Attract, Build, And Maintain a Strong Team

The Complete Entrepreneur – EP30: Attract, Build, And Maintain a Strong Team

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I love the topic building the right team, because it’s all about the people, right? If you don’t down to the right people, you’re, concept’s not going to take off. Oh, absolutely Colin I know I’ve signed up for the Startup Club newsletter. I get the newsletter and I say it’s great to receive that information.

 And today, as Colin said, we’re looking at the topic of building the right team, how, as an entrepreneur, you can build the right team and building a high performance team for your business is absolutely critical for success and will require a lot of your focus.

A lot of people think that your focus should be like getting that next deal or something like that. And you know what it is, it’s your reach you’ll reach a plateau, but if you grow your team and you get the right people in your team at the right time and so forth, you can multiply. Who [00:01:00] you are and your effectiveness as well as that, it’s not just the team work, as I’ve mentioned the team at home too.

And how do you grow the relationships in both your business and your personal life? Because building that right team is so critical. Yeah. So it’s a topic I must’ve been, I’m pretty passionate about calling. Yeah. I think we’re in a very different time than we were even 12 months ago. Right now the demand, the ability to bring together a great talent to do a startup is very hard.

The opportunities for individuals to get jobs in big corporations has never been better than ever in history. I think at this point you can pretty much walk into a job and get paid a lot of money. So the challenge for the entrepreneur or the challenge for the startup is how do we apply. How do we actually appeal to those individuals who want to work for these [00:02:00] big companies or don’t want to work for these big companies by the way, but how do we appeal to them without delivering the kind of salary or compensation that they would get from a big company?

And I think today we’re in a much more challenging environment for startups than we were 12 months ago. Yeah, it definitely is the case. And I’ve been pondering this thing quite some time, like I must admit in my own business at PAC logic we’ve had basically the same team for coastal and 15.

I asked myself, why is that why, or how would be able to retain this incredible team and also maintain the energy in there. So we don’t get stale and things like that and all those sorts of things. And how do you do that? And I thought to myself, I’m going to ask them. So it’d be for this topic.

I went and had a chat to some of my different team members, and I asked [00:03:00] them why do you hang around? And it’s interesting what they said. They said to me anyway. And so one of the things they said was you look after us. In other words, they have their needs met. You don’t go on the skimp on their pay and things like that.

If you skip on their pay, then you know that the grass will be greener on the other side of the fence. You’d say you always look at. We never have to ask for a raise or something like that. We never have to ask for bonuses. These are going to be a bonus the end of the year. I, not that it just happens.

You look after us. That’s the one thing they said, the number two thing they said is we just like working with everyone and everyone’s really good. And and they’ve every person’s got their back and yeah, that’s interesting. And there’s those two things. And they said the third thing that it was, we love working in the space you’re in and the [00:04:00] vision you have for it.

Like it’s a directional thing for the team. And they said, you’ve got great vision and I want to get behind. And it was really interesting looking at those three fundamental things. And and how it impacted the team members. So I just wanted to jump across maybe to Michelle, I know you, you manage a team of people, so why do they hang around?

Like why, what have you found is the reason that they go along herring with you? Yeah, that’s a great question. And I agree with what you and Colin have said. It is actually getting harder. I actually just lost one person on my team and it was really sad for us. I’m asking that question myself a lot as well.

And for us, what we found is we really try to create a culture. [00:05:00] And, we have younger people than ourselves, we’re in our, whatever, fifties approaching 60, and we’re really trying to create an environment where they feel like they can flourish. So what does that mean? Especially now because of the pandemic and COVID, it’s things like, giving them the freedom to work from home.

Of course, I still have to produce, not putting these, restrictions on people that are really like, just because you want to control also, giving them empowering them, would be the word to say, but in a way that they can perform. So I would say for the, teams that I manage, that’s been extremely important.

I’m highly hands on. I’m just like I, and I even tell them I want them to build a resume. I’m really honest with them. [00:06:00] And I want them to really get something out of the job. It’s not just about us trying to make money, but it’s really important to me that they feel satisfied in the job.

And I worked at very big companies for many years, and I never had that opportunity. It just wasn’t, it was very counter to that, the experience that I had working at very large companies. And I know for the people that we’re attracting, it’s very attractive to them. And they also end up, are able to, like I said, it, chief likes skill sets at a faster rate.

So it’s not yeah, I’m going to work on a social media team. Whatever I’m making up for apple. Like you’re really not going to be able to do that. When you try to present to them opportunities and experiences that they wouldn’t be able to receive at big companies. And then when we can, we try to, give them options and companies that’s really important.

And we’re very honest [00:07:00] with them. If we’re, if it’s a company that’s not making money yet, we tell them as soon as the company makes money, they’ll get a higher pay, they’ll get, whatever it is, more benefits. So for us, as it’s extreme transparency, but also really giving them what we, see they’re asking for job satisfaction and.

Yeah, Michelle, you raised some really great points there, and I’d love to drill into them a little bit more with you just beforehand. You’ll listen to the complete entrepreneurial. We’re taking a look at what it means to actually build the right team. If you’re a person in the audience, you got some questions or you’ve got some experiences of you with your own team.

We’d love to hear from you. Please stick up your hand. We’ll invite you to the stage. And this is where we really love to engage with you. And to hear from you about your experiences, it’s not just a one way street. It’s a two-way conversation here. So please [00:08:00] stick up your hand there. And we’d love to hear from you, but in the meantime just as people do that Michelle, you talked about empowering your team members.

What do you mean by empower them? And how do you go about doing that? Yeah, we have the saying actually I think Colin, made the same for us was basically you delegate responsibilities, not task. So if you’re just telling somebody, oh, constantly do this TA do this social media posts for the, like for the complete entrepreneur versus you’re responsible for all the social media posts.

Obviously giving them parameters, telling them what success looks like. That’s delegating a responsibility that gives them the space and the creativity to Excel. If you’re just dictating to someone constantly task, [00:09:00] they really like, even myself, if somebody is doing that to me, it’s you’re become paralyzed because you’re just trying to do exactly that you don’t.

