Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Barbara Corcoran's Advice on Building Your Dream Team and Getting on SNL

Episode Date: March 29, 2024

In the second part of their conversation, Nicole asks Barbara all the most common questions entrepreneurs have on hiring— from how to budget for a good employee, to the most important interview questions to ask; and, Barbara has a hilarious story about the question a candidate asked her in an interview that landed them the job immediately.

Money rehabbers, you get it. When you're trying to have it all, you end up doing a lot of juggling. You have to balance your work, your friends, and everything in between. So when it comes to your finances, the last thing you need is more juggling. That's where Bank of America steps in. With Bank of America, you can manage your banking, borrowing, and even investing all in one place. Their digital tools bring everything together under one roof, giving you a clear view of your finances whenever you need it. Plus, with Bank of America's wealth of expert guidance available at any time, you can feel confident that your

money is working as hard as you do. So why overcomplicate your money? Keep it simple with Bank of America, your one-stop shop for everything you need today and the goals you're working toward tomorrow. To get started, visit bofa.com slash newprosmedia. That's b-o-f-a dot com slash n-e-w pros p-r-o-s media. bfa.com slash newprosmedia. I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab. You know by now that I hate cliches, and there are actually a lot of cliches in business. One that I particularly hate is, you have to spend money to make money, because that is so not helpful. As a business owner or a side hustler, one of the things that will keep you up at night, at least in the early days,

is running out of money. So giving the advice to spend money is not my favorite. But if you want to scale your business, you have to grow your team. You can't do everything alone. Maybe you're a numbers person, but you need a graphic designer to help you make social media ads that pop. Or maybe you're just totally overwhelmed and you need a part-time assistant to help your head from not spinning off. Net net, you're going to have to spend money on people. But what the cliche, you have to spend money to make money, doesn't tell you is how to make that perfect hire that doesn't just cost you money, but makes you money. Today, I'm going to give you two resources to make hiring easy.

One is a tool, and the other is advice from one of the most legendary business experts of our time, who I have a total lady crush on. But first, the tool. It's LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs has everything you need to hire faster and for free. So that cliche, spend money to make money, you don't have to do that on LinkedIn Jobs. And LinkedIn has over a billion professionals on the platform. I mean, think about it. Everyone worth hiring is already on LinkedIn. So if you're not looking to hire on LinkedIn, you're simply looking in the wrong place. I'll give you another cliche. Time is money. Even though I do hate cliches, that one is

kind of true because there are so many professional gems on LinkedIn. 86% of small businesses get a qualified lead within just 24 hours. I work with LinkedIn jobs for all of my dream team needs, so they're hooking up money rehabbers at linkedin.com slash MNN. So you save time, you save money. You'll thank me later. Okay, next I have hiring advice from Barbara Corcoran, a woman who needs no introduction. And as a shark on Shark Tank, Barbara's advice is pretty much a gospel for all entrepreneurs. And today I'm passing that advice on to you, and you don't even need to pitch your business on TV to get her tips. I talked to her recently, and I asked her for all the most common questions entrepreneurs have on hiring,

from how to budget for a good employee, the most important interview questions to ask, and she actually has a hilarious story on the question a candidate asked her in an interview that landed them the job but I'll let you hear that for yourself here's Barbara one of the most important investments that any entrepreneur can make in their business is their employees their people you have awesome people you talk about this a lot what are the qualities that you look for when you're hiring there are are basic qualities you always want, no matter what someone's doing for a living. You want someone who's positive. You want someone who's happy because they are automatically team players.

They hold hands. They have your interest at heart. A lot of good stuff comes with that good people stuff. And you want high energy. If you have high energy, you can count on the fact that the person is going to produce one and a half times more work than someone who has normal energy because you have to on the fact that the person is going to produce one and a half times more work than someone who has normal energy because you have to feed the energy and it also pushes you to push ahead because you got to keep them engaged you got to keep them challenged so i'm always

saying like how am i going to keep these great young people i got to keep trying new things so no matter how you look at it you want to get positive people i think that is the main quality even more than intelligence and how do you retain those positive happy great people you do what you should be doing you're telling them all the time you love them because i do how much you appreciate them everybody needs to hear it if you think people don't need to hear it as confident as people are they love to hear it and you got to mean it people see see through the bullshit like, gee, you're great. Doesn't work. But you know what you did the other day? I couldn't believe how good you did. What made you think of it? And then provide them new challenges because everybody doesn't want to get bored doing the same old thing. They want

challenges. Good people want challenges. Lazy people don't. And that keeps them running, keeps them happy because their view is always changing. Have you told your crew today that you love them? I love you. I love you so much with my whole heart. When do you give raises or what is a good pitch to get a raise that's worked for you? Nobody's really pitched me for a raise ever is that crazy i usually beat them to it and raise them before they're asking i don't think it's good to have a pattern with your raises like every six months you get a review which is how most businesses operate or every year i think it's like i'm going to do the least i can for you it's kind of like the other message

