The key to hiring success

Talk to anyone about hiring and they will tell you to hire for attitude not experience.

Although it's a known fact, how many of us actually do it?

Most will say they do. But what they really do is take a small pool of EXPERIENCED candidates and interview them for attitude. They choose the best attitude amongst the experienced short list.

The cost to train an inexperienced employee is high. Yet the cost to replace an entire team decimated by an experienced jerk is obviously much higher.

The restaurant industry is no different. Because restaurants are on the front lines of business warfare, this challenge comes up often. Hire for skill and try to untrain bad habits or hire for attitude and try to train skill. In restaurants, the time required to train skill is short compared to more skilled jobs corporate jobs.

Hiring an employee in a restaurant is a pain in the ass. It's not like the trainers don't have anything else to do. It's not like business likes to pay for the extra cost of training labour. There is no HR department...

Yet hiring is still necessary.

Here are two tips that I learned for hiring success in the restaurant industry.

First of all, get referrals from existing employees. Not only do birds of a feather flock together, but now you have a mentor, a training buddy, a support team for your new employee.

How often have you seen a new employee get plucked to death by the team? A friend won't let this happen to the new recruit. A friend will bring the employee under her wing and protect her from the predators while feeding her advice and tips. 

The other phenomenon I witnessed in these scenarios is the creation of study buddies. The friend trains the new recruit off company time, which saves valuable labour costs.

You don't always get enough referrals so you may have to advertise the position or review the pile of resumes in the file. Trying to get through the bullshit that resumes dish out, a decision is made who will be interviewed.

The second tip for hiring is more ninja style.

Hire for attitude. But hire for a specific attitude. Look for someone who has the ability to CARE. 

Trying to find an employee who cares can be difficult. Everyone cares about something. Look specifically for someone who has a deep desire to help others.

How do you assess that?

If you're hiring a part-time employee look to university, college or high school kids. More specifically hire students who are studying or wanting to study Education or Nursing. 

If you're hiring a fulltime employee, ask them if they had to do it all over again and had to go back to school, what field of study would they take. Again, look for the Education or Nursing answer.

I know it's crazy. I stumbled across this in my third year of business. I never had one bad hire using this methodology.  You can end the interview after this simple question. Nothing else will give you more information.

It worked for me and I'll bet it will work for you. Just saying...

No longer employable

Entrepreneurs don't make good employees.

Some companies look for entrepreneurial employees. What they really want are employees who are ready, willing and able to take initiative.

Employees who are entrepreneurial are risk takers. They will work hard. But they may not spend a lot of time in the office. They may be networking, shaking hands, and looking for opportunities for both their employer and themselves.

These people are not employable. They seek new challenges. They can't be pegged down. Don't ask them to sit at a desk for 40 hours a week. You'll kill them and more importantly their spirit.

Don't ask them to work bank hours. They may start working at 5 am to go golfing at noon with some prospective clients only to be seen two days later. They may be gone for days, knocking down doors of new clients.

Be clear on the goals in the beginning. If not, the entrepreneurial employee will set his own goals, which will probably not be in line with corporate objectives.

An entrepreneurial employee will disrupt. If the current systems don't work for him, he will change them. He will do whatever it takes to find success.

Don't allow the disruption, and he'll suffocate. Real entrepreneurs don't work for money. They work for fun, the thrill, the fight, the challenge. Money comes because they are so damned good at it.

Piss him off and he won't think about quitting. He'll pick up his stuff and leave. He's a spoiled brat that way.

You will never, ever, ever be able to control these people. So you have two choices: don't hire them or hire them and get out of the way.

The most powerful form of marketing

No one will question this. A friend talking about a new product, getting excited, will sell us on the idea that we should buy that same product a million times faster than some 30 second television commercial.

Word of mouth is the most powerful form of marketing that exists.

It's also the slowest to achieve any substantial results.

A friend recently asked me about the power of referrals. His idea is to create WOM marketing for his new business. But he wants it to happen fast, which is like asking an elephant to tiptoe gently (impossible).

He has a business that he wants to pay a referral fee to customers who generate new business for him.

Here was my response.

Money will motivate some people to give you a referral. Agreed that profit margins are good enough to afford referral fees. However keep in mind that most will gladly refer for free if you do a good job with an amazing guarantee. The reason most people don’t refer companies to their friends isn’t because they aren’t paid. It's their friendship credibility that's at stake if the friend has a bad experience with the referred company. To most, credibility is way more important to them than a few bucks.

Think about the other side of the equation. If I’ve been referred to your business by a friend in which I spend a significant amount of money. It doesn't matter if I like the product or not, if I found out that the friend made money in converting me to your client, it makes me feel used. 

To combat that, you can make a better deal - an insider’s deal or a friend’s and family deal.

Offer this instead:

If a client knows anyone else who might also like the product, not only could you give a referral fee, but you could also give the referred customer a percentage friend and family discount. Now everyone wins and no one will feel taken advantage of by a friend.

Remember, the deflector shields will be up. How do they come down? When we are able to help others. A pay it forward discount to our friends will be seen as helping others and not taking advantage of a client's personal network.

