Mike Bruno, my co-host on The Profit By Design Podcast, and owner of Stone Creek Builders focuses on not just finding qualified team members but exceptional ones. Mike formed Stone Creek Builders in 2004, having managed home improvement projects around his neighborhood since 1992. After growing his business to nearly thirty team members, he was forced to cut back significantly when the economy turned south. Now Mike uses the metaphor of “runny eggs” to explain why it is not a good idea to spend time and money on team members who are marginal to poor.
My next book in the How to Hire the Best series is about to launch! This time, I'm focused solely on the construction industry. How to Hire the Best: The Contractor's Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top Performing Employees will be available for presale soon! Stay Tuned. In the meantime, I'm sure many of you, despite your industry, can relate to Mike.
The Cost of Runny Eggs
“After learning these Hire the Best™ strategies for the first time in my career, I’m looking to fill those positions only if the person is right. In the past, it’s always been, ‘We need this person. Who cares? We have to get them on the job because that’s what we need to do.’ If you have twenty guys running around like maniacs, and you hire another, even if he’s an A-Player, you mix him with a bunch of C-or B-Players, the whole thing’s a mess.The reality is, if you go out for breakfast with your family, and all the eggs come out runny, and everything’s a disaster, you’re not going to go back the next time.Yet, how many employers continue to write a paycheck every single week to a team member who is not performing to the standards? They’re getting runny eggs every single day, and they’re doing that because they feel like they can’t eliminate that person and they need the body there.That’s also a very difficult thing to do, because traditionally, I was always a very emotional business owner in terms of, ‘I hired this person. I feel bad. I don’t want to let them go,’ that kind of thing.I’ve contracted the size of the business, and I’m willing for it to take the time that it takes. The way that I look at it at this point is that paying team members is no different than any other experience that I’m paying for.”
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