Prepping Your Business for a New Hire

Speaker: 00:00:03

If you're listening to this episode,

there is a decent chance you are somewhere

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in the vicinity of your first hire.

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Maybe you've been thinking about it for

a while and you just haven't pulled the

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trigger, or maybe you already made the

decision and you're trying to figure

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out what the hell does this even look

like before they get here on day one.

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And there may be some of you

who are just not totally sure

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what ready even looks like.

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You just know you are booked, busy,

and tired of doing all the things.

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If you fall anywhere in this

vicinity, this episode is for you.

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welcome to More Than a Brand, the podcast

for growth stage service business CEOs

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who are tired of watching clients they've

already earned quietly walk out the

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back door while they keep spending money

in the bring new ones in the front.

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I am Lindsay Tramell Jones,

the CEO of Purify consultant.

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I am a client relationship

strategist and an army veteran.

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This show is about the one thing

most business advice skips entirely.

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The relationship your team builds

with clients every single day.

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You've done the hard part.

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Let's make sure your team

can sustain what you build.

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This is more than a brand.

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Let's get into it.

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Hello, hello, hello, and welcome

back to More Than a Brand Podcast.

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I'm gonna jump straight into this episode

because this is something that I've

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noticed that a lot of entrepreneurs, once

they hit that growth stage and they're

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booked and busy, that they struggle with.

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Most founders that I talk to who

are approaching their first hire

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are asking the wrong questions.

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They are asking, "Am I ready to hire?"

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When the right question should be, "Is

my business really ready for someone else

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to step in and start doing the work?"

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And those are two different things,

and the difference between those two

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things is what this episode is about.

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Hiring a good person and building

a business that's ready to hold

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them are completely different.

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Most founders, however, figure

this out after they hire.

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And this episode is about you being a

little more proactive than reactive.

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We wanna make sure you have it figured

out before you bring somebody on board.

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If you've been following me for a while,

you know that I am a North Carolina-raised

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Southern girl, I tell my husband all

the time that when we start making

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changes to our house, the first thing

we gonna do is get this porch wrapped

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around it, give me a screened-in porch,

glassed-in, I don't care, 'cause I'm

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not trying to do these bugs, and I'ma

sit out on my porch with my retirement

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drink and say, "We needed this rain."

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But all that to say is that I created

a PORCH framework to help businesses

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who are in the midst of hiring and what

to do prior to you bringing on your

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first, long-term contractor or employee.

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A porch on a house is

welcoming, it's inviting.

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It is what people have to go through

to get actually into your home.

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So think of the PORCH framework as

what an employee has to get through

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and go through to get into your

business completely integrated.

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And it completely maps out

your pre-hire foundation across

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five specific dimensions.

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And over the next 20 something minutes,

I'm gonna walk you through all five.

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I'm gonna tell you what each one is, why

it matters, and I'm also gonna ask you

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one question per dimension that will tell

you honestly whether you have it in place

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or whether it still lives inside you.

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So let's get into it.

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What does P-O-R-C-H stand for?

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P is persona, who your

client is as a person.

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O is for onboarding, a structured

experience with a clear input

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for your, new employees.

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I'm gonna use employees lightly.

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Like, employees also can

mean long-term contractors.

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R is for roadmap, that

is the job description.

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What ex- specific tasks do you want

them to do, and what's the rhythm that

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they need to be conducting those tasks?

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C is for conduct.

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How should that hire show up when

it comes to talking to clients?

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And then H is heart, the emotional target

at every stage of the client experience

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that you want them to aim for when

delivering your product or your service.

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When a founder hires without a porch

in place- It kinda goes like this:

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she finds a good person, she trains

them, explains how her business works

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to them, probably introduces her to

some clients, and then she steps back.

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Like, here you go, wham,

bam, thank you, ma'am.

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And then what the hire delivers is close

because she was listening, like, she

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hired a good person, but it's a version

of what the founder built, maybe 80% of

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it, and not what the founder wants or

what the client expects, which is more

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important when dealing with the business.

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And sometimes that shows up

as the tone being slightly

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different or the follow-through

is slightly less consistent.

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, It could be the way that that hire

is handling that tricky situation

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when it comes to those clients.

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And so the founder feels it immediately

because this is her business.

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She built it off her instincts.

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And then she starts reviewing

things she delegated and asking

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to be CC'd on all the things.

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On the flip side, the hire starts feeling

like the founder does not trust her.

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So they're already breaking down

the relationship between the

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founder and the hire when all

this could have been avoided.

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So the founder is probably asking

herself, " Is this a me problem

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or did I hire the wrong person?"

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And you start doubting yourself

as a founder when in reality you

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just didn't have the foundation

in place to bring a person on.

