How do you know WHEN and WHO to hire next?

Treat Your Business EP

[00:00:00] Katie Bell: You are in your clinic, back to back with patients, adding clients in, staying late, writing notes, emailing plans, forgetting to email plans that you told them that you would send, responding to emails to tell you that you’ve forgotten to do that. You need more help. But where on earth do you start? I ran a masterclass last month in our Treat Your Business Facebook group, and you can catch up on this link in the show notes.

[00:00:25] Katie Bell: But a lady said to me in the masterclass, she was at capacity. She’d reached really her ceiling of income. Without really changing her business model, without ramping up her prices, which there’s a lot to discuss around that right now with what we’re seeing going on in the economy. But without doing either of those things, she was like, I can’t get any bigger.

[00:00:47] Katie Bell: I can’t do any more. But she said I was really scared. I’m really scared to hire because the whole employing people or even bringing people on a freelance basis scares me. And I gave her some key advice that I’m going to give you today. Whether you’re hiring your first person or your tenth person, you need to know this stuff first.

[00:01:09] Katie Bell: So let’s dive in.

[00:01:10] Katie Bell: Welcome to the Treat Your Business podcast with Katie Bell. I am Katie, and this is the place to learn the strategies, tactics, tools, and mindset needed. To build your clinic or studio into a business that gives you the time, money, energy and fulfillment you want and deserve. My team and I work every day with overwhelmed and exhausted clinic owners like you to shift them from a business that is a huge time and energy drain and is not giving them the income they want to confident clinic owners that are making money, saving money and getting time back in their lives.

[00:01:41] Katie Bell: So if this sounds like something you want, let’s dive in. This podcast is sponsored by HMDG, the leading digital marketing agency for the Clinicare is in the U. K.

[00:01:51] Katie Bell: I hear you. There is no one out there. There are loads of overseas applicants, and I’m not in a position to offer a work visa or sponsorship. I just feel like the people out there lack skills, Katie. We have a shortage. Full stop. But that doesn’t mean people are not out there. We have to shift our mindset when it comes to hiring and we need to improve our process.

[00:02:17] Katie Bell: This is, your business needs to be a process driven business and hiring is no different. I see so many mistakes when it comes to hiring. First of all, the quality of the job advert out there is a load of rubbish and it’s boring. It does not make me want to work for your company. Number two, the visibility of the job ad is inconsistent.

[00:02:38] Katie Bell: So I hear this all the time, our clients say, Katie, I’ve just not been able to hire. And I’m like how visible and how consistent have you been with your process and with your advert? I posted it on LinkedIn once on my Facebook channel once. And that’s about it. We know that visibility is a challenge.

[00:02:55] Katie Bell: We know that there is so much noise out there. So we have to be consistent at our approach. And if you listened to my podcast last week, You will have heard me say that we are planning for where we want to be in six months time. We are planning to hire slow and fire fast. So when we approach this process with that projection in mind, we’ve got time.

[00:03:17] Katie Bell: We’ve got time to be consistently visible. The other thing that I see is the actual hiring process itself. So we tend to hire out of fear, out of panic of reactivity. Don’t even know if that’s a word. But we tend to just go, Oh my goodness! We’ve got a waiting list, I need to get somebody now, and we hire too quickly.

[00:03:41] Katie Bell: So we miss out key fundamentals in our hiring process, which means we often end up taking the wrong person for the seat that we have. I want you to imagine that your business is a bus. And you are the driver of the bus and you’re driving along and you should have a plan. You should have a sat nav.

[00:04:01] Katie Bell: You should have a map. You know where to go. You know where the bus’s final destination is going to be. You’re on the journey. And as you’re travelling on this bus, you’ve got to stop and you’ve got to pick some people up. But we want to make sure that you’re picking the people up for the right seats on your bus.

[00:04:22] Katie Bell: So I want you to imagine that your bus has all of the seats in, and there is a marketing seat, there is a sales seat, there is a finance seat. And you’re going to get the right people for those seats. Rather than picking the people up on the side of the pavement and going you seem really nice, maybe you could do this job.