You ended up becoming very close to it. You don’t have the freedom almost you’re constraining people. So we’re all about trying to delegate responsibilities and giving people a framework. We don’t believe in just letting them go wild on it. Of course, there’s an old saying, it’s actually a military saying you have to expect and tell them what the expectations are, but then inspect.

So that’s how we look at it. Delegation is key. And I think delegation goes hand in hand with job satisfaction that the re

boards, it really needs to be based on that type of system.

Yeah. I love that saying, you said there was expect, and then. Expect, and then inspect [00:10:00] and Colin sane at the coin, which is assign responsibilities, not tasks. And I think that a couple of things around that, and this really begins to build the strength of a team is when you assign responsibilities, people feel they trust you, trust them when you assign tasks, not necessarily, but what responsibility means.

Okay. It’s been, it’s going to be dealt with because I trust you and what’s going on here. Yeah. So it’s it’s such an important principle. And I love that saying that, that common coin, but I just want to just jump across this solution. So NuSI, it’s great to have you on the stage of the complete entrepreneur.

Love to hear your thoughts on this topic. And looking at building the right teams are snoozing. So next say welcome to the complete. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I’m so excited to be here. Hello. Good evening guys from Nigeria. So my time, good day. Good [00:11:00] afternoon. Good morning. From whatever, wherever you are.

I’m really excited to be here. Building the right team as an entrepreneur. This is like one of the major topic or challenges does. Many entrepreneurs are facing recently viewed in the right team and knowing what to do when you’re building the right team. I’m happy to know Mitchell talk about giving responsibility and not taxed.

So people don’t feel like you are forcing them on telling them if you are not going to do this, then you are not going to be parts of people. I think if you’re responsibility, listen to people, give them the sense of feeling that, oh, I’m a leader in this particular startup and not just

for me. I’m here to learn. I’m here to learn more. I think that’s what I’ll say for now. It’s wonderful having you on the complete entrepreneur. And I know that Nigeria right now is a hotbed of entrepreneurial activity. [00:12:00] So I wish you all the best in your business. And I think you have the right attitude of you’re here to learn.

And I think all of us are here to learn, including Colin, Jack, Michelle, and myself. We’re here to learn from people like yourself and different view of the world as well. And from a different cultural background is so valuable in this global community we live in. So thank you very much for that.

I do appreciate your thoughts. Yeah. I just want to jump across now to Dale. You’ll listen to the complete entrepreneurs. Great to have you on the stage. Welcome. Hi, Michael, it’s great to be here. I’m from Barbados. I’m in the Caribbean as you, I don’t know if you guys might know of your no, really pushing out some initiatives in the region because you have the entrepreneurs coming through and Samba is very embryonic.

The ecosystem is nothing close to what you will see in the us or Europe or even Africa, which is making a lot of shows, might be statements they [00:13:00] want to make is I think what would be a good conversation that I guess you guys could have another time or another for another room is for entrepreneurs that are in regions where tech is embryonic.

And obviously the talent for tech is not going to be as widely available as you may find in other regions. So that whole, those type of entrepreneurs that are in such environments go after and find the right person’s vein. The right person may be far and few in between. I think that would benefit a lot of Caribbean entrepreneurs and for other regions as well, because we have certain regions that tech isn’t busing in, as you would find it in some other regions.

And that would be a great conversation to have. I don’t know if you have anything to add to it. No, but it would be a great conversation, for some people that would be in here. Wow. That’s a great topic. I’ll tell you what. And one of the things that I find anyway is that every region at some stage was every Onic [00:14:00] every single region.

So it’s like one of the great things about the world we live in. And one of the interesting things I’d love to get Colin and Jeff’s feedback on this is that because of COVID then regions become less of an imperative because we’re now in a global world. I must admit do you run a, now a completely distributed company?

Everyone books. And we’ve done that actually from day zero and it’s been incredibly flexible, incredibly very profitable as well because of that. And it allows us tapping the talent that could be on the other side of the world and can do that very easily, but color Jeff, I’d love to hear your thoughts on what Del Ray.

Yeah, I was going to say, Michael, I think that now more than ever, those barriers have been removed, which is both a blessing and potentially a [00:15:00] curse. So I think that wherever your startup is located, you have access to talent today that you didn’t have access before. When you were thinking about you ha having to only tap into a local talent pool, I’m always surprised, if you have a LinkedIn account, oftentimes you’ll get emails from LinkedIn of jobs.

They think you might be interested in whether you’re looking for a job or not. And I’m always amazed lately of the emails I get from LinkedIn with job opportunities that are fully remote from all over the country and all over the place. So that’s changed dramatically. So I think you’ll have less trouble with that.

Dale then you would have had a few years ago, but the other point, Michael, I wanted to mention, as we dive into it, something that I’ve been learned and learning again and again with every new company is. Building a great team before you can do that. You need to really have a clear understanding of the team that you need.

What are the roles? One of the big challenges for a startup in the early days is figuring [00:16:00] out what are the roles they actually need to fill. And I’ve made mistakes many times trying to do that. Thinking we needed, maybe you have a business and you think you need an in-house sales team. When in fact you really don’t you can accomplish those goals in other way.

And so early on in the startup process, you need to get together with the founders and the team, and really lay out exactly what roles need to be filled, understand the type of person you’re looking for to fill those roles. And it’s really important to do that before you dive in and start hiring.

Cause it’s very easy to hire the wrong people early on in the process. I’ve made that mistake numerous times. Yeah, I think as a part of that process, Jeff, it’s also really good to write out the job description, not the, not find someone and go, oh, they’ll do, but actually write it out and say, what is the sort of person we need?

W what do they look like? Okay, we need a CTO, or we need a [00:17:00] head of business development or whatever it is, and put that as a ponder your business plan, and really take the time to do that. And don’t just be opportunistic, but actually planted that it costs, it really costs an entrepreneur and nothing but a little bit of their time to plan, but it can cost them huge amounts of holiday to unwind a bad decision particularly when it comes to building your team.

