Proven Podcast - Attract and Hire Top Talent - Eric Bandholz

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

In this episode, Charles dives deep into the world of strategic hiring and company culture with Eric Bandholz, the founder of Beardbrand who transformed a passion for men's grooming into a thriving e-commerce empire. Eric shares his incredible journey from experiencing hiring nightmares to developing a revolutionary 9-step hiring process that boasts a remarkable 95% success rate. Eric challenges conventional hiring wisdom, emphasizing the critical role of company culture and core values in building a sustainable business. Eric and Charles explore the importance of cultural fit, thorough vetting processes, and creating a work environment where both founders and employees can thrive. Eric's bootstrap mentality shines through as he breaks down his strategies for growing a business organically and reinvesting profits. He emphasizes the importance of enjoying the journey, strategic hiring, and maintaining a strong company culture even as the business scales. Whether you're a startup founder struggling with hiring decisions, an established business owner looking to improve team cohesion, or an HR professional seeking innovative recruitment strategies, this episode is packed with actionable insights. Prepare to revolutionize your approach to hiring, team building, and company culture. KEY TAKEAWAYS: Discover how Eric turned hiring challenges into a 95% success rate Learn why cultural fit is as crucial as skills in the hiring process Gain insights into creating a compelling job listing that attracts the right candidates Understand the power of core values in shaping company culture Explore strategies for conducting effective reference checks Learn how to implement a thorough skills assessment process Discover the benefits of a bootstrap mentality in business growth Understand the importance of balancing performance with cultural alignment Learn strategies for maintaining company culture as your business scales Explore the long-term benefits of investing in a strong company culture Head over to https://provenpodcast.com/  to download your exclusive companion guide, designed to guide you step-by-step in implementing the strategies revealed in this episode. KEY POINTS: 2:01 Business Journey: Eric shares his experience building Beard Brand from a startup to an e-commerce empire. 4:15 Hiring Process: He outlines his revolutionary 9-step hiring process that achieved a 95% success rate. 6:02 Hiring Mindset: The entrepreneur emphasizes the importance of having the right mindset when hiring. 8:30 Job Listings: Bandholz explains how to create compelling job listings that attract the right candidates. 10:12 Reference Checks: He stresses the crucial role of thorough reference checks in the hiring process. 12:14 Resume Screening: The founder details his approach to the resume screening process. 15:12 E-commerce Focus: Eric discusses the specifics of running an e-commerce business. 17:14 Core Values: He delves into the importance of aligning core values in hiring decisions. 20:10 Employee vs Entrepreneur: Bandholz distinguishes between employee and entrepreneur mindsets. 22:30 Application Process: The businessman outlines his unique job application process. 25:01 Compensation Policy: Eric explains Beard Brand's compensation policy and philosophy. 27:11 Skills Testing: He provides an overview of their skills testing approach for candidates. 30:18 Candidate Investment: The entrepreneur discusses the importance of investing time in potential hires. 32:54 Accountability: Bandholz emphasizes the value of accountability in the workplace. 37:23 Honesty: He underscores the significance of honesty throughout the hiring process. 39:44 Reference Process: Eric details their thorough reference check process. 42:50 Power of Silence: The founder explains how silence can be a powerful tool during interviews. 45:52 Red Flags: Bandholtz identifies key red flags to watch out for when hiring. 49:58 Gut Instinct: He advises listeners to trust their gut when making hiring decisions. 52:05 E-commerce Resources: Eric shares valuable resources for running an e-commerce business. 54:50 Product Highlight: The entrepreneur spotlights their popular sea salt spray product. 57:28 Company Culture: He offers insights into building and maintaining a strong company culture.

Welcome to the proven podcast where it does not matter what you think, only what you can prove. Most companies hire fast and fire faster. Eric Bandholz does the opposite. The founder of Beard Brand has cracked the code on hiring with a nine-step process that achieves a 95% success rate. While competitors burn through employees, Eric proves that slow hiring creates fast growth. The show starts now. Today we've got Eric and he's going to teach us some things that I need right now. We just went through a hiring and firing process and he's going to take us through that. Welcome to the show. I'm so appreciative of you're here. What is going on, man?

I love the excitement. Let's tell everybody, because some people don't know who you are. Let's walk through really quickly. What have you done? What have you scaled? Let's rock alone get into it before we teach people how to hire people. Yeah, I am the founder of Beard Brand. Beard Brand is a men's grooming product.

Obviously, we sell products for your beard with a name like Beard Brand, but we've grown beyond the beard over the years. And we have products for your hair, your body, all just all over. If you're a dude, we've got a product for you. We're an entirely bootstrap business. I have two business partners, and we've grown through really our profits.

This is a lifestyle business, which I think some people can regard as derogatory, but for me, I think about it, like how do I enjoy the journey as I build the business? And so we've made decisions that are, very intentional with how we're building the business, how we're bringing on people, how we're developing products, how we're communicating to our customers. All that is built around this idea of enjoying the journey. So that's been a big thing for us. And there's been a lot of ups and downs

over the year. So it's been a fun roller coaster. I love that you talked about it. We talked about this before when we had the pre-call about culture and how important that is for you that someone fits into the culture and we'll get into that because most people when they talk about scaling, it's all strategies. Like, okay, you do this and then you have this funnel and then you do this, and this is what your email reach and da-da-da-da-da. But we so often we forget that the people you hire are the people, you know, you're using OPT or other people's time on such a high level. And building the culture and hiring the right people is mission critical because if you have the best strategies in the world, it just really doesn't matter if you don't have the people to

execute on your vision and being able to do that. There's so many great books out there, but it's better to talk to someone who's actually done it and built the entire lifestyle around it. So when you go through this, what are the things that you're looking for? I know you've broken it down into nine steps. When you go into this, are there any key things that right off the bat

before you get to the nine steps? You're like, where am I going to look for the person or this person doesn't resonate with me before you get to the nine steps? Are there anything like that? Yeah, I mean, if you want me to, I can really quickly go through the nine steps

and then we can kind of build, We can go deeper into each of those nine steps if you want to do that. But the first step is really like create a compelling job listing and putting it where your intended audience is going to be. So, you know, if you're looking for a designer, you know, you might post on like dribble or, you know, some kind of design forum rather than Indeed or career builder where, you know, those real passionate people. may or may not be. I'm not a guy. I'll tell you a little bit of the story of our hiring process. So our first hire,

we posted on Craigslist, and we just posted a listing, ended up hiring this employee, like $12 an hour. This was like when we had no money, we had nothing, you know, kind of 1099 employee or contractor. And probably the worst thing that happened to them was that employee was phenomenal. It was like the best hire.

