This episode is for every entrepreneur and every business leader who wants to find five-star employees but dreads the hiring process.
All In Company Co-Founder Danielle Mulvey has cracked the code for recruiting, hiring, and retaining the best employees for your team. Her objective employee rating system removes the hassle and guess work, allowing you to identify candidates who will fit your company culture and help your business become more successful.
Listen in to learn:
-
Which values to look for
-
Which qualities can’t be changed
-
How to identify the aptitudes required for the position
-
What the success metrics will be
-
And, how to quantify their return on payroll
Don’t miss this chance to upgrade your workforce to a five-star operation!
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Danielle Mulvey: Go all in on your recruiting and when you do that you will get employees who will go all in on your company.
Voiceover: You’re listening to the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast with professional speaker, coach and consultant Nicole Greer.
Nicole Greer: Welcome everybody to the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer, and they call me the vibrant coach and I am here with a delightful guest today I have Danielle Mulvey. She is a former flight attendant turned multi entity entrepreneur doing over 50 million per year. That’s right, folks, you heard, over 50 million per year, because she has cracked the code on how to in all caps OBJECTIVELY recruit, hire and retain five star employees. What she has mastered in her 25 years of being an entrepreneur. Typically, Danielle spends 10 hours a week overseeing the operations of her businesses and spends the balance of her time challenging other entrepreneurs to power through the tough stuff to build their own dream teams. Please welcome to the show, Danielle. Hello, Danielle. How are you?
Danielle: I’m doing awesome. Thank you so much for inviting me to join you today on Building a Vibrant Culture, Nicole.
Nicole: Yeah, it’s my absolute delight. So I’m gonna be right out of the gate with my favorite question. All my listeners know, I’m collecting definitions of leadership. So what is your definition of leadership?
Danielle: You know, I my definition of leadership is, it doesn’t matter what you say, It matters what you do. And so if I expect someone to do something, then and I expect a certain level of them to do that. I feel that as a leader, I need to take the lead and go all in first and show that level of commitment. I don’t do the job necessarily at all, actually. But I show that I’m that I’m in it. And and that, you know, I’m excited about it.
And I think a leader also needs to really help the team start the day in the right state. And so the leader has to show up, ready to start the day, we do a daily huddle in our across all of our entities first thing in the morning, and we start with the celebration because we just get everyone on the same page. And starting with a celebration immediately brings people into a state of like, let’s kick butt for today. And you know, make make today tomorrow’s celebration, so.
Nicole: I couldn’t agree more. I think that enthusiasm and celebration is amazing. And what you’re saying is like, let’s take everybody up the feeling scale, because this is where excitement and enthusiasm lives. And that means we’re gonna go out there and I’m all about kicking butt first thing in the morning myself. I love it. Alright, so everybody, this is what she said, you got to be all in. You got to help your people start in the right state. Daily huddle, non negotiable, get it on your calendar, let’s go people and then start with the celebration. All right, I love that definition of leadership. That’s fantastic. Well, your company, you said all in but your company is called the all in company. Will you kind of define for us what that means? All in.
Danielle: So, what’s interesting is, I think that again, what matters, saying it or doing it. And you know, people will will say it all day long people will have these, you know, values that they post in their in their business or their these grandiose mission statements. And they’re saying it, are they necessarily doing it. And so, you know, I find that most people say it and don’t do it. So going all in means that you’re not just saying it, you’re you’re doing it and again, you’re doing it with that energy, you’re you’re doing it better than your competition.
You’re doing it to delight others, you’re you’re you’re doing it at like beyond the next level of what everyone else is doing. And, I have multiple entities. The most recent entity is the All In Company. And so this has kind of been in the works for a while because, you know, in our other businesses, a construction materials supply business, a business that processes long term care claims, a business that helps churches get licensed for preschools, I mean, they run the gamut. I don’t have my eggs in one basket, obviously.
But what what I’m good at is I’m good at identifying talent and bringing talent into entities and you know, giving them a little guidance, giving them a little leadership and then they pick up the ball and run with it towards the goal line and such. So the All In Company is sort of like the best practices of what what I’ve done in 25 years of building multiple, you know, 7, 10, you know 7, 8 figure businesses, and I’m actually collaborating with Mike Michalowicz, who’s my business partner in the All In Company and his next, next book, he’s the author of Profit First, Clockwork, Fix This Next, etc, is going to be called All In. So it’s exciting times here.
