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Team Management

The Fastest Way to Build a Superstar Copywriting Team

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If you have finally realized that you need a superstar copywriting team in order for your business to succeed, I want to congratulate you. Understanding how important it is to put together a talented copywriting team is a step in the right direction.

Poorly written marketing copy and website copy will silently destroy your business if you don’t do something about it. What you must do, is put together a team of talented copywriters. Copywriters know how to close in print, and a superstar copywriting team can help grow your business fast.

If you’ve become wise to the fact that hiring skilled copywriters can lead to increased sales, then you’re probably motivated to build a superstar copywriting team. My guess is that you want to build this team as soon as possible, so that your business can start seeing results as soon as possible, right?

If you’re an entrepreneur or business owner looking to scale your business, you’ll want talented copywriters in your corner. Your business is in the best possible position when you’ve secured the loyalty of talented, skilled individuals who specialize in particular skills. That’s why when you hire a copywriting team, you should look for individuals who specialize in copywriting. In other words, seek out the experts.

So how do you build a superstar copywriting team? And what’s the fastest and most effective way to put together this team? I’m going to give you some tips that you should read before you start putting together your copywriting team. However, I’m going to start by emphasizing some of the most important reasons why your business needs talented copywriters.

Why You Need To Hire a Copywriting Team

You can tell your customers why they should buy your product or service until you’re blue in the face, but only copywriters can do this the right way. A talented copywriter will understand your key message and your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and communicate it in a way that persuades the reader to take action. The best copywriters know how to speak your customers’ language, and can write copy using the lingo and emotional triggers that influence your target market. They’ll write copy that pushes all the right buttons.

It’s not uncommon for a business to pay a talented copywriter $5,000 for a project, and find that the copy they paid $5,000 for generated $100,000 in additional sales. That’s why hiring copywriters is typically a worthwhile investment for your business.

Copywriters understand that it’s their job to make you more money. It’s their job to write copy that results in more sales, more revenue, and more growth for your business.

Now, let’s get into some of my best tips for quickly building a superstar copywriting team.

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Tip #1: You Get What You Pay For

The best copywriters charge high prices because they can. They have made a lot of businesses a lot of money with their skills, and they are well aware of their worth. If you can’t afford to hire the best-of-the-best, that’s okay, but don’t hire the cheapest copywriters either. Remember that you get what you pay for. Remember what your goals are. If your goal is to hire copywriters to write copy that converts, and your goal is to increase sales, don’t expect the $10/hour copywriters to achieve this for you.

SEO copywriters, for example, charge more money – but it’s worth the extra money. SEO (search engine optimization) is a specific skill that requires extra training. It requires knowledge of Google algorithms and SEO practices. Copywriters who are well-trained in SEO will write copy with strategic keyword placement, resulting in more search engine visibility, and therefore more views. More views means more potential buyers. The value of this is beyond any extra cost associated with it. That’s why paying extra for a copywriter who excels at SEO is worth the money.

Warren Buffet said, “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” When hiring copywriters, think about the value – not the price. The value you get is much more important than the price you pay.


Photo credits: Mark Reinstein / Shutterstock.com

Buffet also said, “Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing” and believe me, it’s risky to hire a copywriter who doesn’t know what they’re doing.

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Tip #2: Ask About Their Research Practices Before Hiring

Ask any star copywriter, and they’ll tell you that doing proper research is integral to writing great sales copy. So, when you’re interviewing copywriting candidates, ask them what their research formula is.

Research skills are crucial for copywriters, because it’s their job to understand your target market and your ideal customer. It’s their job to learn the lingo, trends, and principle emotions of your ideal customer.

Superstar copywriters don’t just research your target market, though. They also research you, your business, your brand, and whatever it is that they’re selling. They seek to understand the product or service they are selling and its unique selling points, so that they can build a story around it and sell it to the best of their ability. Superstar copywriters will familiarize themselves with your industry, business, brand, product, target market and competitors.

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Tip #3: Assign a Trial Project

Many of you probably don’t want to hire a copywriter without seeing what they can do first. Assign them a trial project so that you can see how they write. Think of this as their “audition” for a long-term copywriting job. Of course this trial project should be paid, since the copywriter will have to do research and spend time writing the copy.

Before you assign a trial project, figure out what your needs are. If what you really need is someone competent in direct-response copywriting for landing pages, then there’s no point assigning Facebook ad copy as the trial project. The trial project is most effective when it helps confirm that the copywriter possesses the specific skill you are looking for. So, it should be tailored to whatever your current needs are, instead of being random.

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Tip #4: Have Each Team Member Focus on Their Unique Talent

One of the smartest things you can do when building a superstar copywriting team is honing in on each individual copywriter’s core talents. What I mean by this is, figuring out the specific talent or niche area of expertise each copywriter on your team is best used for. For example, perhaps one copywriter on your team is great at writing Facebook ads, while another copywriter on your team is great at writing email sales letters. If you focus their training, responsibilities and assignments on one or two specific types of copy, do you know what will happen? You’ll watch in awe as they excel within their areas of expertise. They’ll become masters at writing the specific type of copy you’ve encouraged them to focus on, and their copy will start to perform better and better.

It’s important to recognize which team members excel at which types of copywriting. Writing for social media, for example, is a special skill not every copywriter possesses. The restricted character limit on social media platforms such as Twitter, requires a talent to be able to write enticing, clickable content, within the character limit. By recognizing which copywriters on your team possess certain specific skills, and encouraging them to focus on what they’re gifted at, you’re well on your way to building a superstar copywriting team.

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Tip #5: Hire a Copy Editor as Part of Your Copywriting Team

Some business owners make the mistake of thinking that if they hire expert copywriters with advanced skill sets, they won’t need to hire a copy editor. However, even if you trust your copywriters to produce high-quality copy, you still need a second pair of eyes on it. You need a star copy editor as part of your copywriting team. Below I’ve laid out some examples of the types of editing skills your copy editor should be able to implement:

Proofreading: Checking for grammar, spelling, sentence structure, punctuation and proper capitalization.