She still works with us now. She represents everything that we look for in the employee. So we just thought it was easy. We just thought it was easy. You could just post on Craigslist. You'll get all this great talent. And then we effectively had like an 18 month period in the early days when we're trying to ramp up our business where we could not hire the right person.

And it was just this series, this hamster wheel where they'd get on, hire a bad person, we'd have to fire them. They would make all these mistakes within the business and hinder the business. And it was just like, you know, I'd have nightmares over my team members. And it was like a very unpleasant experience. And then it creates this mindset of like you're the only person who's capable of doing the things within the business. And then once we rolled out this hiring process, now the people we hire are completely different. I no longer have nightmares about my employees and I enjoy working with them and they are far more competent than what I could be doing in their job. So like this process will change it to where your mindset is like, well, if we don't

get the right hire, we can always fire them. Like that is the worst mentality to have whenever you're whenever you're trying to hire someone because you're trying to fill a hole like really quickly to a pain point you have. So if you ever hire someone, you're like, well, we can fire them if they don't work out, do not hire them. This will change to by the end of the nine-step process, you cannot wait for this person to start working for you. You are absolutely sure that they are going to be an amazing fit. They will come in.

They will kick ass. And, you know, obviously nothing's like 100%, but it moves it from like a 50% hit rate to like a 95% hit rate. And in fact, like one of the problems I have now is. my youngest tenured employee is like five years and we haven't had to hire anyone. So I had to like dust off all my notes because we haven't been hiring anyone because everyone sticks around and they do a good job. And I love that you're talking about the nightmares that people have. There are employees that I don't even own the business anymore and I still have nightmares

about those employees and having to interact with them because I was like, oh God, I'm sending so-and-so to so-and-so client. One of the companies I exited from, I literally exited because I couldn't do with the employees that I just couldn't do it anymore. I was like, I'm trapped in this situation. I'm going to exit and just take the easy road out. I wish I had this nine-step process back down. I probably would still own the business.

But no, people don't understand how intense it is. And that 50-50 gamble, you can get it. Even if you told me it was like 70 percent, I'm like, okay. But if you're around 95 percent, yes, please, please do it in the nine steps. Yeah. The only time they don't work is when I break, I break the rules. You know, it's like, oh, yeah, we'll break the rules for this candidate or this employee. I, and I have a rule, like if I have a bad dream about an employee, they're getting fired the next day.

Like, because, like, you know subconsciously, like, that person's not working out, and your dreams are there to help you prepare for how they're not going to operate well within your business. So I've had plenty of positive dreams with my employees where they're doing interesting things or cool things. So step number one, as we talked about, is create a compelling job list. And your goal here is you want to get as many applicants as possible. So post it on a bunch of job boards, get it out to recruiters, make the job seem absolutely amazing. You want people to come in, sell the dream, sell the vision, sell the job and the opportunity and what it can be for the people. But while you do that, you have to sell it to the right kind of people. So if you're selling it by like, oh, we got bean bags and we got football tables and we got happy hours, you're going to get a different kind of person than like a job that's like, hey, come come work for a rapidly growing business where we have hard problems to solve.

You know, so there's like you have to think about how you're selling the business to be able to make sure you're attracting the right people. And then in this job listing, we like to include a pretty, in my opinion, low stakes task for candidates to do to really like weed out all the like the F players. And for us, that is, we'll send them over to 16 personalities and have them do a Myers-Briggs test. And I know there's some psychologists listening to this like rolling in their graves here in Myers-Briggs. but I found that personality test is the easiest one for me to understand, and I find it relatively accurate. It's not how we're not really facing our decisions on people's personalities at this point, but it is like a stage to make sure someone's really interested in there.

And then the most important thing, and kind of like this whole process is our version of top grading, which is basically within here, we tell them that we are going to do reference checks at the end of the hiring process and that will help weed out anyone who's not able to do positive reference checks. So that's step number one,

try to get as many people as possible. We use a software. Go ahead. You also mentioned that you put the places not only by what you're asking, but also where you're asking it. You're not going to go look for a coding person in over in one place and a design person.

You just can't do it in Craigslist. So I like that you're very specific. I like that you're also saying that, hey, we're selling us as much as we're looking for someone to buy. It's a two-way process. One of the things, you know, if it's Myers-Briggs or whatever else, as long as you understand it, gets you that better result, one of the things that we do on our end is we make sure that whenever we do low-end tasks, we hide in there for attention to detail.

We're like, hey, make sure when you apply to the job for these really low-end per diem tasks that you start the subject with this, whatever this thing is. And it just weeds out the people just consistently putting in these little hurdles, whatever they are, to make sure that people like, oh, okay, this is someone's attention to detail. If that's what you're focused on for this job. I love the idea of the beanbags. Don't hire the people with the beanbags in Happy Hour. Good guy. So I mean, good guy. Yeah, yeah. I tend to not focus on benefits. And I think it's like, you have to understand that there's a lot of job seekers who, just effectively apply to every single job.

Like they don't think twice about it. It's automated. They almost have bots set up. You want to do everything in your power to make sure you're not wasting any time at all. So if you can auto reject, so I look through the resumes or will auto reject anyone who doesn't put in this information. It's just like, hey, man, like you're not wasting your time applying for this job. I'm not wasting my time looking at your resume. Exactly.