you're sending and you try to think of what would make them excited, how much their raise would make them excited. I'm a bigger believer even more so in giving bonuses for exceptional work. A surprise bonus, another surprise bonus, another surprise bonus. It really motivates people toward the direction you want them running in, accomplishing for you what you have set for yourself as a goal. If you tie bonuses to any activity having to do with that, it always gets done and it gets done first. So contingent on a sale or a big deal or closing of something, then a bonus. It doesn't even have to be that big. It could just be a great action. What have I given bonuses for? I think about everything, but what's coming to mind is one of my great talented people here got for me a free 800

barber number. She worked that line to get that number from AT&T, who somebody had locked up. It went on and on and on, but she finally got it. I gave her a big bonus for getting that number. It was very important to me. And I wanted to get on Saturday Night Live. Actually, I haven't given you a bonus. Why did you have to bring this up? You better delete

this. Is someone getting a bonus live on the podcast? We always had a goal of being on Saturday night live. It happened. We were on a... We did. We saw you. You did also. Yeah. I was supposed to give them a bonus. Someone's getting a bonus. But I look for excuses to give bonuses based on a particular task that has been accomplished. Another one, I wanted to hit a million followers on TikTok. We were about 800 or whatever. While I was away, my TikTok team got together and posted to get them over the hump. They needed another 150,000 people.

They posted a video of them rowing a boat, tidal waves and everything. They said, help us get our bonus. Because I promised them a bonus a trip anywhere in the world if they get over a million. Help us get our bonus. And son of a gun, within three days, they're up over a million. Where do they want to go? Greece, Spain, and Paris. Yeah.

That's awesome. I mean, so many entrepreneurs worry about every dollar. And how do they think about budgeting for payroll you know what a better way to go about it is to look at the person and think what would the next person pay them and treat them respectfully by paying them more because you don't want to lose good people people are the end all of all businesses yet a talented team you could climb any mountain you lose a good talented person it takes a lot to replace them you got to mesh them in the team you have to find the talent you have to attract

the talent so important to hold on to your people i've been blessed always with no turnover in the real estate business which was known as turnover and in my media business which i don't know if it's known for turnover but i have people that stick with me. And I'm always afraid of losing them. Honest to God, I wake up every day a little fearful that I'm going to lose somebody. The best way to so-called tuck them in is to send them on a trip to Greece, Spain? I think the best way to tuck them in is to be as loyal to them as they are loyal to you. That's number one. I think bonuses are a big part of it by showing with real dollars and cents that you mean it. And I think treating them with kindness and respect and making sure they enjoy being in

the office you're running, because we have a lot of fun here. Those are the important ingredients in retaining sales, not just sales people, but any people. What are some of the interview questions that you typically ask? I don't know if you're allowed to ask these questions. I don't say you might know better than I, but I just ask them. Tell me about your mother. Yeah. You're not allowed to ask that. Well, I'd ask it. Yeah. Tell me about your family. Tell me about where you're raised, how you're raised. Was your dad strict? Was your mama? Just get them talking. All I really want to know on something like that is what are they like as a personality? Do I like them?

It's very important I like somebody. The lady who runs my social media department, I interviewed her and shockingly, she had all the talent needed. She was like a perfect candidate, but she talked too goddamn much. So before she left the meeting, she said to me, is there anything standing in the way of you hiring me? That's pretty aggressive, but she said it very nicely. And I said, yes, you talk too goddamn much. You drive me crazy. She said, you can put me in a corner. I have earphones on all the time. I won't bother you. My mother and sister always tell me I talk too much. I know how to

control myself. I'm just working on social media. I said, okay, you're hired. Thank God she asked that question. Great question to ask in an interview. If you're kind of concluding the interview and you don't know how it went, which is the majority of interviews, like, we'll call you, you know, we're interviewing a few other people, we'll call you. Wouldn't it be better for you to say, is there anything standing in the way so you have an opportunity to address it? Very important. What other great questions have you heard from potential employees? What did you like best about your old job specifically? Not the job itself because they have a litany of

jobs. Not which job you like best, but what did you like best about your old job? What about the one before? What part did you like best? And then the reverse, which part didn't you like? Which part didn't you enjoy? You know why? Because I'm trying to size up how I could use the individual because I want to put them in a role where they're really going to like it. So you're really asking them in an indirect way for their talents. People always enjoy what they're talented on. They never enjoy what doesn't come naturally. Now, it's like the kid in the school doesn't do math well.

You stick them and make them a mathematician. You're not going to do that. Same with people at work. You want a position that taps into the God-given talent. So I usually try to separate what they don't like from what they do like. And by the way, if I call 1-800-BARBARA, what am I going to get? Oh, 1-88-BARBARA, 1-88-BARBARA. You're going to get my voice and I'm going to answer the call or deal with it on my podcast

or something. You're going to get an answer. But if you dial 1-800-BARBARA, you're going to get a Barbara who's a pornography star. That's not me. Okay, great. Good to know. Wait, just to be clear, the 800 number is yours and the 888 number is? No, 888-BARBARA is my number.

888-BARBARA. Good clarification. Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Lavoie. Our researcher is Emily Holmes. Do you need some money rehab? And let's be honest, we all do.

So email us your money questions, moneyrehab at moneynewsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me. And follow us on Instagram at Money News and TikTok at Money News Network for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.