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chapter four: FILLING YOUR EMPTY SEATS

FIND THE BEST OR DIE WITH THE REST (YOUR CHOICE).

If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants. -David Ogilvy, CEO, Ogilvy & Mather

Shortly after publishing The Compound Effect, things started to get a little crazy. Not only was I on an endless media whistle-stop tour promoting the new book and its message, I was also managing all of the responsibilities of my role as Publisher of SUCCESS magazine. I was keynoting conferences all over the world, being interviewed constantly, and burning through six tubes of travel-sized toothpaste a month.

And although in this whirlwind called my life, I still never forgot an anniversary or birthday; I was just a few calendar alerts away from an implosion. There was no question—I needed to hire someone.

So I did what any desperately-seeking-employee freak does: I posted an ad on Craigslist.

“Rock Star Executive Assistant Wanted: Looking for something fun, flexible, fast-paced, working on projects that make a significant positive difference in people’s lives? If so, you have found your dream opportunity!” Within a few hours of clicking “Post,” I received hundreds of responses. Some were strange (“Is there a graveyard shift available?”) and some completely crazy (“I have no experience in office managing, but I can crochet coffee cup sleeves for you.”). But amidst the madness, one person did stand out—Amanda. Her email was witty, and without even looking at her resume, I had a good feeling about her. I invited her to interview for the position that same day and was not disappointed.

From the moment she sat down, I knew I liked her. She was fun and funny. She was a long-time SUCCESS magazine subscriber, and she had read The Compound Effect four times. She even brought her highlighted, underlined, and dog-eared copy to show me. She read the same blogs I did, was familiar with the authors we feature in SUCCESS, and she said Jim Rohn reminded her of her grandfather (me, too!). As she held out her Living Your Best Year Ever book for me to sign, I couldn’t help but fall in professional-love with Amanda.

Moments later, I signed her book: You’re hired! She read it and her eyes watered up. I said: “Starting tomorrow!” We hugged. Not professional, I know, but it was that right.

I went home that night relieved that finding the perfect person had been so easy and the process was over. I could just delete the other several hundred responses that continued to pour in.

The next morning Amanda showed up at my office and got to work.

Well, she kind of got to work.

There was a lot of handholding in those first few days. A lot of walking Amanda through basic procedures—and then walking her through them again an hour later. And then again. And one more time… before lunch.

I didn’t concern myself with it too much at first. I mean, there is a learning curve with all new jobs, right? She was clearly the perfect person to have on my team—we were so aligned in our beliefs and interests, how could it not work?

As the weeks went on, I continued to give Amanda latitude because I liked her so much—or rather, I liked how much she liked me and what I was trying to accomplish. However, as employing Amanda became more work than not employing Amanda, I became suspicious that something wasn’t right.

During a dinner party I mentioned my conundrum to my sister-inlaw Laura. Laura was the high-level assistant to a C-level executive of a major pharmaceutical company. I told her how perfect Amanda was for the job and inquired how long it typically takes to get up to speed with the kind of work I was asking her to do. Laura was kind enough to offer to meet with Amanda to give her some pointers and perhaps provide me with more insight into the situation.

After her lunch with Laura, Amanda returned to the office, gushing as usual: “Laura was so sweet! Laura was so smart! Laura was such an inspiration!” It was music to my ears. Great news! I thought. It looked like Amanda was as perfect for the job as I had thought.

That evening I got a call from my beloved sister-in-law.

“What were you thinking?” she said when I picked up the phone.

“Huh?” was all I could say. I was shocked! I managed to stammer that Amanda said the meeting went great.

“Darren. Did you even look at her resume?”

My silence was clearly answer enough, and she kept right on going. “You told me that you needed someone proficient in Photoshop and who was tech-savvy enough to manage the back end of WordPress. You told me you needed someone who understood the ecology of social media and who could, at the very least, use Google Docs. Darren, Amanda doesn’t even know what a Google Doc is, and she’s been working for you for a month!” I was still speechless.

Exasperated, she continued: “I really don’t know what made you think she would be a good fit—she has none of the skills you need. Not. One.” Immediately, I understood where Laura’s confusion was coming from—she couldn’t see the little love triangle between Amanda, my ego, and me. All Laura saw was an unqualified candidate, and that was clearly something my starry-eyed “she believes in what I’m doing” vision couldn’t discern.

