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I watch just enough baseball to be dangerous. When Pudge Rodriguez was catching for the Texas Rangers I remember going to a few games. His arm at throwing out runners attempting to steal a base was spectacular. Much more so in person than on TV.

Since I was young I was probably more fascinated at throwing the baseball more than hitting it. I don’t understand the physics of pitching at all. Even a non-super fan like me has to acknowledge the brilliant talent of a pitcher who can make the exact same motion, including where they release the ball — and have a different pitch come out each time. One at 95 miles an hour with the next pitch just breaking 80 miles an hour.

TV deceives us as we look at hitters who sometimes look foolish swinging at a pitch you’d think they could hit. At the major league level, the real-time speed is so fast it’s remarkable that anybody can even make contact with a ball. These guys are world-class talent. The best of the best. And they’ve been doing this for so long they have a recognition the rest of us lack. They see things better – differently – and they have practiced, practiced, practiced. The best hitters have learned how to hit almost every pitch, but they’ve also learned something else. They know which pitch they most prefer, but so do the pitchers. The pitchers don’t want to give them their favorite pitch. This means the hitters have got to learn to hit non-favorite pitches, too.

This week has been filled with curveballs. Not so different from any other week really, huh?

If you’re like me you may not be able to remember a week where you saw only your favorite pitch to hit. Life is the pitcher and rarely tosses us the pitch we can hit out of the park. Instead, life is skilled at throwing us the one pitch that most frustrates us.

As business owners, we’ve got to do 2 things. Neither of them is easy, but we can improve. We can GROW GREAT at it if we put in the work.

1. Be patient and look for your ideal pitch.
2. Learn to hit as many non-favorite pitches as possible.

The patience thing is hard. For everybody. Playing business means we want to play. Not swinging feels too passive for many of us. In this context, the pitch is an opportunity. Not every opportunity is worth your effort, but boy can that be vexing when everywhere we look we see pitches that appear worth going after.

Sometimes that first skill of being patient for your ideal pitch isn’t practical or possible. That’s what happened to me this week. I got a curveball, but I had to hit it. These pitches are our challenges. They appear and you don’t have the option of standing there staring at it with your bat on your shoulder. These pitches don’t disappear. They don’t go away. They only grow worse. So we have to deal with them.

That doesn’t mean we’ll hit them. We may not even make contact, but we have to try. Most of the time we don’t have to hit a home run. If we can just get on base then it means we survive the problem just fine.

Something magical and true is in place when the curveballs (our least favorite pitches) come our way as challenges. The rules of baseball don’t apply. We get as many swings as we’re willing to take. Which is great for us, bad for the challenge!

So these two skills are vital for us.

1. Be patient and look for your ideal pitch.
2. Learn to hit as many non-favorite pitches as possible.

Late last week I was presented with a challenge – a pitch that isn’t just a non-favorite, but a pitch that I absolutely hate. You’ve got pitches like that. Pitches you love and other pitches you positively HATE.

I got a pitch I hate. Technology challenges. Simultaneously I was in the midst of trying to wrap up a project I’d been working on so the timing of the curveball was ideal for the Universe conspiring against me. It was awful timing for my success. But what are you gonna do? You’re gonna try to hit it, that’s what.

I swung and missed over the weekend. By Monday I was making contact. Here’s the thing about the challenges that come as curveballs. It’s like a perpetual pitching machine. The same pitch just keeps coming so you treat it as you would if you were in a batting cage. You keep swinging learning along the way. That’s what I did.

By Tuesday I was making solid contact. I knew I was getting close. I was seeing it more clearly. I had adjusted my swing and if there had been video of it I guarantee I would have looked much more confident on Tuesday than I did on Saturday.

Wednesday arrived and I was making solid contact and driving for distance, but the balls were still going foul. Didn’t matter because I knew I had this.

Thursday was frustrating because I was so close, but I still wasn’t on base. My experience with these curveball challenges is that I go from swinging and missing to making contact, to making great contact…until I hit it over the fence. With challenges in our business that’s my experience even in helping other business owners or CEOs out of their problems. We either give up and the challenge defeats us or we hit it over the fence and solve the thing.

