Episode 39 Podcast Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What would happen if you worked just as hard on your people recruitment as you did your new business development or your client recruitment? It’s the same level of effort and action and focus that’s required on both to make them work.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hi everyone. Rob Kropp here from Pravar Group and welcome back to another episode of The Trade Den, good to have you back Dan, how are you?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Hi Rob. Hi everyone. Yeah, great to be back.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Looking forward to part two of our little series around who to hire, how to hire, and how to retain. Really looking forward to today’s episode.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Yeah, last time we spoke about the importance of filling the right gap. What have we got today in part two?
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah, today we’re going to be talking all things recruitment and this is the part two from last week. Last week was around who to hire and when. And we see that big mistake where guys just jump straight into the recruitment process and they just get it wrong. And so if you didn’t listen to last week’s episode, make sure you do go back and listen to that because that’ll really set the scene for today and it’s really going to help you take a step back, design your ground crew and get really clear on who you need and when you need them. And then today what we’re going to do is get into the real nitty gritties around how to go through the recruitment process and follow that through. So yeah, really looking forward to today’s episode.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Yeah, can’t underestimate that idea, especially for this three part series. If you listen to two and three, what’s coming up next, you’ll still get it wrong because that step one was so important what we went through on the last episode. Please do go back, hit follow if you haven’t and make sure you’ve got it all set up so that when the next one goes live as well.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, absolutely. Today’s a big one because we’re going to be really talking a bit about the how-to steps and we’re going to be talking a little bit about beliefs. We’re going to be talking a bit about understanding the market and playing skillfully, and then we’re going to get in there and talk a bit about make sure you’re always recruiting and playing the long game. So three big topics that we’re going to talk through today.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
They are, we’re going to start off in the role of beliefs in recruitment. I think this is probably underappreciated and beliefs are such a massive topic. This is one you and I will come back to over and over again as we do the show, but really the role of beliefs with recruitment. Before we get into actual tactics, what we want to do is sort of just see where we’re at, what are our beliefs telling us When we talk about beliefs, we’re talking about the internal noise, the internal conversation, what’s happening and what do we tell ourselves inside when it comes to recruitment. So as you listen, I want you to reflect on what’s your experience with recruitment over the last 12 months. Where are you at with that and what do you think when you start to think back over the last 12 months in terms of the roles, the positions and people you brought into your team? And when we talk about that, was it easy, was it difficult? And what do you tell yourself as you reflect or as you went through that process, what was the noise, the chatter in your mind? Was it this sucks, this is the worst thing in the world, or was it something else? Just have a think about that and reflect on it. Really important that you understand this because the way you are setting yourself up internally has a big role to play in how you approach recruitment from that point forward.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
The beliefs are, we could do a whole topic in itself around beliefs, but beliefs are big because beliefs are those things that we deem to be true and our beliefs drive our behaviour either action or inaction. And the common beliefs that we see and hear when clients first jump into coaching is that they feel that they can’t find anyone no matter how hard they look. Anyone decents working for themselves and they cost too much and no one just wants to work hard these days. They’re just three common beliefs that we hear all the time from when clients come into coaching and in our coaching process, we have to bust through those beliefs and help them see that when you hold onto those beliefs, no wonder you can’t find people because if you believe that no one’s good out there, they cost too much money, no one wants to work and anyone decent working for themselves, well no wonder you’re not putting the time and energy and focus into recruitment. And no wonder you can’t find anyone because when you believe that to be true, why would anyone want to show up and want to come and work for you? So this is the power of beliefs is when you believe that it’s very hard to be able to take action on the recruitment process when you believe the opposite. And this might sound a little bit woo Dan, but these beliefs hold people back so much in business, don’t they?
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Massively. Before I get into it a little bit more, I’m going to throw a fourth one in there and that is I’ve tried everything. That’s our other little belief around this, right? I’ve tried everything and there’s no one out there that usually flows from there. And you usually get all three sometimes, right? Yeah. But when we talk about those beliefs, what we are really talking about is confirmation bias. And without going into the psychology of confirmation bias too much, all that means is we see what we want to believe. And a nice way to think about that is if you see a car or you’ve bought a new car, all of a sudden that car that you never really saw is everywhere on the road, and that’s because you are tuned into it. You’ve sort of created this world, it’s around, you’re aware of it.