Truly wanting to help (and seeing that I needed it), Laura offered to do the next round of hiring. She reviewed the applicants as they came in, chose her favorite three, and after interviewing them together, highly recommended one: Maggie.

“Maggie?” I couldn’t believe she chose Maggie. I mean Maggie was fine. There was nothing wrong with Maggie. She seemed competent, responsible, capable, but she didn’t light my hair on fire. She wasn’t a subscriber to SUCCESS magazine and didn’t seem to even recognize the name John C. Maxwell.

Truthfully, I was a little underwhelmed. I was expecting fireworks, like with Amanda. Employee-love at first sight sparks. There were none. Nevertheless, I decided to follow my sister-in-law’s strong suggestion (partly because I trusted her and partly because I knew Georgia would kill me if Laura went through all of that trouble just to have me ignore her advice in the end).

I hired Maggie.

And let me tell you.

I love Maggie!

She is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!

Maggie is a freaking Rock Star at what she does. Maggie has been working for me for years now, and every time we take on a new project or expand in a new direction, Maggie is right there keeping everything running smoothly. Now, I can’t imagine my life without Maggie. Far better than simply gushing about the dream, Maggie has the skills to truly impact making the dreams come true.

One of the fastest (and most common) ways to derail your roller coaster car and send it to a fiery death is to hire and keep the wrong people. Conversely, the only way to dominate your industry, accomplish your grand mission and “dent the universe,” as Steve Jobs said, is to learn how to recruit, keep, and draw the best out of top talent. In this chapter, you will learn to do just that.

“Entrepreneurs are hopeless romantics. Which makes us terrible hiring managers. Get help!” @DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S DILEMMA

No matter who you are, or how big your company is (or isn’t), there is nothing easy about finding the perfect people to join you on this ride. And unfortunately for us entrepreneurs, it’s even harder. We are notoriously terrible at hiring people. Truly awful.

Why? Because we are hopeless romantics. If someone shows just a little love for our idea, our hearts start beating faster and stars glitter in our eyes. If someone shows belief in our grand plan, we want to believe in them. We are major suckers for someone, anyone, who shows enthusiasm for our cause or compliments us on our shoes.

Entrepreneurs see the potential in everything and everyone, and we are happy to hire on hope alone. And while this unique optimism is one of our greatest strengths, when it comes to hiring, we’re more vulnerable than poor Achilles with his bum heel.

An entrepreneur cannot hire on hope alone.

When it comes to recruiting and hiring people to occupy a seat on your roller coaster, you can’t hire enthusiasm. You need to hire evidence. You do not have the time or the resources to train or develop anyone’s skill or attitude. Trust me, you’ve got too many other things going on! You simply need to go recruit people who already have, by evidence, what you need and then place them into your organization.

This means being extremely rational and pragmatic (two words that probably don’t appear in the entrepreneurial version of Webster’s). You will need to set up a recruiting and hiring process to protect yourself from yourself, and stay committed to it no matter who tells you they “really think you’re on to something.” Write this on a sticky and put it on your computer screen:

Hire evidence, not hope.

Now keep reading. The rest of this chapter will teach you how.

THE COSTLIEST MISTAKES YOU CAN MAKE

If your business has employees already, then you’ll be more than familiar with the following stat. If you don’t yet have a payroll, brace yourself: The average business has about 65 to 80 percent of its operating costs consumed by salaries and wages.

That’s an awful big slice of the overhead pie. Huge.

However, as bold (read: frightening) as that statistic is, the true depth of payroll expense cannot be measured in “hours-in/dollars-out” terms. That would be misleading and far too simple. There is a secret, unspoken dark side to company payrolls that many don’t understand or even know exists until it’s too late and their company folds because of it.

What is this crippling overhead expense? It’s the unofficial price tag that comes with poor hiring choices—and poor includes the good, the bad, and the ugly employees. Here is the truth about each of them: The Good: You want good people on your team, right? Wrong! A typical “good” employee only works at about half capacity. By the time you factor in water cooler chitchat, Internet, email, personal business, and a thousand other daily distractions, half capacity might even be optimistic. The average “good” employee simply isn’t all that productive.

The Bad: Merely one step below the “good” employees, things get much worse. Unwilling, disengaged employees destroy morale, make costly mistakes, alienate customers, and have all the productivity of road kill. These employees will cost you much more in intangible damages than the hourly wage you already pay them.