By Thursday mid-afternoon I hit the curveball out of the park. It was grueling. I spent about 70 hours working hard to figure it out, but I refused to quit because – well, it was a problem that had to be solved. Like you, I didn’t feel like I had a choice. There I was standing in the batter’s box and life was giving me this ridiculous pitch over and over. I had to learn to hit it. The problem had to be solved. Just as importantly, I had to learn how to overcome this problem. I needed to add to my skill set – the ability to hit this particular kind of pitch.

Business rules are different than baseball rules. Hitters have the advantage in business because we can take as many swings as we want. There is no “3 out rule” in business. We can play as long as we want.

Some hitters are naturals. They recognize pitches better than the rest of us. And they have a natural talent that may be better than the rest of us. The good news is their success has no impact on ours. Best for us to focus on our own hitting and learn how to hit these curveballs…because they’re just gonna keep on coming. Seize the day and take advantage of seeing these pitches over and over again. You gotta learn to hit them. And I have faith that you can. I’m here to help.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

Randy

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“Failure is not an option.”

Another platitude that sounds good, but is colossally wrong. Failure is possible in everything. And probable, too. That’s just the truth. Fact.

Does that mean you should fear it? Not necessarily.

More importantly, you should likely prepare for it. Not by bracing for it, but by planning worst-case-scenario. So often failure is preventable if we’d just prepare going in.

Business owners can live in their heads, preparing for success. Sure, we can also fret about failing, but our imaginations soar at the thoughts of what might be – in all the best ways! That’s why we create proformas that are nothing but dreams. Figments of our imagination.

We love doing it. Creating a spreadsheet with calculations of what might be. Man, look at that. If we can close just a few more deals every month it’ll add a few million bucks to our top line. And if we add a few million bucks to the top line, lookie there! We’ll add over $300,000 to our bottom line. Awesome.

Of course, experience teaches us – often the hard way – that most of the time that “best-case scenario” never happens. Instead, we hit numbers we never did a spreadsheet on. Turns out we end up closing a few less deals every month and suddenly our gross revenue is down a few million bucks. Now what?

Every savvy business person knows the maxim, “Formulas over feelings.” We’re a pretty intuitive bunch though so I think it’s empty advice to ignore how we feel about something. Many of us have a good gut feel about things. It why we often make decisions that seem ridiculous to our friends. We believe in things. Mostly in ourselves. And our ideas or solutions.

Even so, there’s wisdom in the phrase that we’d be foolish to ignore. The numbers need to make sense. We can help leverage our feelings by looking more realistically at numbers.

It’s a common practice to ask, “What’s the worst thing that can happen?”

It’s a far less common practice to actually answer it.

That’s why I’m urging you to do. Take the time to figure out the answer. Figure out those formulas. Get those numbers. Then see how you feel.

Knowing that failure is always an option doesn’t necessarily prevent us from moving forward, but it can help us increase our faith in what we’re doing. Or not.

Let’s illustrate the point with buying merchandise to sell. Suppose I’m able to buy a truckload of some items at a greatly reduced cost. Suppose a truckload consists of about 60 units that currently have a real street price of $300. That’s $18,000 in gross revenue potential. Our profit margin at that price would be 30%, giving us a profit of $5,400. That’s 7% more profit than we’d earn if we purchased the items in small quantity. So far so good. But what’s our rate of sale. If it takes us 120 days to sell 60 units and the terms on our purchase are net 30 days, then it may not be worthwhile. We can fool ourselves into thinking we’ll make the purchase and sell these units at a faster rate than normal. Best case scenario.

The worst-case scenario would be calculating that our current rate of sale won’t hold up. What if it takes us 150 days or more to sell all 60 units? What if the current street price won’t hold up and we end up having to mark down the items? Answering those questions will likely alter how we feel about this opportunity.

Every day we’re making decisions like this. Decisions that make or break our day, our week, our month and our year. Sometimes we calculate things carefully. Sometimes we don’t. We all do it.

Mindfulness is one way we can avoid getting caught in the option of failing. It doesn’t mean we have to slow down. We just need to be aware – sometimes MORE aware – of what the stakes are. That’s why you frequently hear the sage advice, “Know your numbers.”

Intuition and feelings are critical for every business owner I’ve ever known. Knowing the realities of the numbers is paramount so we give our gut feelings the best chance to guide us toward success.

Get real with what can actually happen. Don’t be pessimistic, but figure things won’t go as planned. What if they don’t go anywhere close to plan? Will it be a good decision then? Figure it out. Calculate the risk you’re willing to make. Then act.

