Life™ coaching program, we transform cash-sucking businesses into highly profitable, Great Places to Work, then send business owners on a 4 Week Vacation™ to celebrate that accomplishment. After the first year in our program, our clients have more time for what matters most and more money in their bank account than ever before.

Never one to accept the status quo or back down from a challenge, Dr. Sabrina’s How to Hire the Best series grew from her desire to solve the toughest hiring challenges interfering with her clients’ growth and profitability. What sprang from her experience working with entrepreneurs in rural areas catapulted her into becoming the world’s leading expert in attracting top talent in small businesses — no matter what hiring challenges those businesses are facing — and earned Tap the Potential’s reputation as the go-to resource for entrepreneurs committed to creating Great Places to Work with thriving coaching cultures and highly engaged team members working from strengths. Her latest book, How to Hire the Best: The Contractor’s Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top Performing Employees, is an International Best Seller on Amazon! In this powerful book, Dr. Sabrina shares crucial hiring strategies to transform your small business AND improve your personal life. With her background in psychology, and years of driving profit in small business, Dr. Starling knows what it takes to find, keep and get exceptional performance out of your biggest investment — your team members.
Dr. Sabrina is working on her next books: How to Hire the Best: The Entrepreneur’s Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top Performing Team Members (available Sept 15) and The 4 Week Vacation: Work Supports Life, Not the Other Way Around (available Dec 1; featuring many of our Trailblazing 4 Week Vacation™ Retreat Participants!)

About The Author

Dr. Sabrina Starling, The Business Psychologist and international best-selling author of the How to Hire the Best series and The 4 Week Vacation™, is the founder of Tap the Potential and host of the Profit by Design podcast. At Tap the Potential, we work to free business owners from the constant demands of a growing business.

We believe work supports life, not the other way around. Clients in our Better Business, Better Life coaching program have more time for what matters most and more money in their bank account than they’ve ever had. Next, we send them off on a 4 Week Vacation™ to celebrate their hard-earned journey to take their life back!

Dr. Sabrina and her team at Tap the Potential are on a mission to change the story of entrepreneurship from one of long hours, grinding it out, to one of sustainably profitable businesses that support and enhance life. The Tap the Potential Solution™ and our Tap the Potential Family of Business Owners are disrupting small business as usual. We are on our way to making the Tap the Potential Solution™ the mainstream model for growing business.

By 2023, 150 Tap the Potential clients will have taken 4 Week Vacations. These are the trailblazers, role modeling what’s possible for entrepreneurs. In many entrepreneurial circles, it is becoming more and more common for one entrepreneur to ask another, “Have you taken a 4 Week Vacation™?” (as opposed to asking “How many employees do you have?” or “What is your annual revenue?”). Taking a fully unplugged 4 Week Vacation is rapidly becoming the recognized symbol of entrepreneurial success.

Never one to accept the status quo or back down from a challenge, Dr. Sabrina’s How to Hire the Best series grew from her desire to solve the toughest hiring challenges interfering with her clients’ growth and profitability. What sprang from her experience working with entrepreneurs in rural areas catapulted her into becoming the world’s leading expert in attracting top talent in small businesses—no matter what hiring challenges those businesses are facing—and earned Tap the Potential’s reputation as the go-to resource for entrepreneurs committed to creating Great Places to Work with thriving coaching cultures and highly engaged team members working from strengths.

As The Business Psychologist, and with her years of driving profit in small businesses, Dr. Sabrina knows what it takes to find, keep, and motivate exceptional performance out of your biggest investment—team members.