Vision Pros Live Podcast
Original podcast
What's your vision? Michael Neal. Podcast Session 2.
2,578 words · 3 speakers
How do you track and define outcomes for your hiring systems?
Oh, that's a great question, Harry. Well, as far as tracking everything goes, remember, it's all automated. And so the software tracks all incoming applicants.
When they apply, time of date, time and date when they apply, we know if they're applying in the middle of the night. We know what regions they're applying from relative to your business location. We know their strengths and talents. We know the, the time and, and distance from their location to your business. We know how long they're planning on staying in the area. There's, there's a, a whole bunch of information. So all of that is automatically tracked. This is not, you know, it's the opposite of done on index cards and, and notes written on a resume, right? But as far as the, the outcomes, that's where we get really excited.
The outcomes are generally driven by the, the candidate's strengths and talents. And so when you're hiring them for a position and you expect them to need, you know, X, Y, Z strengths and talents, and we present candidates who have those, then the outcomes are far better and higher than what you're used to. And the simple reason being is you're asking people to show up for work each day and be themselves. These are A players, B plus players that we bring to the table. And by doing that, you simply get a better outcome in every conceivable aspect of that word than, than resume based hiring.
That, that, there's a follow up question on that. The A players and the B players, I think, so there is only certain number of limited A players according to my understanding, and that might be my limiting belief. I do not know. Um. But I would love to hear that. But let's say some, let's say ten companies hire you. And you only have five A players to uh to support. What happens in those case scenarios? And and let's say you also run into B players in that case, or B plus players. What what's the other?
Oh, that's a fascinating question as well. Um. You're on your game today, Harry. Holy cow. So I think uh the, remember, the way that we do things is we are not pulling from a candidate pool. We are fresh posting a brand new position each time. And we have the the widest possible funnel at the top. We want as many applicants as we possibly can. These are not people generally with experience. Um. We are looking for for folks who can do the the job based upon their natural strengths and talents. So our approach is to cast the widest possible net that we can, because we're going to eliminate almost everybody. Um. We run them through our mindset uh assessment filter. We make sure they have the right mindset for the position.
And then we do their strengths or their uh speed of learning. We're going to make sure that they they learn fast enough in order to do a great job for your business. And then we look at their strengths and talents. And then when that's all said and done, we look at what we call knockout questions, and those are are all the reasons why they wouldn't be able to do the job. So when, still, past that, we have um a one-way video interview. And so when all of this work is done, we end up with um A players and B players, but they're not coming from where you think they are, Harry. These are unknown folks. These are not people who generally are um are are presented ten different jobs to begin with. They might be presented with a couple.
Um. Because they don't look like an A player a lot of times. They know they are. They know they have no problems getting a position and and being offered uh positions, but they they just aren't um folks that are out there with these resumes that are glowing, that that have incredible work histories. You are dying to get them in your business. You look at their resume and you say, huh? Like what are these guys talking about? When the real solution to the problem is this match that we're able to do. So we know they're an A player or a B plus at around a ninety seven percent level on average. That's why the outcome is so great. They stick to these these positions. They stay a lot longer, like much longer.
Um, and all of this happens because they're a natural fit for the position.
So this is another deep level of that question, right? Um, throughout your process.
Yeah.
Um, how are you identifying the A players and B players? Like what's the, what are you looking for specifically that like, hey, this is? Someone is an A player and how do you even? How do you even check for that in a, in a hiring or even shift, I would say shifting process, I would say.
Yeah. It's not one thing. And that's what makes this this special. Depends on the position. Uh, quite simply, an A player for position A might be a C player for position B. It's it's not one, like your A player is not an A player across all positions. Because it completely depends on their strengths and talents. The, and that that's a little, that's a little bit of a difficult thing to replicate um, any other way. And so with these folks, um. That's how it, I mean, the, the natural strength and talent approach. Is how they're an A player for that position, but it is all relative to the position.
And each position requires different um. Strengths and talents, different capabilities. Uh, let's say stress management, that's a really easy thing for everybody to understand. If you're in a concierge type service based business, low volume, everybody is uh, really focusing on high quality interactions. Then that requires a lower stress tolerance and that's something we measure. Whereas let's say you're in a super busy doctor's office, working at the front desk, uh, which is in a high stress position um. For arguably just about anybody.
If you have a really high stress tolerance, that's no big deal for you. A player quality for that position. You have a low stress tolerance, that is not going to work out. That that person put in that position will leave very, very quickly. It's it's counted in days. So imagine, if you will, there's a big algorithm for each of these positions. And each position has different things that we want in a candidate and things that we don't want in a candidate. And they're prioritized and they're structured. So that's where we're able to identify these folks. And it's it's not a simple process behind the scenes. Like imagine the the iceberg. What we're showing clients is the tip of the iceberg. Behind the scenes is the rest of the iceberg. We make it easy.
That's why you can hire somebody through build my team in under an hour's worth of work total. And we do this all day long throughout North America.
Wow, that's awesome. Next question for you, I think it's something similar to what we've been talking about. What are some of your strategies for reducing turnover in the teams you build?