I’ll wager that your results will prove success is more likely time after time. Your winners will overcome any failures. You won’t ever get rid of failure. You just have to win against it more often than not.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

Randy

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Oklahoma Sooner’s head football coach Lincoln Riley has a reputation as a quarterback whisperer. His two previous QB’s are Heisman Trophy winners. Part of his claim to fame is the ability to simplify the position. He installs game plans and plays that QB’s can more easily execute. It’s what he should do as a head coach. Put players in the best position possible so they can succeed.

What about YOU? Are you making your systems easy for customers and employees?

Simple. Easy. Straightforward.

Those are appealing to customers and employees. It creates an atmosphere where sustainable success can be more easily repeated. Predictable. That’s what customers want, provided that what can be predicted is GREAT.

So many companies get skewered by their customer base for frequent and aggressive price hikes. Or for nickel and diming customers. Or for making the experience awful for customers (and likely employees, too). Lots of businesses are out of touch with how their employees and customers feel. Profits are first. That’s fine. You can operate like that. It’s not the ideal long-term play, but you can do it that way.

Or you can build a culture that will sustain high-performance year after year.  That means you put people ahead of profits. Employees and customers. In that order. For good reason, employees deliver the experience to the customers. Create an atmosphere where employees are miserable and you’ll fail at making the experience for customers much better.

Operations get clogged up with non-sense. It’s not unusual for the clog to be prompted by the owner or top leadership. Nor is it unusual for the clog to be the result of some quirky reaction to a single act of idiocy. For example, a business owner discovers one person has figured out to take unfair advantage of a promotion that is working insanely well otherwise. Armed with this single instance of the violation he cancels the entire promotion. Proving true the phrase, “Cutting off your nose to spite your face.”

Friction in these instances isn’t your friend. Customers hate it. Enough of it and they’ll leave you. Ditto for employees. Put enough friction in front of your employees preventing them from achieving their personal goals and they’ll leave, too.

Here’s the secret. Think like an employee and a customer. Stop thinking like a business owner. It’s counter-intuitive but it works. It’s the only way you’ll get your systems right.

Look at the casual dining landscape as proof. The superstars have good food that is consistently predictable. It’s always good. But they have something more. They’re also predictably fast and clean. They go out of their way to soar above the competition. The atmosphere is inviting. The staff is always helpful. The service is always spot on. So you continue to go back. And they continue to have the best employees. Everybody involved is proud to be part of it – either providing the service/food or providing the purchase to keep the place going.

Have you ever gone to a casual dining establishment and thought (or said out loud), “They do business in spite of themselves?” I sure have. Until I eventually refused to go back.

Find the friction in your business. It’s time for brutally honest candor. I’ll give you just two suggestions.

One, huddle with your employees.

One on one. In groups. Figure out the best way to get the truth. Do it in as many ways as you can.

Question: How can we become the best in class as a place to work?

You’re afraid to ask, aren’t you? Don’t be. The truth will set you free. More importantly, it’ll set your employees free to become world-class. Until you get that right, you’ll never get the customer part of the equation right.

This isn’t about blindly accepting every suggestion you hear. It’s about listening and taking meaningful action to build a culture that promotes individual and team success.

Warning: Do this only if you’re serious about acting on it. Otherwise, you’re going to make matters worse.

Two, work out all the kinks that create friction for your customers. The employees will help.

Question: How can we become irresistible to our customers?

Scrutinize every process and system. Every single one. Turn over everything that impacts customers. Guage the friction on whatever scale you want. I like a simple 3 point scale.

1 = The lowest friction possible
2 = The friction is moderate
3 = The friction is high

Identify the points of contact and score each of them. Now single out those that score 3. Bust them vigorously until you drive them down to 1. Think about forming small teams to tackle the processes with which they’re familiar. It’s ideal to involve the employees who deliver that process to the customers.

Hint: Speed matters. Unless we’re talking about a complete computer system overhaul you should be able to reconstruct a process in a week or less. Accept no excuses for delays.

Next, tackle the items that score 2. Same process.

Once you’ve got no processes that score higher than 1, now install teams to keep a watchful eye on ways to drive the friction down even further. This is a permanent business operation. It’s not a fad you’re going to move past. Make sure the company knows this is a permanent fixed part of the operation from now on.

Weekly you and your team should question everything that impacts customers.