I love what Jeff said too. I’m just trying, being in here. He’s so right. Like you really need to define what you’re looking for. It might love people and we know people want to get promotions and to different levels or different areas, but if the company doesn’t need it, it’s irresponsible for us, to put people into those positions.

Cause it is actually hurting others as well as the company. So I think what you said is really smart, Jeff, and it also makes me think of another [00:18:00] popular saying, which is, what is it? You hire slow and you fire fast. Like it’s really you just have to remember if you don’t have the right people at the team, it’s so damaging to your other folks, especially your high performers.

It really hurts. Yeah, I think that’s a great sane Michelle, that she was raised, hire slow fire fast. We put a guy on a numbers of years ago now and it took us a long time to work at, is he going to fit the fit within the existing team? Are you going to fit or is he going to destruct the existing team and to get that right?

Cultural fit means you’re going to be doing a lot of talking with them and to be able to make sure that they’ve got the same sort of philosophies and so forth like that of life and with the graffiti and where the depressions disrupt and all very important things. That’s for sure.

But yeah, Dale, let me tell you. As I say, [00:19:00] as I said to a lot of my friends when I first got involved with internet back in the noughties, I said for the first time in Australia’s history, cause I’m in Melbourne Australia, I’m a hundred milliseconds away from anywhere, a hundred minutes, seconds. That’s all it is.

Yeah. So it’s one of the other things I would encourage you as as a business in Barbados is just think about what is the the competitive advantage that gives you in the global marketplace and then have a global focus. And there is the occupational advantages for a lot of these up and coming tech countries and so forth like that as a lot of cubit advantage, but you need to have a global outlook in my own business.

99% of the revenue comes from international. 1% comes from. 100% agreement.

Sorry, go ahead.[00:20:00] 

I would say my focus right now is mainly Caribbean waste, but we just signed a partnership agreement with doxy diabetes. One of the biggest telemedicine companies globally, we’re looking to distribute telemedicine as well to clinics here in the region and beyond the region, because with the agreement, we are not restricted to the Caribbean.

And so I didn’t mention that for us, but our main solution is electronic health record. So we are focusing with electronic record. We are more focused in Caribbean ways, but with the tele medicine we are looking at, we’re looking at a global approach. Oh, that’s great. That’s really good to hear and take that global sort of focus, I think is one of the most exciting things is that in this day and age for the, for an entrepreneur it’s the challenge quite often is be global on a hyper-local scale.

And it’s so good to have you on the stage, but not a problem that like to drop a jump across to [00:21:00] boss, meek boss, make it’s wonderful to have you on the complete entrepreneurial. We’re taking a look at the topic of building the right team. So what have you got to say on this topic, classmate?

Hello?

It looks like you may have a problem with your microphone. We’re going to jump across to Yvonne megawatt and come back to you. If you flash your mark, your microphone a few times, Postmates that’d be great. So let’s just jump down to Yvonne. And then we’ll come back to your boss, Mick, and Yvonne, which we’ll pay back on the complete entrepreneur.

Yvonne, what have you got shared about this? On this topic? Yeah, good evening. From London Oh, good morning, depending on where you’re listening from. So my background is in teaching and [00:22:00] I’ve been teaching business in economics, very theoretical in the classroom for the past 10 years and noticed that there was some gaps that we had potential to come out and create a digitalized ad tech products.

And for the last part of last year, it was all about learning. What a startup is all about and, all the things, learning all the things like pitch decks and all that. And we then built the prototype. This is my co-founder and I with me doing majority of it because my job is a lot more flexible than my co-founders.

Anyway this year, it’s been a big drive now on, we need to get used as testing on the project to see what the feedback is before we build the products. And what we’ve, what I’ve found out is we need to have some goals bearing in mind the kind of departments needed to run the business.[00:23:00] So we’ve set out goals, say for the product itself and what that would look like three months, 12 months down the line and then gone much deeper.

For the first three months and and sales and marketing and all things like that. And by doing that, it’s it’s helped to define the person that we need and what we need the person for and how much we need to spend on this person, because all of this is being done by bootstraps.

I don’t know whether that makes any sense or whether we’re just taking the long winded approach, but just listening to all the lovely things that are being Sayed, it would just be interesting to get some input from, or all these people is so experienced in running businesses. Yvonne, I think what you said was really great because I think, [00:24:00] one of the great powers in terms of planning is to work backwards.

So if you set your goals and have a strategy, if you know what your goal is, where you want to be at the end of the year or the end of two years, again, of the three years, then you can work backwards from that goal and try to determine, okay, if we’re going to achieve. How many people do we need, what roles do we need those people in?

What kind of people do we have to hire? And if you dig even deeper and understand what the individual goals are going to be for those roles, that’s even better. Because one of the other mistakes that I’ve made with companies and something we’ve talked about very recently with one of the companies I’m involved with is, if you hire someone and you don’t know.

You expect them to achieve at the time that you hire them? How can they be guided? Hey, how do you know you’re hiring the right person? Because you don’t know if it’s a person who can achieve that goal and B what are they going to do if they don’t come on board and know what’s expected of [00:25:00] them from day one.

So to your point of planning that strategy in advance, even though it might take a little bit longer, if you actually know what the company’s goal is and what a particular roles contribution to that company goal is before you hire the person, you’re way ahead of the game. Because when you hire them, then you can tell them we’re hiring you.

And these are expectations. This is what we expect you to accomplish. And this is where that accomplishment sits in the company, sits within the company’s goals and objectives. And then you have someone who’s going to come out of the gate running because they know exactly what’s expected of them.

So I think you’re on point. Yeah, I think you raised some really important issues there. Jeff and Yvonne, thank you for your input. Yeah. One of the things that I found with hiring, particularly at a very early startup stage that you’re maybe that you’re out there, Yvonne is when you go to hire people guess we should have a job description and make [00:26:00] sure they fulfill those what you need, but share your vision of where you want the, where you can see the company going and how they could be a part of that vision, because they’re trying to work out whether they want to join you or they want to go somewhere else.