The Ugly: When I say “ugly,” I’m not talking about poor fashion or bad dental work. I’m talking about the actual financial costs of hiring the wrong person. If you add up the cost of recruiting, paying, training, maintaining, and severing a poorly performing employee, along with his or her mistakes, missed opportunities, and failures, the average cost of a bad hire is about 6 to 15 times the person’s annual salary.

“By keeping bad employees you are cutting them a check to make you broke and miserable.” @DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

Bottom line: Good employees are barely productive, and bad employees… well, you’re just cutting them a check for making you broke and miserable. This is no exaggeration! Do the math—at the very least, even for an entry level, minimum wage job, you’re going to pay six figures as a penalty for a bad hire. And for positions higher up the food chain? Scary. Here’s the frightening reality: When you hire the wrong person, you’re not only paying them, you’re paying them to light piles of your money on fire, spread a cancer throughout your building, and run your roller coaster right off the tracks and into the ground.

Do I have your attention? Will you make time and give focus to recruiting and hiring the right people? I hope so. This is a lesson that took me a while to learn, and it cost me dearly. But I learned it.

I still hate the process. It’s my least favorite thing to do. But I give it serious time, attention, and focus because it’s the most significant determinant in whether we will accomplish our mission or not. Whether we will win or not. Whether humanity is advanced and the universe feels our dent or not.

When it comes to filling your roller coaster ride with people, good isn’t good enough. Your only option is to hire great people or you’re going to get vomited on during the very first hairpin turn. Blech.

A-PLAYERS ONLY

Let’s talk for a moment about this mysterious creature called the “great employee.”

This legendary unicorn wandering among endless fields of regular old pony-employees is reputed to have mysterious powers. Just one great hire, one “A-player” unicorn, the legend says, can replace three good ones (and an infinite number of lousy ones).

Guess what? The legend is true. Great employees truly are incredible, and they make your life easier and your business better in every way.

Think of when you felt most excited and in control of your business. When you couldn’t wait to get to work. Those are the high points of the entrepreneur roller coaster, when the cart is at the top of the summit and for a moment it pauses so you can take in the view laid out before you like a great tapestry. It’s awe-inspiring. It’s what we live for. It’s the pinnacle feeling as an entrepreneur.

Wouldn’t you like to spend time there every day?

Great employees can deliver that. They can set you free. Free from that crushing administrative paperwork. Free from the things you aren’t good at. Free from the things you hate. Free from the daily “emergencies” and decisions that shouldn’t consume your days, but always seem to.

Great people are what pull you out of the screaming dives and blind corners and crushing gravity of the entrepreneur roller coaster. No technology, productivity strategy, or Big Kahuna partner can consistently deliver what a great employee can.

No, “A-players” aren’t mythical unicorns. They really do exist. And they’re not just better than the good “B-players” and lousy “C-players.” They’re the opposite of them.

Here’s why:

1. A-PLAYERS ARE A-PLAYER MAGNETS

A-players want to work with other A-players! This is why organizations like Apple, Google, Virgin, and the like continue to attract A-players. A-players want to work where other A-players work. It’s a self-perpetuating attraction mechanism but only if you monitor and protect it closely.

“’A’ players hire ‘A’ players, and ‘B’ players hire ‘C’ players. We only want ‘A’ players here.” —Steve Jobs JoinTheRide

As Steve Jobs said, “A-players hire A-players, and B-players hire C- players. We only want A-players here.” Otherwise, you get what he called “the Bozo explosion.” A-players won’t work for a B-player, and B-players don’t want to hire an A-player out of protection for their jobs—they pick C’s to make themselves look better. As soon as you hire a B-player, the Bozo factor starts to skyrocket. Before you know it, you’re running a circus of jealousy, backbiting, and drama.

Your people are your most important recruiting tool. Get an A-Player on board, then have them call all their A-Player friends. Promote your A-Player to the world of other A-Players looking to join an A-Team. A-Players are like a vaccine for the mediocrity virus, and the more A-Players you have, the more A-Players you’ll find.

1. A-PLAYERS WIN

Remember my real estate agent John Lennon? Like many business owners, he was competing in an industry where the products are essentially the same. But he was miles ahead of the competition. I see the same thing everywhere: Even when everyone’s selling identical products, there are winners and losers. There’s always a market leader, and there’s always someone teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. It all comes down to the quality of your people.