(05:19):
You are telling yourself how good your car is, whatever colour you’ve got, how good is it to have a red car for instance, and all of a sudden you see red cars everywhere. That’s confirmation bias. You see what you want to believe or what you look for, you tend to find same thing when we’ve got beliefs that are unhelpful like the three or four that we just outlined. When you have unhelpful beliefs, you’ll still try and confirm what your brain is telling you. It’s looking for those things. So can’t find anyone. If you’re telling yourself that over and over and over again, guess what? You won’t be able to find anyone. It just makes it. And if you do, it’s going to be 50 times harder than what it needs to be. Anyone decents working for themselves, guess what? You’ll find everyone that’s working for themselves, you’ll get what you search for. That’s just the way that it works. And if our beliefs aren’t helpful or we haven’t consciously chosen the beliefs where we’re sort of setting ourselves up with, then we’re sort of starting on the back foot to begin with and we see this over again. And until you do break through these or you really explore them, sometimes those beliefs exist without you even recognising the fact that they’re there. They’re just all so automated and so well grained.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
When people do say that it’s their beliefs talking, that’s what you’re saying is when you say, I can’t find anyone good out there, that’s your belief speaking through you. And as coaches, we hear it all the time where it’s like, I want to grow my team, but there’s no one good out there who wants to work and they cost you much money. And it’s like, okay, great. Well how hard are you looking at the moment? Yeah, but Rob, you don’t understand it. There’s no good people out there. Okay, just park that for a moment. How hard are you looking? And then it’s all of a sudden you challenge their belief and then you talk about scenarios. Well, this client just found a leading hand and this client just found a good plumber. This find this client found two good apprentices. This guy can go from 12 employees to 80 in six years.
(07:16):
Why can’t you? All of a sudden it starts smashing that belief. When you start showing them what’s possible, the belief starts to subside and it’s amazing. Employees start showing up. Obviously you’ve got to put in the effort when it comes to recruitment, but all of a sudden people start showing up. So it’s one of those things where you’re not just going to sit cross-legged and meditate and hum and hope someone lands on your front door as an employee, you’ve first got to shift the belief to be able to go, well actually there are good people out there at the right rates. And then imagine if I just started putting in the effort. It’s amazing. That’s when the people show. So Dan, when people say those things, it’s their beliefs talking and they wonder why they’re not getting the results that they want.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
It is, and it’s like if you want to think of it visually as you’re listening, it’s like having just building a set of walls around yourself and putting yourself in a prism, but those walls are made of paper, but you never test them. You never push them, you never try to poke holes in them. You just accept it and you end up sitting there. You sit there tied in this little box that you create for yourself that you can never get out of. And all it takes is a moment of clarity like we’ve just asked you to do, reflect on the last 12 months. What have you told yourself? What’s driving you internally with the story you’re telling yourself around this? Because if it’s an unhelpful story, you’re not going to get great results. So that’s really starting point number one for us.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
And we see, I just, if you’re listening here today and that’s your belief, I want to challenge that belief and we’re going to get into the how tos today, I promise you.