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Yes, you were at capacity, you were

booked and busy, but your business

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was not prepared to bring a person on.

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So with the five dimensions, I'm

going to name each one of them.

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We've already briefly went over them,

but I'm about to jump into them a

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little bit more, and then I'm gonna

ask you one question, and the question

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is your score for that dimension.

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So be honest with yourself.

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Don't answer the question based

on what you hope y- to be doing.

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What are you doing right

now in this moment?

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And if you don't feel good

about the answer, that's okay.

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We're here to learn, and we're

here to make sure we know

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better so we can do better.

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Okay, so P, persona, that's what, the

P in porch stands for, and once again,

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that's who your client is as a person.

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It's not the demographics like

their industry, revenue, you know,

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all that good stuff that people

always tell you to figure out.

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But it's definitely the psychology.

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What is she thinking when

she first reaches out?

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What frustrations brought her to you?

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What makes her stay year after year?

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And critically, what would make her

quietly leave without saying anything?

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Your hire needs to recognize your client

before she has ever spoken to her.

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In failing to do, do so, your

hire is delivering a standard to

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a abstract person instead of a

real human being she understands.

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Different clients respond to different

types of communication, and your hire

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cannot know the difference if the

persona has never been made explicit

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enough for them to understand.

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So before you bring somebody on, and

even though you may know what your

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clients are like, you need to have

very clear documentation and very

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clear answers to help your new hire

understand exactly who the person is

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that they're working with when it comes

to delivering your product or service.

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The question I want you to ask yourself,

could you describe your ideal client

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enough in detail that a new hire could

recognize her and understand what she

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needs before their very first interaction?

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All right.

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Okay, so that's it.

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That's the P.

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That's the persona, and we're gonna

move on to the O, which is onboarding.

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Onboarding, the O in the PORCH method,

which is the second dimension, is

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the plan on how your hire absorbs

relationship standard within

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her first, let's say, 30 days.

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Not what task she completes, but how

she learns what great looks like.

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Most founders plan the operational

onboarding, so that means, like, the

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systems, the tools, the passwords,

the workflows, but very few plan

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the relationship onboarding.

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What does she observe before she

touches anything independently?

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What does she practice

with you reviewing it?

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When does she go fully independent,

and what does this milestone look like?

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Onboarding is not just orientation.

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It has to have a structure and a

cadence and a clear endpoint, not

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just she gonna shadow me for a couple

days and then I so the question I want

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you to ask yourself is, do you have

a documented plan for what your hire

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observes, practices, and owns in her

first 30 days with a specific endpoint?

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Or are you planning to figure

out when she gets here?

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All right, you should have that answer.

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Write it down, 'cause we're moving

right along to the R, which is roadmap.

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Now, roadmap is a job beyond the

description, not just the title.

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So when you're thinking of a roadmap,

I like to call it a battle rhythm

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because of my time served, but

what does the week to week, the day

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to day, what does that look like?

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What specific tasks does the hire own,

and how often do they need to happen?

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And what does a good week look

like versus a falling behind week?

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Most founders have a general

sense of what a hire will do.

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Very few have a specific list with

a cadence, and the gap between

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a general sense and a specific

list is where the hire gets lost.

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'Cause sometimes they're following

up, sometimes they're making

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up their own battle rhythm.

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It's so loosey-goosey when you bring

on a hire that She starts making

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decisions that she shouldn't be, should

not be making, or missing things that

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she didn't know she was supposed to

catch, or even escalating things that

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should've been handled independently.

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So that roadmap goes deeper than

just understanding the title, but

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it also has to give them a clear

understanding of how to be successful.

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The question I want you to ask

yourself for this dimension is, can

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you name five specific tasks, and if

there's less than five, however many,

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your hire owns on a weekly basis,

and what the escalation standard is

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when she does not know what to do?

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All right, we almost there.

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We got two more dimensions.

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C, conduct.

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So conduct is how the hire shows

up in every client interaction,

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whether it's verbal or nonverbal.

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And it's not just a tone or a written

email, it's the words she uses,

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the energy she brings to a call.

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It could be the graphics that

she use, depending on the job.

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It's the way she carries herself

with the clients, and it's

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what she never improvises on.

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When I think about conduct, I think

about Chick-fil-A and how when you

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go to various Chick-fil-A's, If they

do not say, "My pleasure," you're

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like, "Where the my pleasure at?"

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Because you expect a certain type of

conduct from Chick-fil-A employees this

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is the mention where the drift shows up

first because it is the most visible.

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So a slightly off tone in an email or

a response that takes a little longer

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than you would have sent it or the way

she handles a difficult moment, that

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conduct cannot be taught by example alone

You cannot show them every example in

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a book in a three-day shadow session.