As Sir Richard Branson said,

“… a company consists of one thing, really. If I buy a plane from Boeing, it’ll be exactly the same plane that BA [British Airways] will buy, which will be exactly the same plane that United [Airlines] will buy, exactly the same plane that Air Canada will buy. So, what is a company? A company is the people that are working inside that plane, the people that are working on the ground. They’re the people that make up a company. They either make this company exceptional or average…” Businesses are not profit and loss statements or balance sheets. They’re not systems and processes, tactics and strategies, tasks and deliverables. Businesses are people. Give ten companies the same products, and there will always be a number one and a number ten. Because it’s not about the products. It’s about the people behind them.

As the legendary former CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch, recently said to me in an interview, “The one thing that hasn’t changed is the team that fields the best players wins.” “The one thing that hasn’t changed is the team that fields the best players wins.”

@Jack_Welch JoinTheRide

1. A-PLAYERS ARE FREE

You might be thinking you can’t afford to hire A-Players. Who can afford that kind of talent, right?

I’ve got good news: they’re free! That’s right, F-R-E-E. Because A-Players pay for themselves.

Would you pay someone $250,000 a year in salary and bonuses? You would if they brought in an added $5 million to your business. You’d be underpaying them in fact. Would you pay someone $3 million in annual income? With great pleasure and enthusiasm, if they helped you grow another $100 million in revenue. Those are the kind of results the right A-Players can deliver. You just need to ensure you provide them the right opportunities with the right focus and offer the right support.

A CEO from one of my private mentorship forums finally came to this realization:

“The idea that ‘great people are free’ has changed my business. In the past I was very reluctant to hire people with salaries above $125,000. After this advice, I hired a very talented (and expensive) President for my company. As a result, revenue increased three times in two years (from $60M in revenue to $180M) and more importantly my stress level is 50 percent of what it was because I share that with him. Not to mention that the company could now run without me if needed.” If your business has something worthwhile to offer the marketplace, you can always afford to hire A-Players—they’re free. But B- and C-Players? They’re very costly, in so many ways. Not only can you afford A-Players, you can’t afford not to hire them.

Whenever I ask top business leaders what they attribute the success of their businesses to, invariably they say it’s the great team of people they have surrounded themselves with. This is not some self-effacing answer. Great leaders know that businesses are nothing but a group of people brought together to accomplish a mission. The better the people, the better chance you have of accomplishing the mission. No CEO climbs to the top of the mountain alone—it requires a great team. Many of these extraordinary achievers will readily confess that most of their team is smarter, more talented, and more skilled than they are. In fact they will tell you that is always their objective in hiring.

Think about it. You’re sitting in the very first car of this roller coaster with a whole train of people—your team—sitting in cars behind you as your ride slowly clicks upward. Then, at the very top of that first summit, there is that subtle pause before the whole thing plummets downward at heart-stopping speeds.

You know it’s coming. You know things are about to get crazy.

In that moment, would you rather: Look back at your team and see them huddled up, closing their eyes and cowering in fear?

Or…

Look back at your team and see their arms in the air, screams of excitement on their faces, ready to take on this wild ride and enjoy it?

I know which one I would choose.

BUILDING A HIGH-PERFORMANCE CULTURE

We hear a lot about building a great company culture. Let me shortcut this for you: You cannot shape or create the culture. The culture of an organization is not a whiteboard exercise done with executives sitting around a conference table spit-balling ideas. The culture of an organization evolves around the people who make up the company.

The culture is the personality and character expression of the people in it. The only way to shape that culture is to focus on hiring people with the attributes you want your culture to have.

Do you want a culture of positive expectation where everyone has a can-do attitude? You need to hire positive, can-do people and remove the people who don’t have those qualities. Do you want your culture to be fast-paced, with high energy and have a great sense of urgency? You’ll need to hire people who thrive in a fast-paced, high-energy environment with demanding deadlines.

“To have a high-performance culture, you need to hire and maintain high-performing people.” @DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

To have a high-performance culture, you need to hire and maintain high-performing people. Fill the seats of your roller coaster with people who possess the attributes you want for your culture. It’s as simple as that.

Don’t settle. It will corrupt your culture and drain the fun—and profit—from your ride.