Nicole: Oh, that’s fantastic. Well congratulations and, and what I don’t want everybody to miss this like, you know she is being so like genuine right now and she she just talked about she has a unique ability. We’ve talked on the on the podcast before about figuring out your unique ability in life. And she said, I just have this knack for finding great people, five star employees, and I know how to give them a little leadership and then get out of their way. So another thing, write that down, write that down everybody is that we want to have this ability to figure out what our unique ability is as a leader. So I’d add that to her leadership description is that hello, she has figured out what her unique ability is. All right. So you have this thing called the five star employee rating system.
Danielle: Correct.
Nicole: And I think that every entrepreneur, every leader on, that’s listening is like, oh, give that to me. I want to know about that. So will you at a high level tell us what the five star employee rating system is?
Danielle: Yeah, it’s it’s, it’s an objective process in system to rate not only your existing employees, but a way to objectively rate people that you’re considering hiring, you know, it hiring is kind of a numbers game. But we tend to hire kind of half assed. We don’t go all in on hiring, and you know, people are just like ad hoc, it’s like, oh, I need to fill a position. It’s, you know, they kind of do it grumbling, they don’t, they don’t go all in, they’re just like, oh, this is gonna be paying that I got to onboard them. Like they’re thinking about all the negatives about hiring a new person.
And what’s funny is, is that, you know, when I have an opportunity to hire a new person, I get excited, like, I’m ready to go, like, this is a process. This is a system, I even have the interview packets, like already printed out on my shelves, and depending on the role, I just grabbed that interview packet that has the questions that are specific to the role. And I think that I get excited because I’ve got a process and a system to follow. I’m not just kind of fumbling along with it. So I think that’s, that’s the difference there. But the five star rating system, again, is an objective way that has five categories that you use to assess an individual.
Nicole: That’s fantastic. Okay, so she has, don’t miss this everybody. She has emphasized the fact that it’s objective, objective, objective, objective. So the opposite, she’s saying it’s not subjective. So I’m kind of picking up what you’re laying down, Danielle, in terms of, you got to step back and really pay attention to the process. You got to have your questions ready. So so what would a subjective interview process look like? What would you, just kind of to tease it out, so we can see the difference. Because people are like, what is she talking about?
Danielle: Yeah, so I think that a lot of times business owners and hiring managers, you know, they they come into an interview, kind of ill prepared, and then they just start asking random questions. So it starts to become subjective, because you don’t have an apples to apples comparison amongst the candidates, when you’re not following the same line of questioning for every candidate. And you’re not, you know, another big aspect too, is making sure that again, the whole saying it versus doing it, you know, people say great things on their resume, and they’re trying to get their foot in the door.
But what’s so important is that you actually test them on their skills, they say they can type 50 words a minute, but are you testing them to prove that they can type 50 words a minute? You need someone who has excellent communication skills and can write you know, beautiful sales copy. Okay, are you testing that in your in your process? Or are you just believing them? Because if you believe them, then that’s subjective. But if you actually test them on, you know, giving them a project to do, then you are now objectively assessing oh, yeah, they can write great copy, because I’m not trusting that they’re just saying it. I saw them do it. And it looks great.
Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. I agree. And there are all sorts of companies out there. I wonder if you have a favorite or you could mention one. But there are all sorts of companies out there where you can send assessments to your prospective candidates for the position, and it’ll test them on Excel. It’ll test them on all the things that you’re talking about. And then you will know if you if you got the right thing, and I think sometimes, maybe the hiring manager like you’re talking about, or the leaders they feel like, can I do that? Can I, is that okay?
Danielle: You’re crazy if you don’t!
Nicole: Okay, yeah, yeah. So don’t be crazy. Be logical. Definitely test.
Danielle: Yeah. And you know, and yes, we definitely use like standard, I mean, there’s free tests out there that you can give, there’s free typing tests, there’s, there’s free assessments that you can give for the basics. And when you get a candidate further down your hiring process, you know, I think it’s important to design your own tests, because we all want things a certain way. And the way that I want things is different than maybe you want things Nicole. So it’s important that you design tests for kind of like filtering out what you don’t want, and then making sure that they have the skills and the aptitudes that you want.
Nicole: Yeah, I love that. And we’re using the word test. But I’m curious, Danielle, you know, one of the things that I do when I’m interviewing folks, is that, you know, I will, you know, bring them to the office for a day.
Danielle: Yes, yeah, absolutely.
Nicole: I will be like, sit down and talk with her for a little bit and see what you think of that and then let’s all go to lunch, and we’ll invite two or three people, to go to lunch, and you know. And so that’s kind of like, you know, can you get, you know, on boarded, can you help yourself, get on boarded, I’ve got a process, but I need you to help and you know, all those kinds of things. So that’s one of the tests I put people through is just come hang out with us. And let’s see, what if it’s gelling.
