Attitude Hiring Wisdom

"There's something rare, something finer far,something much more scarce than ability. It's the ability to recognize ability..."

- Elbert Hubbard

   "The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little."

- Thomas Merton

   

Hiring Wisdom: 10 Reasons Managers Accept Mediocre Employees

by Mel Kleiman

Why do so many managers continue to accept mediocre, second-rate results?

Hundreds of research studies have quantified the difference between having an "A" player versus a "C" player in a job, any job. Every one of them concludes the difference in productivity and the impact on the bottom line is anywhere from 20 percent to over 1,000 percent greater return when you compare the best, most productive employees to those who are average.

While I've never met anyone who disagrees with this data, most managers and organizations continue to keep "C" players on the payroll. This leads me to believe these managers:

1.    Are focused on the employee, not the expected or required results.

2. Do not acknowledge the consequences for hiring or retaining "C" players.

3.    Are focused on low turnover rather than for retaining the right people.

4.    They say they want only "A" players, but they are not committed to hiring and retaining them.

5.    Don't know what "A" players look like. Attitude is critical.

6.    Don't know how to recruit "A" players because most of them are not looking for jobs.

7.    Don't know how "A" players think and make decisions (which is vastly different than employees who are looking for "just a job, any job").

8.    Use a screening process designed to screen people out rather than ensure the right people get in.

9.    Don't provide "A" managers to supervise "A" employees.

10. They fear letting people go. Yes because they "hate" recruiting, they don't think they can find someone better and/or they blame themselves for the person's failure to get the results they have agreed to.

A recent study of 20,000 new hires found that 46% of people didn't make it past 18 months on the job. 11% were due to ability -- 89% failed due to attitude. Here is a service for screening recruits for Attitude. 

 

Take a look at this Topgrading endorsed evaluation tool. $10 to $20 per screen and it works for sales, technical and office personnel. Attitude matters and you have to hire people that have a good attitude, you can't coach that. Check it out.

All the best, 

Rick Wallace

 

Your Choice - A Penny or $1 Million?

Which would you choose if given the option:

1. A million dollars today? OR
2. A penny today and then double it every day for 30 days?

Day 1: $.01
Day 2: $.02
Day 3: $.04
Day 4: $.08
Day 5: $.16
Day 6: $.32
Day 7: $.64
Day 8: $1.28
Day 9: $2.56
Day 10: $5.12
Day 11: $10.24
Day 12: $20.48
Day 13: $40.96
Day 14: $81.92
Day 15: $163.84
Day 16: $327.68
Day 17: $655.36
Day 18: $1,310.72
Day 19: $2,621.44
Day 20: $5,242.88
Day 21: $10,485.76
Day 22: $20,971.52
Day 23: $41,943.04
Day 24: $83,886.08
Day 25: $167,772.16
Day 26: $335,544.32
Day 27: $671,088.64
Day 28: $1,342,177.28
Day 29: $2,684,354.56
Day 30: $5,368,709.12

Quite a difference huh? It is the power of compounding and it works with everything in our lives and in our businesses.

Only 10% of people stick with resolutions or have goals they set and achieve. The main reason is we set the goals but we go from nothing and try to start day one with a radical new habit. Like not working out to working out for 45 minutes 3 times a week.

It has been proven that we will be more successful by starting out with a plan to simply get dressed and go to the gym 3 times a week for 2-3 weeks. Maybe we workout for 15 minutes but we are building a habit of going to the gym, little by little we will work out more. Compounding will take care of the rest.

How about sales calls or blocked time to work on our business or marketing or whatever? Start out slow for a few weeks. Don't try and go from no cold calls to 20 a week. Think about it, if you look at the example above simple, small easy, steps will compound quickly and make huge differences in your performance over time.

All the best, 

Rick Wallace

Create Your Own 2014 on Jan 1, 2015

"A good plan is like a road map: It shows the final destination and usually the best way to get there."

-- H. Stanley Judd, Writer

2014 in upon us. Do you have a plan to make this a great year? As Yogi Berra said, "If you don't know where you are going you might not get there."

Well I propose to you that he was wrong. I propose that it is better to sit down and think about the past. I know I have always said forget the past, you create your future by what you do today. I firmly believe that. But in this case I suggest that you can predict your future with more precision if you sit down and look at the "past" and record it.

So I have been using a great tool called the Destination Postcard. It is the best planning tool I have ever worked with and has provided outstanding Clarity for my clients as we built their 2014 plans.  