(08:51):
But we’ve got to first bust this myth and this mindset that you’ve got because there are good people out there. We had a guy in solo who’s gone from half a dozen people to a dozen in the last 18 months. We’ve got a security guy in Sydney who’s landed two new guys recently. We’ve got a guy who does internal painting and decoration who’s just landed a new guy just last week we’ve got a plumber in Melbourne who’s just landed a great leading hand. He’s been looking for one for a long time. We broke through this myth, put him on the right path in recruitment, and he’s just landed a really good one recently. I could talk for days around how clients are finding really good people right now in today’s marketplace. There are good people out there. The question is what do you believe and how hard are you looking? And you’ve got to be real with yourself. You’ve got to face the facts. If you believe something that’s not conducive to where you want to go, you’re going to confirm that. And if you’re not actually looking hard enough and look and working through the right strategies, which we’re going to talk about today, no wonder you can’t find someone. So first you’ve got to shift the belief. Then you’ve got to work through the right strategy, which is what we’re going to talk about next.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah, absolutely. So that’s the internal side. So when we balance this out, I want to make sure that you hear us the right way. So internally, it’s really, really important the way that you are showing up mentally and with your mindset’s really important. Equally though, it’s true that we’ve got to understand the market we’re in and we’ve got to be able to play this skillfully and we’re going to split this little bit of conversation up into two parts. So let’s go through what we mean by understanding the market first of all.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
At the time of this recruiting this episode, it is hard to find good people out there. It’s hard, but it’s possible. That’s a belief. It’s hard, but it’s totally possible. So imagine if we started believing that and no one is immune to the current market conditions like no one, but it’s not impossible to be able to find good people. If we remember back in episode recently, just episode 36, Simon from Parker Precision spoke around how he’s gone from a team of 12 to 80 people in six years in southeast Queensland in one of the toughest, tightest labour markets that you can find in the construction boom in that area. So if he can do it, you can do it. And as I said before, there’s countless scenarios around where we can talk about that. But what Simon has done and what our clients do really well is that they play the market.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
They do. And in terms of how they play that market, they’re showing up with the skill set, the toolkit to be able to play the market with skill you’ve just alluded to. They know how to show up and when to show up with the right strategy, which we talked about in the previous episode, and there’s no hiding it. As tough as the market is, understanding how it is helps you play better if you can understand what’s going on. But really the punchline to all of this is that you’re going to be recruiting in good times and bad times. Like we said last time, it’s not a knee jerk reaction. It’s not a, geez, I hope I’m ready for the next crisis that hits when someone leaves or geez, it’s always going to be tough. Those are those beliefs coming out when you’re telling yourself these things. The helpful belief is we’re going to grow this business. There’s going to be the right people out there, we’ve got to be able to be ready to find them. That’s a contrasting belief that’s way more helpful. But understanding recruitment being a skill and understanding that whether it’s good or bad times, the process that we’re going through in this three part series is what you have to become good at. The results will come, the better you are, the more skilled you are, the more you understand what’s happening in the market and the more skillful you can be when you show up with the right mindset, then the more success you’re going to have.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
When we talk a bit about understanding the market, it’s really understanding the labour, labour market. That’s the most important thing you’ve got to be able to understand, and it’s no different to the property game. There’s either a buyer’s market or a seller’s market. There’s generally two markets. There’s no different in the recruitment game. You’re either in an employer’s market and an employee’s market. And the reason why we’re talking a bit about this is because you’ve got to understand which market you’re in because which market you’re in determines how you go about recruiting in that market.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
So how would you go about identifying whether it’s a buyers or sellers market to start with? You’re listening to this, you might be thinking, well, what does that mean? What are we in at the moment? How would you recognise that to start with? Maybe before we get into how you play it, depending on which one it’s,
Speaker 2 (13:46):
It all comes down to supply and demand of work in the marketplace. So when demand for work is high in the marketplace, it generally means you’re in an employee’s market. We’ve seen that over the last couple of last couple of years. The construction industry has been really high. It’s been high demand. So therefore when it’s high demand, the workload and demand of work comes in. So that means there’s a lot of work and not a lot of businesses to complete that work. And so what it does is it drives demand from an employee to be able to do that. So that’s when you see employees push hard on chasing entitlements, alley rates and all those types of things because the ball is in their court. They take the balance of power in their court. Now the opposite of that is when you are in a lower demand, we’re seeing a bit of a depressed market at the moment.