Danielle: Totally, because yeah, you can make or break culture. We actually had someone for an assistant contracts manager position in our construction materials supply business, and we have a small office, and they all like to eat together, and at this location that this person would be working at. So you know, we bring someone in for a shadow day, and they get to kind of like, see what a day in the life of the position and the role is like. They get to meet the team, they get to, you know, work with side by side, but then yes, absolutely, you’ve got it, you know, have lunch break bread, really, you know, kind of let the guard down, get to know the person and such.
And when we did that with this candidate, she was, it was a deal breaker. She was, I mean she was there for the lunch. But she decided not, she actually opted out at that point, from consideration for the position, because she preferred to eat alone and didn’t want to, you know, to have lunch with everyone every day. Like that just that’s a culture, that’s a culture, deal breaker there and such. But, you know, it’s interesting, because I always like to add filters to kind of filter people out. And I just, this was the first time in ever, ever, ever, where someone just, you know, didn’t want to didn’t want to partake. And so that was not going to be a good cultural fit for our organization.
Nicole: That’s right. That’s right. All right. I love it. Okay, so testing, testing, testing, make sure your questions are apples to apples so that you can be objective people. All right, so you’ve got these five parts to the employee ratings, that they’re not gonna list them, everybody. So get your pin out, write this down. One is values, then there are 11 qualities that Danielle has figured out. We need to take a peek at. I don’t know if we’ll get to all 11 today, could have to have a part two podcast. There’s aptitudes and skills, success metrics, and then ROP, return on payroll. Did I get it right?
Danielle: Yeah, you nailed it.
Nicole: Okay, fantastic. All right. So let’s talk a little bit about values. So I think you’re right, everybody’s got these core values hanging on the wall, a big fat mission statement. We’ve talked about it a zillion times around here, it’s, it’s kind of challenging to get it right if the leader doesn’t really believe in the idea of having mission and core values and having it mean something, hello. So talk about how you do core value alignment.
Danielle: Yeah, so this is really important, because, you know, there’s different types of values. There’s, there’s core values, and those are the things that as the owner, and I work primarily with, with entrepreneurs with, you know, 15 or more employees, a million dollars or more in real revenue. And so, you know, they’re still very, you know, involved in the business and such. And they’re at this stage of like, where they’re ready to, like scale and to scale profitably, they need the right kind of employees. And what’s interesting is, is that the, the core values is what’s true 100% of the time to the owner. And that’s, that’s three to five things.
And what’s funny is, is every time I’ve taken entrepreneurs through this exercise, they’re like, yeah, I’ve got we’ve got values, we’ve got values, we’ve got values. But what they have our group think values, really. And what they have our values that maybe there’s like one or two core values in there. But but the rest of that list of values for the company are aspirational values. So things that, you know, are true, but they’re not nailing it 100% of the time, or they’re permission to play values. They’re their values that, you know, like, you’re rarely there, but sometimes you are. And then, and then there’s accidental values. The values that just kind of have crept into the organization.
And again, you know, part of that group think when you’re when you’re creating values, and so it’s really important that, that the owner of the business, the person who’s the MVP of the business, really goes through an exercise to define to figure out what those three to five core values are. And then write clarifying statements about what those core values are, because, you know, if your core value is, is creativity, or teamwork, you know, my definition and expectation on teamwork is going to be different than yours, Nicole.
So it’s really important that with those core values, you write a clarifying statement about exactly what that core value means, and what the expectations are around that core value. And then, you know, in the filtering process, and in the recruitment process, I mean, you are talking about core values, in all the places. On the job posting, you know, when you’re interviewing the candidate, when you’re having a job shadow day. And then also too, you know, the core values is really what you run your business on.
And so you’re, you’re talking about core values every day in the business and, and you’re using it to, you know, show appreciation, to give accolades, and also to, you know, kind of if you have to reprimand employees, based off of those core values, and it really keeps everyone on the same page. And what’s funny is, is think about relationships that, you know, didn’t work out. Whether they be business relationships, employee relationships, personal relationships, you know, when you really think about it, it really comes down to, they probably they didn’t work out, because you guys weren’t on the same page, you really didn’t deep down have, we’re not aligned in your core values with each other.
And so that is why that is the number one, the first star and the five star rating system is the alignment on core values. And by using them in your recruitment process and talking about them and making a big deal about it and being really genuine and being very specific about it with your clarifying statements, that’s either going to attract the five star employee, or it’s going to repel the one two and three star employee who are just like, not on board with that.
Nicole: I totally agree. Yeah. And you know, one of the things that you say in your book, which I love is that when we share core values, it’s easy to work because we have trust.
Danielle: Exactly, yes.
