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Category: Hiring the Gifted Team

Hiring the Gifted Team-Part Two

Posted on by Mike Stromsoe

How are things going with your gifted team? Is everyone working towards common goals and firing on all cylinders?

In part one of Hiring the Gifted team, we talked about the ad to draw your employee prospects to you. Keep in mind so far you have not talked to anyone. They have found you. At the end of your ad, there is a toll-free phone number the prospects are to call.

Here’s part two – when the team member prospects call the toll-free number, they will hear a 3-4 message recorded by you in your own voice. In the message, you will tell them about the job, a little bit about your company history, they will hear the compassion and leadership in your voice and more. At the end of this recorded message, you will give them an email address. The prospective team member will send an email to your email account that contains an autoresponder.

Again, so far, you have not talked to any prospects.

In part three, I’ll show you the exact copy that I drop into our autoresponder.

Until then, make a difference and be Unstoppable!

PS Gmail can help you with the autresponder for FREE in less than 2 minutes

Should You Hire Experienced CSRs or Hire No Experience?

Posted on by Mike Stromsoe

There’s great debate among agents over this. You’ll find agents on both sides of the fence, and most who just don’t know.

From my perspective – for many reasons I won’t get into here – hiring no experience is the way to go. However, I also know that sometimes you just have to hire an experienced CSR.

When you do, don’t just throw that person into their role thinking they require no training.

This is the main reason experienced CSRs end up causing problems. They bring somebody else’s business philosophy with them … and potentially lots of bad habits.

So, here’s a little training program for your newly hired, experienced CSR to adopt “your way” of doing business. Do this first and they’ll be much more effective in their CSR role.

Start the new person out as the receptionist or admin assistant – just for a week. Here they’ll see your systems in action at their simplest level.

They’ll work from an Accountability Checklist and refer to procedures that explain how to do tasks.

They’ll learn your phone and visitor management systems. They’ll learn your tools and software by actually doing simple tasks.

Bonus: you’ll quickly identify a hiring mistake without disrupting your service team or client relationships. How?

If your new hire can’t function within your simplest of systems, they’re going to resist everything you do and try to do everything their way. Cut ‘em loose and try again.

After a week, move them into an assistant’s role for another week. Here they’ll get deeper into your organized processes and procedures and learn more tools, checklists and software.

At this level they’re learning how you separate duties and delegate work. They’re learning all the things they will NOT do as a CSR.

After a week (or two) as an assistant, they’re ready to move into their permanent CSR position. They know your tools and systems. They know your way of doing business – your policies and procedures. They know what the assistants do and what to delegate to them.

Now they can focus on client relationships … and do things “your way”.

Think this through and develop your training program. Trust me, it’s worth the small effort!

Make a difference, Be Unstoppable, Leave No Regrets

Hire to Explode Your Revenues-Part 1

Posted on by Mike Stromsoe

Hire slow and fire fast because if you hire the wrong person, your entire organization can quickly become infected and it will cost you truckloads of money.

When it comes to hiring, how many steps are in your hiring process? Within these steps, how much involvement of your personal time does it take to execute each of these steps? Who is involved in the process? Let’s dig in.

Most winning entrepreneurs know that the people on their gifted team are the absolute key and the core to the success of any organization. That’s why it’s critically important that each team member is pre-evaluated before they are allowed to work within any thriving organizational team. Over the years and through much painful experience, we’ve created a hiring process that weeds out any prospects that do not bring forward the absolute best for our exceptional team. It starts with a story, a quick, one-page story about the kind of person that we’re looking for and details of the characteristics of that person that will fit the need of our team. Below is an example of one of those stories, this is one I actually used when I had to replace my assistant:

W A N T E D! The Very BEST Executive Assistant

The President of Mega Insurance Agency, Mike Stromsoe is seeking a replacement for his top-notch executive assistant Susie Smith. Susie has decided to become an entrepreneur with her husband Jim. She will be greatly missed and difficult to replace but the show must go on. Here are some of the characteristics these people possess: highly motivated, enthusiastic, very high energy, well-organized, solid administrative skills, technology oriented and computer literate with a do-it-now type attitude. By the way, all of these are a must. If you would like to hear a three to four minute overview of this position and what all it entails please dial our 24/7 Toll free information hotline at 1-888-XXX-XXXX ext #XXX. Only those seriously committed to being a dedicated member of a fast-paced, team oriented, forward thinking culture need apply. Solid Pay and Possible Benefits.

To apply confidentially, call 1-888-XXX-XXXX ext # XXXX right now. If you qualify, this will be best job you have ever had – our team guarantees it!
* All applications WILL remain strictly confidential

So where do you place the above ad? Currently, I immediately distribute the ad to two sources: 1) my own email list, every person. You never know who knows who 2) www.craiglist.com. I have simply had good luck with craigslist over the years, but you can place this ad virtually anywhere.

In past versions of the above ad, I provided my name, address, phone, email address. Today, I will normally only provide our toll-free hotline number and that’s it. The amount of contact information provided by you dictates the response but reduces the quality of the candidates in some cases. Stay tuned, I’ll explain why.

Until part two, happy implementing!

Mike Stromsoe
The Unstoppable Profit Producer

PS Ever tried direct mailing a few key potential employee prospects in a fashion where they could not resist opening your package?

Implement, Execute and Take Action

Posted on by Mike Stromsoe

The above title is one of my very favorite for I have learned over the last 22+ years in business that ideas are a dime a dozen, but those that are implemented turn into dollars, sometimes hundreds, thousands or millions of dollars. Singles versus home runs will be a future blog topic. My question for you today is – what is your strategy to make sure your important and/or critical business goals get implemented/executed versus becoming part of the pile on your desk or the desk of someone else? How is your delegation plan working daily? Good luck luck on forward progress. Make a difference every day and Be Unstoppable

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