Weekly you and your leadership should do the same thing with everything that impacts your employees.

If you’d like to be world-class or best-in-class, this will be some of the most exciting work you’ll ever do. It will also improve your revenues, profitability and help cure your challenge to find great people to help you.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

Randy

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“The central economic imperative of the network economy is to amplify relationships.” That’s what Kevin Kelly wrote in New Rules For The New Economy.

Self-awareness is hard. VERY hard.

Schools don’t help. I know better than to do what I did, but I did it anyway. Because sometimes I’m a ninnie.

My 12-year-old grandson is in 7th grade. That means he’s now in junior high. It’s a big transition from elementary school. In many ways. He’s got 7 classes.

Yesterday I was asking him about his grades. To be fair, I rarely do this. Mostly I ask him about what he’s enjoying (and why). Or I ask what he’s done well. I’m usually more focused on encouraging him to lean into those things he’s really good at. Part of my problem is the same problem other adults have with the kids in their family. A built-in favorable bias where we may think our kids are pretty good at everything.

He told me he had A’s in 4 of the 7 classes, but by the time the report cards hit he expects to have A’s in the remaining 3 classes. “But you don’t have any C’s do you?” I asked. Hello, judgment! 😉

That’s what’s wrong with the state of education in America. Cookie cutter, single standard grade-based performance does not help our kids figure out what they may be best at. Instead, kids are able to quickly tell you what they’re not very good at. We’ve got it backwards. Our kids should be able to quickly tell us where they’re strongest.

This is important for many reasons. Confidence building is chief among them.

A buddy calls me up. He’s telling me about a networking event he attended – we both normal shy away from these affairs. He’s been studying some techniques to improve behavior by elevating your thoughts. So he tries a quick exercise as he walks into the room. Determined to find one suitable client candidate he surveys the room. One person catches his eye. He’s not even sure why, but he approaches the fellow and begins a conversation. This isn’t some full-blown sales mode ordeal. They’re just talking and learning more about each other. As my buddy answers the question, “What do you do?” the other fellow leans in. He’s very interested and asks if they can meet sometime so he can learn more. Well, now you know why my buddy called to tell me this story.

We’re both interested in neuroscience, psychology and why people do what they do. Both of us have studied people for decades. And we’re both pretty self-aware. Like you, we’re very aware of our weaknesses.

“It’s confidence,” I say. “You employed a technique you believe in. So as you enter that room you believed – you REALLY believed – you’d find a potential client.”

My friend’s value system – the way he sees the world and his place in it – coupled with his strong belief in this technique designed to help him – it gave him the best opportunity to enter that room and make a connection. That’s how it works for all of us. But most of us mistake going it alone. Trying to figure these things out for ourselves. The knowledge we have of ourselves is too frequently conceit and pride. Typically it’s because we didn’t incorporate others to help us see things more clearly. We neglect to amplify relationships that can help us soar with our strengths.

What’s more important than your ability to discover and leverage your individual strengths?

When you amplify relationships you dramatically improve that ability. Because you surround yourself with some people willing and able to help you elevate those abilities.

This isn’t a comparison game. It’s an insight game. People who surround you – people with whom you have a close and safe relationship – are able to support you, serve you and help you see things you wouldn’t otherwise see. In yourself and in the world around you.

On the flip side, there are people with whom you are unsafe. People who you don’t trust. Maybe you never did. Those relationships must also be amplified but in reverse. You may have folks in your life who are toxic. Amplify those relationships so you can more clearly see how damaging they are to your life. This is sometimes as difficult, or more so than amplifying the valuable relationships because quite often the people who do the most damage to us are the ones we’re most attracted to. They can be the people who approve of every poor choice we make. They’re always leading us to behave foolishly. But maybe that’s fun. They don’t challenge us to be our best. Instead, they help us lower our life to a base-level that isn’t good for us or anybody around us. Case in point, drug addicts help each other by getting high together. No drug addict got the help they needed from their drug addict friends. People run together enjoying the same foolishness. How can you see that for what it is? You have to decide for yourself what’s important. You have to make up your own mind that discovering and leverage your individual strengths are more important – and then you have to have the resolve to be more intentional about the people you allow into your life. People willing and able to help you do that.

If figuring out your strengths is hard (and it is), then figuring out who can help you discover them and how you can best leverage those strengths is ridiculously hard. Doable, but hard.