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It's just not gonna happen.

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So you need to have it defined so that

they have a clear understanding on how

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to conduct themselves when interacting or

doing forward-facing things for the client

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or delivering your product or service.

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For this section, I want you to ask

yourself, if your hire wrote a client

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email without you reviewing it,

would you know immediately whether it

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sounded like your business or like her?

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All right, last, heart,

H in the PORCH method.

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Heart is the emotional target at

every stage of the client experience.

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Not satisfied, that's like the floor.

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You want people to be satisfied.

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But I mean the specific

feeling you're aiming for.

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So for example, like at stage

one, when a potential client

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finds you, what should they feel?

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Should they feel relieved?

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Should they feel, ecstatic?

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What, what kind of feeling are you

trying to make sure that they have?

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At say at stage three when she says yes,

what should the first 24 hours feel like?

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Or at stage five when the engagement

closes, what keeps the relationship alive?

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Each stage has a different

emotional target.

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Most founders know this instinctively

because when building this business,

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they build it off their instincts, how

they move and how they operate, but

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they have never had to put it into words

until they hire someone and discover

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that their instincts did not transfer.

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The emotional target does.

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for this piece, I want you to

ask yourself, has your hire been

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given a specific emotional target

at each stage of the experience?

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Not just a be professional and

responsive, but a specific feeling

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that you are aiming to produce when

they are interacting with clients or

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delivering your product or service.

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And if you don't have a hire, do you

have it written down so if you were

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to hire someone that they can be able

to deliver the heart of the business?

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All right.

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So let's get into what all this means

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Count up how many of those porch

dimensions you answered honestly yes.

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So yes is a one, and no was a zero.

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And let me tell you what each range means.

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, If your porch score is a zero or

a one, you're in the most common

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place I see founders who are

approaching their first hire.

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You've built something real, you're booked

and busy, people love you, you are ready.

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You, as the founder, are screaming for

help, and clients stay because of how

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you make them feel and the standard,

but that porch lives inside you.

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And that's not a failure.

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It's exactly where most service

business founders are when they

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start thinking about hiring.

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You built a business on

instincts and relationships.

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You never needed to make it

explicit because it was just you.

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The work ahead of you

is not starting over.

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It's starting to extract what you

already know and putting it into the

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five porch dimensions so your hire can

actually use it before she shows up,

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not after she's spent 90 days absorbing

the wrong version of it and trying to

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figure it out, flapping in the wind.

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If your porch score is two or

three, you have started building.

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You're probably been more intentional

about this than most founders, and

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you have documented some things

and defined some roles, thought

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through some of the scenarios,

but you have gaps in your porch.

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And in a hire, gaps get filled by

default, and it's her default, not yours.

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The good news is you know

exactly where the work is.

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The porch dimensions your honest answers

revealed are the ones to close before

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the hire joins or while she's still new

enough that the foundation can be reset.

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Now, if your porch score is four

or five, you are in amazing shape.

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Congratulations, friend.

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That doesn't mean that

you're done, though.

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It just means you're close enough that

one honest conversation could tell you

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whether the porch dimension is actually

solid or whether something that feels

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ready still has gaps underneath it.

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The founders who think their porch is

built usually discovers it's not in the

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worst possible moment, and that's probably

when a client noticed something is off,

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and a clean diagnostic now prevents that.

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Regardless of the score,

the porch is not optional.

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We're not building houses without porches.

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We're not building

businesses without porches.

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It is the difference between a hire that

extends you and a hire that you spend the

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next six months trying to manage around

or micromanaging because they did not

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have the foundation that they needed.

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Here's what I want you to do before

this episode drops out of your queue.

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I want you to register for our

live virtual workshop where we do

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exactly what we just did here, but

in real time together with every

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person in the room scoring their

own porch while I facilitate.

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You'll leave with a, your full

porch gap map, which will tell you

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what five dimensions are built,

which ones need work, and which

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ones haven't even been started yet.

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You'll also leave with specific

next steps based on your score.

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The price is $20.

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It's one hour.

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The link to registering

is in your show notes.

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It is going down on June 5th

at: 12:00

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spots are available and seats are limited.

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If you cannot make the live

workshop, I want you to take the

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Flow Build assessment instead.

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It takes maybe five minutes, and it scores

your porch across all five dimensions

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and gives you the map digitally.

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The link is also in the show notes.

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If you scored zero to two today,

the workshop is the most important

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thing you can do for your business

before you post that job description.

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The porch has to come before

the hire each and every time.

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The best way to build a porch

is before the hire joins.

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The second-best time is right now.

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This has been another

episode of More Than a Brand.

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Remember, your business is more

than a brand, and your customers

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deserve to feel that way too.

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See you in the next episode.