Why it’s important: This makes your copy look professional, and helps you establish credibility with your prospects. Proofreading is one of the most important types of editing.

Fact-Checking: Ensuring all facts are accurate, relevant, not outdated and not misrepresented.

Why it’s important: You can lose the respect of your audience if your facts or statistics aren’t accurate and up-to-date.

Editing for SEO: Double-check the copy for appropriate use of keywords, and edit the copy for search engine optimization.

Why it’s important: If you use SEO best practices, your copy will be ranked higher by search engines, and will therefore be seen by more people.

Substantive Editing: Assessing the piece of copy as a whole, ensuring the message is clear. Checking for any inconsistencies in language, tone, and style.

Why it’s important: Until you fully trust your copywriters, it’s important to check for clarity and consistency in their work.

Other types of editing include formatting and link-checking. As you can see, the role of an editor is quite complex, which is why this team member should focus solely on editing – not writing – the copy.

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Tip #6: Send Them Through a Training Program

When it comes to training your copywriters, why take on the burden of training them yourself? One thing you can do, is take a master copywriter’s knowledge, and use it for training purposes. Have a master copywriter take what they know, and turn it into a very structured, systematic formula. This formula can help you train your other copywriters.

Make sure to have separate training for separate types of copy. For example, have separate training just on headlines. There should also be specified training for the hook, story messages, sales letters, Facebook ad writing, direct-response landing page copy, etc.

This way, you’ll end up with exactly what you need. You’ll have some copywriters who are very good at landing pages. Some who are great at Facebook ads. Others who are great at email sales letters. The list goes on. Each copywriter will excel within their niche areas of expertise that they’ve been trained on.

When you train copywriters on specific types of copy, what happens? You now have structure. This type of structure works. For example, if you provide advanced training on Facebook ads and product copy for one copywriter who seems to excel in these areas, don’t let them touch anything else. Have them focus entirely on this type of copy. Watch what happens. Copywriters will maximize their potential by narrowing their focus. As their leader, it’s your job to help them narrow their focus on the type of copy they’re best at writing.

You can also have an onboarding process where a training program is involved. Perhaps when you onboard copywriters, you’ll send them through a training program such as my 7-week High-Income Copywriter Certification Program. Once they’ve completed basic training, you can level-up their training to level 2 training, level 3 training, and keep escalating based on the competence of the copywriter.

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Tip #7: Keep Upgrading Your Team’s Skill Stacks

You can upgrade the skills of the copywriters on your copywriting team with training programs, seminars, workshops and master classes that focus on relevant and up-to-date skills training. Copywriting is a modern skill that needs to be consistently upgraded and continuously exercised in order to stay current.

You can provide your copywriting team with copywriting exercises, designed for mastering the skill of copywriting. Check out these fantastic copywriting exercises for some ideas. These copywriting exercises could certainly help someone on your team become a better copywriter. You can also send your team members to a modern training program.

Ultimately, proper training allows you to spend less resources and time revising and critiquing the work of your copywriters. Level up their skills and keep them well-trained so that you get higher quality copy, less revisions, and more speed. You do not want that back-and-forth where you have to critique their work, and have them take a second go at it. You want them trained so well, that they get it right the first time, and revisions aren’t necessary.

Summary

Hiring a team of talented copywriters is crucial for the growth of your business. Poorly written marketing copy and website copy will silently destroy your business if you don’t do something about it.

Hiring skilled copywriters can lead to increased sales, because copywriters know how to close in print.

Here are 7 tips for hiring a superstar copywriting team:

Tip #1: You Get What You Pay For. (The value you get is more important than the price you pay.)

Tip #2: Ask About Their Research Practices Before Hiring. (The best copywriters are great at doing proper research on your industry, your company, your brand message, your target market, and your ideal customer.)

Tip #3: Assign a Trial Project. (Let copywriters audition before offering them the job.)

Tip #4: Have Each Team Member Focus on Their Unique Talent. (By narrowing their focus, copywriters will excel in their niche and make you more money.)

Tip #5: Hire a Copy Editor as Part of Your Copywriting Team. (Copy editors are integral to any copywriting team.)

Tip #6: Send Them Through a Training Program. (Let them learn from a master.)

Tip #7: Keep Upgrading Your Team’s Skill Stacks. (Have your copywriting team keep exercising their copywriting muscles by updating their skills.)

Enroll Your Copywriting Team in My 7-Week High-Income Copywriter Certification Program

If you’re motivated to make sure your copywriting team is well-trained and capable of closing in print, enroll your team members in my brand new copywriting training program. My 7-Week High-Income Copywriter Certification Program is valuable even for copywriters who think they already know what it is to be a copywriter. Anyone who enrolls in my program is likely to learn something new and develop better copywriting skills. It’s also a great program for any team members who you’re attempting to transition out of their current role and into a copywriting role. You can’t go wrong with a modern training program taught by a master copywriter.

Jon Snow’s Top 9 Rules For Success And Leadership

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Photo credits: Christian Bertrand / Shutterstock.com

Do you think you know more than Jon Snow? If you’re a Game of Thrones fan, I’m sure you remember one of the most quoted phrases from the show: “You know nothing, Jon Snow”. In actuality, Jon Snow knows a lot – especially when it comes to success and leadership. In fact, there are a plethora of valuable leadership lessons we can learn from Jon Snow.

Game of Thrones was – and still is – one of the most massively successful shows of all time, and Jon Snow’s character is one of the most revered characters on the show. But what exactly made Jon Snow such a beloved leader? This fictional character won our hearts because he lead with his heart, and demonstrated what a true and noble leader looks like.