Yeah. And yeah. So share your vision as is I think it was. Steve jobs said to John Sculley, although it didn’t work out too good for him, but you with say, if you want to keep on making flavored water, cause John Sculley was at Pepsi, or do you want to go and change the world with me at apple, your choice?

Yeah. And in the end, John Sculley came across and it’s just, it’s a very you can use that as a very similar technique when you’re talking to someone that you think would be ideal for the position, they tick all the boxes that really fit in and everything like that. But they’re saying do I want to join?

This thing is going to be risky. And I can get a bigger pay packet over, over the, over there and that sort of thing. And it’s [00:27:00] pitch the vision. What do they want to be a part of? Like when you become seven years old and you go and read three weeks, decide to retire or something like that, are you going to be really happy to have that secure corporate job you make.

Or, you know what that’s, what like the merry-go-round, or you could say, I’d love the rotors to better. Yeah. Entrepreneurship and joining a startup. There’s nothing like it. There’s absolutely nothing like it. And it’s incredibly exciting, amazingly exhilarating. And sometimes to get the right person on the board, you just got to go along and share your heart and put a hat on the sleeve feel to get them.

But Yvonne, I hope that really helps you out there. Colin, you’ve started like a large number of businesses to get those initial key people in place. Like how did you do it? Did you put a great big water of money on the table in front of them and said, Hey, take a look at these guys. What was it that you did the [00:28:00] right people in place that could help accelerate the growth of your company?

One of the things I say for startups, right? You need to pay or your employees with love, ownership and freedom. And let me explain what I mean by that, because let’s be clear, you do not have the budget that P and G has, or that GM or any of these large fortune 1000 companies have. So what do you got, like, why am I going to work for you when I can work for one of these big companies and make a hundred thousand dollars a year?

I’ll tell you what you’re going to get. You’re going to get total appreciation for what you do. We’re going to recognize all your achievements and everything that you do. I think that’s extremely important. The recognition component is something that LA is lacking in large corporations. And I do believe [00:29:00] I know this doesn’t cost any money.

But I do believe that’s very important to recognize greatness, to recognize achievement, to recognize the efforts that individuals are making. That’s very important. Freedom. I think this is something that, big corporate America is probably adapting to now, but I’ve been talking about it for over 10 years now, is that we need to give our employees freedom, flexibility.

You want to bring your dog to work. You want to bring your kid to work. You want to bring, you want to work at home. I don’t care. It’s all about delivering results. And then lastly is ownership. I do believe, and I’ve had hundreds of employees. Who’ve benefited from ownership in my companies as we build them up and sell them off.

But I do believe that it’s important that you share the wealth with everyone around you and as you grow. And I think that you don’t necessarily have to do stock options, which is, I think is a great idea if you’re on a high growth company [00:30:00] trajectory, but yes, Could do profit sharing. You can do other things that will encourage them to think like they’re an owner there, they get a piece of this.

So pay your people with love, ownership, and freedom.

But that’s you synthesize it down so well calling and I’d like to add another one to that mix diversity. And what I mean by this is where we’re at. Can a person jump into a job to find that the legal persons, sales, marketing, PR and logistics, and the incredible amount of experience you can get in a startup and accelerated experience is phenomenal for individuals and the building rot down on your CV.

Th the huge roster of experience you have and why, because you’ve been thrust into something. And that sometimes is a [00:31:00] really great thing for people. Some people it’s not so good for it, but a lot of people, they just thrive in that particularly early startup, and you get the right person in and they just love the diversity or just the myriad of tasks ahead of them.

And the challenges like there’s a Mount Everest right there, and I want to climb Mount Everest, but in order to do that I’ve got to go along and. Do this incredible marketing campaign and then deliver results to the customer. Yeah. It’s just it’s exhilarating of a team and to celebrate that, and as you said, collard reward them both intrinsically and extrinsically.

It’s just, it’s fantastic. And it shows appreciation. You’re not rewarding people, I think, because you can get more out of them and you’re already, you’re putting people because. And it’s a different sort of mentality, but anyway, you’re listening to the complete entrepreneur. We’re talking about building the right team and boss, mate, we you had some problems with your microphone, hoping your microphone, all sorts of that.

Now. Welcome. [00:32:00] Great to have you here. Okay. Yes, we can. All right. All right. So good afternoon. Good morning. Good evening. From anywhere in the world. I’m speaking from Nigeria and I’m posting, as you said. I’m really grateful to be on this platform with great men and women. And I’ve been also, I’ve enjoyed seeing it few points of, for my own speech also.

And then it’s really insightful to be here. So what I will say about this topic is that, is it there? So many. Ted jobs out there these days that it makes it really hard to find a talent. It makes it really hard to build a team together just because. Joe’s because the, these talents are, they are not these people.

They are not ready to stay committed because one the opportunity to work at a larger company where they can hit a lot of [00:33:00] money, $10,000, $20,000. And on also the, they have the leverage online leverage whereby they can work remotely. So it’s very difficult to see someone that is very good.

And we want to actually stay with you, especially when your pay is very low or you still trying to build. So I’m actually in Nigeria, I’m trying to build a startup and then we’ll mid six figures already. We see planning to scale it. I, and then one of the processes I use few processes I used the first one is understanding the business goals.

Exactly. What are we trying to pose shoe? Exactly. What are we trying to achieve? Exactly. What are we trying to put out there? And what are our easy that we want to solve? This is a part of the false facts. I believe we should look into when we look into, to hire someone, to form a great team and that the 17 is to achieve these goals.

Whew, are the people I [00:34:00] need to bring in? What roles is he? Are you going, are you working on this SAS platform or your SAS software there, that you need to have a seat use, developing your software and then you need to work on your marketing department. So you need to look into these rules that, okay, what are the rules I need to bring in to achieve my goals, to achieve my vision.

And then the next thing is most people when they are looking for. To form a team. They actually look for possibly with the highest experience they look for possibly with ISQ. Meanwhile it’s very difficult to keep someone at the highest level at his peak and then have him stay committed with you, especially when your pay is still low or you’re still trying to settle.