Here’s the thing. It’s not going to happen for you accidentally. It could, but it’s unlikely. Like we talked about Wednesday about success – you want to create the best conditions possible to bring it about. This is an area where your chances of success are very high if you put in the work. It starts with something that seems counter-intuitive. Stop thinking about yourself. Stop being self-centered. Stop putting yourself ahead of everybody else. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and maybe most of all, stop blaming others.

Own it. And realize that all this attention you’re giving yourself is taking pieces of you away. It’s not contributing to help you build a better you. It’s not making you better at being able to properly amplify relationships.

Help others. Be the most beneficial resource possible for others. That’s how you’ll find your best self. It sounds hokey, but it’s true. It’s totally rational, too. People are attracted to the people they trust. We trust the people who we know have our best interests at heart. Who are those people? They tend to be the people with whom we feel the safest. Be safe for others.

Assess the people who surround you. Be honest with yourself. Are they making you live a higher moral life? A life with greater impact? Or are they making your current life more fun? Are they supporting your belief that you deserve whatever you feel you deserve because you’re a victim in life?

The questions aren’t always enjoyable. Wrestling with them isn’t always fun. We’re pursuing the most profitable lives possible though. We’re not merely looking to feel better about ourselves at the moment, only to be riddled with guilt later on. We’re chasing sustainable, long-term growth and improvement. We desperately need people who can help us. People who can see where we’re blind. People with a long-term vision where our short-term vision fails us. People who love us enough to call us out and help us avoid hiding behind our excuses. Those are the relationships that need amplification.

Who you surround yourself matters!

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

Randy

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No, it’s not a secret. There are no secrets to success. It requires hard work, preparation, skill, talent, timing, serendipity, and good luck. I’m probably leaving something out, but you get the idea.

I live in Tornado Alley. Tornado activity is highest in the Spring, but within the last month, we had extensive damage from tornados here around Dallas. Tornados are largely unpredictable, but certain conditions are necessary. Meteorologists armed with hi-tech devices can spot cloud rotations when conditions are favorable.

Success is like that. Largely unpredictable, but it requires certain conditions.

Many of us are attracted to the outliers, those one-off instances where success “just happened.” People can dissect those and try to figure out how to replicate it, but it’s a waste of time. Sometimes things just happen. You don’t want to devote your life to hoping something good will “just happen” though. It’s better to create conditions favorable for success.

Success. You define it.

Let’s begin with how you define success. It doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks. You have to decide for yourself. It sounds stupid until you pause long enough to think about it more seriously. Lots of people pursue generic “success.” They really don’t know what that means. It just means something better than what they’re currently experiencing. All they know is that THIS ain’t it. Success is THAT.

Well, you need to define that. Put a number on it. Put an accomplishment on it. Measure it somehow.

I’ve known people with high-end careers who had a side project they loved far more than their career. While others would likely see them as successful (because they had a high paying job), they were pursuing their own definition of success to get their side project where it could gross $70,000 a year so they could ditch the job. Exchanging a big 6-figure job for a $70K passion project may not be how you’d define success, but for him…it was THE GOAL.

I’ve known CEOs who felt anything short of a double-digit revenue increase would be a failure. And I’ve known other CEOs who defined success as a 3% increase. To each his own.

Personal success. Company success. 

They’re not the same. Entrepreneurs more than most have their personal success and company success closely tied together. They’re still different. You aren’t your company. You think you are. It often feels that way, but no matter how intertwined your life is with your company – they’re different. Respect them both. Respect them both enough to define success for them separately.

The first element to improve conditions for creating success is optimism. I list it first because of everything that stems from it. Believe the best. Start with thinking the best. You may as well because there’s no downside. We’re not talking about guarantees…we’re talking about improving the conditions for success. Anybody who thinks success is more likely in a pessimistic environment, raise your hand (and go stand in the corner with your dunce cap on). 😉

The next element necessary for creating favorable conditions for success is honesty. You can call it authenticity or integrity, but it boils down to being honest. An environment where the truth is reverred is much more prone to succeed than a culture based on lies or deception. Unless of course, the measure of success is to get away with criminal behavior.

Add safety. A judgment-free zone that fosters people speaking their mind, and being truthful because they know how valuable honesty is for everybody. If there are ramifications for honestly expressing oneself, then the conditions more favorable for failure than success. People must feel safe to contribute. And everybody must feel safe enough to be wrong.