So you really want to have some. kind of process. We use a software called Jazz to manage resumes. I think there are some like a notion board or there's some kind of like data oriented stuff out there that you know if I was doing it now

I may not use but you want to have all the resumes coming into one spot so you can be efficient with your time. So we use jazz. It allows us to set up like email flows and things like that that we've already created. So the next step of the hiring process is the resume screening process.

Everyone's going to have their own kind of internal biases. My bias is to focus on cover letters. I feel like that's going to be an effort that they really distinguish from everyone else. You can quickly see if they can communicate well, how they communicate, if it's an automated. I don't know. You read enough cover letters and you can just kind of tell us a copy. copy and paste versus like original. So I'm looking for people who are, who have crafted a cover letter specifically for this job. And then they,

they're able to communicate well. And they're also smart enough to understand like, here are my skill sets and here are how it's going to help the business. And then based on the cover letter, I'll look into their resume and kind of like their background and experience, but very rarely, if ever, actually never.

I never look at the resume first to see what they, did because I think like resumes are are genuinely just kind of like all bullshit anyways. So cover letters are how I screen them. So most people are getting screened. But people who I feel like have potential or are worth talking to, we move to step number three, which is our core values email. So step number three is where we start setting the company culture of what we're about. So what we ask them to do is two things.

We tell them what our core values are, which are freedom, hunger, and trust. And then we tell them what does freedom, hunger, and trust mean to you, please reply back with what those core values mean to you. So we're setting the tone that this is a very core value oriented business. This is how we make decisions. And when you come work at Beard Brand, like these core values are going to be the core values that you live, essentially you live. by. And we also ask them to take a one minute typing test just to see their

capabilities on the computer. Everything's, yeah, yeah, everything's digital. So if someone can type at, you know, 60 words per minute, they're probably pretty capable and competent on a computer. But if they're cranking out at 11

or 15, you know, that's probably a pretty good indication that for an e-commerce business, yeah, it's probably not going to work. know, maybe if you have, like, more of a mechanic focus role, you know, this is different. But these processes are going to be best for digital-oriented businesses. So we do that core values. You never heard of anyone do that.

That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I over index for communication with how we hire people. I feel like if someone can comprehend what you're saying and communicate clearly back to you, then even if it takes them a little bit longer to understand something, that eventually you'll be able to get onto the same page and work things out. When people just like you effectively can't communicate well together, even if they're the greatest gift of God, like if you're not on the same page,

you're just two people going in opposite directions. Literally happened this morning. Literally happened this morning. It was exactly what it was. Great person, not on the same page. So great first day, horrible second day. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's like, it's weird because it's like, you know, like sometimes, you know, people just communicate differently and you have to, you have to work well. So it's like by you also doing these processes or you or the hiring person who's going to be working with them, like it's seeing all these things, it's going to kind of like you want it to mesh well with the people in there. I know there's a lot of camps out there. It is, say, like, diversity makes you better. all this stuff. But like reality is your company is a tribe. You guys got to have those shared values.

You have to see the world the same way because you can't fight over philosophy. You have to be aligned there. And then you fight over, you know, like the tactics or the execution of it, but you're all aligned with like that same common mission. So there's some things that it's okay to disagree on. And there's some things that are not acceptable to disagree on. So really you do want to set that. expectation of what your core values are and what your business is back. All right. So that's core values. We see emails come back.

They look good. They're competent. There's no spelling areas, especially now. Like with AI, if you can't deliver any kind of like, I don't care if you send everything to me through AI and that's like your system and process.

And if that's what you always do, great. But, yeah, like there's no excuse to have. In a job interview, like misspelling. Just, just like none. In my opinion.

It's one of those things where I can't spell to save my life. So every email that goes out, everything that I create, all the lab reports, everything gets run through AI because it's easier that way. I know what my weaknesses are and then I outsource it. So if it's about the person who can find the solution. So if you know that you've got a weakness, which is you've literally spelled your own name run, which I've done. If you know that's a weakness, just use chat GPT.

It's not complicated. I wrote a book. I have tons of spending mistakes. I spent $150 and someone edited it. Know your weaknesses, especially when you're applying for a job. But I've never heard anybody do a typing test. That I could never work for you because I can barely type. It's embarrassing.

It happens. That's it. I know it. That was the whole point of coming on the podcast. You wanted to see if it's not going to work. I'm sorry. I break your heart. What's your words per minute?

What do you type? I think it's kind of like golf for me. I shoot about a 60 on the first hole when I play golf. So I think I type about four or five words. No, my problem is my grammar and my spelling is atrocious. So my middle name is Joseph. And I literally, in high school, spelled a J-O-E-S-P-H. So I literally misspelled my own name.

It's common for me to misspell grammar. When I wrote the book, so I wrote it in nine days. And my assistant who was proofreading initially, she goes, you do know that your has an R on it, right? I was like, yes. And she goes, because has a cuss on it. I was like, you know what, shut up. So it's pretty bad. My grammar and my spelling abilities, my sister has that.

She's got two master's degrees in English. God bless her for it. I got none of that. It's horrible. When I do presentations or I do keynotes, it's really bad. I cannot spell. And we just put a little counter next to it during meetings of how many times I misspell. And if I misspelled to a certain amount, I end up buying lunch, which I end up buying lunch anyway.

So, but yeah, it's bad. It's atrocious. And that's the reason you're the entrepreneur. Like, let's be real. You can't work for people. They can't work for people. I am not employable. No.

Yeah. So we're not looking to hire. I mean, generally speaking, we're not looking to hire entrepreneurs. Like, you know, maybe if you're trying to hire like a CEO or CEO or something like that, my business partner is the same thing. Like every email he sends to me has a spelling error. And I'm like slightly dyslexic. But so I get it.