(14:53):
Demand in workload is less, which means that workload is less. Businesses are starting to lay off people release people, even though it’s still challenging to find people, there is naturally less work around. That means that contractors who went out on their own are now starting to go back into employment. People who are demanding high pay rates are probably starting to either got laid off and looking for some other opportunities. So what we’re seeing at the moment is lower demand workload in employers market, high demand in workload employee’s market. So that’s how you differentiate the two. You can’t use a employee’s market and recruit like an employer. You’ve got to understand the market because there’s two different styles of recruitment depending on which recruitment landscape you’re sitting in at the moment.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
And that’s why we’ve sort of started here because this determines your approach. And believe it or not, there’s more than one approach. And when it comes to recruitment, a lot of people have only got one. And that is, well, we need someone, let’s put up a seek ad and pay them as well as we can on negotiate them as tightly as we can, whatever your preference is. But recruitment and approaches to recruiting and the strategies and tactics you can use to bring good people into your team, they do vary. There’s so many of them. At Pravar, we’ve got probably 24. I’m going to ask you, Rob, maybe start thinking about this, some of your favourite examples, but depending on whether it’s employee or employer market, you’ve got to know strategies. Which one of those active or passive strategies do you have to lean on? Depending on what the market conditions are.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
When you’re an employee’s market, you can use more of a passive strategy where it’s, Hey, let’s get a seek ad up and people will start applying, let’s put a social media post up. People will start responding to that. So it’s more of a, Hey, we’ve got a job. There’s people avail in the marketplace, they will apply for our work. When you’re in an, that’s what happens when you’re in an employer’s market. When you’re in an employee’s market, you can’t use passive strategies. They’ve got the balance of power and they start dictating when they get hired and they start dictating terms and price and everything. So if you put a seek out up in an employee’s market, it doesn’t work. You’re not going to get applicants or you are, and you know who they are and you don’t want them anyway. And so you’ve got to make sure you’re using active or passive strategies or a blend between the two in the right label landscape. If you use the wrong strategy in the wrong landscape, this is why you’re not going to find anyone. And so there is active and passive, but you’ve first got to understand the landscape and then you’ve got to know which active or passive strategy to execute on depending on what the landscape is.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
So you mentioned a couple of passive ones there, the sort of the seek ad, the social media posts, the traditional type things which are passive, I’m busy, I haven’t got time to do all this running around. It’ll be active, which we’re going to go through in a sec, but passive is very much the traditional side. So let’s go on the other side now and talk about active and see what would be examples in your mind of what we’d call or class as active strategies.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Yeah, this is where you’ve actually got to do the work, putting the effort. And I love it when you’re talking to a business owner and they’re like, they’re like, I can’t find anyone. It’s like, all right, so in the last two weeks, how much effort have you actually put into recruitment? Oh, Rob, I’ve going to seek that up. Yeah, so fuck all. That’s what you’re saying.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
And so that’s passive. You’re not doing jack shit about it. No one, you can’t find anyone active for me is you are actively putting yourself in a position to go and find people. This is where you are talking to recruiters. You are trying to poach people from your competition. You’re head hunting, you are, one of my favourites is you’re calling one man bands at BAS time, you know, work in an area, there’s a dozen one man bands around that they’re not going to be doing well in their BAS time. You give ’em a ring and go, so Dan, how’s it going mate? Just checking in with you. See how’s workload at the moment and they’re going to be tired and stressed and worn out and probably can’t make BAS. So you just got to get ’em at the right time and off they come.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
You’re right. And I call that the white night strategy on that day where they’re just about ready to chuck it all in. If I got this, someone offered me money to come and work from it, I’d take it. That’s the mindset you’re doing when you employ that strategy. Amazing how often that works. By the way, we’ve had so much success with that and it’s positive. It’s a tough time for everyone and some people are ready to throw it in and start working for someone else. But those active strategy, I think the big thing for me is like you said, you’ve got to get off your ass. You’re actually doing something and you’re investing a percentage of your time each week or each day to recruitment. The passive strategy, you put the seacat up once and you sit there for four weeks going, well wonder what happened. Has anyone rung us? Have we got any responses? You might even be reading responses at that time. That’s the difference between active and passive and at Pravar, like we said, 24 strategies we’ve got that we’ve documented that have worked dependent on the market conditions depending on the skill that you’ve got in recruitment. But 24 of them, they’ve all been proven to work. So there’s a very big list. And like you said, when people sort say, I’ve tried everything, the response has to be, well, how hard are you looking?