Jon Snow showed us that leadership is earned. A great leader paints a picture of hope while also having a clear mission that he believes in. Snow also had the best intentions for the people, and he was not power-hungry. People naturally wanted to follow Jon Snow, and the fact that power was not his goal made him an even more attractive leader. He was different than all the other power-hungry Kings and Queens vying for the throne who did not have good intentions for the people. Ancient Greek philosopher Plato said, “Those who seek power are not worthy of that power.” Perhaps this is one of the philosophies behind why the people deemed Jon Snow worthy of ruling.

 

But what about you? Why do you respect Jon Snow’s leadership style? It’s natural for fans to use popular fictional characters as inspiration for real-life decisions. But what makes a fictional character from TV or movies become an icon or an inspiration? Is it that they are relatable, and they express the human struggles we all face? Because they are aspirational – that they have the life we want to have? Is it that they are inspirational – they demonstrate the qualities we wish to have? I think it’s a combination of all three, and Jon Snow’s character captured all of these qualities.

It’s popular belief that one of the most powerful and defining traits of Jon Snow was his astounding natural leadership abilities. Game of Thrones fans first meet the character as a teenager; Snow is an orphaned Bastard who was taken under the wing of a powerful family. He seemed to have very little power or status. He is sent to The Wall, a place for outcasts, misfits, and nobodies to serve, keeping watch for everyone else’s benefit. Over the seasons of the hit series, we watched Jon Snow evolve from a powerless outcast to a commanding leader. 

Against all odds, he was able to gather people to support his cause, draw power away from more established leaders, and inspire people to follow him and risk their lives for him. Jon Snow was a leader for the right reasons. He lead with his heart and had a clear mission. His core values of loyalty, honesty, courage, compassion, resilience, forgiveness, humility, and patience combined to make him the type of leader that we can all aspire to be.

 

So what exactly are Jon Snow’s rules for success and leadership? I’m going to tell you about the 9 qualities that made Jon Snow a great leader, so that you can follow his example:

1. Lead With Your Heart and Do Not Judge

Where do you lead from – your head, or your heart? Perhaps you think of a leader as being a calculating mastermind, weighing every decision with a purely rational analysis. But you would be wrong. To lead with your full potential, you need to lead with your heart.

What does it mean to lead with your heart? It means that you are able to put aside some of your judgements and snap decisions, and to look at people with an open heart and a generous spirit. It means that you see the potential in people. This is what Jon Snow did: he didn’t judge his friends, comrades, or allies by their claims and resumes alone. He saw them not just for who they are, but also for who they could be.

It’s your job as a leader to believe in people and help them realize their potential. It’s your job to see beyond appearances, and see their promise. Click To Tweet

We can’t underestimate this ability: when you really believe in your team and show them you do, it will increase their belief in themselves. This in turn will cultivate the growth of their skills and increase their output. Being a stern leader or a disciplinarian alone won’t get you these results. You have to see the potential of each team member.

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Lead With Your Heart - Infographic: pic.twitter.com/SYpaCTCHTI Click To Tweet

As a leader, it is your job to identify the seeds of success in those under you, and to help them cultivate their abilities and grow towards their maximum potential. There are team members who might be operating at a B level who you can bring up to an A level by motivating them, coaching them, training them, and believing in them.

Your belief in the abilities of those you are leading has a direct influence on their belief in themselves. And in order to operate at their full potential, they must believe in themselves. Click To Tweet

When you lead with your heart and believe in your employees, you will inspire them at an emotional level. This will increase team bonding, morale and loyalty. When they know you believe in them, they will be grateful and want to do their best work for you.

As their leader, your support, your positive feedback, and your belief in their abilities can change their self-concept and self-esteem. They will then produce results that match this higher self-concept. Open your heart and mind to what your team members might be capable of, and watch as they grow to impress and surprise not only you, but also themselves.

2. Your Title Doesn’t Make You a Leader

In Game of Thrones, the people believed in Jon Snow and followed him even though he didn’t have any sort of official title or claim to power. Jon Snow didn’t have a royal title or royal ties, but he was extremely passionate and sincere. He was driven by a mission, and people believed in his cause. A good leader like Jon Snow has a great mission that they believe in, and people who naturally want to follow them.

I believe that a great leader leads without a title. Having the title of “President” or “CEO” does not automatically make you a good leader, and you can actually be a great leader without any sort of official title.

If you do have a commanding title, don’t expect it to hold much weight. Sure, you might have an authoritative title, but if nobody follows you and nobody respects you, you aren’t a good leader. That’s why your title doesn’t really matter that much.

3. Accept That You Don’t Know Everything

In business, you can’t do it all yourself. You can’t know everything – that’s what your team is for. In order to grow and be successful, you need to hire talented people and delegate. As a leader, it’s crucial to be able to spot great talent, and empower those talented individuals on your team to make decisions, contribute solutions and execute the vision.

You don’t want to be the most knowledgeable or the most skilled person on your team.

What you want is for different people on your team to possess different skill sets so that your team’s combined knowledge becomes a force to be reckoned with. Click To Tweet

A great leader finds team members who know what they don’t know, and they’ll fill knowledge gaps this way. You don’t have to be an expert at everything – that’s why you hire experts in various fields. 

Jon Snow didn’t really “know nothing”. He knew a lot, but he was also humble enough to accept that he didn’t know everything. He was aware of what he didn’t know and who he needed to consult with or delegate to.

A humble leader like Jon Snow will accept that they don’t know everything, and also accept that they will make mistakes. Jon Snow made lots of mistakes, but he learned from his failures, and he grew from those mistakes.

As a leader, accepting that you don’t know everything aligns with an understanding that different people on your team might have different perspectives on how to solve a problem. Someone on your team might have a completely different perspective than you on an issue, but your job is to keep an open mind that they might be right, and you might be wrong.

When Jon Snow says, “We look up at the same stars and see such different things” he demonstrates his deep understanding of how different people have different perspectives.

4. Don’t Be a Lone Wolf: Form Strategic Alliances

Instead of being a lone wolf, form intelligent alliances and unite your allies towards a common goal.