[00:04:42] Katie Bell: We have to switch our way of hiring round. We hire for the seat, we don’t hire the person. And many of us start and full transparency, I did this before I knew this shit, before I read, and I studied, and I learned, and I tried, and I put together, and I tried and tested and rinsed and repeat and changed and tweaked over many years, over 10 years now, this 12 step process that works.

[00:05:11] Katie Bell: It works time and time again. We have a relatively low churn rate within my company for this reason.

[00:05:19] Katie Bell: So let’s unpick all of the reasons why your hiring process might suck right now and what you can do differently. Now, I’m not going to go through all the 12 steps because we would literally be here until next week. And that is something that we give to our clients within the Activate and the Elevate programs.

[00:05:36] Katie Bell: We give them the 12 steps. We give them all of the documents and all of the templates and everything that they need along the whole process so they don’t have to figure it out for themselves. It saves them loads of time and it means that they get great people working for them. Some of the ones that I was going to bring to this podcast episode today is your job ad.

[00:05:56] Katie Bell: Okay, your job advert is not your job description. If you just post a job description, it is so boring. Nobody wants to read it. Your job ad needs to follow the AIDA marketing principles. AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. So if you were scrolling, we’ve got to have something that’s going to stop the scroll.

[00:06:23] Katie Bell: So your attention headline needs to be something bold and big. Now usually in marketing, it’s a pay in headline. But I would always encourage you to start with Are you a physio? Are you a physio looking for additional income? Are you a physio looking for a change? Are you a physio wanting to get out of the NHS and go into private?

[00:06:48] Katie Bell: Like it needs to be something that’s going to stop the scroll. Now, interest, the I in AIDA is then some two or three more headlines, which creates the interest and that their questions again. Now they, again, in marketing principles, they tend to be pain related. But when you’re advertising for a job, I think there’s benefit to having a little bit of both here.

[00:07:08] Katie Bell: Are you a physio looking for additional income? You want to say something like, do they love to work with patients? And are sick of feeling like they’re not in control of somebody’s outcome in a better way than that. But what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to get them to say yes, this is me.

[00:07:26] Katie Bell: Yes. This is me. Do you love rehab, but feel like you’ve got no time to do it with your clients? So you’re trying to get into where they are at, where these people are at, which means there’s a big yes and that’s why they would maybe at this stage, want to apply for this role.

[00:07:44] Katie Bell: The desire is like, what’s great about why they would want to come and work for you? If the answer is yes, then this job might just be for you. And then you could put some two or three, or four, Desire statements in there, like the pleasure, the great stuff. What are they going to get as a result of working for you?

[00:08:08] Katie Bell: And then you’re going to give them the action, like the call to action. What is it that they now need to do? And it might be to, to register your interest for this role and find out more. Do this. It could be a link to a google form with some very simple questions on it. It could be a click on this link and submit a 150 word summary of why you would be a great fit.

[00:08:31] Katie Bell: Thanks. For what you know of this role. So your job ad needs to be not just a boring list of what their qualifications need to be, what their requirements are, what, all of that. It needs to be much more exciting.

[00:08:45] Katie Bell: The second thing to think about is the visibility of this job advert. One of the biggest things that I always hear was that you posted it once and nobody applied. Guess what? They’re not going to. Because of the algorithms and all of that crazy stuff out there, that means a lot of our posts are just not seen.

[00:09:02] Katie Bell: So we need a visibility strategy that’s consistent. That means, again, because we’re projecting and planning much further ahead, we’re going to start thinking about where our fishes are that we can see. We need to go and what pond do we need to go and fish in? I would be looking at your social channels, of course.

[00:09:21] Katie Bell: Your network, your current network. I would be emailing your database of people. I would be posting on LinkedIn. I would be direct messaging people in LinkedIn within a certain vicinity or area or expertise. Say, hey I don’t know whether this is of interest to you, but we have a we have a post coming up.

[00:09:39] Katie Bell: Do you know anybody or might you be interested? I would go, if this is who you’re looking for, to a local university and see if you can reach out to their post grad department. Is there something that they could email their students about potential opportunities?

[00:09:55] Katie Bell: I would do all of that and I would then use Indeed. We’ve used Indeed very effectively. But we have a different strategy with Indeed. I know it is going to produce A lot of applicants, not always appropriate applicants. So I just go in with that expectation. And we have a different filtering strategy with Indeed.

