About Kinder Reese
There are plenty of so-called real estate experts out there teaching agents how to succeed even though they haven’t sold a home in decades, if at all. But Kinder Reese is different. Founders Jay Kinder and Michael Reese have collectively sold more than 6,270 homes over the past two decades, they still have thriving real estate practices, and they love sharing their proven systems and processes with other agents who are serious about growing their business.
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How to avoid losing $18k (or more) on your next hire
Published by Jay Kinder
As real estate agents, we’ve all done it. We’ve all hired a friend, relative, or someone we thought would knock the cover off the ball in our company...only to be hugely disappointed that we hired the absolute wrong person for the job.
17 weeks is almost a quarter and a half of one year. A poor hire can cause a tremendous amount of damage to certain companies and in some cases, it could be the catastrophic end to others.
When you’re ready to hire for your team, there are specific set of activities, rules and strategies you must employ to give yourself the best possible chance at bringing on someone who will add value and make you money — instead of causing you to lose it.
Here are the things you need to do to avoid losing 18k (or more) on your next hire.
1. Get Clear: As with all outcomes, it starts with the end in mind. What this means is that you need to be clear about who you’re hiring, why you’re hiring them, and what you’re going to pay them to do. As part of getting clear, you need to have your ducks in a row:
Have your core values and culture dialed in. The person you hire needs to be perfect core value and culture fit. If you don’t ensure that the person embodies what’s important to you and the other members of your team — over and above getting their job done — you will create a very toxic environment that will make your company one for which people do not want to work. Trust me, it’s a huge ball of yarn to unwind when you bring the wrong person onto your team.
Be sure you have one full sales cycle of your employee’s salary in the bank, preferably money you don’t need for something else. You want to be able to hire this person with the confidence that you can keep them employed as you continue growing your business.
It could be catastrophic for your business and your employee if you hired them and then had to let them go 90 days later because you couldn’t afford to keep them on board.
Have a job description about what your employee will do each day. You want this person to be able to come in and start executing on day one. Now, if you need them to help you create some of the systems you’re wanting for your business, that’s okay, just make sure that’s part of the job description.
Understand the hiring laws of your state. Be sure you know what’s required to hire, employ, pay, and even fire some under your employ. Once you hire someone, there are a number of laws that dictate what you can and can’t do with employees of your company. Violating these laws can be very costly for you.
Know what a realistic compensation structure is for the position(s) for which you’re hiring. Paying too much can impact your bottom line negatively and paying too little can make it hard to attract and keep good talent.
2. Pick the right hiring ad. You’re not just looking for anyone, you want the right person. The right person for the job meets the following criteria: Can they do the job, will they do the job, and are they a good team fit? And yes, they need to meet ALL three criteria in order to be eligible for employment on your team.
To ensure that you attract the right prospects, your hiring ad should speak to the person who will fit your core values and culture and the three criteria I just listed. Failing to this will get you a bunch of unqualified candidates that will make your job search extremely hard.
3. Vet Candidates Thoroughly. While the buck stops with you, it’s important that you do a thorough job during the interview process. What this means is that you need to involve other members of your team in vetting your candidates before you bring them on board:
Have each candidate complete a DISC test. Getting these results will help you determine if they can do the job. The DISC isn’t the ultimate determinant if someone is going to succeed in doing their job, but it is a good indicator of whether or not they have a fighting chance at succeeding.
A point of note here: do not fit “square pegs” into “round holes”. You may “fall in love” with a candidate who’s not a good fit for the job from a capability standpoint. Hiring that person would be considered making a bad hire. You have to remain as objective as possible so that you don’t make a huge error.
Involve others in the hiring process. Checks and balances are important in the hiring process. If you have other team members, include them in the interview process. Ultimately, this person will be working with your current employees and you’ll want their input to make sure they will be a good team fit. If you don’t have a team, then ask one of your trusted vendors or a team leader in your brokerage to get involved in the interview process. You want other people’s input to ensure that you’re making the absolute best decision.
You interview last. Once your candidate has interviewed with everyone else, you do your interview with them. Measuring twice and cutting once, so to speak, is so important in this process. It’s easy to miss something when you rush the hiring process. By having others vet your candidate and give you their honest feedback, you ensure that you see the good, the bad, and the ugly before you bring this person onto your team. Remember, it’s much easier to tell someone you’re not hiring than it is to let them go once you’ve brought them onto your team.
4. Have great paperwork. There are a number of people who have gone before you that made a number of huge mistakes in the hiring process when growing their teams. Every single one of those mistakes are now part of their hiring and on-boarding paperwork.
I can’t stress enough how important it is to do everything right before you bring someone onto the team. It limits the chances that you’ll bring the wrong person onboard, blow up your culture, have to deal with being sued, and end up paying unemployment for someone you should have never hired in the first place.
It sounds like I’m overemphasizing these points, but it’s just me being real with you because I’ve gone through all of these things before and it’s not fun (or cheap).
5. Onboard like a champ. Whether you’re a solopreneur or the leader of an established team, you need to make your new employee feel like they made an amazing decision to join your team. To do this, you’ll want to have a clearly defined on-boarding process that shows you have your hiring process dialed in. Here’s what it looks like;
Clean hiring package with the correct documentation. It’s in a folder on the first day they show up and you take them through every page to make sure they understand everything, including how they get paid. Give them signed copies when completed.
Their workspace is read for them to get started: computer, phone, desk, chair, office supplies. Show them you care enough to be ready when they show up.
Orientation should include a tour of the office, quick meetings with key people, and an understanding of how things work at the office: coffee machine, copier, fax, bathroom, their email, etc.
Their training schedule should be set up ahead of time. They should know what they need to learn, the order in which they’re going to learn it, and who is going to teach it to them.
Lunch with your vendors and key people. Have a lunch meeting where they can spend time with the key people on your team and the vendors they’ll be working with at your company. It’s important that they feel part of the team.
None of this is brain surgery, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to teach it to you. Rather, it’s the culmination of years of testing, implementing, and making a ton of mistakes.
What I’ve shared here is enough to make you dangerous. If you’d really like to find out how to execute a hiring process at a high level, click here to set up a clarity call so we can take you through it in more detail.
About Author: Jay Kinder
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