RECRUITING: YOUR KEY SKILL

If you’re saying to yourself, “But I don’t like to recruit” or, “I’ll just hire someone to do the recruiting,” let me stop that thought right now.

When your company expands beyond just you—and it will need to if it hasn’t already—the choices you make in the recruiting process are, in effect, determining your future. Just one person can make the difference. Do it right, and one great hire can set you free. Rush it, do it on the cheap, get lazy, become fearful, ignore warning signs, or have someone else do it for you, and you’re going to ride this coaster right off the rails to certain disaster. Sure you can have someone lead the process (like Laura did for me), but you still need to be the final interview, the final stamp of approval or the final veto.

Put it this way: The quality of your life and your ability to fulfill your mission comes down to the process you will develop and the choices you will make about who you do and don’t allow aboard your roller coaster. I’m not kidding—these are life or death choices for your entrepreneurial dreams. Learn masterfully and choose carefully.

“The single most important thing you need to do is pick the right people and keep them. There is NOTHING more important than this.” —Jim Collins JoinTheRide

As Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, said, “The single most important thing you need to do is pick the right people and keep them. There is NOTHING more important than this.” Want to double your business? It starts with hiring right.

Want to reduce your stress? It starts with hiring right.

Want to dominate your market?

Yep. It starts with hiring right.

Selection, my fellow coaster-rider, is 95 percent of success.

The best news is that this is completely within your control. This is your company and your dream. You get to decide. And as you’ll see, you don’t need to have a big brand, deep pockets, or a volleyball court in your lobby to attract great people. What you do need is a simple set of principles to keep this roller coaster on the rails as you start to add people to the ride.

BE A MASTER RECRUITER: THREE PRINCIPLES

PRINCIPLE 1: KNOW WHAT YOU WANT

It’s one thing to preach the importance of people. But it’s another thing entirely to know what that means.

What does the “right” person for your business look like? What distinguishes great from plain old “good”? How do you tell the A’s from the B’s and C’s?

An A-player in your business will meet these three criteria:

1. THEY ARE BETTER THAN YOU.

Georgia and I were in Barcelona, Spain, and spent the afternoon with an extremely successful CEO and his wife. The more time I spent with him, though, the more I couldn’t believe he was CEO of anything, never mind a multibillion-dollar telecom. He was a bit scatterbrained, chewed with his mouth open, and laughed too loudly and too long at his not-so-appropriate (or funny) jokes. I just couldn’t understand it.

Finally, I managed to tactfully ask him (removing as much skepticism as possible from my tone) how he’d managed to become so successful.

“Your goal is to be the dumbest one in the room. Hire people BETTER than you.”

@DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

His answer? “My goal is to always be the dumbest one in the room.”

What? The dumbest one? Isn’t the CEO supposed to be the smartest?

As he explained to me, it wasn’t his intelligence, sophistication, charisma, or motivational abilities that made him so successful. (Trust me, it wasn’t.) It was simply the discipline of always having the smartest and best people in every chair around his leadership table.

“If I am in a meeting with my leadership team and we are discussing a marketing opportunity,” he said, “if I have a better idea than my Marketing Director, we are in trouble. If I solve a problem my CFO has been stumped with for a week, we are doomed. If I have an operational efficiency solution my COO hasn’t thought of, it’s the beginning of the end. I always hire the best possible people for every chair at my table. Then they deliver the great performance.” His sole job was to get them to the table so they could deliver.

And it’s your job, too.

1. THEY HAVE THE CHARACTER.

Several years ago I had the opportunity to have lunch with the Chairman of Marriott International.

Marriott has a reputation for amazing customer service. Stories abound of Marriott employees going above and beyond the call of duty to deliver extraordinary levels of customer care. I had stayed the night before at one of the Marriott properties, and the approach was evident everywhere. Every Marriott person I encountered, from the front desk manager and the concierge to the room-service delivery person seemed so personable. Not the over-the-top, cheesy, butt-kissing, the-customer-is-always-right kind of “nice,” but genuinely friendly.

After so many positive interactions, the first words out of my mouth when I shook the Chairman’s hand the next morning were, “It’s incredible. You have to tell me what you do to train your people to be so friendly.” “You don’t train your people to be successful. You hire successful people.”

@DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

He seemed puzzled then replied matter-of-factly. “We don’t train our people to be friendly,” he said, “We just hire friendly people.” We just hire friendly people. Five words. Those five words woke me up to one of the greatest recruiting keys I’ve ever discovered. So many businesses struggle with even the basics of good service, and on the surface it looks like a training problem. But in truth, that assumption couldn’t be more wrong; you can’t train people to be friendly. They either are or they aren’t.

You can’t train for character. You can’t teach people to be disciplined, hardworking, consistent, loyal, positive, friendly, or whatever trait is most important to you. You can only commit to hiring people who already have those attributes. As Roy Williams, the Basketball Hall of Fame head coach of University of North Carolina, once said, “I recruit character as much as I recruit ability.” Want a “suggested attribute list”? Here’s what Warren Buffett looks for: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And he warns that if they don’t have that first quality, the others will work against you—that if you hire an intelligent, energetic person who lacks integrity, it’ll kill you and your business. “If you do hire someone without the first [integrity], hope they are dumb and lazy,” quips Buffett.

What attributes do you want? Do you want someone passionate? Persistent? Bold? Reliable, consistent, hardworking?

What do you want?

Sit down. Make a list. And start looking.

If you don’t know what you want, you can’t find it!

1. THEY ARE IN LOVE.

Steve Jobs said, “When I hire somebody really senior, competence is the ante. They have to be really smart. But the real issue for me is, Are they going to fall in love with Apple? Because if they fall in love with Apple, everything else will take care of itself. They’ll want to do what’s best for Apple, not what’s best for them, what’s best for Steve, or anybody else.” My mistake with Amanda was not setting competency as the first gate to pass through. But once you cross that bridge, it’s time to look beyond the resume.

When you’re sitting across the interview table with someone, don’t just look at their resume; look into their eyes. Look deep into their heart. Ask yourself, Is this the kind of person who could fall in love with what we do here? Do they have the personality, attitude, passion, and heart for the work we do?

If the answer is yes, then ask yourself, Would they thrive in our company’s culture? Would our work environment feel like their natural habitat? A great person in the wrong environment is still the wrong person.

One of the most admired company cultures in the country is run by our 2013 SUCCESS Achiever of the Year, Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos. If you take a tour of their offices (offered daily), you will see one of the zaniest, wildest and, well, weirdest office environments you’ve ever experienced. If I were being considered for a job there, while I believe I am quite talented and capable, that environment wouldn’t work for me. It’s just not “me.” I’m not of that personality. I’d fail in that cultural environment. I’d be the right person in the wrong environment (for me), and the wrong person for Zappos to hire.

“The right person in the wrong culture (for them) is the wrong person.”

@DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

You have to evaluate people with a yardstick that goes beyond their resume and looks to their heart, character, and personality type. They need to be the kind of person who can fall in love with your culture, your people, your products, and your mission.

If they can, then as Jobs promised, “Everything else will take care of itself.”

PRINCIPLE 2: KNOW WHAT THEY WANT

If you’ve read this far and a voice in your head keeps repeating over and over again, “I still don’t think I can afford A-players,” then what I’m about to say next is for you. Are you ready? Pay close attention—this is important: People don’t want what you think they want.

Really. They don’t. If you’re worried about “affording A-Players” as far as the payroll is concerned, you’ve got this thing all wrong. Here’s what you’re missing: In the same way entrepreneurs like you are reinventing what it means to be in business, employees are looking at work and careers in a whole new way, too.

This is really exciting stuff. You’ll never look at recruiting the same way. Here, according to Brad Smart’s Top Grading book, are the five things employees are looking for in the workplace.

1. PEOPLE.

As we’ve already discussed, great people join the Googles and Apples of the world in droves not because of the dental coverage, but because that’s where all the other great people are. Great people want to work with great people. It’s self-perpetuating. It’s the number one thing people are looking for.

1. CHALLENGE.

Great people want to be a part of something great. They want work that excites and fulfills them. They want work with intrinsic value, not just work for the sake of work. Actor-turned-producer Hugh Jackman graced our SUCCESS cover in August 2013 and put it this way: “Quality talent is attracted to the extraordinary challenge that’s presented. Don’t just dangle the prospect of a good job; tempt them with the prospect of quality work. There’s a difference, and it will dictate the talent you attract.” Each night, great people want to climb into bed feeling exhausted yet satisfied by the great work they did that day.