[00:10:18] Katie Bell: But we’ve had our last two, three recruits who are amazing from Indeed. So think about the quality of your job advert. Think about where you’re posting it and how consistent you are with your approach to this.

[00:10:35] Katie Bell: And then the, then it kicks off. I want you to think this is like a big funnel. You’re putting people in the top of the funnel. Okay. With your job adverts, that’s super consistent and out there. And then we now start to funnel them out. So we really respect your time and we only give your time to the people that have followed all the processes in our 12 step hiring process, that means people When we do take them to a Phase 1 and Phase 2 interview, that’s going to involve you as the clinic owner, it’s going to be worth your time.

[00:11:08] Katie Bell: So some of the bits that I’m going to pick out for you is that we want to before, if you ask them to do a task, like the worst that you can do is say, send me your CV in a cover letter. So boring. Just give you no indication. Anybody can write anything on their CV. So we want to make sure that we are asking them to do something that means if they can’t even follow that step, they’re not going to be a great fit for you and your business.

[00:11:37] Katie Bell: I like 150 word summary. I know some some businesses use a video cover letter. Like you’re going to ask them to send you a five minute video cover letter. That’s very powerful. And if they can’t figure that out, they’re probably not going to be somebody that has the energy, has the problem solving ability that you want within your clinic.

[00:12:02] Katie Bell: And then when you get that back, we then send them some screening questions and those screening questions are really just to start to see whether what their experience and expertise actually is. This, like I still don’t ask for CV. I’m not really interested. Because these questions that I’m going to ask is, are you employed or self employed currently?

[00:12:24] Katie Bell: What is making you want to leave the role that you’re currently in? What capacity and availabilities do you have currently for this role? Based on what you know so far, why what are the standout bits that you think you would be really great at? And those questions, again, just starts to bring them down the funnel, bring, filter those people out.

[00:12:43] Katie Bell: And after that, it’s then a decision. Is it a yes or a no? So there’s a few processes in place before you even get to meet them. When they reply to that email and you go, yeah, okay, this is yes. Then I would invite them to a 15 minute, but I would allow for 30 zoom chats and informal zoom chat, where we have a list of phase one interview questions.

[00:13:05] Katie Bell: This is about seeing if they’re going to be the right fit for the culture. I allow for 30 minutes because if they are great, I would like more time to ask more questions. Because it’s going to cut down on the time further along the chain. But this really is like a, being able to look them in the eye, being able to just decide, are they going to be a great culture fit?

[00:13:27] Katie Bell: Am I going to be able to work with this person? We have a list of phase one questions and then if they are yes or a no, we move them to our assessments and assessments is about putting the right people in the right seats. This is so crucial and always missed out unless you work with us of course because then we are teaching you this stuff and we are teaching you how to read.

[00:13:52] Katie Bell: And understand how people need to be wired for certain roles within your company and your business. And we want them to be great people, we want to be able to get on with them, but we don’t need to be best mates with them. We need the right fit. We need them to be wired for the role that you have got. So we do two different assessments.

[00:14:13] Katie Bell: We do the I am a High, which gives you a colour, and we do the Clifton Strength Finder, the five strengths test. And we get you as a company a clinic owner to do it as well. And we can start to see what is it that we’re looking for. And again, it’s a yes or a no. Do they, are they wired to do this role?

[00:14:31] Katie Bell: Just because they’re a great person, just because they said the right things in phase one. still might mean that they’re not the right person to do the job that you have got. Looping all the way back, the first thing to start with is your job description and spend some real time getting very clear on the roles and responsibilities this role has.

[00:14:50] Katie Bell: The clearer you are, when you get in the driver’s seat of your bus, You’re super clear with the direction, you’re super clear what roles and responsibilities this person is going to have and will have. You can then start deciding who it is that you need to pick up to put in that seat. So the job description is like stage one, actually, there’s quite a few things that come before that, not an all step process, but in the hiring bit, it’s get your job description really clear.

[00:15:19] Katie Bell: Then it’s your job ad. Then it’s being consistent and visible. And then it’s starting to funnel them through this process.

