Making the SHIFT To Thriving Boss With Talmar Anderson

Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.Jack Welch

Check Out These Highlights:

As I write the introduction for this show, I reflect on the many bosses I have had during my 20-year corporate career before opening my business 21 years ago. I’ve had the gamut of good, bad, and ugly bosses. Lol! Sadly, the majority were not very good leaders, and I felt like I had to fend for myself.

I remember my first sales manager, who trained me by going out on prospect calls with me. After the appointments, he would yell at me in the car, pointing out everything I didn’t say or said incorrectly. There was never any positive feedback. Ever!

Finally, after working as a financial advisor for about a year, I sold my first million-dollar life policy to a small business owner. When I got to our office in the morning, I was so excited to share my success, and this is what he said, “why didn’t you sell a two-million-dollar policy?” He was never voted boss of the year!

Making the SHIFT To Thriving Boss With Talmar Anderson (EP. 87)

I am honored that you are joining us for this episode. As you read the show, I hope that you feel my passion and mission to change the word sales from that icky and sleazy manipulation vibe to one of love, care, and respect, and to help you on your sales journey wherever you might be. I’m excited to announce that I launched my All-Star Community Membership. Check it out. My premise in life or my motto in life is “A rising tide lifts all boats.” That was a John F. Kennedy quote. I have to tell you that in my career, I have lived by that quote.

My motivational quote is by Jack Welch. Jack says, “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” As I write my introduction for this show, I sit and reflect on the many bosses that I have had during my twenty years in corporate before I opened my business several years ago. I have had the gamut of what I will good, bad, and ugly bosses. Sadly, that the majority were not very good leaders and often felt like I had to fend for myself.

I remember my first sales manager when they train you, they go out with you. I remember after every appointment in the car, he would just end up yelling at me, pointing out all the things I didn’t say or said incorrectly. Remember, I’m learning. This was early in my career. There was never any positive feedback ever.

Finally, after working there as a financial advisor for about a year, I saw my first $1 million policy. I’m so excited and I go in. The next morning, he looked at me and his response was, “Why didn’t you sell $2 million policies? You get the vibe and I’m sure you all have horror stories as well. He was not voted the best boss of the year for sure.

I have an amazing guest, Talmar Anderson. Talmar is the CEO and Founder of Boss Actions, the boss best practices and hiring strategy firm that delivers the secrets to work-life balance for business owners. Talmar is on a mission as I am to teach you that does not have to be so hard to build, lead, and celebrate with your team.

About Talmar Anderson:

Talmar is the CEO and Founder of Boss Actions, the Boss best practices and Hiring Strategy firm that delivers the secret to work-life balance for business owners. Talmar Anderson is on a mission to teach you that it does NOT have to be hard to build, lead, and celebrate with your dream team.

Talmar, “The Boss Muse,” has been featured on AppleTV, Roku, and more. He is a sought-after speaker as the creator of Bossification – the ground-breaking program that delivers step-by-step processes and insights on HOW to hire, HOW to manage, and HOW to step fully into your thriving Boss role. Talmar knows how to create dramatic shifts in your perspective on what it means to be the boss of a successfully growing business.

How to Get in Touch With Talmar Anderson:

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Free Boss Assessment – Which Boss type are YOU?

Talmar, “The Boss Muse,” has been featured on Apple TV, Roku, and more, and is a sought-after speaker. As the creator of Bossification, the ground-breaking program that delivers a step-by-step process and insight on how to hire, manage, and step fully into your thriving boss role. Talmar knows how to create dramatic shifts in your perspective on what it means to be the boss of a successful growing business. Isn’t it time to pull up your bossy pants and grow? Talmar, thanks for being on.

Thank you.

I love that last little piece. I was like, “Is it time to pull up your bossy pants and grow?” We are including that because I thought it was awesome.

Life is too short to not have fun. I enjoy what I do and I remind people that they could love what they do too and it helps with the right people around you. That’s the good stuff.