One of the rules of success and leadership is that you not only have to accept that you don’t know everything, you also have to accept that you can’t do everything. Click To Tweet

That’s right: you simply can’t do everything by yourself. Great leaders collaborate with others and share knowledge, resources and strategies because great leaders understand that two heads are better than one, three heads are better than two, and so on and so forth. As Jon Snow would say, “I need you with me if we’re going to beat them.”

 

A lone wolf can still be successful, but a lone wolf will have a much more challenging journey towards success. For example, a lone wolf often focuses too much on their competition. They’re too narrow-minded. The lone wolf often thinks about how to beat competitors, instead of thinking about collaborating with their competitors.

If all you focus on is how to beat the competition, you won’t be a good leader. 

Instead of thinking about how to crush your competitors, think about how you can benefit from working with them. Click To Tweet

You could cross-promote, share customer bases, share resources, and create strategic alliances.

5. Lead With Integrity: Have Strong Ethics and Morals

Jon Snow is a leader who has a strong moral compass, plenty of empathy and good sense of ethics. One of Jon Snow’s famous quotes is, “When enough people make false promises, words stop meaning anything.” I love this quote because I think staying true to your word is incredibly important in business and in leadership.

 

I believe that integrity is very simple: You do what you say you’re going to do. You follow through. If for some reason you can’t do what you said you were going to do, at least have the decency to communicate this from an honest and moral position.

If you lead with integrity and keep your promises, you’ll protect the reputation of your business. Click To Tweet

People often make false promises in the business world to get ahead. When you do that, your customers and team members lose faith and lose morale. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Don’t promise more than you can deliver. It’s better to underpromise and over-deliver. 

6. Lead By Example

A successful leader knows they cannot just talk the talk – they have to walk the walk. If you have a clear mission and clear core values for your brand, you must demonstrate those core values at all times. Lead by example by living and breathing those core values.

Jon snow put himself out there, fought for what be believed in, walked the walk, and showed those that followed him that he was willing to fight for his mission because he truly believed in it. He also showed his followers that he was willing to make great sacrifices for his mission, which is why his people in turn sacrificed as well.

When you’re a leader, you can show courage by stepping out of your office, getting out from behind your desk, and leading by example. You can’t always sit at your desk and delegate. Sometimes you have to get up from your desk and show them how it’s done.

7. Be Driven By Your Mission, Not By Your Ego

A great leader is mission-driven, not ego-driven. That’s why having a mission statement is so important. Having a clear mission gives your people something to get behind. Your mission statement is how you communicate to your team – and to the world – what your company is about. Your mission isn’t about making money, it’s about making a difference.

Businesses will stay small if the business owner thinks too small, and is only driven by their own ego or only driven by money. Ego-driven leaders won’t be successful in motivating anyone, and they won’t attract top-tier talent either.

People want to be part of something bigger than themselves, and be driven by an inspiring mission or purpose. Click To Tweet

Do you think you are going to attract the right people with the right intentions if you have no mission to attract them with, other than making money or gaining power?

Remember that Jon Snow never wanted power for the sake of power, which made him a better leader because he’s not ego-driven or power hungry – he just wanted to lead for his cause.

8. Know What Battles Aren’t Worth Fighting

Perhaps you remember when Jon Snow said to Ygritte, “Six times you’ve invaded, and six times you’ve failed. The seventh will be the same.” Snow then says, “You don’t have the discipline. You don’t have the training. Your army is no army. You don’t know how to fight together.”

What is the lesson here? It’s good to believe in your vision, but it’s also good to know when your strategy isn’t working. This way, you can either decide that it’s a battle not worth fighting, or you can decide to change your strategy and change your approach. You have to be flexible enough to pivot and come up with a new approach, or decide not to fight a battle you know you’ll lose.

Successful leaders pick their battles and know which battles aren’t worth fighting. They also know when to let go of a strategy that won’t get them there.

Keep your goal – your mission – as your North Star, but be willing to give up on fighting certain battles that aren’t worthwhile. Imagine you are in a ship heading towards your North Star. What currents and storms do you really need to fight to get there? Can you recognize when it is wiser to avoid the storm, change course and find another route that will get you to your destination? Can you recognize when it’s best to abandon a sinking ship?

9. Fearlessly Make Tough Decisions

As a leader your team counts on you to make tough decisions during tough times. These decisions aren’t always going to be pleasant or easy to make. Something like the decision to end a partnership or letting go of an employee won’t be easy, but if it’s what’s best for the business, perhaps it must be done.

A great leader must get comfortable being uncomfortable. If you want to be liked by everyone and you don’t want to rock the boat, you won’t be a good leader.

In Game of Thrones, Jon Snow stands by his decisions, even when his advisors are against his decision. His character says things like, “It is my decision, and my decision is final!” A famous quote from Jon Snow about making tough decisions is, “Sometimes there is no happy choice, only one less grievous than the others.”

 

If you want to make the best decisions for your company, know that it might not always be the popular decision. Your leadership skills really get tested when it’s time to make an unpopular decision or cause disruption, because it’s not easy to do.

Not everyone has it in them to make these uncomfortable decisions, and that’s why not everyone has it in them to be a leader.

Summary

Jon Snow was a natural leader because people naturally wanted to follow him. But why? We know that he was an attractive leader because he believed in his mission and was not seeking power. He was authentic and genuine, not power-hungry or ego-driven.

Jon Snow lead with his heart and had a clear mission that reflected his good intentions. His core values of loyalty, honesty, courage, compassion, resilience, forgiveness, humility, and patience combined to make him the type of leader that we can all aspire to be. Below are 9 lessons of leadership and success that we can learn from Jon Snow:

  1. Lead With Your Heart and Do Not Judge
  2. Your Title Does Not Make You a Leader
  3. Accept That You Don’t Know Everything
  4. Form Strategic Alliances – Don’t Be a Lone Wolf
  5. Lead With Integrity: Have Strong Morals and Ethics
  6. Lead By Example
  7. Be Mission-Driven, Not Ego-Driven
  8. Know When a Battle is Not Worth Fighting
  9. Make Tough Decisions

More Rules For Success:

Bruce Lee | Elon Musk | Tony Stark | Jack Ma

How To Hire High-Performing Millennials

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You may be looking for the best strategy to hire millennials for your business because you want the newest and brightest talent on your team. You want to hire high-performing millennials. But how can successful entrepreneurs save time and money during the hiring process to ensure you hire the right people? And after you hire them, how can you ensure that they will stay with your company?