Like there's people like us that, you know, we kind of break the rules for ourselves. But we're the ones paying the bills. Yeah. Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with employees. I've got employees that I adore. I love them. And one of the tests that I would give all the time,

I'm like, okay, we're going to do word association games. And this is one of the things I do when I hire is I rapid fire with word association games. And then I'll say paycheck or employee. And we'll see what comes out of their mouth. And if they're like security, comfort, benefits, nine to five, if that comes out of their mouth, that's an employee. And I love them for that role. If they spit out things like prison, punishment, slavery, servitude, if they do that type

of and they have this angry reaction, I'm like, all right, that's an entrepreneur. And it's a different conversation. And I've hired entrepreneurs to work for me. Never worked that well. Never worked that well. It just, when I do VC work and I do angel investing, I need to make sure that person is an entrepreneur versus an employee with entrepreneur like

tendencies, which is a categorically different concept for people. So, yes, I am not employable. But being able to filter these out with typing tests and things of that nature, I've never thought of typing tests before. So we've got the person where we're fishing for them where they are, which is great.

We're actually pitching the job as something that they want to be part of and like we're selling the business. We then get into core values and we ignore the resume first and we go after the cover letter, making sure it's spelled right. We test their typing speeds. What do we do after that? What are we in the next situation to get this 95% success rate? Well, I even brought up our core values email if you want me to read it to you. I can read it to you. I don't know if that'll be.

Yeah, we love it. We'll put in the lap report. Yeah, this is a. we are impressed with your background and cover letter and would love to move you to our next step of the hiring process. The best gift that we can give at Beard Brand is a team of people who are passionate, hungry, and love to work. So to help us make sure we build the right team at Beard Brand, we have a very thorough interview process that culminates with an extensive reference check. For the next step, we'd love to know what the Beard Brand core values mean to you. Our core values are freedom, hunger, and trust.

We shoot an email back with each of those core values. and what they mean to you. In addition to that, please take this quick typing test and screenshot the results and your email reply. Looking forward to your response. And we go to typing.com

is what we use for the one minute typing test. So real quick, it does like, we do have a hard process. Like, it should be hard to get a job at where you're at and you need to learn all this information.

So after the core value test, everything comes back. we move into a quick screening phone call. So I will call them up. And then the purpose of this call is to, it's really like if you ever did Sandler sales, there's this idea of like an upfront contract. So basically I call them up and I verify everything.

I say, all right, this job is located in Austin, Texas. You have to come in from this period of time, nine to five. If you don't come in, you're not going to get hired. You know, like the compensation for this job is this amount. But like, we are paying this amount. If that's not okay, let me know because we will not go further because there's a lot more steps from here. So the whole thing is like, we set the expectation.

This calling takes like 10 to 15 minutes. We work all the details. We make sure they understand what the job is. We make sure they understand where it's going to be. be like all the big things because I don't want to get at the end of this and they're like, oh, I wanted to make this amount of money or I want to. So by doing it up front and I'm like, this job's $50,000. Is that okay? And I will get, yes, that is okay. And be like, there is no negotiation for this. This is the job. So what we're doing is like, I found that people who tend

to negotiate and the hiring process, it really starts the process off to a bad foot. So the more you can just get that up front and done with is going to be great. So we do these screening interviews, and if that goes well, we move them to our skills test process. So you're doing the initial contract part. And if someone comes in and you said, hey, the job was between $50,000 to $70,000, and you love them up to this point, but they're like, you know what, I really need to make 75 or whatever it is, do you immediately say, hey, you know what, that's not the job, that's

not what we're doing here, or when do you make the discretionary decision to move around or are you locked in? So we're locked in because our compensation policy is that we pay 90th percentile of market rates in Austin, Texas. So every employee at Beard Brand will be being paid 90th percentile. So we have a very, you know, we have a flat compensation. So we want to give a range. We would say, to us, this is what the job is worth. And if we find the right person, I don't really care if they're making this or that or, you know, whatever their experiences. We try to systematize compensation as fairly as possible. And at the end of the day, you know, it's like, you know, housing and real estate. Like everything is you can make an individual. And we try to do

it where it's the most fair way, where if you get a job or if you get an offer from 10 jobs, will pay better than nine of them. So we do try to pay on the high rate. I think that helps with your retention policy as well. The reason you haven't had to hire for five years is you pay what people are worth. I've always paid a little bit more than what someone's worth in order to make sure that you increase that longevity. Because, yeah, there's a culture and the personalities and being able to work with them, but also at the end of the day, if I've got a rock star employee and someone offers them 15 times more than they're making for me,

no matter how good my culture is, probably not going to stay. So make sure you are in that top 90. It's a subtlety that most people forget. And they just don't. Yeah, I mean, not everyone could be in the top 90th percent. I mean, that's the reality of the space. So it's, you know, we tend to not hire super money driven people either. That's not really like our core values.

We're more going back to like how we're trying to build the business. It's more about the lifestyle. It's about enjoying the journey. So we do trade off, you know, growth a little bit. You know, we tend to not hire mercenaries. That's really what it is. Like if you're trying to hire people that are driven by money, you're hiring mercenaries. And they're not bought into the culture.

They're bought into the money. And they can do great work for you, but they're not going to be aligned with a vision. And, you know, we're a bootstrap company. So we didn't start off that way. And in fact, if I'm remembering correctly, it's been so long, I think we actually pay 75th percentile, not 90th percentile. The goal is to get to 90th percentile. But the expectation is also that the team members perform at that level. So it's like if our company's performing well and we're hitting all of our benchmarks and we're doing what we should be doing, then yes, we're going to be getting paid that. But if we're not, you know, the reality of the business is like I can only pay what I can pay. So we started off, I think, at like 50th percentile and then we worked up to 75th percentile. But I just like to have like, that helps me know that I feel like I'm doing the fair thing. And that includes me, like my pay, my compensation is based on market rates.