You simply sit down in a quiet room, pretend it is January 1, 2015, and write a postcard to yourself recounting the major accomplishments of 2014. Then what actions you took to achieve those accomplishments and the most important part --- why was 2014 such a great year for you? How do you feel? What is your day like now? How are things different in your life and your work? How did you pursue your core purpose your WHY?

Now you are creating your future by looking back on a created past. One you have created today.  

"Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs."

- Farrah Gray

Here is the template. Send me yours and I'll call you and spend a few minutes reviewing it with you.  

All the best, 

Rick Wallace

13 Reasons You Are Not As Successful As You Should Be

"Your audacious life goals are fabulous. We're proud of you for having them. But it's possible that those goals are designed to distract you from the thing that's really frightening you -- the shift in daily habits that would mean a re-invention of how you see yourself."

- Seth Godin 

13 Reasons You're Not As Successful As You Should Be

Author: Jim Kukral

Feeling down about your small business these days? Is the broken economy hurting your sales and keeping you up at night? Need some motivation and tough love to help you stop pitying yourself? Well, here you go: 13 reasons you might have in your head about why you're not as successful as you should be.    

#1 Reason You're Not As Successful As You Should Be - Laziness

I don't think there's an easy way to put this. I have to assume that you're lazy. Every single successful person works their butts off to get where they are. It's ok to be lazy. Just admit it. But don't whine about not being rich and successful, ok?

RELATED: 5 Bad Habits Entrepreneurs Must Drop

#2 Reason You're Not As Successful As You Should Be - Entitlement

Only a few people in the world are part of the lucky sperm club. You and me? We gotta work to get what we want. Quit thinking you are owed something. You're not. Get to work. 

#3 Reason You're Not As Successful As You Should Be - Fear

You are afraid, plain and simple. Afraid of looking silly. Afraid of what your friends and family will say. Afraid of everything. Look, you're either going to stop being afraid, or you're not. Nobody can convince you to stop. Imagine though... what awaits you when you stop with the fear excuses?

RELATED: Handle the Peaks and Valleys of Business Ownership Anxiety 

#4 Reason You're Not As Successful As You Should Be - Negativity

You may not realize it, but the people you associate with might be negative [orifices]. They could be soul-sucking beings who don't want anyone to be successful. Get rid of them, now! Surround yourself with successful people. People you want to be like. 

#5 Reason You're Not As Successful As You Should Be - Stop Thinking

How much do you want to bet you have paralysis by analysis? You think way too much about what you could or should do. Doers get what they want, and everyone else gets what they get. Stop analyzing and start doing. 

#6 Reason You're Not As Successful As You Should Be - No Goals

You plan nothing. You believe that someway, somehow, everything you always wanted will just magically happen. So you "play it by ear" and wait. You need goals to shoot for. Otherwise, you're just treading water.

RELATED: Goal-Setting Mistakes New Small Business Owners Make 

#7 Reason You're Not As Successful As You Should Be - "They"

There's no "they". There's no secret group of people that controls your success or failure. You've made that up to make you feel better about yourself. The truth is you, and you alone, control your success in life/business/everything. It's easy to blame "them" though, isn't it? Weak. 

#8 Reason You're Not As Successful As You Should Be - No "X" Factor

You can't do it because you're not pretty enough. Or don't have a strong personality? You don't have the "X" factor? Wow, what an unbelievably lame excuse. The truth is even jerks, idiots and boring people can be just as successful as anyone else. Your problem is you don't believe it yet. 

#9 Reason You're Not As Successful As You Should Be - Time Waste

You're a classic time-waster. You spend hours and hours every day working on not-working. You do things that aren't productive. How are you ever going to get anything done, or reach any goal if you keep wasting time? You're not. So you might as well give up now if you're going to keep this path.

RELATED: Beating the Top 5 Time Stealers in Any Business

#10 Reason You're Not As Successful As You Should Be - Social B.S.

You spend way too much time in social media land.  You waste probably about 50% of your productive hours of the day doing this. The sad part is, you know it, but you can't stop. So you can't get anything done that matters. 

RELATED: Social Media: How Much Is Too Much for a Small Business?

#11 Reason You're Not As Successful As You Should Be - Think Small

You think way too small. You are constantly looking only a day or a week ahead instead of years ahead. Because of this, you never get anywhere, and you never lead; you always follow. 

#12 Reason You're Not As Successful As You Should Be - Don't Want It

You don't really want to be successful. Sure, you like to dream about it like everyone else. But in your heart you are afraid of what might happen if you really get it. That's B.S. fear your brain is feeding you. Success is change, and it feels really, really good. Tell your brain to shut the [foolishness] up.