So what I did and it’s, as it has brought us a quiet fortune is that I didn’t, I have four key, at least even if their skill set is a Andre is, and [00:35:00] the scale is under a piece and at least I’ll make sure that, okay, the person wants to bring in us 60% of this kid, and then he will be able to develop and learn on the job.

So this is what I do. I have a skill. I we, I add four, four attitude work ethic and the other car actor, because I know that we, these, they will be able to actually develop themselves. And then again I, I communicated, like I defined on come get a the complaints visual to the team. I explained it to them.

I saw the complaints visual to them in such a way that they’ll be able to feel themselves and see themselves as part of the team, they be able to carry the team like it’s as if it’s their home. And one of the thing I did was to give them room to express those, like Micah said, and Mitchell, I said, giving them room to express themselves, giving them room to feel part of the team, giving them room to grow, to develop themselves.

You, you, we it feels more like a family, [00:36:00] why they are trying to be efficient and effective, at least giving them the room to grow is one of the things that mixed. That brings out the best out of them by delegating telling them that, okay, these are the teams we need to do. You don’t give them tasks.

As Mitchell said, you, you delegate to them that this is what you need to do so that we can try this. Boss makes a wealth of knowledge that you really, and just for normal, some of the things you were expressing it really was amazing. Understand your business goals, who are the people I need to bring in to meet these goals high for attitude.

I think that’s a really important one for a startup that you just highlighted was hire for attitude. On, back in the, was it 95, 96, there were web developers. They didn’t exist. And I had to go along and hire [00:37:00] people who had the right attitude to learn. And that’s one of the things you really highlighted there.

And I just want to jump back maybe across to Michelle and thank you for your comments on that boss, mate, and wish you all the best in your business activities. I’m sure you’re going to go from strength to strength. I look forward to seeing you back on the complete entrepreneur and you say, Hey, we made seven figures.

It’s not six to seven figures.

Yeah. Michelle, I just want to come across to you hiring for attitude. Is this something that you put a premium on when you go to hire people into your team? Is you look at look at the, their attitude more than your skill set. What does that balance there? This is all right. I’m just going to say this.

I have a little bit of an aversion to the word attitude, because also I can think of, as my mother saying, you have a bad attitude. So for me, [00:38:00] it’s a negative thing. So I’m in the right. Yeah. I think it’s like, gosh, this is, very good question. So for me, yeah, of course. I want somebody, I would say it a little bit differently.

I think it’s very important to not predefined what you think attitude is. I don’t know if that’s the right way to say it. Some people are very analytical, so they’re going to be very, to the point. I think that’s a very kind of dangerous territory, but I think, yeah just like Jeff said, like just define what kind of person you’re looking for.

And then as we talked about many skillsets. And I think there is room there. Like the gentleman just said, and then I think in terms of attitude, the way I think of it is if it’s a salesperson, are they sociable? Do they have good followup skills? I try to think of it more do they have the hard skills and the [00:39:00] soft skills?

That’s how I look at it, because I think it’s very different depending on the role. Like some programmers are very pragmatic that might rub people, a sales person the wrong way. So I think we have to step back and make sure we’re not judging people and look at what are the soft skills and what are the hard skills that needed for that job.

Yeah. That’s a great point. They have soft skills and hand skills. What are the skills which you just need in past companies? Yeah. I, as long as a developer could do the job, I didn’t worry so much about the software. I was interested in output. But on the other hand, would I put that person in a room with a client?

Probably not. That’s why I get the soft skills. It’s a blending of the skills that identify the balance of soft and hard for each position. Everything that you need along the way, but I just want to drop down to maybe Shambo. We’re talking about[00:40:00] the topic is here of building the right team.

I’d love to get your thoughts on this, or if you’ve got any questions or anything like that, welcome to the stage. Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks for inviting me up. This is a great conversation as I am in the middle of building a great team and everything that everyone said is just spot on. So I won’t repeat it.

What I will also add is what I what I get down to is understanding what their needs and wants are for me that helps with re retention. I consider what we do. I I employ a lot of mini entrepreneurs and I don’t mind, I don’t mind, build your own business, but I just let me know how I can help you while you’re helping.

I think he may bump the microphone. You got cut off halfway there, Shambo. Oh, can you hear me now? [00:41:00] Yes, that better all is good now. Perfect. Yeah, I, what I was saying was, I consider myself building a team of many entrepreneurs. I get to know what it is that they want, what it is that they desire over the next couple of years, are they trying to build their own business?

I don’t mind that they have their own things going on. I make sure that they feel like I’m vested in what they’re doing. And if I can help in any way, if I can be of a resource, there they’ll want to work that much harder for the company. So I, on top of the character and making sure that they, they somewhat align with the mission and they know what the impact that we’re trying to put forth in the world.

It’s definitely about me making sure that they understand that I care about what it is that they’re trying to do and where they’re trying to go and where they’re trying to grow as well. [00:42:00] Completely. Yeah, that’s important. Isn’t it like a lining with them and knowing that you believe in them knowing you believe in them and and try to match those goals of the personal goals of the team members, as well as the company, everything, and really it’s the job of a leader, isn’t it?

And what’s the definition of a leader is a person who has followers and at the job of the leader is to say, this is the direction we’re headed. And I know we’re going to be all over the place a little bit on that journey, but, and as individuals, as well as corporately, but we’re trying to get that.

That’s the direction that’s where we’re trying to get to in that process. So thank you shamba for sharing that. I just want to jump across to GJ today. It’s great to have you on the stage. Welcome to the complainant. Thank you, Michael, thank you for the opportunity. And first of all, thank you everybody, because your insight and information was [00:43:00] very useful.

I worked in the corporate world for many years, so I’ve been blessed to like, understand what good teams look like. And I find that what you, the eyes are saying reflect that, that they have passion. They have the right attitude. If you will, towards what they’re doing, they have sense of ownership and they have some freedom to express dissent, if that’s what needs to be expressed.