Like everyone's pay is based on market rates. Yeah, so the screening test moves into the skills test. It's a two-part test. One is an online test. We use criteria corp, which is an online testing. company, they have a test called C-CAT, which is basically a cognitive test to see how smart they are. And different roles have different requirements for, you know, your ability to solve problems and things like that. There's also, like, another employee personality test, like a more scientific version of Myers-Briggs.

Like, if you don't trust Myers-Briggs, you can use that. criteria is just one of many companies that offered that service. But we will work to do an in-person skills test or if it's not in-person, it has to be done while on a Zoom together. So the intent is that I can watch them work so they could share their screen. But that in-person skills test is one that we will build to be very specific to the job. they're doing. So we had a data analyst role. I got all of our thumbnails from YouTube or from 20 videos. I got the titles. And then I got all the data for those videos. I put them in a spreadsheet. And then I had all the candidates like work through that exact same spreadsheet. I mean,

I would copy it for each candidate. And then they would have to give me a report on what the analysis was. Where we would do for customer service, we would have like 10 tickets and we'd ask them to go through the tickets to prioritize them and then reply to them how they would reply to them. Our copywriter, same thing. We would have them write an email. And they're all, like all the candidates are doing the exact same thing. So we'd have a designer. I would sit and watch a designer work to see how they worked in Photoshop or a video editor,

see how they worked in Premiere and just like be able to tell like how competent or capable they are if they do have the skills to handle what we need them to. So when you're running into a person who you're giving these tests, have you ever had resistance where they're like, that's a lot of work before I even do the job? Have you ever run into that? Yeah, I mean, I think there's candidates out there and you see it on Reddit all the time who are just,

they're bitching and they're like, I don't want to do free work or whatever. It's like, I don't care if you complete this. You don't have to complete this. In fact, some of the jobs you can't complete. Like it's an hour project. where you would just be incomplete. So the goal is like for me to watch how you work.

And at the end of the day, I really don't care. Like, because I'm going to be spending, you know, a half million dollars on you, if not more, like depending on how long you work at the business. If I can't get, you know, two hours of your time up front before I invest a half million over the next, you know, five to ten years, then I'm sorry. Like, I'm not willing to take that risk. Yeah, that was, that's what I was trying to get to because most employees don't realize that as business owners, we have to invest this level into you.

This isn't just a, hey, I want to hang out with you. Let's go. This is a massive investment in our dreams, our future, our financial resources, our personal resources, our time resources. So for those of you who are listening who may not own businesses, who are like, oh, well, this is how I get hired. you have to understand this is what's going through the minds of someone who's an entrepreneur or a business owner. When we're looking at you, okay, this is where we're going to gamble a half a million plus dollars into you over the next X amount of years.

So if you're not willing to put in a little bit of effort here, that's a huge sign for us. It's kind of like if you show up to a date, you haven't cleaned your nails or your zipper's undone or whatever else or you didn't brush your teeth. There are clear indications of what we're looking for. We're not doing this because we want to torture you. We're not doing this because we're just like trying to get free work. That's not this about. We're trying to get more comfortable in the idea that we're bringing you into our, culture and that we can invest a half a million plus dollars into you for the next X amount of

years. So it's not, because I get this feedback all the time, people are like, oh, well, why should I do free work? It's not free work. We're trying to figure out and see if it's an excellent fit. Dude, and there's plenty of jobs that you can ghost by. Those, it'd be like, dude, if that's your mindset, you don't align with our core values. You're out. Like, I would just, I would just cut them. I'm not wasting my time or energy with people who, you know, view their lives in a purely transactional thing. You know, it's like, oh, why would I pick up that trash in the supermarket and throw it away? Like, I'm not getting paid for that.

And it's like, well, you do it because you want to live in a society where there's not trash on the ground. You know, why would you put your car away? Oh, it's because I, you know, like, I just want to live. So you do things like, and in my mind, like, those things are important to me, like, to be around those kind of people. So maybe they're going to be better off working for the government or, you know, working for a mega corp where there's not that same kind of accountability.

And it's these little subtleties when people ask, why do you hire versus why do you not? Why do you keep someone? It's these little things. You go out, you know, we always talk about how the person treats the waiter. It's as important as they treats the CEO across the table. I've walked away from deals when the person was rude to the staff. I've been staffed before. These are those little subtleties of your personality.

And sooner or later, they're going to find out. So when you have a business owner that's trying to do these small things and they're trying to say, hey, we're doing these little tests, those are tests. And it's not so much the test they're giving you. They're also trying to figure out what else it does. So please understand, if you're looking to work for someone like to look for, to work for Eric or someone else on that level, every action has a purpose. These didn't happen by accident. There's very, there's huge intent for this.

Also on a complete side note, put your damn cards away when you're shopping. It's annoying to pull into parking lots. Live in a society where you clean things up, pick up the trash, help people out, get out of people's way. Help people get things if you're taller. help people get things in the grocery store, little things. Try and make things a little bit better. Don't rely on the government, but that's a completely different conversation.

All right, moving on. We, I should, I want to reiterate that all of these steps, I'm telling the candidates that we are going to be doing a reference check at the end of this process. So during the screen interview, I'm like, hey, we are going to call up three of your references. Is that going to be an issue? You know, like during the skills test is like, you know, the next step, when all this is done is we're going to be doing reference checks. So, like, they know that reference checks are coming as part of this process,

which moves to step number seven, which is our top grading interview. So top grading is basically the style where we look like the hard ass is it's like a two-hour interview. Like, you're really like grilling people. I ain't got time for that. We keep ours to like 30 minutes. And we keep it to the most recent three. jobs. But basically I have 10 questions. The exact

same questions that I ask for their most recent 10 jobs. And what I'm looking for is themes or consistencies or, you know, well, just themes and consistency of how they work among different

jobs. And so I have those questions. What is the best part of this job? What is the worst part of this job? talk about your working relationship with your supervisor. How is your supervisor going to describe you when we do our reference check? What is an accomplishment you are proud of? What's something you recall you wish you had done differently?

