Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Hey. Hey. Welcome back to the Total Profit podcast. The show where we help you lead smarter, earn stronger, and finally get paid what you're worth. I'm your host, T2, and as always, I'm joined by the guy who could build a five star team in a cornfield, Tommy B.
T2.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: I feel the dreams just popped into my head.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: Well, you are from the Midwest, right?
So that felt appropriate today.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Yes, exactly.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: Today's topic is gold, literally, because we're talking about how to hire for profit. Not just to get help, but to build a team that actually makes you money.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: That's right. We're not talking about hiring, just your buried.
Just because you're buried in work, we're talking about hiring that help you grow, scale, protect your margin. The team should be your asset, not a liability.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: Right.
So let's kick it off with a reality check. All right. So many business owners wait too long to hire or they hire too fast for the wrong reasons.
We've been talking about traps a little bit lately. So what's the trap here, Tommy?
[00:01:24] Speaker B: Great question. The trap is hiring. Emotionally. You're overwhelmed, so you grab the first warm body who says yes. But if you don't, what ROI that role brings, if you don't know what that ROI role brings, you're adding payroll without adding value. And that's, that's a direct cost and it's coming out of your profits.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: Or worse, you're hiring someone, but you don't necessarily set them up to succeed. So then you're paying and you're still doing all of the work.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: Exactly. Here's what profitable hiring looks like.
Know the outcome that the role is responsible for. So many times it's such a general hiring that it gets diluted. So make it specific.
And then how much revenue or efficiency will this role bring and will that person bring? Not everybody's going to perform equally. So it's kind of a keep asking yourself those questions, dive deeper into that so you can get, get to the bottom of it and you make sure you have clear metrics on how to track their impact when you onboard them.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: So I think that's really important. Let me recap that. You know the outcome that the role is responsible for, so you're really thinking about specifically what help you need. Number two, you know how much revenue or efficiency they're going to bring to your business. So work that out before you even write the job description or try to hire.
And three, you really have clear metrics to track their impact because people want to know that they're being effective as well. And so if you have those metrics in place to track what they're doing, you can give them that feedback. And so instead of saying I need help, you're saying I need someone who can increase our billable hours by 20%.
Right. Okay. So that's a profit first mindset.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: And if you're just starting to build your team, hire for output, not overhead. Think billable roles, customer delivery or revenue producing activities.
Avoid the bloated back office roles you don't need yet.
Everybody should be billable in the beginning.
[00:03:46] Speaker A: Everybody should be billable in the beginning. And for the love of margin, outsource before you in house freelancers, part timers, contractors, test them out before you commit to full time. And that's kind of the nature of our relationship too.
And so we're here to testify that it works.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: Yeah, and, and it's, it's systems before seats. It's a big one. So don't scale chaos before you hire. Get your systems in place. Those can be your SOPs or standard operating procedures, onboard checklists, KPIs. You're not just hiring help, you're building a machine. The other thing these do is make repeatable task. So if you, if you find that you're hiring more people, the onboarding piece of it will just flow that much better. When all these places are, these pieces are in place.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: Standard operating procedures especially really define the parameters for somebody to do their job.
And next week we're going to.
Not next week, couple couple weeks from now we've got a topic lined up that I'm excited about, about how we don't want you to become the decision.
The decision department is what I call it, where everybody's coming to you for every single little thing. And that's where standing operating procedures come into play. It provides the parameters of how you want to run your business.
And they're very, very necessary unless you want to scale that chaos, which we don't want you to do.
People cannot thrive inside of a mess. So. So those systems let them succeed and it saves you money overall.
[00:05:31] Speaker B: Absolutely.
Brings me back to when we worked with a client who hired two admins thinking it would free them up. But neither role had structure. They ended up micromanaging. Both of them still couldn't step away.
We had them define outcomes, automate 30% of their task and hire one person with clients, clear targets. What a game changer. It just the person you could see the stress level just leave their body.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: And that's hiring for profit. That's not just relief. That's not just trying to get things off of your plate.
That's hiring with. With profit specific in mind.
So here's your total profit challenge of the week.
List the current roles in your organization and whether or not they're producing any kind of profit.
Number two, audit any roles that you're thinking about hiring and just ask yourself, do they add revenue? Do they save meaningful time? See if you can quantify that a little bit.
Number three, set those clear expectations for every seat on your bus. Every single seat on your bus. And number four, build those standard operating procedures before you post the job.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: Exactly. And one more I may eke in there is SOPs are not a in stone document. It's an evolving document. So when you have benefits that can enhance for that next, document that next role, edit those and keep them up to date. And remember, hire slow, hire smart, and only when the role pays for itself. It's. It's so critical.
[00:07:12] Speaker A: This episode is brought to you by performance margin. This is the software that shows you job level profit in real time so you can know whether your team is producing or draining Margin.
[00:07:25] Speaker B: Yeah, don't hire blind. With performance margin, you'll know exactly where to grow and what roles will pay off and how much it's going to cost you.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: I love that.
[00:07:36] Speaker B: Great, great, great program.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: It is a great program. All right, well, if you're enjoying the show, hit subscribe. Share it with someone who's thinking about hiring right now and let's help them do it the smart way.
[00:07:48] Speaker B: Absolutely. And until next time, take her.
[00:07:52] Speaker A: Cool. Don't get too excited. It's all under control.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: It's gonna be fine.