The Hiring Boss

We are doing it. Might as well make it a fun ride. First question, how the heck did you get started down the path of being the hiring boss and you came up with a bunch of best practices? How did you do that and why? Why did you do it?

Thank you again for having me on the show. I appreciate that. I would tell you that I was an operational consultant. A long time ago I bossed around attorneys and managed law firms for over twenty years. I went out on my own as an operational consultant. I have to be a consultant and not a coach because I just tell people what to do. That’s the bossy side of me, but my clients want that.

They are like, “Tell us the answer for goodness sake. Let’s get to the point.” After about seven years out and about, I stopped and I thought, “I feel like there’s something I’m not missing.” I went back over seven years’ worth of clients and whether I worked with them for 1 day or 1 year, they all had the same 2 questions.

How do I find good people? Where are all the good people? The second one was, “What do I do if I have to fire them?” Everybody is so afraid of being sued, they are all so anxious, and they don’t understand that they have certain rights as an employer and as an owner to protect their company. That nerve kept them paralyzed. I was like, “I can’t be inventing this wheel.” Sure enough, I went out and there weren’t step-by-step processes that were being taught to business owners. How to hire? How to manage? How to step into that boss role leadership? I was like, “I can invent this wheel.”

I love processes and systems. I’d always been in charge of hiring. I always got promoted to that piece of it, whatever I did in my life. I had over twenty years of experience before I even started niching into this area. It’s my joy and people call it life-changing. Anything I can do to make it easier, more efficient, they grow faster, they like their people, and it’s way less stressful, why wouldn’t I offer that?

The Shift In The Hiring Process

We do need to hire good people to be around us to get done what we need to get done. Maybe even more importantly, there are representations of our business or whomever the organization is. Hiring the right people are an important piece of the puzzle. I have another question about the big resignation that’s still happening right out there. Has anything shifted with that hiring process? Has there been a little pivot or shift that you have seen in the marketplace?

I will tell you a couple of things. The Great Resignation is not as big and scary as they are making it sound. I specialize in small businesses as opposed to mid-size or large corporations. Small business has always had to be competitive to hire. We have always had to be a little inventive in how we create benefits for our teams. I think that it’s only created an awareness for the employees that they do want to know more about, “What am I getting myself into?” Certain industries have got a little more competitive on the cash because people can work remotely. Now, you are picking from the best of the best. If you want the best of the best, they are like, “Okay, but I know my value.”

There is a little bit of a shift there. Having said that, that’s going to shift back. Maybe not the value part. I want everybody to always be paying their team’s value. It’s going to shift back to more people being in person, which means you are hiring more local talent. While you might have the best of what’s local, you will be able to apply that compensation model to local price points if you will.

It’s interesting because I think what happened with this big resignation, the first time I heard it I was like, “What?” As the businesses were starting to go back to live functionality, not just doing this remote thing because of COVID. People were home having lunch with their kids, dropping their kids off at school, and being there when the kids got home from school.

The Work-Life Balance

I’m in New Jersey, you know that the commuting if you have got one hour commute, you are doing well here. To commute from where I am into Manhattan, it’s 2 hours door-to-door times 2. People started saying, “I’m getting twenty hours back a week and I have time with my family.” It became a work-life balance. I get why people started to say, “You are forcing me to come back when I was super productive remotely. Can we do a hybrid or something?”

Some companies were like, “Let’s talk about it. Let’s figure it out,” which was great. They saw the value in the employee, whereas some companies were like, “No. You don’t want to do it. Leave.” Again, it is what it is, but people started realizing their value and what they brought to the table and giving up. That twenty hours a week, that’s a lot of time to give up versus being with family.

The work-life balance. I get that. Every time we have a job or for you and I to take a client, you have to think about what’s that work-life balance. What’s the commitment and do I want to do it? Can I do it? What does it mean to me personally? All those questions now are being questioned where before it was, “You got a job you wanted to work, you got to commute, and deal with it.”