How or why did you decide to leave this job? What's the most valuable skill you gained here? What is something your supervisor can most approve upon? And did you reach your full potential at this job? So those are the 10 questions that we ask for every single job. And like when I get into a job, I'm like, who is your supervisor? So I'll have their name. Be like, what did John, you know, what is John going to say when I call him up and do this reference check?

What can John do? A lot of times that question is real interesting is like, you're not going to tell them what I say about John. And I'm like, no, I'm not over here like snitching on you with your past pause. but what I'm looking for is like if John was a if this boss was a bad communicator and this other boss was a bad communicator and this other boss was a bad communicator and maybe it wasn't the bosses

maybe it was the candidate so those are kind of the things that we're looking for and by the end of the top grading interview you really have a strong grasp on what kind of things they like to do we go through the three jobs and then we have three questions that we And it's like, why are you interested at the job at Beard Brand?

What are you great at professionally? And what do you suck at professionally? Like, what is the worst thing that I can have you doing if you come to work for Beard Brand? And like those last two questions really, like, we would have like someone apply for a customer service job. I'm like, oh, I hate repetitive task. And I'm like, dude, you're just going to be doing tickets all day long. Like, this job is not going to work for you. So they are going to, by this.

point, they are, the top grading interview style is a truth serum test. You are going to know exactly what they like, what they don't like. And because they know that you are going to be calling up their supervisor, they don't want to be caught in a lie. So that's, that's a really important part of this process. And then, I don't know if you have any questions about this top grading interview. I do. So there's a couple things. I love that you didn't do candid questions. which is like, where do you see yourself in fire? Shut up. That's not valuable.

This is about truth. So this is getting into that. There's normally also the opportunity and I have to help people do this is you're being interviewed as much as you're interviewing them. So when you're a candidate going in and asking very specific questions of the employer, because these are great 10 questions. But for me, when we do hiring, I want to see the initiative. I want you to be interviewing me as well because you're, as much as I'm investing time,

money resources, you're investing time, money resources. And in a lot of cases, the ability to feed your children. So if you're not asking me questions as well, that normally is a flag for me. I'm like, why aren't you asking me questions? And I always ask, I'm like, do you have any questions? Do you have any thoughts? Do you have any concerns? Is there anything I can answer for you?

Is there details about the job or the workplace or our culture? What are some of the, do you have any questions that you've ever gotten asked by an employee or a potential candidate that was like, wow, okay, that one made me think differently and we had to change things up or that surprised you or you thought that was a really good question? Well, I mean, a lot of the job detail ones are done in that screen and interview. So, you know, I don't expect like, you know, what are the benefits or what is the pay or, you know, kind of like those aspects of the jobs. And then within the skills test, they're getting a strong grasp for like what they'll actually be doing.

So because we're doing so many different steps along the way, they tend to actually have a pretty good feel for what it's like to work at at Beard Brand and what the expectation is. And a lot of times, like, the skills test will be with someone else in the company. So it's not all just me doing stuff. It's different people at Beard Brand. They'll have different opportunities to ask questions and get it feel for. I don't think there's ever been, like, you know, any remarkable questions that have kind of throw me out. There's been ones where it's like, you know, this is an in-person job. And they're like, can you do remote at all?

And I'm like, no. Like, and they're like, okay, well, da-da-da-da. Or they'll get like snappy and entitled and shit like that. So it's just like, all right, well, it's just not a good fit. It's not a fit. Yeah. But yeah, like you do, you do want to see like there needs to be communication. Like you need to make sure that, you know, like along at the end of this, you know, I would say something like, is, you know, is this a job you're still interested in?

Like, should we proceed forward? Should we move forward to the reference checks? And, you know, like each step, you kind of give them that opportunity. Like, do you want to continue moving forward? Like, is this a job you're interested in? And then what we do is after that, we do the reference checks. And they need to facilitate them. So they need to get the former bosses information.

They need to find out when it's a good time to call those bosses. And they need to pass that along. And they need to let the bosses know that. to expect a call from this phone number. And if, because if we can't do a reference check, we're, we're not going to get an offer for them.

So we'll do those. I like that you make them facilitated as well. I like that you're going to be involved in this process. I'm not just going to randomly call and say, hey, I'm Bob from blah, blah, blah. You have no idea who I am. I'm calling about Susie Q. I like that you put the ownership on them.

So, okay, you're going to facilitate this now. You know, you're going to pick it. Because again, you can choose any reference in the world. Of course, if they're giving you references, normally you're going to like, no, this is God's gifts. This is the greatest human being on the planet. You're like, okay. So being able to have to facilitate that is important.

It also shows their ability to execute. But when you go to that facilitation process and you actually get their reference on the phone, there are some legal things. And God bless the government, making this more challenging for us, there are things we can and can't ask. One of the things that you normally ask when you're on that reference call. There are things that you're, you know, obviously we verify employment. We verify the times. You verify what they did.

Is there anything else you do ask that you, legally can because I know there's a bunch of stuff we legally just can't ask. Yeah, let me pull these up. Like one of them is like, would you hire them again? When were they employed? What was their title and role? Did they, you can ask whatever you want. It's, you know, it's whether or not they tell you that information.

There's more of a legal on the reference check on what they may or may not tell you. But you get asked whatever you want. Did he or she receive any promotions or demotions? What kind of duties and responsibilities were assigned to the candidate? Can you evaluate the employee's performance? That's one of those questions where you might get, you know, like wishy-washy responses if they're worried about getting sued. Was the employee punctual? Did they get along well with their peers, managers, and customers?

Would you rehire the employee? Is there anything else I should take into consideration? before I hire this candidate. So that last one's the most important. It's one that's very similar to mine. I'm like, is there anything else I need to know? Is there any other things? That's always been kind of the most important one because I then shut up.