Now add preparation. There’s a lot to this, but let’s just focus on putting in the work necessary to give our success the very best chance. That means we think carefully through the options as we prepare the best course of action. This is why safety precedes this. Preparation can’t be done in a vacuum. We need others to more fully prepare. Maybe preparation involves consensus building. Maybe not. It depends. You can figure that out. No matter what though, you must prepare fully to give yourself the best opportunity to win. Shooting from the hip is sometimes necessary, but more often than not it’s foolish…resulting in shooting only your foot (or worse). Plan your course to give yourself a more ideal opportunity to hit what you’re aiming at.

Execute the plan as quickly as you can without advancing unprepared. Don’t go off half-cocked. Once you’ve got a plan you fully believe in, move. Fast. Everybody has to do their part. Don’t accept passengers. No role is too small. Everybody is significant. Make sure each person understands how their role fits into the plan.

Adjust even more quickly. Plans are made to be adjusted. They’re mostly just a starting point from which to measure and make adjustments. Measure, measure, measure. Is the plan working as you thought? Is it going south? Figure out what can be done to improve it. Commit to the adjustments. This is important so the team knows you’re more committed to the conditions for success than the plan.

Own the outcome. This is your parade. Lead it. Don’t blame anybody or anything. As the conditions for success become increasingly more apparent, praise the team for creating those conditions. Focus intently on how important it is that your organization always be preparing for victory by having a culture that fosters success. When things don’t go as planned, that’s on you. Accept responsibility. Let the team know it’s not acceptable to ever damage the conditions for success. Apologize when you need to and commit to do better.

Create and ride momentum waves. Sometimes they appear out of nowhere. Jump on them. Sometimes you have to paddle like crazy to find them. Whatever it takes to create or find a momentum wave, do it. Then urge everybody to stand up on their board so you can ride it together for the time of your life.

Success may sometimes be an accident, but more often than not it’s the result of conditions that foster it. Give yourself the best opportunities to succeed by making failure impossible to survive in your culture. Much of the time success is more about pushing out failure than anything else. You want to give success all the oxygen possible while simultaneously starving failure of any fuel at all.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

Randy

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Small business owners often struggle to recruit, hire, train and retain people. For good reason, most don’t have a formal HR department headed with a professional equipped to navigate the modern personnel landscape.

There are a few things every small business owner can do to make the interview part of the process more impactful. Many owners have told me how they struggle during the interview. Very few have any formal or informal training. Most of us just learned on the fly. Sadly, we don’t always learn how to make this very important part of the process benefit us and the candidate.

Let me begin by encouraging you to read 3 books on how to hire people. Go to Amazon and look for these based on whatever criteria you decide. Know this – they’ll likely all be aimed at companies of size. You’ll have to do your own work to make them applicable to your situation, but that’s okay. You can do that.

I’m not going to provide you some step-by-step guide for interviewing because I don’t know your situation or context. What I do know is the goal of the interview – especially the first interview – is to figure out if you want to move forward.

Think back to your dating days. And if you’re dating right now, then this will be easier for you. 😉

You have some sort of criteria for people who may be suitable for dating. To each his own. It’s no different inside your company. Only you know what you’re looking for – what you’re most attracted to.

Get that settled in your mind. Like most dating people, it may change over time. What you thought you’d like…it may turn out that you don’t like that at all. That’s okay.

You’re searching for a candidate worthy of a first interview. People who tick most of the boxes in what you need and what you want. It doesn’t mean they’re perfect, but it means they may be worth pursuing further. You won’t know until you have that first interview.

HINT: Don’t make the first interview do too much. 

Too frequently we put so much pressure on the first interview we think we can figure out if this person is ideal for us in this first meeting. Don’t put that level of pressure on the first interview. It’s bad for you, and the candidate. Plus, it’s a great way to run off a really great candidate.

HINT: The more the candidate talks, the better.

Small business owners tend to use the first interview for things other than seeing if the pursuit should continue. Many tell me they use it to sell themselves to the candidate. And most confess they do that before they really know if the candidate is suitable or not.

Listen, this isn’t like top-level college coaches who have watched hours of game film on players and had staff members go watch the player perform in person. Those coaches set their sites on the players they want to recruit. Much of that meeting is the coach selling their program to lure the athlete to attend their university. That’s not your situation. So don’t waste your time selling yourself or your company. Not yet.