#13 Reason You're Not As Successful As You Should Be - Don't Believe

You never believed that it's possible. Society taught you that only a few "exceptional" people get what they want. Everyone else should just settle. If you really want to believe that, go ahead. The rest of us will be at the front of the line because we believe.   

An excerpt from Jim's book Business Around a Lifestyle Volume 2. Available for purchase at Amazon. Grab your copy by visiting JimKukralBooks.com.

All the best, 

Rick Wallace

9 Lies Holding Your Business Back

"I never, ever thought of myself as a businessman. I was interested in creating things I would be proud of."

- Richard Branson

6 years ago I decided to become a business coach. I thought I needed to go somewhere and get trained on how to be a coach. I had 35 years of business experience with 2 Fortune 1000 companies and a small $40 million dollar business which we took public, sold to our largest customer and then as part of the Executive Management Team we bought it back.  

Over that career I was a salesperson, sales manager, corporate sales trainer, product manager, Director of Marketing, VP of Marketing and New business Development and GM of a division.

I still needed a coach to help me become a coach. Steve Chandler fit that bill for me. It all started with his book "9 Lies That Are Holding Your Business Back". I was hooked and attended his 2 week coaching school and have followed him and learned from him ever since.

I thought a business coach was 80% the "how-to" of business: the numbers, the marketing, the selling, and the HR stuff. Boy was I wrong. Success as a business owner is 20% the how and 80% about how we think and act.  

You see, self-limiting beliefs hold us back. Lies hold us back. Listen to this 43 minute audio and see for yourself - here is the truth that will set you free.

• I just need to know how to do this.....
• All I need to do is get my name out there.....
• Experience is a benefit.....
• I Am a Victim of Circumstance....
• You have to have money to make money ...
• You Have to Be Tightfisted....
• Customers Are Hard to Figure....
• Lowering Prices Boosts Business.
• Can Do This on My Own....

It is 43 minutes that will make a difference for you.

All the best, 

Rick Wallace

Practice Makes Perfect

"The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: Be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge."

-- Elbert Hubbard

The following is from Steve Chandler:

One of the things people always tell you growing up is, "practice makes perfect."  Well, practice doesn't make perfect if you're practicing the wrong thing; it just reinforces the wrong way to do it.  

To succeed in business, you need to WAKE UP! Wake up to what works. What works is not a secret! It's not some intangible quality some people have and some people don't. You can learn to be successful in your business. It is teachable and learnable, and there's nothing mysterious about it at all.

That's a vital factor in your deciding to succeed. You must realize that if there are literally millions of millionaires, then the way to do it can't be all that mysterious.

But here's what stops most people: they personalize their failures. The minute their business gets frustrating, they wonder about their personal worth: do I have what it takes? People are soon making up all kinds of wild, untrue things about successful people. They think they have strange, unusual willpower and drive. They think they are lucky and connected. They think things that drive them deeper into low energy and low self-esteem.

Do not make up negative things about yourself if your business is struggling. It is not about you and your qualities. It is about your choices and level of understanding. Once you reach a new level of understanding about how businesses succeed, your business will also succeed. No matter who you are and what your genetics are and how your parents treated you. You can do this. But, you must choose to do it. You must decide to commit to it, and raise your level of consciousness and understanding, or it won't happen.

From Me:

I see it a lot with clients. Too many people have self-limiting beliefs that are not true, expectations that are based on their little world and thus lack the courage to choose the right actions. They spend too much energy and focus on blaming others. You cannot solve problems unless you take ownership of them. There are better ways to do things, but you first have to take action. Choose to not only seek those better ways, but the courage to implement the changes to better your company and your life.  

All the best, 

Rick Wallace

Turn This Ship Around

"Focus your messages on the results you expect, not on the methods for doing the job."

-- Marty Brounstein, communications trainer

I have been searching for a way to communicate the message and story of the book I just finished "Turn this Ship Around" by David Marquet Captain - Retired, of the USS Santa Fe nuclear submarine.

This 10 minute video does the trick. If you want to know how to coach your team to think like owners, be creative, love their jobs, be accountable for results, then watch and listen to how he did it with a ship full of sailors with low morale, terrible ratings and terrible attitudes. He turned it into the best nuclear sub in the Navy with the highest re-enlist rates (sailors and officers signing up for another hitch) of any ship.

How: He stopped giving orders/stopped answering questions. He told them the results he wanted and had the crew say out loud, "I intend to...", before they took action. It works for my clients too.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqmdLcyES_Q&feature=youtu.be 

Inno-Versity Presents: "Greatness" by David Marquet

All the best, 

Rick Wallace