Nicole: Yeah. And I also love you said in here, the telltale signs of employees who do not share your core values, they frustrate you. Hello, hello out there. Those frustrating you, you’ve got some kind of big differentiation of what should be happening, right. And they cause overwhelm because they create more work for you, and then make you not love going to work at your own company. I just think that is a little smidgen of genius you popped right in there. I love that.
Danielle: Thanks!
Nicole: Yeah. So I think I think this core values thing is absolutely huge. Now, you said that you have a best practice, the core value should literally be visible. What do you mean by that?
Danielle: Well, you know what, it’s funny, because normally they’re behind me, but I didn’t want to confuse the situation here. But they should be like in your office, I can shoot you a picture if you want. I could take my headphones off here. But your core values, like you should make them a picture, you should make them something. So in our daily huddle, I mean, since COVID, I mean, we’re still in the office together, but we’re not in the same room. But when we were in the same room, the door when you close the door to our daily huddle room, like it was a floor to ceiling or yeah, on the door banner of our core values.
And so now everyone, when they hop on the daily huddle in Zoom in their own offices, in their, in their background, there’s a there’s a canvas or you know, depending upon the size and such of, of their shelving unit with our core values on it. So every day when we start the daily huddle, I mean, we’re looking at it, it’s in our face every day and just reminding us like in Supply Patriot, our core values, our ownership, accountability and relationships. And so everything that we do is about building and increasing those.
Nicole: Hmm, fantastic. Fantastic. All right. So and you know, and I think too, you know, Danielle, I find that leaders you know, again If they don’t go all in, they don’t talk about these core values. It’s almost like they had like some kind of, you know, MBA program. And it’s make sure you have a mission, vision and some core values. Check, check, check, you know, it’s like, okay, so I’ll get an A if I have these going on, but it’s really the day to day emphasis on them that that makes it all in. So yeah, like All In Company, like Danielle teaches people to do. That’s what you need to do.
Danielle: And they have to be true core values, not the aspirational values, you know. And that’s the problem, because the aspirational values, you’re not hitting 100% of the time, your core values, you’re hitting 100% of the time. So you know, if you make your company values aspirational, and you’re, you’re not able to hit them, and be that 100% of the time, that’s sort of where you start to get cracks in the foundation of the organization. Because it’s like, well, why why is it okay, that, you know, in this case, it’s, you know, timeliness is not that important if timeliness or being on time was one of your core values. Does that make sense?
Nicole: That makes total sense, right. So for example, if you pick collaboration, which almost everybody picks collaboration, or integrity, or respect, or whatever.
Danielle: Integrity, yes. Everyone has integrity on their list.
Nicole: Yeah, and it is very inspirational, because are aspirational. Because again, like she’s saying, she’s saying this is something you do without question. It is, core values are a matter of integrity. It’s, it’s there’s a wholeness, there’s like 100%, we do it. And you also called it some other things, which I thought were great to help people kind of think. Groupthink values, aspirational values, permission to play values and accidental values. That one I love. But it’s, you know, something you need to do. So, you know, I’ve talked probably talked about it before, but Zappos is such an interesting, great company, and one of their core values is be a little weird. And if you go there, everybody’s a little weird all the time.
I mean, that’s what she’s talking about. So yeah, that’s, that’s fantastic. Okay, all right. Well, the second thing is the 11 qualities. Okay. So Danielle’s got 11 qualities of five star employees. Supportive, goals, produces quantifiable results, oh my gosh, I love that one. Actively listens to fellow team members, communicates their thoughts, open to feedback, and 11, number 11. Most important, insatiable thirst for knowledge and growth. Okay, so you say that two of these are very difficult to change. So if you notice, notice, notice these people can’t do these two. Oh, you better try again, get get the get the ad on Indeed, up again. Let’s go. Let’s roll again.
Danielle: Yeah, so flexibility is one that we code red. So it’s very difficult to change. Someone is either just flexible, or they’re, they’re, they’re inflexible, and they just, you know, have zero flexibility. And you know, those people just think about it, they kill culture, like if they’re not willing to go with the flow, it just brings so many problems, when someone is is not flexible. But again, you know, my definition of flexibility is going to be different maybe than your definition of flexibility or, or what you need for the role and such. So it’s, that’s, that’s important to distinguish between the two.
And the other thing is actively listens to fellow team members. That is coded red as well, because, again, someone just is a good listener. Or they just don’t have the skill to really listen to someone. And in fact, I interviewed a candidate who had taken the assessment, initial assessment scored 70% or higher, had taken a test, or some skills tests, passed those. And then it was time for the initial screening interview. And we were three minutes into the interview. And she wasn’t answering the questions. Like she was, I don’t know what she was answering, but she wasn’t answering what I was asking.