Speaker 2 (20:43):
We saw that with Simon in that last episode. It’s like he’s someone who doesn’t stop until he achieves his goals and he didn’t get to 80 employees just by sitting there posting seek ads.
(21:00):
He had to get in there and he was doing seek search functions and messaging people and headhunting and cold calling and talking to other people on site, other job sites and building an environment where people wanted to belong and asking his employees for referrals to other tradesmen that’s active. And he put himself in that position to go, we’re growing. This is where we want to go. This is who we need. Let’s go and find them. Whereas most people are like, Hey, we want to grow. Oh, why is no one coming and landing on our door? There’s a big difference between the two, and that’s the difference between active and passive is yes, you’ve got to have a combination between the two, but if you’re growing your business, you’ve actually got to be more active than passive and you’ve got to put yourself in a position that might be uncomfortable. But in the end of the day, if you want to grow your business, you’ve got to do the work to be able to find the people, to get the work done.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
To get that outcome we outlined in the previous episode, you’ve got to do the work. So I think that’s true. And you mentioned something there. I’m going to come back to that. You talked about then creating an environment where people want to belong. That to me it is really important and I think that’s one overarching strategy. No matter what the mark and conditions tell us, no matter what skillset you’ve got, if you haven’t got that going for you, then that’s really going to be a struggle for anyone in terms of recruiting the right people that comes through so often, what sort of environment you’re running through, the way you show up, the way that you even write your ads, the conversations that you had, even if you’re doing active work and you’re trying to headhunt, that all comes through. So just expand a bit on your idea there about creating an environment where people want to belong.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Yeah, first and foremost is it’s culture. You’ve got to create a culture where people actually want to work. And we’re going to talk a bit about that in our next episode around retention of people. You retain people by having a great culture where people want to belong, but you’ve got to remember that recruitment in the end of the day is marketing and sales. That’s what it is. You are promoting your business and saying, this is who we are, this is what we do, this is what you should come and work for us. You can’t sell the secret though. You’ve got to promote that on your socials. And we know that clients in particular, I know that we share this story a lot with clients is Phil do for example, with the Great Outdoors who’s been someone on this podcast is he went to lengths of getting videos recorded to showcase the jobs and the type of work that they do in the high-end properties in the Adelaide area, showcasing the work and what it’s like working in the team and their story and who they are. And he’s someone who has grown a great business in a very hard market in Adelaide, but he’s done it off the back of showcasing who the great outdoors are, what we do and why you should come and work for us. And he’s done an exceptional job hasn’t he?
Speaker 1 (24:12):
He has. I was coaching him for great period, a great length of time through that period, and this was us racking a lot of some of these strategies came out at that direct coaching period. You’re right, he didn’t sit back. He created new things, new ways of talking to the market, new ways of showing up to say how great it was to work there. Beyond that, he would go out and find out who he wanted and he’d call people up. We tried the calling, the one man bands, we went as far as to getting stubby holders printed and he’d drop a little sort of a card and a t-shirt and a stubby holder saying, Hey, I’ve got the rest of the gear ready for you when you want. We literally did that sort of stuff, car stickers, all sorts of stuff like the magnets on site of car, you name it, he did it and it was active.
(24:57):
And what it did, it put him in a position that when someone came on board, he was so sharp. And what I mean by that, he was so sharp in terms of recruiting. His skills were on point. He knew his message to the market. He knew that it was a place where people wanted to belong because he’d done all the work. Recruiting for him wasn’t a one and done sort of thing. It wasn’t like, well, we filled that gap, that’s done. Thank God. I hope I never have to do that again. Which a lot of guys do and they just stick their head in the sand. But Phil was a great example of just really pushing actively as hard as he could and making sure that he even had the passive stuff going in. It wasn’t one at a time, it was multiple going at once.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah. Another one is another client who does a really good job with this is Zach Hansen from ZMH Metal Roofing based out of Sydney. Shout out to you Zach. He plays a very good socials game, does a cracking job, not only again being on this podcast. So make sure you go back and listen to that episode around the story of Zach Hanson. It’s one of those things where Zach plays a very good socialist game. He showcases the great quality workmanship of what their business does. Not only does it demonstrate capability to be able to win new builders, high-end builders in the marketplace, but Zach’s in a position now where in a market where it’s almost impossible, I don’t want to say it’s impossible to find good metal roofers. He’s built a following on social media where people in the trade and other trades and people follow ZMH Metal Roofing and he demonstrates what it’s like working there, the quality workmanship, the type of work that they do in the market that they belong, and now he’s got guys clamming over each other to be able to come and work for him.