[00:15:26] Katie Bell: We take them through the assessments, it gives us a yes or a no. If they’re a no, it’s thanks so much, you have been unsuccessful at this stage. And You then take them to the final phase two. Now phase two really is going to be one or two people that are like ticked every box. They are a experience and expertise fit, they are a culture fit, they’re an assessment and wired fit, and now it’s like this last piece of the jigsaw.

[00:15:51] Katie Bell: And phase two, we then have phase two interview questions. So this might be that we actually are going to interview them clinically. Plus we’re going to ask some other questions as well. And one of the best questions that I’m going to share with you on our Phase 2 question list is On a scale of 1 to 10, this is the final question I ask.

[00:16:10] Katie Bell: On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being When can I start? I’m so excited. Where are you right now? Now if there are a 7 or less, it’s not going to work. You can’t get somebody from a 7 and below up to an 8, It just, there’s too many things that are in the way, barriers or challenges or obstacles that they have got that I don’t think can be overcome to mean that they’re going to be a great fit.

[00:16:38] Katie Bell: If somebody’s an 8, 9, you want to say, okay, so what makes you an 8 and not a 10? Now they’re going to express vulnerable, oh goodness, can’t even say that word, vulnerably. Wow, they’re going to express in a vulnerable way. to you what is going on for them, why they’re not an absolute, yes, this is me, I am in, this is the job that I’m looking for.

[00:17:02] Katie Bell: It might be salary, it might be hours, it might be a bonus scheme, it might be something that doesn’t quite vibe with them, and they’re going to express that to you, this is a great moment. And then it’s making that decision on who are you going to hire. And then it is following. Your onboarding process, which, guess what, is a whole nother process, a whole nother podcast episode, that I will give you, do not worry.

[00:17:27] Katie Bell: So can you see, by listening to how we hire, and I’ve just given you a flavour of some of those steps, That it’s so critical that your hiring process is timely, it gives you, it takes people through a consistent process that means you’re not going to get the wrong person in that seat.

[00:17:50] Katie Bell: It’s almost impossible.

[00:17:52] Katie Bell: Now, if you’re listening to this and you have a team, Which I’m sure you do have because otherwise you probably wouldn’t be listening to this episode. But maybe you’ve got a team of some self employed practitioners working for you, or you’ve got some associates. This month we are running a masterclass, a free masterclass.

[00:18:08] Katie Bell: And within the Treat Your Business Facebook group, if you’re not a member, be a member. What are you doing not being a member? It’s a great place to get lots of free resources and content from us. And it allows you to join a monthly masterclass and get coached by me. And it’s amazing. So in April, we are going to be really getting clear on why self employed is worse, a worse business model right now than in the employed model.

[00:18:38] Katie Bell: Everybody says to me, but I’m really scared to employ somebody. I can’t afford it. And I always say, if you’re self employing somebody right now, you can already afford it. And I’m going to explain why that is the case. We’re going to dig into the, into why our industry is going through this necessary shift.

[00:18:53] Katie Bell: We’re going to look at the pros and cons of employing somebody versus self employed. I’m not going to. We’re going to talk about why most clinics are not making the Self Employed Associate Model work right now. To register for that Masterclass, make sure if you can’t be there live, you register anyway, we’ll send you the recording and any assets that I use within the Masterclass you will get as well.

[00:19:14] Katie Bell: Make sure you register via the link in the show notes. I hope you have enjoyed this week’s episode on really getting clear. On how to hire great people that stay and perform within your clinic. Have a fabulous rest of your day.

[00:19:30] Katie Bell: Thanks so much for listening to this show. Remember content consumption does not make changes, so commit to doing something from today’s episode. Maybe it’s taking action on what we talked about. Well, maybe it’s reaching out to me and learning more about our transformational coaching programs. Or if you have not yet, join our free Treat Your Business Facebook group, a free access to over 30 business masterclasses.

[00:19:53] Katie Bell: All of that is over at thrive businesscoaching. com or linked in the show notes. And the last favor I will ask, because social proof is endlessly important, is to leave a rating or review. I would love to know what you think of the show, how the show has been helpful for you. And I can’t wait to chat with you.

[00:20:11] Katie Bell: This is just the start of our conversation. Reach out so we can keep it going. Talk soon!