The first interview has one primary function – to figure out if a second interview is worthwhile. At the end of the interview you’ll have one of three choices to make:

1. Yes, this candidate seems like a good fit. A second interview should happen.
2. No, this candidate is clearly not a good fit. There’s no point in a second interview.
3. Maybe this candidate is a good fit. I don’t yet know so a second interview is warranted so we can figure this out.

Two of these outcomes will warrant a second conversation. As you prepare for this initial interview remind yourself of this important hint – the more the candidate talks, the more you’ll learn about them and the closer you’ll come to figure it out.

Now, think about the questions that can not only help you learn the most but questions that will also give the candidate an opportunity to reveal the most about themselves and their work.

Generally, I have found two specific types of questions most helpful. One is to ask them to describe a time when the outcome was most positive. Put the question into your own context. For example, if I were an electrical contractor looking for a cost estimator I might ask, “Describe a time when your estimate was most remarkable?” I want to hear them tell me about a time when they were most proud of their work.

As they talk, listen carefully. What are they focused on? What about it made them select this particular story to share? Don’t interrupt them, but continue to probe further. Don’t be satisfied with short answers. You want this to be a deep conversation.

“Tell me more,” is the magic phrase you can use to get deeper insights. And to keep the candidate talking.

This isn’t an interrogation, but many of the rules apply. For instance, you’ve seen plenty of cop shows where the detectives are trying to get the person to talk. The reason is simple. And it’s the same reason attorneys coach witnesses to just answer the question without volunteering more details. The more people talk the more we learn about them.

In your case, you want to learn all you can so you can decide if a second interview is worthwhile. If you catch yourself talking too much, then shut up. Be aware of your own talking. You’ll likely catch yourself revealing information that isn’t suitable for the occasion. You’ll have time for that later. Now isn’t the time.

Another question I have found helpful is the opposite of that first question. Again, let’s assume I’m an electrical contractor looking for an estimator. “Tell me about a time when things went terribly south.”

Again, I want to hear as much as possible. Do they blame others? Do they accept whatever role they may have played in it? How did they recover? What was the final outcome?

You can press without being an interrogator. If something sparks your curiosity, ask. Too often owners have told me that after the interview they wished they would have asked a question that for some reason they neglected to ask. Seize the moment. Ask.

Feed your curiosity. Follow your gut. If your intuition urges you to pursue details in one area, pursue it. Remember, you’re on a hunting trip to figure out if this person should advance in the process. The worst thing you can do is spend this time together and come away not knowing any more than when you went in. That’s your fault and nobody else’s. Avoid it.

Lastly, I’m fond of a third question that can give insight about why they may be looking to make a change and more importantly, what kind of things they’re most looking for. This matters because if it’s not congruent with my company and how I roll, then I’ll have fit question answered. It might go something like this, “Professionally speaking, describe what makes you most happy?”

I’m looking for the work they most enjoy. If I need a cost estimator, but this person describes all kinds of work that have nothing or very little to do with cost estimating, then I can either cut and run or probe further (which would be my ideal option). Maybe there’s other type work they’d be more suited for. Maybe that could fit inside my company, maybe not…but you may as well find out all you can. Many a good person has been hired for a slot outside the scope of what they initially interviewed for — because it was something they wanted to do more than the thing for which they were first interviewed. Good people are good people. You want to find all the ones you can.

Listen. Really listen. Listen to understand. Don’t prejudge. Don’t judge. You’re simply trying to understand this person better. Take notes and get it right. Nothing is worse than not listening carefully and thinking something that simply wasn’t there. Don’t let the interview be unproductive because you didn’t show up prepared to listen and learn.

Above all, be kind. There is no place for pompous, arrogant displays of power or authority. This is a human to human conversation. Be respectful, grateful and appreciative. Even though you’re not being interviewed (yet)…you are. The candidate is paying close attention. You want to put your best foot forward.

Let the candidate know up front that you’re just doing this first interview as the primary step in the process. Don’t promise a second interview, but don’t rub their nose in the fact that you may not move them forward in the process. They’re smart. They know how this goes. At the same time let them know that part of the process may eventually be more of a give and take exchange where they ask you questions. Their time will come. Maybe. 😉

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

Randy