And so I’m just like, okay, let’s, am I hearing this correctly? So I gave it like another couple of questions. And she still was not answering directly what I was asking. So at about the five minute mark, I said, you know what, I’m sorry, this is not going to be a good fit for us. And, you know, I just want to give you back your time, and thank you so much, and boom, boom, boom. So, you know, the whole point, you know, I think that we, we tend to have so few candidates that it sort of comes down to oh, you have a pulse and you can start Monday great. You’re hired. When, when when what you really need is you really need a large applicant pool.
I mean, we say five star employees represent the top 15% of available talent in the market. The best of the best. So that means like one out of seven applicants is a five star candidate. So that means like to have three potential five star candidates statistically you would need about 21 applicants. And so it’s really important that you cast that wide net. So you can go through this process and you can really eliminate the people and filter out those who are 1, 2, 3 star average ho hum employees who are just not going to go all in on your business. Why frustrate yourself, you know?
Nicole: Right, right. And so Danielle does have her definition for flexibility because I can just hear somebody out there going, well, some people have to follow a process. We’re not talking about that people, what we’re talking about, is ready and able to change so as to adapt to different circumstances. Being accommodating, adaptable and amenable. So it’s more like, you know, you know, I’ve ever met somebody like, hey, Danielle, could you do this for me today? It’s in the standard meeting. She’s like, Sure, Nicole, no problem. And then I’m like, okay, great. But then I don’t know, I get a phone call at 10:30 that becomes the hottest thing for the whole company right now. Like, it just happened. It just went down.
So I call her up. I say, hey, Danielle, you know that thing I said this morning, scratch that, put that on the back burner. This is what I need you to do. And she does it. And she says, okay, whatever you want me to do, I’ll do okay. So she gets off the phone, and here would be an inflexible employee. Every time Danielle tells me something to do, about two hours later, she changes it. Always complaining and yakking about it, or whatever. But the one that is ready, able to change and adapt to different circumstances, understands, hey, we’re doing business here. This is not personal. So it’s what you mean when you say flexible?
Danielle: Yeah, exactly. So because you know, so much is being able to adapt to the marketplace. And, you know, it’s it’s so, so important. And so that’s why like, that would be a deal breaker, if you’re if you’re asking questions, and the person is just, you know, clearly not flexible, then this is where their their recruitment journey ends.
Nicole: That’s right. That’s right. Okay. Well, the next thing, that is one of your things is the listening. And so you’re saying that, you know, they’re not just a passive here, and they’re listening with all senses. So my guess is you’re saying like, they’re looking around, they’re listening with their eyeballs? Oh, look at that, that needs to be done. Oh, I’m hearing that there’s a problem with this. I know how to fix it. I’ll jump in, even though nobody’s asking me. Is that kind of thing you’re thinking of when you think of actively listening?
Danielle: Yeah, that’s, that’s exactly it. And it really comes to fruition in the daily huddle. So, you know, if you’re hearing people kind of struggling with getting the three things done, that they needed to do yesterday, or something else pops up, and you’ve got the bandwidth, you know, this is where you, you step up and say, hey, you know, I, I can, I can help you with that. And you’d like you said, it’s with all the senses. So, you know, if someone’s having a bad day, you know, you’re, you’re seeing it, and you’re, you’re doing something about it. You’re trying to, you know, have an impact on that individual and, and help them out in more ways than just checking off to dos that need to get done for the day.
Nicole: Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, you also have two green qualities of a five star employee, there we go, I got my language, right. And one is that they communicate your thoughts. And so you’re saying it’s green. Describe why you make these green.
Danielle: So these ones are easy to change, for someone to change. So someone isn’t, someone might have just been in a role or, or grew up in a family where, you know, thoughts weren’t communicated. And so this is something that if someone grew up in that environment, or their past, their previous jobs didn’t give them that opportunity, you know, I mean, all you have to do is just encourage them and create a safe environment, have a warm culture, and you can draw that out of people so that they know it’s safe. And, and so it’s easy, they just, they just need a little bit of comfort and encouragement.
And so it’s really easy to change that quality in someone, if they have had grew up in an environment or have a tendency to, to be quiet. And then the second one that is green is having an insatiable thirst for knowledge and growth. Meaning they actively seek to learn more through a variety of resources. And again, you know, this kind of comes from mentoring. I mean, people don’t know what they don’t know. And so, you know, as a leader, it’s really important to understand, what do people, what did they want? What do what are they looking for?