And there's a big thing that most people run into problems is sometimes silence is your friend and it's a gift. If you stay quiet a little bit longer than someone's used to, they're going to be prone to fill in that blank because they just don't like it if you do it otherwise. So they're going to like, oh, well, yeah, but then there's also this and this and this. So holding that couple seconds of quietness, even in regular conversations, people don't like silence. They want to fill it. So being able to do that has always been a huge gift.

So you've gone through the hiring process. You've talked to the references. You've done a skill check. You've had an in-person meeting with them. You've gone through the guidelines. You've already knocked out where it is. By now you've got a really good grasp of them. You've even made them set up the calls with their references, which I'm stealing that from you.

That's something I've never done that. I was just, I'm like, oh, hopefully you get so and so on the call. The fact that you're making them facilitate that, that will save me so many awkward calls, so many awkward. So I'm, thank you for that. I'm going to steal that. What are the next steps that you run into? Because we've done so much for each one.

And again, potential employees, be it for you or anyone else, please understand, this is what's happening in the background. And you're, you missed out the months and months of us either having to fire someone else, prepare the thing. There's so much work that's led us up into here where you just, applied to a job. At this point, you're only the last 20% of this process. There's also been another 80% of us just getting to this point. So please understand that as potential candidates. Yeah, the ninth step is the offer and kind of wraps it up. So we should already have agreement

on what the compensation is. Through our other processes, we should have an understanding of like when can they start working. You know, that was in the screening call, like how much notice they need to give. So we're able to draft up an offer that should check all the boxes. And if there's negotiation after the offer, we end it. It sucks to get all the way to step number nine. But we've learned that, like, you know, effectively they can't communicate because like they had those steps and they had those opportunities.

And if they started offering, we just pull the table. And for the times that I did cater towards that, you know, where I didn't, like, Like, really, like, 100% of my bad hires since rolling this out are, like, times that I break it. You know, like times that I didn't clearly define what the compensation was up front or times that I didn't clear. Like, maybe I skipped a couple of steps because they were a reference from a referral or they're a college friend or something like that. So we found that you really like, if someone goes through all nine of these steps, they're going to be great.

I think if someone negotiates with you at the ninth step, it violates your culture. That's not the idea that you wanted to do in any way, shape, or form. Like, hey, this is what we do. This is how we offer. This is how we work. This is our culture. And it's either going to be a culture fit or it's not.

And if they start changing things around at the very end, that's your red flag. Because one of the things I'm always looking for, hey, what are the telltale absolute signs, always what a red flag? Just like people are always wondering, they ask me, how do you find out when someone's lying? There's not just one indication. There's a bazillion different things you have to see as a collective picture. So if someone's gotten all the way to step nine and all of a sudden they're playing this,

well, then guess what? They violate your culture fix and you move on really, really quickly. I wish I can say that I didn't make some of the mistakes that you have done. We've all made those mistakes. We've hired people that we should not have hired because we're a reference or a college friend. Or you just had a good feeling. I literally had that this morning. I still make those mistakes.

It's going to happen. Just fail faster as you go into it. So I love this methodology and how this works, and it's very simple. And thank you for sharing the details of it. One of the questions I wanted to have is, what are the other things that you found? Because you've expanded this and you've done such an amazing job with this. Is there anything else that you've found out that, hey, these are some practices. Yeah, this is our great one here.

But if I could have told myself 10 years ago or whatever it was when you started this, I wish I would have also had this insight or read this book or what would is there any of those floating around that you're like wow because you're very meticulous with how you break down your steps and they're they're beautiful yeah I mean I think the hardest part of this is that it's a lot of work um it's nine steps it's multiple interviews it's a lot of phone calls like you and when you factor you have you know hundreds of candidates that you have to screen through and I think the hard thing is like Like when you get to step number nine and you make that offer, you're only making offers to people you're super excited about that you can't wait. And then for it to fall apart after nine and knowing that you only have a few candidates in step two or three. And then like you're going back to square one, like fighting that, you know, that pain of just wanting to be done with it because we don't get into business to hire people. Like this is not fun.

This is not a fun thing that I look forward to. So I think like being able to really like stick to the nine steps is important. We, you know, our resource for this was top grading. So if you Google top grading or look into it, you can make it your own. And that's kind of what we did. This is not, you know, exactly by the book for it. Once they become employees, we roll out the EOS framework for hiring, which is for Harvard. version of the OS, which is kind of like, you know, based on rocks and quarterly sprints and,

you know, do employees have it? Do they want it? Do they have the capabilities to do, you know, that kind of stuff? So we do have like regular, we don't do like the whole corporate thing where you do like a once a year and a review. It's like if we have a problem on that day, we go and we talk about it. So we just keep them up the pace on the things they need to work about. And we're a small company, so we're under 50 employees. So if someone's not working out, we just, we just fire them. In a perfect world, they should know it's coming and we should have like enough communication about things not working. But at the end of the day, like, I've learned that you know deep down if an employee is going to work. And yes, it would be great to be that employee that gives everyone a

month notice or two months notice or puts them on a work improvement program. But if you know deep down, you could put them on a month improvement program and they still don't improve that you're going to be firing. You're just, you're delaying the inevitable. Like you have to be an asshole and, you know, like just sometimes.