Yeah, so this gets down to culture. Boy, another great question. Culture as as one, one way to describe this. Really, the the turnover comes from both areas around the team member and from the top down. So what is the average workday like for the team member?
I should say three things internally. The internal side of things is are they utilizing their strengths and talents? Well, with the build my team approach, yes, that's a given.
Then
if you're not doing that, then you got to make sure, like if you're not working with Bill my team, you got to make sure that they are working with their natural strengths and talents. And that's a that's a real challenge. The second thing would be who are they surrounded by? So, you know, you have an A player or a really awesome, fantastic employee. Who are they working with? Other awesome, fantastic employees? Or are they working with the C player, the D player, or the proverbial boat anchor that never gets any project off the ground? You know, they they just are are not in any way a performer. So though you want to reduce turnover, make sure your great team members are working only with other great team members. And that's an enormous way to do it.
Now, the third part, of course, is the cultural side. You want to improve your culture, reduce turnover for your team members. It's very simple. It's all about reducing the C and the D players from your team. Remove them. They have to go. They are causing the turnover for your fantastic people. And remember, C and D people.
They might be great folks. They are working in the wrong job for them, kind of by definition, because they're not performing. And they are a repellent to talent, to top talent. They are absolutely repellent. You're talking about magnetism, a positive and a negative. Um, you are talking about uh oil and water, all those types of things. So those are the strategies that can be used by any business to uh dramatically reduce, reduce the turnover.
Michael, now we're talking about culture, um and I think a culture can't be stated enough without talking about leadership. Um, to you, what's a definition of a great leader in come in in terms of uh maybe leading teams, building teams or uh being a supervisor or a company owner or a or team builder?
Well, I've got a fellow that I work with. His name's Frank. He runs both our practice um and build my team, and he's a great example of a great leader. One of the things that stands out about him is clarity of communication. Crystal clear communication. This is not a person who who well, will maybe we'll get maybe this, well, I'm not sure, maybe it uh uh not like that at all. It's definitive. This is what we're going to do. This is how we're going to do it. This is when we're going to do it. And he he gives the proverbial marching orders to the team and they march. And they, working with a person like that is a luxury. It is a fantastic
um honor to work with with a person like that.
Because from the, from my standpoint, I know that the goals are going to get achieved. And that he will do so in a, in an extraordinarily respectful way for the team. He protects the team, you know, when needed, and he is absolutely terrific. Again, at the communication side of things. So those are the things that pop to mind. Of course, we've all read the books on leadership. We've all done those things. I always like to suggest that maybe people take a look more at the basics. The, the infrastructure of leadership, if you will. Crystal clear communication is one, decisiveness is another. Ethical honesty, I mean, you can't be pulling fast ones on your team.
They're out the door. If you do that, good grief.
The list goes on and on, but I would say those are the, the, the top ones that kind of pop into my head.
Next thing, going into a layer deeper. What tips would you have for, for leaders?
Well, I think that goes back to the previous question in a lot of ways with. If, if you're struggling with your teams, entrepreneurs especially, and. Uh, this is, I think we're all susceptible to this on the entrepreneurial side of things. I would suggest that we take a look at the communication that you're giving your team members. Crystal clear communication. Entrepreneurs, like all of us listening, have this innate ability to think that people are reading our minds. And you don't understand what I'm saying, you know? I've said three words and you don't get it.
You know, those, those types of things. So developing a skill set as a leader that. Allows you to communicate in a crystal clear fashion is incredibly helpful. There's a company called Strategic Coach that built a tool for this. It's called an impact filter and anybody can Google it. Wonderful, wonderful help for entrepreneurs if they're looking for. An immediate improvement for something along those lines. So I do think the communication side of things, I think you, you have to live up to what you say you're going to do. And you do it. Show up on time, be respectful of people's time.
I mean, that's, those are the things that kind of come to my mind outside of what the general leadership books all say.
Along the lines of the same thing, do you have some stories that you'd like to share where
you had great experiences with, with the leadership that you've worked with or the, the leadership you were under that probably inspired you? Or on the other side, would you like to share some horrible or not so impactful leaders that you came across that didn't bring you up or put you down or didn't help your talents? I'd love to hear some of those stories.
So I, long time ago, I was in a program called Army Cadets in Canada, not part of the military, but the motto was something called Acer, Acer Pori. As the maple, so the sapling is what it meant. And it basically is a glorified way to say lead by example. That is core for any leader. If a leader is practicing do as I say, not as I do, best of luck with your team. You're going to repel talent worse than oil and water. You, you can't do that. You know, there, there's a reason why so many of those marvelous movies that we've all seen have the general leading from the front. You know, that type of thing.
So I, I think from, from the story standpoint, I've seen terrific leaders. I've seen horrible leaders. The horrible leaders, they generally don't tend to be leaders for very long. They're just not successful in the position. And you can't get great economic results in a business as a horrible leader. You might get good, you might get even better than good, but it's not sustainable. Truly outstanding business results require, let's call it highly correlated, incredibly well correlated to the, to the leader's ability to be a great leader.
Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite people to participate in the show and thank you for giving us your time and attention. Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a vision pro yourself.
Page updated November 13, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