And how can you like, you know, give them ideas and provide resources and, and encourage them in growing their knowledge and consuming things. And quenching that, that thirst. And so, you know, again, it’s part of the culture, it’s part of bringing that into the organization and encouraging it and having one on ones where, you know, you’re getting to learn about them. And you know, sometimes it’s, it’s learning about things that might not be totally business related, but I guarantee you will have a positive impact on the business. So for example, our team knows that my husband and I are big Dave Ramsey fans.
And what’s funny is they kind of like, one of them got into it, and then they all started getting into it and such. Because I think that they saw, okay, well, if they’re into this, and it appears to be working pretty well for them, whatever they’re doing, then then maybe we should get into this too. And so, you know, then when that happened, you know, we bought them the books, we shared with them, some of our favorite episodes of the Ramsey podcast, etc.
So, you know, it’s just being attuned and helping your your people. We’ve got one person whose dream is to retire in Costa Rica. I mean, like, we’re talking like, 15 years plus from now that that dream would become a reality. But you know, she wanted to learn Spanish. So I don’t speak Spanish, but I bought us to picture dictionaries. so that we can start learning words and kind of start saying words to each other in in Spanish. So you know, it’s like, I’m encouraging. I’m, you know, I’m right there with her, and kind of, like, you know, showing my support for her desire to learn Spanish.
Nicole: Oh, that is so fantastic. And then we’ve talked about Dave Ramsey on here before, if you’re not knowing what that is, please Google that after you get done listening to this podcast, I want you to listen to a Dave Ramsey podcast. If you don’t have your finances in order, you’re probably in a lot of pain. And you need to get yourself out of that painful situation. And you can do it if you just follow the process that Dave’s got, like laid out. We promise. Do we promise Danielle? We totally promise, right?
Danielle: We promise, we promise.
Nicole: Okay, fantastic. All right. Now this next one that we’re going to talk about. And again, don’t forget, what we’re doing is we’re looking at the five star employee rating system that Danielle has put together. But she’s got specific aptitudes and skills. Now she says there are 33 aptitude and skills that you can select from, role. So we’re not going to get into all that. But tell us a little bit about why we should sit down and figure out what the aptitudes and skills are for this particular role. Because you put them into three categories, or three different areas. So will you talk a little bit about that for me?
Danielle: Yeah. So you know, I mean, the 11 qualities are pretty universal across, you know, any, any any employee that you would want to bring into your organization. And the aptitudes and skills are more specific to the role that that you’re needing to fill. So, you know, in what you need, in terms of ambition from a salesperson is different than what you need in terms of ambition for a waitress, right? So the aptitudes allows you to, you know, kind of hone in on on exactly what you’re looking for.
And then you craft questions, you craft very specific questions around what your expectations in assessing the candidate would be around ambition, or creativity. Some roles require creativity, but the but what’s, what’s creative is different for a copywriter versus someone who is a graphic designer. And so these these aptitudes are specific to the role and what exactly success looks like, for a person to have creativity. You know, do they do they need to be, you know, a three out of five on creativity? Or do they need to be a five out of five on creativity?
Nicole: Yeah, and so you say also that, again, just like we talked about previously, there are certain things that are very hard to coach or to teach or to change, right. And those are intelligence, analytical skills, creativity, integrity, conceptual ability, assertiveness, energy, passion, ambition, and then specific skills, like the typing thing we talked about earlier. So getting very, very clear on what you want. And I think that’s, that’s the thing is that people don’t know what they really want in a new employee and doing this specific aptitudes and skills portion.
Oh, my gosh, would get you like clear as a bell, about what you want to do. I absolutely love that. And, and she said earlier, don’t forget everybody that one out of seven candidates are a potential five star employee. So again, you’ve got you’ve got to have a pretty big pool of people. And you got to know exactly what you want. All right. So fantastic. All right. Well, the next thing that we’re going to talk about is, hold on, is success metrics. So talk a little bit about success metrics. How do we put those in place when we’re looking for a five star employee?
Danielle: So you know, if you’re gonna have a job posting and then you’re gonna have a formal job description, and you know, the job posting needs to be like an advertisement for the job. It needs to attract the right people repel the wrong people. And you, again, need to be specific, you need to define with numbers, dollar signs, some sort of quantifiable something, that the key responsibilities of the role and then quantify what success looks like for the role. So, you know, too often, and if you went on Indeed right now and looked at, you know, a job description for an account manager, you know, kind of like a salesperson role, you’re gonna see that, you know, they, they must be good at at closing business. Well, what does that mean?
I mean, my definition of good at closing new business would be that they’re closing five new accounts a day. Your definition of, of closing new business, of being good at closing new business might be closing one account per week, because you know, you’re selling for something that’s $10,000, and I’m selling something that’s $500. So I need more more closes per day. So it’s really important, again, that you get clear, and you’re specific about, hey, here are the five key responsibilities. You’re gonna have all this other stuff to do, but here’s, these are, these are, these are the real drivers of your role. And these are what you should be doing every day.