And I’ve been in been lucky to be with several great companies like that. Now as I’m doing my entrepreneurial journey and I’m bootstrapping, and right now I’m just working by myself and have maybe a few contractors for a few things that I’m not good at. I realized that as this thing grows, hopefully it grows hiring.

Now I deflect the same concerns that all the other entrepreneurs are reflecting here as to how to be competitive. And I live in Silicon valley. So it’s very competitive, even among startups to attract that talent. So your point of view has been very useful. Two questions I had, and I [00:44:00] think Shambo touched on one of them was number one, when you, if you already have a group of employees, I didn’t hear people say about, say much about this, but if you hear, if somebody is leaving, do you get a lot of insight as to why they’re leaving?

Because that might help. Or even if you’re trying to hire somebody and they say, no, my point would be that I would try to understand why they said no to really understand where the gaps are. The other point was, even as we are assessing the employee, the future employees, startups are, tend to be a little bit dictatorships and have very, have a sort of a.

Echo chamber of their own because they’re small. What I struggle with is how do I understand exactly my own weaknesses? What is, what do I need to improve to attract the right sort of people? And I might spot on with who are the right people. And I know this is all the theses, and you’ve got to experiment and [00:45:00] learn as you go.

But I would like to emphasize those two points. Thank you. I briefly heard it was sorry. It was my, it was going in and out, but I can just add one quick note in and out. I’m sending it back over to you, Michael. I would say, think about what you want your company culture to look like. How do you envision people engaging with each other?

How do you envision, the inter interdepartmental communications going think about the company culture, as well as all of the other things around goals and the needs of the company. But I, from, for me, it was very important to establish how I want the company to start and grow and the teams to interact with each other.

Regardless if someone is more of an introvert versus extrovert, but building a culture where everyone feels comfortable being who they are and showing up how they [00:46:00] are and not feeling like they need to change or shift their attitude or energies to accommodate for someone else’s over or under that, that, so for me, that was empowering.

I hope that helps what great advice there, shamba. I really do appreciate it. And you asked some really interesting questions and they’re actually really big questions. One of them, I think you asked, was asking people why they leave. I think that’s mandatory for an entrepreneur is that when a person leaves the organization, you need to sit down and have an exit interview to find out what’s the reasons why and quite often what you discover is that they’ve got nothing to lose.

And you ask it in a very polite and respectful way. Obviously they have nothing to lose. Therefore you may actually get some home truths and you go, gee, I didn’t realize that that’s, I think a really important time. And also in that time of the exit interview, one of the things I try to [00:47:00] do.

Keep the door open. Cause you may want to, you may end up having them back in the team and a couple of years time or whatever. And it’s never good just to slam the door on someone’s face, unless they’ve done something completely wrong. I’m talking about someone who’s leaving on their on their own volition.

That’s a really good one. And you asked also why they said no to join the team. So you’re approaching someone you think is going to work out to get them on board. And then finally they come back and say, no, I think it’s also a good idea that if they’re willing to share is to find out why they’re saying that.

And to ask the question yeah. And take them out for a coffee or something like that. That’s where I said, look, you really haven’t have you on board and we can really see your offending. So what is. That made you nervous cause it’ll help you in your next interviews and so forth when you go and approach someone else.

And I think that the last thing you raised was, and understanding your own weaknesses that has got to be the biggest [00:48:00] weakness of most entrepreneurs. And the fact that you’re asking that question puts you a cut above many out there. But understanding your own weaknesses. I think Colin, you’re a strong proponent of getting a business coach.

I know you have, you’ve had a business coach for a long time and it helps you along your journey and understand your weaknesses. Is that correct column? Yeah, there’s actually, if you want to Google it something called the Johari window. So every one of us ha. Weaknesses, but we don’t recognize them and very carefully.

And very carefully. If we can get people around us to help us recognize those weaknesses, then you can actually figure out where you can improve as an [00:49:00] individual. It’s called the Johari window was fascinating. My friend, so very cool concept. So before I’m just curious, Michael, I haven’t heard of that one.

I’ve heard of the Kobiashi me route, but I haven’t heard that Kobayashi Maru, the one from star, the one that captain Kirk okay.

Think of it in quadrants. They give it in quadrants. Like this is who you are, is who you believe you are. And this is who you are, but you don’t know who you are. That is where a coach, that’s where the Johari window comes in and they help expose or not expose, but introduce you to the concept that you have these weaknesses, or you have these issues, or you have this opportunity or that where you have these skills by the way.

And that’s what the Johari window is all about. So I totally agree with coaching. I totally think [00:50:00] that every one of us need to do that on our own and our team members. If we can help our team members become more productive, more successful and identify very carefully though, we have to be careful with this concept though.

It’s a very tricky concept, but if we can help them identify their strengths and focus on that, then I believe you’ll have a much more successful team and be much more productive and have a more successful. Hey, I wanted add on here. Something that I’ve used with Kames is a book and they have a little, whatever air quotes test is called strength finders.

And I found that to be like an amazing book. I’ve done it with teams. Basically, you take a little quiz, tests. It’s like a little profiler and you learn what your strengths are. But what was very interesting about it is [00:51:00] for every strength, there’s a contract, right? The con, so are a team builder, but maybe, there’s a downside to that.

It really I liked it because it emphasized the positive, but it told you what the, dare I say, downside of that strength is because you don’t want to suppress somebody drink. By focusing on what the downside of their strengths is, if that makes sense. But, I’ve found that extremely, valuable book and we did it as a team and then we all talked about it.

Yes. I am a person that, has to have a vision that I believe in the downside of that is I’m a very skeptical person until you tell me. And I believe that there’s a cause here it helps you understand and communicate with people and it helps you not think, oh my God, Michael is a person who’s so negative.

No, the problem with Michael is that he hasn’t [00:52:00] heard the vision and he is not fully like believing it. And he wants to believe Michael really wants to believe. I really do Michelle. I really do want to believe. Yeah. So that’s an awesome book and it’s a really good for teams to do together. And I know Michelle, you reminded me of probably one of the most important things you can do to build a great team is profiling.