Understanding What Millennials Want

You could start with understanding what high-performing millennials want in an ideal career. They are different from the previous generation because they are looking for work-life balance, flexible work schedules, mentorship, and the option to work from home occasionally.

Now, to attract young talent, you could go to extremes like General Electric did. The company moved its long-time headquarters to a major city because urban millennials only prefer to live in big cities.

But in most cases, you don’t have to do something as drastic to ensure that you hire the best performers. What you can do is set up your company to offer what they are looking for, such as work schedule flexibility and business mentorship.

Mentorship is important because many don’t have much work experience. Millennials, born between 1980 to 2000, have on average only a few years of career-related experience. However, they are very technologically savvy. They grew up with social networking and typically have about 200 Facebook friends, send an average of 50 texts a day, and have posted selfies on social media sites.

People tend to believe that this generation isn’t loyal to their employer and they change jobs quickly. But in my organization, I have hired a lot of young people because I need to keep up with trends, and I have found that my team members are extremely loyal.

They are also high-performers. The reason I’ve been able to hire loyal, high performers for my organization is because of my hiring process.

How To Build A Strong Team

When it comes to hiring, nothing is more important than your team. The best team wins in business. It’s not the techniques, the technology or even your product because those things you can manufacture.

Business is about people. I’ve seen leaders with great talents but they have a weak team.  I would take an average idea and a great team any day of the week verses a great idea and an average team.

An average team could not execute the idea the way that we want to but a great team can take an average idea and make it work. A great team will tweak ideas, improve, upgrade, or change direction as needed to make things happen.

In my lifetime, I’ve made some very good hiring decisions and a few really bad ones. That’s how I learn to pick the best people for my team. I’ve also come to believe that there are only three types of employees: the grunt, the mercenary, and the patriot.

When you understand these three types, you can streamline your hiring process to find the employee types you don’t want, and attract the types you do want in your company. Part of this process includes asking the right questions to assess their work ethic and personality type.

Watch this video about the three types of employees.

The Grunt

The first type of employee is the grunt. You can rely on them to show up and get work done. To find out if your potential employee is a grunt, don’t ask them the typical interview questions, like their background and strengths.

What you want to ask is, “Are there any questions you have for me?” when you’re interviewing them. And they will tell you, “Well, how do you calculate overtime? How many vacations do I get? Or exactly how many hours do I have to work?”

That’s a grunt. They just want a nine to five job and to do the minimum not to get fired and go through the day to day motions. They just do what they do to pay the bills and make a living. They’re very focused on how much time they have to work, if it’s full-time or part-time. If they’re asking you questions about work hours, you have a grunt.

Depending on your type of business, you may want to hire a grunt to get the work done. For example, you need someone to do some work that is fairly routine and repetitive.

You don’t want to have too many grunts in your company. If there are too many of them in your company, your business is not going to grow because you have a team of people doing the minimum.

The Mercenary

The second type employee you will get is what I call a mercenary. A mercenary works for money.

At the end of the interview, they will ask you a lot of money questions. They want to know about salary, bonuses, and other compensation. It’s all about money for them. That kind of person usually works in sales positions.

With a mercenary, if there are better opportunities where they can make more money, they will jump ship very quickly. Because they work for money, they have no loyalty whatsoever.

There’s a time and place for mercenaries. They’re hunters. They are ideal if you want to sell a lot of product at your store. You probably don’t want a mercenary in customer support. You probably don’t want a mercenary managing your finances.

The Patriot

The third type of employee is what I call a patriot, the one you want in your company. You want mostly patriots in your company because they want to make good money but that’s not what drives them.

A patriot is driven by a mission, a purpose, and being part of something bigger than themselves. During the interview process, they will bring you ideas.

They will say things like, “I have studied your company’s culture. I think I could bring value to what you do.”

From the beginning, they are already thinking about improvements, but not from the perspective that your company is doing something wrong. They want to contribute and they’re driven by growth.

Patriots are the type you want to hire. Those you cannot hire enough of because when you have a group of patriots, your company you will have a culture that is growth oriented, because those people always want to make things better.

Chances are, patriots work well with other people because they know they cannot do it by themselves. They need to work with other people to in order to make this vision a reality. They are not nickel and dimeing you.

They’re not thinking about what happens if they have to work more than five minutes of over time. They’re not watching the clock, seeing that it’s 4:50 so they’re ready to go home in ten minutes.

Patriots just want to do something epic with great people. When you have a group of patriots, you will have a much stronger organization.

I have many patriots in my organization and because of their growth mindset and passion for what they do, my company is able to move at a fast pace and pivot quickly. If you want to build a fast paced business, one way is to hire millennials who are patriots.

high-performing millennials
Hire high-performing millennials who are patriots.

Hiring High-Performing Millennials Who Are Patriots

Millennials want work-life balance. They want to be part of a mission that is greater than themselves, so they aren’t as concerned with money. Many would rather make $40,000 doing something they love than $100,000 doing something they hate. In fact, a majority think that the performance of a business should be measured by more than its financial success.

More and more millennials are becoming entrepreneurs to supplement their income or make a positive difference in the world. In 2011, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, millennials launched just under 160,000 startups a month, and 29 percent of these businesses were started by people 29 to 34 years old.

Now if you’re an entrepreneur or business owner and you want to build a strong team, you should hire high-performing millennials who are patriots. I have several millennials on my team and they have important roles as leaders and directors. I have empowered them to run entire departments on my team.