(26:52):
And that’s because he’s built a social strategy which not only attracts new business, but it attracts great people. And it hasn’t been an overnight thing, let’s do this, and oh shit, I’ve got to find someone tomorrow. He’s been doing this for a very, very long time, but it’s been a double-edged sword for him and it’s gone a long way to helping him build out to what is now dozen people in his team and over the last couple of years, and he’s done a cracking job in growing his business and building a great team. And it’s all been off the back of creating an environment where people want to belong and showcasing that through market facing social strategy, be be able to attract a good team.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Getting off his ass and doing the work. Like we said before, I love that there’s a number of conversations I’ve had with clients who have got that idea of it’s hard, it’s difficult, I can’t find you and all that, all those unhelpful beliefs. And it always comes back to me in terms of this and how you play it and creating this environment and the conditions for a good recruitment thing. And I always say to them, have you ever had it tough with your finding new clients? Have you’ve been in a hole with your pipeline and you’ve needed to find work? How hard did you work to bring in a new client? What lengths would you go to attract the client base you need want or someday hope to have? Oh, do anything. I work my ass off on that. How hard do you work at getting a great team together to be able to do that work? And it’s just crickets. It doesn’t compute, but it’s so obvious maybe because we’ve done it so often, but that idea of what would happen if you worked just as hard on your people recruitment as you did your new business development or your client recruitment, it is the same level of effort and action and focus that’s required on both to make them work
(28:44):
Or likewise, if you approached your business development the same way you approached recruitment, where do you think you’d be as a business?
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Correct. And that’s what Zach’s done really well is he’s pushed the barrows down both those roads, business development and recruitment, and that’s how he’s grown his business. There’s no point chasing new work without resourcing, matching revenue to resourcing like we spoke around in a previous episode. And there’s no point recruiting without pushing the business development bar down the road as well. You’ve got to do both, and that’s how you grow a business. And that’s why we tried to allude before is when you’re growing a business, you’re going to be growing a business during the hard times and the easier times you’re going to be in both markets. And that’s why as a business owner, you’ve got to learn to love recruitment and you’ve got to hone this skill that is recruitment. You’re going to be recruiting in both markets at some time in your journey, and guess what? It doesn’t stop. It doesn’t stop. You’re going to be recruiting forever, so why not just get good at it and just learn to love the process?
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Yeah, that’s leading in beautifully into our last little piece on this one, which is always be recruiting and play a long game. That’s really the message that we want to hit home here. There’s that saying, in sales of A, B, C, always be closing. At the end of the day, recruitment is marketing and sales, like we just sort of said and how you’ve alluded to it. So we sort of say ABR , always be recruiting.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Yeah, it’s one of those things. You’ve always got to be looking around who your next employee is when, and the reality is if you need someone today, it’s too late, too late, you miss the boat. If you are really clear around what your revenue profile is, and we do this with our clients in launch for example, when they come into coaching the first time, we’re trying to educate them around what’s their roadmap, what’s their year on a page, their year on a page is projecting where they want to be over the next 12 months in terms of their revenue profile. And then we are looking at strategies and we are looking at resourcing to be able to match that revenue profile. And so when you’re growing a business, you’ve got to get on the front foot and be proactive around who to hire and when. And if you need someone today, you miss the boat, haven’t you?