Now I don’t mean no criminal minds, the TV episode, the disc profile, the briars ma the, there are multiple different methods. You can profile people on your team. And I think it’s extremely important because when you understand the person in that analogy profile, you can actually help them out.

You can actually provide assistance or you can have somebody else to provide assistance to their weaknesses in their profile with respect to their particular discipline. Now, [00:53:00] what do I mean by that? So let’s say for instance, sales is probably the most popular, obviously one of those popular jobs in a startup.

And if you have a sales person who is very social, but not good at closing, you’re going to want to have somebody compliment that sales person who can close, or maybe you as the entrepreneur can do that. But the key is you’re not going to understand the situation unless you profile your people. I really encourage anyone.

Who’s creating a great team to do profiling. I use the disc method, D I S C I think it’s the best method. And if people honestly come forward, they fill out the app, they fill out the forms and they do the survey correctly. You’re really going to understand your team better as a leader, and you are going to, it’s going to make a huge difference in your business.[00:54:00] 

Yeah. For me, what I realized when I just drink finders is that, often times it is horrible as humans, we want to gravitate towards the negative. But when you realize that this person can have this incredible strength they have, without having this contrast slash whatever negative, I don’t even want to call it that, but just, to explain it, like it it was very like enlightening to me oh my God, okay, this person is a builder profile.

Therefore they want to get projects done. And that might, appear to some people like they’re not nurturing. For example, like it really opened up my eyes to like cherish people’s strengths and. I don’t know for me, that was like extremely positive for me. And like I said, actually the example of Michael was not Michael Gilmore here, but another Michael who was like, he was a [00:55:00] person that needed a cause.

And we were like, oh my God, Michael’s so negative. We all felt that way. And we were like, oh, it’s because he just doesn’t feel he has a cause if he has a call so he could get behind my God, you can’t stop it. I just found it extremely valuable. Thank you. I think this is a topic that I think.

Warrants a lot more time. Certainly we’re coming right to the N GGA loved for all these awesome tips that I’m going to follow up on that. And the second tip is I came across this list that was compiled, but I believe some VCs who anonymously asked a whole bunch of startups as to why they thought they failed. And that list has been so useful to just see what the common causes are.

I wonder if such a list can be built for why great talents are, what you perceive as good talent would not join your startup. If we could build that in alignment, [00:56:00] it would help us.

So I don’t mind if you, if people want to send it to me on LinkedIn, my LinkedIn profiles on there. I don’t mind compiling it and keep, we can keep the startup name anonymous. There’s no need to. Oh, what a fantastic idea GT. It really is, but we’re just coming to a close right now. But before we do, we have Dr.

Bev, Dr. Bill, you’ve been so patient there and we’ve gone over time has been such a great topic and everything like that. And lot of people getting involved. I’d love to hear from you, Dr. Ben, on this particular topic we’re talking about, and that is building the right team. Welcome to the stage. Thank you so much, Michael.

Thank you. Hi Colin. Thanks for the invite and Michelle. So good to see you again. I always love this room and it’s serendipity that I even just popped on here real quickly before making myself a cup of tea. And I hope what I say can be helpful for everyone in the room. I am an entrepreneur [00:57:00] and I know myself very well.

So Michelle the strengths finder. Fantastic. So my strengths are achiever, arranger, individualization learner input. Colin, was it disc? So the disc personality I’m in 98%. This was back like in 2008, I couldn’t get any higher in influencer. In a little bit D not S or C very low for me.

Those are my that’s the team member I need to have. So as a CEO of my company, it’s a new startup. So really I’ve only been really working hard to find that team. And for me, it’s a partner. I love this app and I’ve been learning so much. I know, I just know I need a co-founder and so there’s one thing about a team building a team, and I’ve been told no.

You’re so capable. You just need a team? No, I need a founder and it goes to this. So you were talking about the. And about knowing not really profiling, but knowing who it is you need based on your weaknesses. Because it, once [00:58:00] again, I know who I am, so I kinda know who I need, but you have to have the patience as an entrepreneur to wait because you get so excited.

Trust me, I’m so excited about my startup, but it is for a social impact company, right? It’s for longevity it’s to, to change the world. So the quadrants, so here’s something that I’m gonna throw in an end with is there, I have a chart that I made for myself and looking for my partner. So it’s four, it’s a quadrant.

The first one says the top left. What I love. Connecting with others, leading teaching, innovating, encouraging, taking risks, inspiring, creating pivoting problem solving. Okay. That CEO, that is me. Then I have the next one at the top. What I’m good at doing? Just natural. Just as natural for me, building trust, communicating, listening, reaching out to others, arranging negotiating.

Influencing delegating learning content creation, [00:59:00] individualizing. Oh, that’s those are the top two that I’m just good at. Then on the lower half to the left, what I can do that I hate doing, and it’s a time suck and this is what’s holding me back. Why I run to try to get funding, to get my business going, marketing website, design, graphic, design sales, copy, editing videos, writing blogs, email mark.

I can do all of that, but it’s a time suck and I hate it. And then lastly, in that last corner of number four to the right, what I’m not good at doing, this is my partner. If there are any E N T J’s in the audience today or listening lounge, this is what I’m not good at. And I’m waiting for my partner.

I’m not very. At budgeting, forecasting financials, which you need as a start accounting business law, day-to-day operations, organizing schedules, HR answering the phones, communicating the [01:00:00] business plan. So there you go. That’s what you need to do. So as an entrepreneur to find the right partner or team or co-founders or whatever, you’ve got to know yourself.

And I just love that I’m this room because Michelle and Colin and Michael whoa, you were helping everyone here just so clearly to figure out what’s going to be a winning team and I’m just writing notes. Yep. Yep. I’m writing all the notes to to circle back on everything you said is just so spot on.

So thank you so much for letting me share. I thought this was really neat room. So could that be inserted Michael? There couldn’t have been a better description of who you are and your profile and what you need. You’re a DCI who needs an se and that’s Dylan went back to disk, but truly you’re a dominant, influential personality who needs an it administrator to help you succeed in life.