You might be wondering why I would hire young kids and give them important responsibilities instead of hiring someone with ten years of experience. The secret is to hire based on attitude and then train for skills. Skills are something that can be learned. A hard working attitude, desire for learning and self improvement, and passion for success cannot be taught.

So hire based on attitude and then train for skills.

Benefits To The Company

Millennials want to be part of a mission that benefits more than themselves. They also want to be mentored. On my team, I provide my hires with mentorship, but I also expect them to invest in their own training.

A patriot will always invest in their own growth and they will always contribute their knowledge to the team so the team also grows. My team members pay the airfare, hotel, and costs to attend training in other cities. When they invest in themselves, they will pay more attention to what they are learning. And when I see the results of their training, I will reward them.

The high-performing millennials on my team work long hours but they don’t watch the clock. Their work tasks are based on what they are passionate about doing, such as digital marketing, copywriting, or video production. It’s easy to lose track of time when your career is like a hobby.

They work remotely and they set their own hours, but they also support each other. I have created a team culture in which my team is responsible for their work tasks and will accomplish what needs to be done without direct supervision. This can only be achieved when the company CEO or business owner sets a clear vision and clear team culture.

There are over 80 million millennials, and the way they want to work is changing how employers hire. If you want to build a successful team, then hire patriots.

Final Thoughts On How Successful Entrepreneurs Hire High-Performing Millennials

If you want to build a successful team and hire millennials who are patriots, share with them your mission and give them the chance to contribute. Allow work-life balance by having an organization where employees set their own hours and have the opportunity to work from home.

If you do this, you will hire a lot of patriots. From time to time, some tasks should be left for grunts. For certain tasks, like a sales position, mercenaries will be fine. But if you want someone who will help you achieve your company’s mission and will be a high performer, hire a patriot.

How could a patriot move your business forward? Comment below.

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How I Built A Powerful Team Of Independent Entrepreneurs

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Business is a team sport. If your team doesn’t work well together then it will be like a soccer team with half the players trying to kick the ball to one side of the field, and the other half trying to kick the ball to the opposite side. That kind of thinking doesn’t work.

If you’re a business owner trying to build a successful team, you must think of it like a team sport. The people you hire must work together and share your passion for what you are doing.

Most organizations hire employees who work set hours and quit if they aren’t paid what they’re worth. You cannot build a powerful team with this kind of employee.

I hire entrepreneur-minded people who work together to reach the same goal. My organization grows quickly and moves quickly, adapting to change within hours.

Finding the right people for your team is not easy. As your business grows, you’ll notice you cannot do everything yourself. You need to start building a team of people around you. The problem with a lot of entrepreneurs is that they are control freaks. So as an entrepreneur, you must learn to let go of some control. Then you can start building a team.

To start building a powerful team, you need to have four key elements: vision, mission, culture, and talent.

Watch this video about building a powerful team.

 

1. Share Your Vision With Your Team

You want to have a very clear vision of what you want your business to look like. Your vision will be your greatest asset when it comes to leadership. You cannot inspire anybody without a vision.

Historically, when someone wanted to conquer a country, or start a movement, there was always a very clear vision of what they were going to do. They were clear about what the outcome would look like when they won.

Having that vision is extremely critical. As a leader you need to sell your team on the vision every single day.

You then get them excited because people go through ups and downs so you can’t tell them the vision once. You have to keep selling and selling it.

Sometimes as a leader, even you aren’t sure if you can actually achieve what you say. But you had better not share that doubt or show it.  You need to have unstoppable, unshakeable confidence. You have to inspire them with words like, “Let’s do it together as a team.”

That vision is extremely powerful once you have it. You want to be able to tell your team, this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to dominate the real estate industry. We’re going to change the energy sector. Or we’re going to help the people of this community.

2. Sell Your Team On Your Mission

Once you have the vision, the big picture, then the next thing you need is the mission. The mission can’t be that you’re building a business so you can get rich. That doesn’t inspire anybody. Why should they help you get rich? You have to have a mission that inspires people beyond your self gain.

People want to belong to something bigger than themselves. They want to know what they do matters and makes a difference.

Lifestyle entrepreneurs have trouble building a team because they lack a sharable mission. They just want to make enough money to work from home or work so many hours per week. It’s just about me, me, me. That kind of mentality doesn’t attract talent because it’s too small.

Bill Gates’s dream was, “We’re gonna put a personal computer in every household in North America.” Steve Jobs wanted to put a computer in the hands of everyday people. Elon Musk had dreams of making space travel for everyone.

These big dreams are what get people inspired. There’s a purpose. You’ll have a more driven organization with a mission that goes 10 to 20 years into the future.

3. Develop a Team Culture

What do you stand for as a leader? What makes up your culture are your values as a company and as a leader? There are usually four to five key ideas. Everything else builds around those four to five things.

In my company, culture is very important. People don’t think about what is or isn’t their department. Everyone helps each other and is very supportive. We learn, argue, fight, and then get back to work the next day and focus. We are focused on growth and excellence.

Having a strong team culture is important when building a team.

4. Find Talented Entrepreneurs

When you’re interviewing somebody for your team, tell them what you stand for, the vision, and where you’re going.

Potential employees who are looking for a 9 to 5  job are not a fit for my organization. They just want a pay cheque.

Anyone who works for me or works with me knows it’s very intense: long hours, hard work, and a high standard. I don’t tolerate excuses. I don’t tolerate bad performance. Those kinds of 9 to 5 people don’t last in my company, and I’m upfront about it. If a candidate is willing to accept those conditions, and they can thrive under pressure, then I want to get to know them.

That’s my management secret. I want to know their personal goals. It’s not a good sign when they ask me about the salary or how many hours of work are required. I don’t want to hear that. I want to hear what motivates them. If their dream is to buy a car, I want to know what car and why.

When you tie personal goals with company goals, you and your team are aligned. You get loyalty.

Most employers play just enough so their employees don’t quit. In my organization, I don’t dictate how much each person gets paid. If someone’s income goal is $100,000, they need to find a way to add value. Then I’ll increase their compensation to get closer and closer to their income goal.