Social Media is a form of Word of Mouth marketing. It can speed up things significantly. But the credibility factor will remain. Most won't share in fear of hurting their own social standing. They will protect their network, and their credibility unless they know without a doubt that you won't let them or their friends down.

The Deflector Shield and Selling

If someone you don't know, tries to sell you something, you put up what I like to call the Deflector Shield. First of all, the person you're talking to doesn't have any credibility with you, so you immediately question motives.

Credibility is everything.

The Deflector Shield is the same shield that young women use in nightclubs to protect themselves from young bucks trying to sleep with them.

What's the easiest way to lower the Shield? Instead of exposing your true intent, you need to approach in Stealth Mode.

How do you approach in Stealth Mode?
Ask for help. Literally ask for help.

Most people don't want to be sold to. But they are more than happy to help.

Imagine a young buck approaching Lady Enterprise. "Hey baby, your daddy must've been a jeweller because he placed two diamonds in your eyes".

Ugh. That stuff only works on the weak and desperate.

Now imagine this happening all night to the same Lady Enterprise, who is in full Deflector Mode, when a more sophisticated young buck approaches and says, "Hi, my name is XYZ and I'm wondering if you can help me out. I just bought this new shirt but I don't have much of a sense for style. I have four brothers at home and I'd like to get a woman's opinion. What do you think?"

Bye bye deflector shields. Maybe a conversation develops and maybe it doesn't. But the second guy has a much better chance of converting the sale once the shields are down.

Take that same idea over to the business world. Most salespeople use the first approach telling us whatever we want to hear so they can get into our pants.

But when someone comes along and asks for our help, we generally lower the shield and listen to what the salesperson has to say. When these people get into our pants, it doesn't feel as icky.

We are all in sales. So the next time you need to sell something, whether it be a product, service or idea, try asking for help instead of coming on too strong.

There's a bigger chance of success and a lesser chance of being a douche.

There are losers in life

People can actually lose at this game called life.

It's not what you think.

It's not necessarily the guy who pokes needles into his arm or the girl that needs to satisfy her addiction by drinking a 40 ouncer before leaving the house.

It might not be the person who could work but decides to stay home and live off available social programs like free housing, free food or free money.

It doesn't have to be the person who never achieves their dreams.

It's probably not the homeless guy begging for spare change on the street.

You can only lose at life when you stop laughing.

As long as you continue to laugh, you have found some level of happiness.
As long as you find happiness, you cannot lose.

Happiness is a choice.
By choosing happiness, you win.

We all know people who's face looks more like their assholes. The pierced lips that just sucked on something sour resembling the anal's orifice.

Don't be that person.

Be the opposite of that person. A laughing person is an attractive person.
Be the opposite of that person. A laughing person is a magnetic person.
Be the opposite of that person. A laughing person makes others laugh.
A laughing person makes other people happy.

And that's the greatest gift anyone can give in this world.

And that's how we win at life.

We only lose when we stop laughing...

Nature is a bitch

It's only natural.

Be one with nature.

We are supposed to respect nature. Yet, nature can be such a bitch.

I agree with the overall premise of respecting our natural neighbours. But I saw an ugly side of nature yesterday. I was cutting down a few dead branches, when the soothing trickle of a stream whispered for me to come closer. 

As I approached, I saw the weight of the snow from this past winter had bent the alder bushes into the stream's path. Mother's source, water, was being blocked by stubborn trees not wanting to die, but not having enough life to rise again.

I was sad. 

In the coming years, these bushes will block the waterflow like a beaver's dam and I will lose the laughter of the joyful water.

Those bushes don't have the energy to rise up. They are not trees. They don't have the DNA of their tree cousins. Their lot in life is to populate the land like a disease. They don't have aspirations of beauty. 

So enter the chain saw. 

Their doom is told by their unwillingness to reach for the stars. Their complacency is their ultimate destruction.

They will eventually die a slow drowning death.

Drowning has to be the worst way to die. 

Nature is allowing them to suffer.

Nature is allowing them to think they are still alive.

Their fate is sealed.

And nature knows it. 

What a bitch.

Murderer. Killer. Slaughterer.

The chain saw cuts the throats of those poor bushes in an instant. The pain is over. The sadness is gone. 

The brook rejoiced.

The children cried.

The fish laughed.

And nature sat back in her rocking chair contemplating her next dick move.

What a bitch!  

Little Girl

Little girl, saddened heart
You can hide behind your smiles
We still see your pain
You can try to hide it
It hurts to watch you
It hurts to see you
It hurts to know you

Little girl, sorrowed eyes
You can hide behind your laughs
We still hear your pain
You can try to run
It hurts to hear you
It hurts to listen to you
It hurts to know you

Little girl, broken spirit
You can hide behind your actions
We still feel your pain
You can try to numb it out
It hurts to talk about you
It hurts to think about you
It hurts to know you

It wasn't your fault
Nor was it mine
It's just in the stars
The fault lies with them
Little Girl
Hide, run, or numb
The pain will never go away entirely
It will fade with time
Like every other memory