1. OPPORTUNITY.

Great people want the opportunity to move up. They need an upside, something to grow into. They want to know you are an organization on the go, with your sights set on big goals, ambitions, and expansion plans. Additionally, they don’t want to be a spectator—great people want to participate in company progress, to help “make it happen.” As Steve Jobs said, “People are attracted to vision. ‘Put a dent in the universe’ attracted like-minded people who shared that vision. That became our advantage.” 4. GROWTH.

People have finally realized that the job they pick is going to take up two-thirds of their waking hours. They want to feel good about what they do, but they also want to know they are going to grow, develop, and become more of who they want to be. They want to be with organizations that invest in the growth and development of their people. My mentor Jim Rohn said, “Learn to help people with more than just their jobs; learn to help people with their lives.” If you can develop the reputation of being a company that cares about people’s lives, you will have more great people knocking on your door than you’ll know what to do with.

1. MONEY.

And, of course, great people want to be paid well for delivering great work.

“Money is not the primary motivator for an A-Player. Don’t just recruit with a paycheck.” @DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

Notice what’s most important about this list? Money is at the bottom! That’s right. Money is not the primary motivator for an A-player. It’s not even in the top three! They want to work with other great people, doing something challenging and meaningful that enables them to grow in every way. They’ll take a job that gives them great work with great people over a crappy job with great pay.

So, how does your current recruiting script read? Maybe backward? Are you advertising a salary and a job description blah, blah, blah? If so, my guess is you’re getting “blah, blah, blah” kinds of applicants. It’s time to change things up and adjust your strategy.

If you’re soliciting applicants to fill one of the exclusive seats on your ride, the headline should talk about the opportunity to work with other extremely talented, fun, passionate, and high-character people who are fired up about the great mission, challenge, and vision you are trying to realize. Explain how you invest in your people to help them grow, develop, and achieve their goals—professionally and personally. Then (maybe) footnote the compensation package.

Personally I never even list the compensation plan. I always just say, “much better than market standard.” That’s it. No mention of numbers, no list of the typical benefits. I just make it clear that if they’re the right person, I’ll pay them well.

And I do. I always pay better than market standard. Why?

Because great people are free, remember?

If you want an A-level company, and you’re worried about being able to afford it, it’s time to change your thinking. If you truly want an A-level company, you can’t afford to hire B-level players. Always be willing to pay for the best.

PRINCIPLE 3: THE F-FACTOR

I recently hosted an elite mastermind event in South Beach, Miami; and when I say elite, I mean very exclusive. Only 28 invitations were extended to a group of the greatest, most innovative minds in business today.

While we dined on prosciutto-wrapped scallops on a mega-yacht under the stars and overlooking the Miami skyline, I had a deep conversation with one of my invited guests, Cody Foster.

Cody is one of the co-founders of the multibillion-dollar enterprise Advisors Excel. (Yes, I said billion and yes, I said multi.) He and his team crush the competition in their market space, and they do all of this domination from their office in the booming metropolis of… Topeka, Kansas. Not what you think of when you think multibillion, perhaps, but Cody and his company are wildly successful.

As Cody stepped on to the yacht that night, I had noticed that he was sporting a tan that didn’t seem to fit my picture of mid-winter Topekans. When I teased him about it, he chuckled. No, he hadn’t been to a tanning booth. He had arrived from his company trip in Cancun, Mexico.

“Every year,” he said, “We set what we call a Stretch Goal—a sales goal that is pretty big, but attainable. If we hit it, we take them to Cancun. Flight, room, food… we cover it all.” “Nice!” I said. “That’s a great trip for your sales producers.”

“No, no,” he said. “It’s not just the sales team. It’s everyone.”

“Everyone?!” I nearly choked on my scallop.

“Well,” he paused to correct himself. “Everyone and a guest.”

I began quickly doing the mental math. I knew his company employed about 250 people from top to bottom. Double that if everyone brought a guest, and Cody was flying nearly half the town of Topeka to Mexico every year. I asked him if that was even possible—were there enough flights from Topeka to Cancun?

“We charter a few planes,” he said. “It’s pretty cool actually to be in an airport that’s filled with people and every one of them is ‘your people.’” “Wow!” I shook my head, impressed. “No wonder your business is exploding! Who wouldn’t want to work somewhere that not only gives you vacation days, but gives you a full-fledged vacation!” Cody looked at me for a moment, and I had the distinct sense that I was missing something. I could see him thinking, considering how best to phrase what he was about to say next.