Strong Leadership

You are who you attract. So look within yourself if you want to lead a team like mine. Leadership always starts from top to bottom.

Final Thoughts On Building A Powerful Team Of Entrepreneurs

Today I’ve given you a glimpse of the mindset to build a powerful team. If you want to build a team of entrepreneurs, not employees, first, have a vision and a mission that your team can be a part of.

Then develop the team culture. Look for good talent. Ideally, you want to find people who are willing to put in hours of hard work because they love what they do, not because they want a pay cheque.  Work on becoming a strong leader, because if you are strong, you won’t have any problems attracting talent. Strong leaders are the foundation of powerful teams.

What is your mission statement? Comment below.

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How To Manage People And Be A Better Leader

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“People may hear your words but they feel your attitude.” – John C. Maxwell

When it comes to managing people, the most important lesson I’ve learned is that people are not manageable. If you want to be a strong leader, the best way to lead your team is to give them independence.

In other words, instead of “micromanaging people,” where you are managing all the details of each person’s job, you need something more efficient. Micromanaging is exhausting and you will not be able to do that as your company grows and you have more people on your team.

So, instead of micromanaging, create structure and create systems where you are painting a picture, creating that yellow brick road. Show them the path that you want them to walk on. What I’m going to show you are some tips on how to manage people and be a stronger leader.

Watch this video on how to manage people and be a better leader.

Give Team Members Room To Grow

Your job as a leader is to coach people toward success, however they define it. It could be in terms of finance, status, or their role within a company. That if they follow this path, they’re going to get to the goal that they want.

If you hire the right person, very often, they will find the right role for themselves within the company. You shouldn’t set in stone the position that you hired them for. As time goes on, you may discover other talents that they have.

Within my company, you can have someone starting at a very junior position and they could move up to a very high position because depending on their talent and work ethic, they could grow.

For that reason, I don’t pigeonhole my team members. I don’t hire for a very specific role and then tell them that’s all they are going to do for me. People evolve, so they may develop talents over time.

So to me, I am not as interested in hiring someone for a particular skill set. What matters more are three qualities that cannot be taught.

Loyalty Matters More Than Their Resume

I always communicate to all my team members the three qualities that I look for as the CEO. The first is loyalty to the leader, the brand, and the customers.

I don’t care how talented they are, I don’t care how good their resume is, nor do I care how smart they are. If they are not absolutely loyal, that person is not someone you can have long term in your company. They might leave you for your competitors or steal your customers.

The second quality I look for is harmony.

A Players And Team Players, Not Lone Wolves

You want to have harmony on your team, so you want to find people who work well with other team members. You don’t want a lone wolf. The chemistry between your team members is important.

Even if they are talented A Players, if they don’t work well with other people on the team, they’re not going to last. So harmony is very critical.

It doesn’t mean they have to like everybody or hang out at a company barbecue. But during work time, they have to be able to get along with other people to accomplish certain tasks. Harmony is very critical.

Those are the two things I look for in team members: loyalty and harmony. The third and final quality I look for is results.

High Level Results

I want to know if the team member has the capacity and the experience to perform their tasks at a high level. Can they produce results and not just talk about results? And can they produce results on a consistent basis?

Sometimes you hire people and they may be able to perform results at the beginning, but they’re not consistent over time. Or sometimes, you bring them in for a certain job, and you notice that after three years, the job has outgrown that person.

They could produce results before, but they can no longer produce results. Now here’s what happens if a team member has loyalty, harmony, and results, but not necessarily in equal amounts.

The Right Combination Of Qualities

Phenomenal Results

If you have someone that is phenomenal at producing results, but they are not loyal, they don’t work well with other people on your team. What I usually do is I hire them as independent contractors.

They’re very good at accomplishing a certain task or project and that’s it. They’re not going to work within my company and they’ll never rise up to key leadership positions.

Absolute Loyalty

But if someone is very loyal to the organization and they work well with other team members, but they are not results driven, I have a place for them in my company. It doesn’t matter that their results are only okay.

They probably work in customer service, support, or accounting. I can trust them and I need those roles as well.

Career Driven

Now here’s another combination. If someone is not loyal, but they could produce results and  they work well with other people, we’ve got a problem. It means they have good people skills, but they’re not loyal to me.

That kind of person I keep at a kind of middle management, director level. They might lead a little team, but I will never promote them to the top because loyalty is a problem.

It could turn out that we work together for six months, up to three years, and then they jump ship to work for somebody else. So I don’t want to promote that person to a leadership position.

Perfect Fit

On the other hand, if someone is loyal, works well with other people, and produces results, and they are lifelong learners, then it doesn’t matter where they came in within the organization. I can promote them to the top.

Given time, they will hold an executive position in my company. Their background and their age don’t matter to me. If they have all these three things, they become one of the key people within my global organization.

When you’re hiring and when you’re managing people, ask yourself these questions. Think about where your people are at. Now, if you have some people that aren’t loyal, don’t work well with other people, and don’t produce results for you, guess what you should do?

Fire them! No point hiring them in the first place either. You don’t want them in your organization. What you want is someone with the right amount of loyalty, harmony, and results.

Key Thoughts On How To Become A Better Leader

Running a business is simple. It’s people that are complicated. They don’t want to be managed, and they don’t stay static. They constantly evolve, so when you hire someone for your team, you want to be flexible because as the person grows, their role in your organization may change.

To decide if someone is a good fit for your company, measure them against three key points. Are they loyal to you and your brand? Is there harmony between them and your other team members? And does that person produce results?

Ideally they have a mix of all three traits, but even if they don’t, if they are loyal, you can find a place for them in your company.

Do you think loyalty, harmony, and results are important to your organization? Comment below.

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Why Aren’t You Delegating?

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(Stop Being a Control Freak in Business)

How comfortable would you feel about asking your friends and family to do a favour for you? How about asking a stranger on the street to help you with a task?