And this is how we’re going to measure if you’re successful or not. And again, what this will do for the five star employee is going to say, yeah, I got this and that kind of person is actually going to want to exceed but they like the bar set and they like it set high. And then they want to wow you and exceed it. And it’s going to repel the individuals who have had cush jobs before where they collect a paycheck. And no one has ever hold, held them accountable to anything because they just have to be good, but no one’s defined good. So you know, they’ll just keep collecting that paycheck.
Nicole: Oh, my goodness, I think that is the best thing I’ve heard in a long time. They’ve had a cush job. I haven’t heard the word cush in a long time. I love it. All right. So that’s good vocabulary right there. Yeah, they’re just collecting a paycheck. All right. So did you hear what she said? She said, go back, look at the bullet points in your job ad and make them quantifiable. Did you hear that? Write that down, everybody. All right. Fantastic. All right, Danielle, you are giving us so much great information.
And don’t forget that Danielle is with the All In Company and find her on LinkedIn, easy to find her. And we’ll give you that information at the end of the podcast. But we have one more thing that we need to do to make sure that we find ourselves a five star employee and that is R. O. P. return on payroll. So you are a mastery certified profit first professional. First of all, what is that? Tell us a little bit about that.
Danielle: Oh, well, Profit First is a cash management system for businesses. And really, it’s a cash management system for businesses of any size that really gives you clarity on the cash as it’s coming in and going out of your business and how much you’re keeping in your business. And actually, my business partner Mike Michalowicz is the author of Profit First and it, you could liken it to Dave Ramsey ish for business. And so that’s what Profit First is. But what’s interesting is is is, again, Mike has written several books, and there’s sort of an evolution that’s sort of following, you know, the entrepreneurs that have read his books.
And that’s kind of what’s interesting here is that we find that businesses that have, you know, 15 or more employees, a million dollars or more in real revenue, they kind of hit this like ceiling where they’re struggling to profitably scale. And it and oftentimes, it’s because they have, you know, average ho hum employees and, you know, you need two or three 1, 2, or 3 star employees to do the job of one five star employee. I mean, a five star employee run circles around everyone else.
And so return on payroll is really, really important to make sure that you are getting the maximum out of the payroll dollars that you’re paying to your employees. And, you know, we challenge you that you should be 3x-ing the employee’s payroll in terms of revenue. So, you know, if you just added up all of the salaries of your employees and multiplied it by three, then is, you know, what does that equal what your total revenue is?
I won’t get into like the nitty gritty on Profit First, necessarily, but, you know, oftentimes businesses, their biggest expense is their payroll, and they’re just, you know, the cash is going out of the door and not producing any return. Oftentimes, owners when they go through this exercise are like, oh my gosh, like, yeah, I mean, I knew that they were, you know, barely proving they’re covering their payroll and yeah, they’re barely covering their payroll, they’re definitely not hitting a 3x number of having that 3x impact on the business for what I’m paying them in salary.
Nicole: Hmm, yes. Fantastic. Yeah. And so you give a little recipe for that in your workbook, which is fantastic. And so I just want to repeat what she just said. She said, you do not pay, I don’t know if you just said this, but I haven’t highlighted here’s what I highlighted. Okay, it says mythbuster, you do not pay five star employees more because they are five star employees. Don’t miss that. I’m gonna say it again incase, you’re like, what? Do not pay five star employees more because they’re five star employees. You also cannot turn a one two or three star employee into a five star employee by paying them more. That is provable. All right, talk about that just a sec.
Danielle: Well, I you know, I see that being the biggest mistake that entrepreneurs make is that they’re like, well, if I pay them $10,000, more that will motivate them to work harder, or to do this or to add this to their plate and such. And it’s like, nope, it’s not going to do anything except just bleed you. Because you you can’t, money is not the ultimate motivator. And if they’re a great employee, they would be delivering without additional compensation. So yeah, that’s, that’s a really common mistake and don’t get, don’t get tempted by it.
Because the other thing too, is, you know, oftentimes, you’re doing a disservice when you’re paying someone, you know, outside of what market value is for the role and such because then they become accustomed to a lifestyle, and they’ll never be able to find another job that pays, you know, a ridiculously high salary, that you are foolish to pay them and have that this new, this new lifestyle associated with the overpayment that they receive from you.