Sometimes you get a part of the program. Yeah. It just is what it is. And if you don't know that you don't know, just pay attention to your nightmares, as you said before. It'll come up every single time. As you said,

your subconscious knows all the time. You have that gut feeling. It'll come up. You know, as a guy, it takes a little bit longer than the females do. They get it instantaneously. have these gut feminine item it takes me a little bit longer i normally similar to you i just have

i'm like oh shit this this is a problem i've got to deal with this but don't delay it as soon as you do have i guess that's the only advice i would have um fire as quick as you can if it runs into this trust your gut just speed up the process yeah there's going to be pain but it'll be less pain than having to have them limp them along um and similar to you i've had to bootstrap companies where i'm like listen i would love to give you two weeks or a month of pay and that sometimes i just can't do that there's other times where i'm like here's your two weeks pay, go away. And they're already locked out. The one thing I would stress is if you're going to run into that, and this is about hiring, not firing, make sure you've got a protocol that you've tested

for lockout procedures, especially with an IT background. Make sure you've got your lockout procedures really intensely done. Make sure you have copies of everything. Make sure everything possible before you don't just walk in and be like, hi, Susie, you're fired. Make sure you've got a lockout procedure and make sure it's relatively bulletproof. If you haven't tested that out, especially as an IT guy, I've watched entire data sectors get wiped all. people's servers because they were going to fire Billy and he knew it was coming and Billy's a jerk. So just run into those situations. Please make sure you've got a firing process that is as good, if not better than your hiring process.

So from there, I want to kind of selfishly ask you questions about my beard and how people find you and all of that. So if people are tracking down, because I'm sorry, I have to ask you. You got a better beard than anyone I know. It's cheating. Again, so when you walk into these environments, how do people find you? How do they get a hold of you? If people have more questions or people want to find out more about how you built it,

you gave so many resources that you use. I really appreciate the value you provided. How do people find you? And then I'm going to ask you beard questions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, beardbrand.com is my company. Go over there, buy products. If you're, you know, our products will work for dude with or without a beard.

We've got products for you. And then also our products don't know your genitalia. So really, you know, they can work for women. We've got a lot of women who use our sea salt spray, love that product, our styling paste as well. So there's a lot of products that we have and you don't have to pay the woman beauty tax and get same quality or if not better quality products coming from a men's company. And then I also have an e-commerce conversations podcast called e-commerce conversation. So if you want to learn more about e-commerce or watch me interview some guests, head over there, Conversations is put on by practical e-commerce.

And then I'm on Twitter. That's the one social media platform that I'm on. It's my last name, Van Holtz, B as a Boy, A-N-D, H-O-L-Z. So ask me questions there. If you've got a paid account on Twitter, you can DM me and be happy to chat with you. I love that you still call it Twitter. I'm very similar to you refuse to call it anything else. It's Twitter.

It always will be Twitter. Sorry, Elon. rename it back. So I have a question. Yes, I want to grow, I have a beard. I have scruff. And I've always had scruff. I can't do the thickening.

What product do you have that you use that I could use that would thicken this up? And is there practices I could use that, or specifically from your brand? Yeah. I mean, so. My face makes me feel self-conscious. Yeah. Our sea salt spray is a product that adds texture and waves into hair. And then from there, you can think about like your technique.

for how you let your beard really dry or how you style it. Greg Berzinski is one of our content creators. If you Google like Greg Brzezinski like beard styling, the biggest thing that you need to do is you got to give it more link. I think if you give it more length, you're going to have more to play with. It's probably going to take about really about three months of growth to be able to get a beard of this length.

So it's not something that happens. overnight. But your beard looks good, man. I mean, you could rock the beard stash, which is like give your mustache a little bit longer length. And then keep your... It bothers my lip. Fix it my lip.

All right. Yeah, but yours is great. Yeah, I mean... So the next one I have is... So hair pace, and, you know, I talk of this all the time. Girls get clobbered with the female tax. Even when it comes to beauty products. You get the same product or even a better product at fraction of the cost.

don't think they could do that. One of the things, and I didn't realize that you sold products, doesn't matter if you have internal plumbing or external plumbing or whatever you identify with, the fact that you're going to be punished because you've got internal plumbing with those taxes, you know, one of some of the things that, because I know women always want shinier or more volumized hair, what is the product that you would recommend? I clearly am not asking for me, but I would like to give this information to someone specifically. What is the product that you would you, that you guys have that's like, hey, this is the best results that we have. It may may, may may not be our most popular one, but this is the best one for the female side.

Yeah, I mean, like, like I said, the Seasalt Spray is going to be a great product that will give you beach-like hair. So that feeling where you go into the ocean, you swim around, you get out and your hair has got that kind of like crunchy, wavy, natural toss. Like, if you want that kind of style, or Seasalt Spray is great. It's an innovative product. We're the first company to put clay in there to mimic the sand that you get in your hair when you go to the beach. You're a Most stuff is just effectively like liquid gel that you spray on your hair or it's just salt and waters. So they've forgotten a big component of that beechy hair. So that's a great styling product.

Our wash and softener, we're not using any silicons in our process. So one of the problems that you have with long hair is shampoos are formulated to have silicons on it, which will coat your hair. And that's not inherently bad. it's not like a paraben or a product that's going to, you know, quote unquote, cause damage. But what happens is for you to remove this silicone, you need a very intense wash to remove the silicone. So what happens is when you run that intense wash through your hair, then that's when you start to cause some of the damage. You get that frizziness.

And then when you add that frizziness, you're drawn to use an ingredient that has silicone in there to smooth it all out. So our formulation strategy is to do more gentle washing with a conditioner that doesn't have any siliculcons in it to have really like what we think is your body is pretty awesome at doing things naturally and get it back to the roots of how your body would handle things. Rather than mask or disguise, it's work with your body's natural chemistry to kind of output what you're looking for. So the washing softener would be a great one to punch. for people who are looking to cause minimal damage to hair. And women tend to, I mean, when your hair gets long, it takes three or four years to get it down to here. So you don't want to constantly be doing things to it

that can cause frizziness or damage. For those of you who are listening, he just described his company's culture regarding his products as well. So if you weren't paying attention, he literally just described protecting it, natural being part of that. So, man, I love it. Everything you do aligns with who you are.

as a human being. I've gotten to talk to you on and off camera. I hope people to track you down, track down your podcast. Thank you for providing so much value. I really appreciate you being on the show. The best systems aren't just about efficiency. They're about alignment. Don't shortcut the fundamentals because you're in a hurry. The time you invest in getting the right people will save you years of headaches later.