Now you might or might not feel comfortable with asking other people for help. But most entrepreneurs are very reluctant to delegate tasks. And it’s usually because of two reasons.

One possible reason is that you’re the type of entrepreneur who is a control freak. You don’t want to give up your authority. Another possible reason is you are afraid the person doing the task will make a mistake.

As a result, you become a one-person business doing all of the work yourself, working until exhaustion, with no time to reflect on how to move your business to the next level.

However, the sooner you start delegating, the sooner you can grow your business.

You don’t need to be a CEO or the boss of a couple of employees before you start delegating. Sharing the work will ease your workload and free up your time for other tasks, like planning out the direction of your business.

You can start delegating as soon as you’re ready. You don’t even have to wait until you’re rich.

Have a look at my business for example. People tell me because I’m rich, I can delegate. But the opposite is true. It’s because I delegate that I’m rich. It’s a chicken and egg thing.

So if you have your own business and you aren’t delegating, start now.

Here are some tips to motivate you to be less controlling and more at ease with delegating to other people.

Watch this video on why you should be delegating more for your business.

Start With The Right Mindset

If you don’t have the habit of delegating now, you won’t be making the money to maximize your time. And if you don’t have the habit of delegating now, you’re not likely to be delegating when you have more money.

One reason why you’re not delegating is because you’re thinking about saving. You want to wait until the future when you can afford to start paying other people to do tasks.

The opposite is true. You’ll start saving money when you can afford to put money aside. To make enough money to put some aside, you need to free up your time to work on generating more revenue. You can’t do that if you’re saving money by doing all the routine tasks yourself.

You need to start developing a millionaire mindset now.

Right now, for every dollar that comes in, you want to set aside ten cents. You’re cultivating a habit early on. Then when you have a hundred times more money, you’re already used to saving a bit of everything you earn.

So start the habit and delegate small tasks. Let your less important responsibilities go gradually and as you get some good experience working with others, keep delegating more from there. If you’re still reluctant, it might be because you have limiting beliefs.

Why You Aren’t Delegating

What’s holding people back from delegating? They can come up with enough reasons to last a lifetime.

For example, they think they can do the job better themselves. They don’t trust others to do it because the other person might make a mistake. Or the other person isn’t qualified to do it or they already have enough to do.

Or they believe they are the only person on this planet who can do it so they can’t ask anyone else to do it.

All of those reasons are nothing more than limiting beliefs. None of it is true, and having those beliefs doesn’t help your business. You don’t get anything done, and you stay on the hamster wheel.

There are some tasks that you can delegate to others.

  • Responding to emails
  • Responding to customer service
  • Scheduling business and personal appointments
  • Writing to new prospects
  • Bookkeeping, graphic design, website development
  • Travel arrangements

All of these tasks and more, you can delegate to other people. If you aren’t delegating, there are four big fears that are holding you back.

1. Fear Of Losing Control

You fear what could happen if you lose control. Maybe the other person will make a mistake and it will cost you time or money to fix.

You fear you could be rejected if you ask someone for help. You’re worried that this person will think you’re incompetent because you’re not doing the task yourself. Or you’re inadequate.

This is especially true of men. Women are more willing to ask for help. Men are taught to be strong and macho so if you don’t do something, you’re incompetent and you might lose your sense of honour.

Maybe you don’t fear losing control, and you’re not afraid to ask for help, but you like to watch every dollar you spend very carefully.

2. Fear Of The Cost

Sometimes entrepreneurs think the cost is too high and they can’t afford it. They want to save money. However, you need to think about how much your time is worth.

If you want to make a million bucks a year, your work has to be worth $1700 an hour. If you don’t delegate, then you’re losing $1700 an hour. Isn’t your time worth so much more?

Even if you think you can’t afford to delegate, start the habit and free up your time. You can’t be afraid of losing money, or having a bad experience.

3. Fear Of A Bad Experience

You may have tried to delegate in the past and it turned into delegation hell because the person you trusted and paid didn’t deliver as promised.

To avoid that, create a document. Provide your consultant or assistant with the information they need, the steps they need to take, and your expectations. They are less likely to make mistakes when expectations are clear.

If they still manage to make mistakes, then hire someone else. Or delegate to three people and see who does the job the best. Keep the good one and let go of the rest.

Another way to think about it is this: Have you ever had a bad meal in the past? Did that stop you from eating ever again?

For that same reason, don’t let a bad experience stop you from looking for the right person.

4. Fear Of Not Finding The Right Person

Hiring the right person is a numbers game that you won’t get right every time. In the big scheme of things, it’s not going to matter. Six months to a year from now, you’re not going to remember the minor errors. You just need to get better at filtering out the bad matches.

Here’s an example. One of my business partners had a business for 15 years. He wasn’t good at hiring or managing people.

One day, I asked him to fire everybody. He didn’t want to do such a thing because he considered his employees as friends.

The experience turned out to be a business lesson for him. All the people my business partner thought were his good friends tried to get to every last dime when they were fired. One even kept the iPad he had been given.

Employees are employees.

Hiring people is a skill. There are so many steps to choosing the right one, from filtering to coaching them to training them to develop new skills.

The way I hire people and run my company is a bit unusual because I run this virtual empire. I choose to work from home. I don’t want to commute or go to an office. When my mentees call me, I’m in my underwear, not my suit. I like to be at home.

I get up, do my morning routine, and get to work. It saves me a lot of time. But that’s a personal preference. It also means because I don’t see my team face-to-face most of the time, so I need to trust them to do their responsibilities. So when I hire, I choose people who can work independently.

Why You Need To Delegate Now

If you want your business to grow, you need to learn to get comfortable with delegating now, not in the future. Your time is valuable, so overcome your fears and start finding tasks you can ask other people to do for you. Most importantly, establish a hiring system so you create a team of people you can trust.

What tasks do you delegate to other people? Comment below.

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I hope you enjoy reading this blog post.

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