[01:01:00] Everyone in this group, everyone in this room, every single person’s room, we are not every personality type. We cannot do everything on our own. And I know we think as entrepreneurs and startups, we can do everything. We can not. What Dr. Bev is saying. Here is brilliant. It’s this is who I am. This is what I need it.

If you acknowledge that and you understand that single concept, you can become, you can launch a great startup. And I truly believe that, but you have to understand. All of us. We cannot do everything on our own. Every startup needs a team. I agree with the, it was an amazing advice, Dr. Bev. I really do appreciate that.

You’re really, after the Wazniak act to work with the jobs, that’s really what you’re looking at and that person who [01:02:00] is the, how we can do this to go with the why we’re doing this. You can put it in the capture, many different ways. I want to bring this room to a close. Right now we’ve gone a little bit over time, but even in my own business, I came out of a successful sort of exit of a previous one.

And I found a new business. Of course, I’m a serial entrepreneur. And one of the things I did though, was I said, here’s my skill set. I did I personal Oh, what my skill set, where and what really lots, my fog, all that sort of stuff. I then said, who is a person that I know that I respect, who is basically the opposite of me and I’m going to search them, serve them.

I found this one guy that I’d known for a long time and cradle my respect for highly ethical, but he is basically the mirror image of me and I. I want to learn from them because the journey of life is not just [01:03:00] about getting a bigger board of cash. The journey of life is understand you. And what better way of understand you is to actually be in partnership with a person who’s basically your mirror image.

And that partnerships were started 15 years ago. And it’s still going to this day. And has there been some difficult times along that journey because when you have opposites, so you up rubbing each other up the wrong way at times, but have we got a deep respect for one another? Absolutely. And it’s been one of the most amazing journeys I think of my life.

And that’s what it means to be an entrepreneur. And it really is incredible. Can I say this room? I’m not sure about you calling Jeff and Michelle, but I found this room today has been, and this topic has really resonated as one. I really enjoyed hearing from the people in here and I was thinking, we need to expand this further and take a look.

What does it mean to build a team and POS list? I was thinking we [01:04:00] should probably bump next week’s topic and run a second version of this room. What do you think Colin or Michelle or Jeff?

I completely agree. It’s fair. It’s been very invigorating and I, I’m looking forward to hearing what people have to say. This is an amazing conversation. Thank you for bringing it. Yeah, I look, thank you for that, Michelle. I think what we’ll do is next week on the complete entrepreneur, we weren’t going to be doing the topic of I quit, but I wanted, I think we need to unpack this whole concept of team building that high performing team a lot more.

And we just hacked into it. The very end there, which is some of the psychological profiling tools and things like that. Or maybe we should take a look at Ray Dahlia. What he actually does need is business Bridgewater, capital. Yeah. The largest hedge fund in the world. What does he do? And begin to [01:05:00] open up that and how it can impact our businesses.

And this is a critical conversation. If you’re in this room right now and you found it was really worthwhile discussion hearing. Let me tell you 5:00 PM Eastern time. Next week. We’re going to expand on this further because I think it’s something that’s really worthwhile doing. And so come on with some great questions and with great thoughts and experiences, join us on the stage because I think this is something which is critical for entrepreneurial success.

So if you’re in the audience right now, marketing your diary, go to your outlook, go to your smart device, whatever, and say 5:00 PM Eastern time. I’ve got to be there because this can transform what I do in business. And if you’ve been on stage this week, and you’ve got some more things that you as this topic really has began to.

Provoke your own thoughts and your own thinking. They’d put your hand up next week. Cause we’d love to have you on stage again and [01:06:00] Gigi and Bev and Yvonne and Dale, the bus make and so forth and come up on stage at let’s expand this right out because I think it’s something that’s going to be that has really resonated with their entrepreneurial community.

But in the meantime, call them what’s going on there with startup. Say what a great example of the community coming together tonight and talking about a really cool issue. To help startups, it was very excited about that and that the people on stage now I followed every one of you I’ll tell you amazing tomorrow, listen to this we had Jeffrey Moore a couple of weeks ago.

Yeah. One of the big legends in business, one of the top authors ever, and by the way, you can Get his recording on startup.club, www.startup.club. But to moral life, we have bestselling author from the university of the London university. I keep getting that one wrong, but London school of business, John [01:07:00] Mullins, burn Harnish scaling up.

He wrote Bernhardt, wrote, scaling up. He wrote the customer wanted business. Okay, you’re doing a startup. Don’t get venture capital. Don’t get angel funding. Use your costumers to raise money. That’s the gig tomorrow two o’clock Eastern on Friday, tomorrow on the serial entrepreneur club. And if you miss it, we do a podcast that is actually one of the shows that went to a podcast.

You can now listen to it on apple, on Spotify. It’s just type typing the serial entrepreneur club and you can pull it up. And we have about 50 episodes that we’ve brought what an incredible event tomorrow night, tomorrow afternoon. I’m so excited about it. The customer funded business, John Mullins. Wow.

Sounds like a great event tomorrow. That’s for sure. You’re going to force me to get up at 6:00 AM on a Saturday. I think call it [01:08:00] so I can come and join. Look forward to it. You have to get up early, Michael. Yeah, absolutely. But it’s been great having you all here. I just want to say a really big thanks to Colin, Jeff, Michelle, my fellow moderators are fabulous for you on the stage.

Yes. I followed you as well. Each one of you, and by the way, if you’re in the audience saying, you know what, this has been great. Make sure you follow the people in the stage. You click on their profile, click on follow and say, Hey, they got some really interesting. I want to follow them that they’re saying, so thank you very much.

And also for the onstage and thank you very much for you and the audience. It’s the reason why we do this. And you inspire us continuously just by being in there. So thank you. And next week, make sure you marking a diary. We’re going to continue this discussion on building the right team. And what does it mean to actually do that?[01:09:00] 

Anyway, thank you very much. Have a wonderful week and I’ll see you next time at 5:00 PM on the complete entrepreneur next Thursday. Bye.