Nicole: Yeah, that’s good advice. That’s good advice. Yeah. I mean, and I say this all the time, I, when I speak, I say, I think I talk to HR directors all the time. And I say, you know, you got to get the conversation straight with people. It’s like, I don’t know about you, Danielle, but I never got a significant raise in my salary. Unless I took on significantly more responsibility. Like, it’s gotta, it’s gotta measure out, you know, and so when people come to you and say, well, I deserve a raise. It’s like, well, here’s what we need to do. We need to reassess what your aptitudes and your skills are and give you more responsibilities. So you take care of more of the business for me, and I’ll be glad to give you more money.
Danielle: Yeah. And it’s really clear with those success metrics that we talked about in the fourth star and such, it’s like, okay, well, are they meeting or exceeding what is expected for the role? You know, are they closing the one account per week that’s worth $10,000? Or, you know, are they not closing one account a month? So, you know, again, that will that will tell you, if they’re producing that return on payroll. It’s really easy with sales. But but every role should be having a positive impact on on the revenue of your business, even if it isn’t a quote, revenue producing role.
Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. I believe it. All right, well, you have just downloaded some major good content for my listeners. First of all, I’m very grateful. But you know, what, there’s somebody sitting out there going, no, no, no, don’t stop, don’t stop, keep going. So do you have like one more little snugly good thing you’d like to share with our audience, like what you know, if there was a special listener that needed to download and would like, be like, and hey, one more thing.
Danielle: Absolutely. So I think that the biggest thing that you can do in terms of attracting five star candidates, because again, you want to cast as wide of a net as possible, you want to attract as many candidates as possible, is don’t use a generic job title, in your job posting. Make sure that the job title speaks to the five star candidate that you’re looking for and repels the one two and three star candidates. So you know, I mean, if you’re looking for a preschool director, 99.9% of the jobs are going to say, preschool director. Right? You know, if you’re looking for a social media manager, it’s gonna say, social media manager.
But what you need to do is you need to get specific and you need to, you know, highlight exactly what you’re looking for in the role. So, you know, what you want to say is preschool director who loves to nurture families and staff. You know, that is going to eliminate 90% of the preschool directors out there who, you know, just really are about compliance and paperwork and don’t really take the time to breathe and to and to really nurture people and such. So, you know, that’s, that’s a that’s a differentiator right there. In the preschool director category.
You know, oftentimes I see people use you know, very generic, very vanilla terms like social media manager. I mean, there’s a million in five flavors of what someone’s expectations are as a social media manager. So, you know, be more specific. Are you looking for a small business blog editor, or a small business content creator, because now we’ve honed in, it’s not for corporate, it’s not for, you know, a specific company. It’s, it’s for, it’s for small business. And so you want to attract people who who have a passion for small business. And we’ve, we’ve narrowed in on exactly what we need from you.
We need you to be a blog editor, or we need you to be a content creator, not just someone who’s managing the posts, and this that and the other. So that would be my biggest like the number one thing you should do right now, if you are advertising on Indeed or anywhere for a job is to get more specific. Try to keep it under 10 words, but get more specific about what exactly you’re looking for in that dream candidate for that role, and do not go vanilla with it.
Nicole: I think that is excellent, excellent advice. All right. So Danielle, we have had a wonderful time together. I hope y’all have like, let’s see how many pages I got. I got three pages of notes down here. I got work to do. She’s given me a homework assignment. I didn’t even sign up for a homework assignment, but I’m going to go do what Danielle Mulvey tells me to do and that’s the magic of these podcasts, everybody. You can listen all you want. But if you don’t like go out with one actionable item, what are you doing? What are you doing with your life? Alright, so everybody go do that. So Danielle, if somebody said, oh my God, I need my entire HR team to be with Danielle for the day. Where would they find you? Where would they find you?
Danielle: Um, so I think the best place is to go to 5staremployees.com. So that’s the number 5, 5staremployees.com. And then, you know, I’m, I have a lot of fun on LinkedIn. That’s, that’s, that’s my best platform. I’d love to interact with people, I get a lot of DMs. And so I am happy to, to reply to DMs and and encourage you and you know, just I go all in on your recruiting and when you do that, you will get employees who will go all in on your company.
Nicole: All right, fantastic. So again, it’s www.5staremployees.com. And then you can go to LinkedIn and Google search. Danielle, d a n i e l l e – m u l ve y. All right, Danielle, you have been an absolute delight. I am so grateful that you were on the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. If we do what you talked about, we’re gonna have all these people shining, running around the hallways. It’ll be vibrant. Thank you so much.
Danielle: Thanks, Nicole. Have a great day.
Voiceover: Ready to build your vibrant culture? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference or organization to help them with her strategies, systems and smarts to increase clarity, accountability, energy and results. Your organization will get lit from within. Email Nicole@nicolegreer.com. And be sure to check out Nicole’s TEDx talk at nicolegreer.com.