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Yeah, absolutely. And I think most business owners, at least until you get good at this or you’ve been caught out a few times, you underestimate that the time required to bring in that new employee. If you need someone now it’s too late. Like you said, you should have started that process probably three months ago. You think about it, the time you start to get into gear, seriously recruiting and you’re pointing people to apply and do all those sort of things, you start doing interviews, you start shortlisting and doing all the stuff that comes with that recruiting process. Once you’re into it, by the time you get to day one, it’s easy to think and the person you hire ends up having a notice period, two weeks, four weeks, even sometimes longer. By the time you go through all that time period, you’re going to be three months down the track. And we always sort of go, it’s 12 weeks, so where do you think you’re going to land in 12 weeks? You need to start now working backwards, otherwise you’re going to get caught out. You’re going to be under the pump. They either won’t be bought on properly or they won’t be there when you need them. And then you start getting complications.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Not to mention setting up trucks or vans on the road, getting them milk, decked out, getting sign riding, buying racking, buying materials. You’ve got to be forward planning around that. There’s the lead time on some of that’s even longer than three months to be able to get someone in. So this is why you’ve got to be prepared and well considered around where you’re going so you can be strategic around who to hire and when and what are they going to need and what’s the cost and how do we cashflow this? And the more that you do that and the better you get at it is the easier it becomes over time.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Yeah, it does. So I think that idea of anticipation and staying ahead of this, it can be done. But again now sort of piecing all of this together, start with your mindset. Again. Go back to your beliefs and think, well, how is my beliefs impacting the way I’m executing on the rest of this piece? Once you do that, it starts to fall into place pretty quickly. That’s why you get caught short.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
If you’ve got that belief that I can’t find anyone no matter how hard I look, anyone decents working with themselves or there’s cost too much and no one wants to work these days. And if you can’t find someone despite your efforts at the moment, maybe you need to get a call booked in and either follow the show notes or go to strategy session.com au and get a call booked in with me and let’s unpack your current state team. Let’s design who you need and when. Let’s start doing some projections around who to hire and when, and let’s talk a bit about what you’re doing and what you could be doing. I can talk you through those 24 different active and passive strategies, we can start strategizing around what you’re doing, what you could be doing, and what you could be doing differently, and let’s start getting some plans in place because this whole series is all about the reality of is that when you’re trying to run a successful trades and construction business, what you need is a productive and efficient ground crew.
(34:00):
You need that. And so getting the right people in the right positions, doing the right work is essential to your success. So if you are struggling to find people right now, even though we are in a tough labour market, get a call booked in. Let’s strategize and talk through what we can do to fix it, because I just know that once we get some clarity around that and put the right strategies in place, there’s people out there, you’ll find them, and you’ll just move fast, more, move forward faster than you’ve ever done before. So get that call booked in.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yeah, absolutely. I love it. There’s nothing more to say on that. I think you’ve just nailed that beautifully. So in terms of this today, just to recap on those three steps, make it really clear the role of beliefs. Go back and ask yourself, what’s been your predominant space that you’ve lived in when it comes to recruitment? Is it can’t find anyone or is it something a bit more helpful? Hopefully it is. Do you understand the market you are in and do you think you’ve got the skills to be able to play through any type of market and still be able to recruit? If you don’t, then again, book in your strategy, call and start the learning process now or always be recruiting. Do you always wait until it’s the last minute? We already need someone, we needed them last week. It always seems to be a rush or you’re never in front of the curve. So that’s really what we’re trying to do here in terms of takeaways today. Rob hit us with ’em. What do you got?
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Yeah, in honour of Jordan Belfort love him or hate him. One of my favourite quotes is, the only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
It’s true. It is true.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
So true. Know your market and adapt your approach accordingly. And like you said before, always be recruiting ABR.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah, invest your time into recruiting. It pays back big time. So well worth the time of an investment.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Hopefully enjoyed today’s episode. Make sure you hit that follow button because we are going to be dropping part three of this series next week. You don’t want to miss it, so please stick around because we’re going to be talking all things retention. It’s one thing to be able to recruit, but if you can’t retain them, it’s going to make your recruitment process even harder. So make sure you stick around and hit that follow button so you do know and get notified when the episode does drop. It’s going to be a cracker of an episode coming to you next week about all things retention and looking forward to being able to take this conversation another step further. Thanks for tuning in today. Speak to you next week.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
See you on the next one.