“Well. Yes. The Mexico trip is really fun, but Mexico itself isn’t what makes our company a fun place to work. It’s what happens in the process of winning the trip that matters.” By now, a small group had gathered, and Cody continued. “From the very first day, new employees know that a lot is expected of them. They know that, between the hours of eight and five, they are giving everything they’ve got to the job they were hired to do. Whether they are a receptionist, in operations, or working in the compliance department, it’s critical that they are looking for ways to connect with the clients, to find better ways of serving them, to build relationships.

“We’re not the kind of office with ping-pong tables or ‘bring your dog to work’ days or themed happy hours every Friday. And Mexico isn’t enough. What makes work fun is doing meaningful work.” What makes work fun is doing meaningful work. The words echoed in my mind, and I resisted the urge to start scribbling notes on my appetizer napkin. Cody continued, “Mexico or no Mexico, even if we didn’t do the ‘fun stuff,’ people would still want to work here… because every day, it’s just a fun place to be.” “What makes work fun is doing meaningful work.”

@CodyGFoster JoinTheRide

Throughout this hiring process, you have to remember you are recruiting humans. Humans like to have fun. Humans like to love what they are doing. They know they’re going to spend two-thirds of their life working. It can’t be drudgery or just “putting in the time” as if they have a prison sentence. Their work, their life (the two-thirds you influence) has to be fun, meaningful, and rewarding.

Cody’s business, Advisors Excel, isn’t a fun place to work because of a great trip. A great trip evolved from his company being a fun place to work.

No one knows this third principle of recruiting great people better than Sir Richard Branson. He is the unofficial king of fun, and Branson agrees, “Business should be fun. Creating an exciting work culture is the best way to motivate and retain good people. It also means you don’t have to pay them as much. More than any other element, fun is the secret to Virgin’s success.” But Branson doesn’t just talk about fun. It’s a guiding principle for how he lives and what opportunities he takes on. “I can honestly say that I have never gone into any business purely to make money,” he says. “If that is the sole motive, then I believe you are better off not doing it. A business has to be involving, it has to be fun.” That’s the F-Factor.

Is your business involving? Do the people who work for you look forward to coming to the office for eight hours every weekday? Does their work mean something to them? If not, it’s time to put on your party hat and make some changes because there’s nothing more eerie than a roller coaster in motion with no one on the ride.

I know that recruiting can seem daunting. I know that there are many, many more B- and C-player applications coming in for every one A-Player resume you read, and if you really need to hire someone pronto, it might be tempting to settle instead of holding out for the perfect match. But just like you would tell your daughter who is thinking of marrying a C-player-kind-of-guy, trust me when I say the right one is worth the wait.

PUTTING OUT THE FIRE WITH GASOLINE

If I haven’t made it abundantly clear by now, then here it is again: Your business will only be as good as the people you recruit to join it. Your future and the future of your business depend on your ability to recruit without compromise.

“Your business will only be as good as the people you recruit to join it.”

@DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

Remember this: The bigger your dream, the more important your team. If you have small, unambitious dreams, then you only need a small, unambitious team. If you have big and extraordinary goals, then you’re going to need to sell a big and extraordinary team of people on joining you in order to accomplish them.

Your employees will change everything about your business. Everything. They’re going to be intimately involved with finding and serving your customers, creating your products, marketing your services, and developing the culture that you and everyone else on your roller coaster spend the vast majority of their time either loving or despising. If you want that change to be positive, you cannot settle for anything less than the best.

The single biggest mistake I see entrepreneurs make when growing their teams is seeing hiring as a solution to a problem—they hire to put out fires.

Don’t.

Hire ahead of your growth. Hire to conquer new frontiers. Hire to launch new initiatives. But don’t hire to put out a fire.

Because the first thing you grab might be a bucket of gasoline.

Be smart. Be strategic. Be proactive. And be patient. Only hire the best. And once you load all those great people onto the roller coaster and buckle them in, what happens next?

Look carefully. There’s only one seat left on the roller coaster. It’s the scariest place to sit but also the most exhilarating. It’s the front seat. And it’s yours.

You’ve got the people. Now it’s time to lead them.

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