I also think it’s funny because it ties so perfectly to the stories you were sharing about your experiences with bad bosses. People leave their jobs because of a bad boss. I don’t care if it’s pre-pandemic or post-pandemic. If you are a bad boss, they are going to leave. You can pay them money for a little while, but they are going to leave.

They might even come knowing it’s going to be a bad situation, but they are going to leave. Now more than ever, they were like, “Not having that person constantly in my face saying it’s not good enough to your experiences and being able to not have the twenty hours.” The commute was a huge shift for people because, to your point, it is a definition of success when you have to spend less time getting from your home life to your work life or whatever that is whether you are an owner or an employee.

When there’s less time in that, you have a better life. It’s a fact. It’s a definer of success in life. How much time do you spend getting from A to B? People will tell you they are efficient or whatever, but the truth of the matter is the commute, the ability that we prove to bosses that we could work remotely and get things done. It’s all a matter of whether the bosses are keeping up with how it is a little bit different in their management process.

Only the people that were even trying in the first place are going to change. It’s still the same reason people are leaving bad bosses and just a tiny bit of the group was like, “I could do this in Savannah, Georgia, so I’m going to go be in the South by the ocean and not have to deal with the New Jersey or I’m outside of Washington DC right now.”

You deal with traffic too like I do. It’s real. Here’s the thing. The people that bring a lot of value to the table, I think that they saw, “I bring value. Look my productivity went up because I didn’t have that commute, but I still got in my office the same time I would have left the house in the morning for the commute. They are getting more hours from me because I’m not commuting. Why are you forcing me to come back and give up now this new lifestyle that you are getting more productivity and I’m getting more time? Why aren’t you allowing it a win-win?” That’s where the resignation came from.

Let’s go to the other side of that because the truth of the matter is there are plenty of employees that don’t know how to be productive at home. There are plenty of people that are not able to get away from the distraction of the dogs, dishes, and whatever it is. To be fair, there are some employees that are very anxious to get back to office life because they know once they get there. They get the separation for whatever. Craziness was on top of them. Also, there’s a human aspect to it. The reason that I truly believe that we are never going to be remote if we can help is because we are humans. We are tribes. We want to be with people.

It is way more fun to walk down the hall reiterate this great sale that you close, and high-five someone than go in a text, “Closed it.” A little emoji comes and go, “Yay.” What a letdown. The human side of it is there are people on both sides of the coin, employers or employees that want that. There are certain industries that it would never work. Contract drivers, please keep staying with us. We need the truck drivers.

It’s not a real thing to say that we should all be remote. To my point of building it like you want it. I believe that’s true of everything. If you want to be remote and get the best talent in the country, then you should do that. If you find value or if you built a business to go into an office and be there with a team, you can find people that want that too. It’s just about learning how to put that into your process and vetting for it.

If you want to be remote and get the best talent in the country, then you should do that. But if you find value in going into an office and being there with a team, you can find people that want that too. Share on X

It’s interesting because even in my business, a lot of my clients did some remote stuff. Now that we are back live and we could go back into training rooms, a lot of my clients are doing you hybrids where maybe we could do a combination. Some are, “Can you come in and do it live?” Some are staying remote. It’s funny because I get different values from all three venues. I’m going to serve my client the way where they need me to. I make that happen. I agree with that. It’s funny because some of my friends and colleagues are saying, “Thank goodness we are back in the office. I was going out of my mind. I felt like I was in a timeout in my dining room.”

It’s a real thing and there’s a psychology to it also. The psychology of your brain changes when you physically walk into your office building. There are habits to that. You walk in at 8:30 every morning, so your brain starts to make a shift. There’s a release of the stress of the home. There’s a surge of excitement because you can achieve and be recognized for what you contribute. There are benefits and stress on both sides, but to the point of the Great Resignation, people understood they needed to be more considerate of what they wanted. That has put employers in a position of needing to vet people more specifically.

I’m working with a client and they are hiring for a part-time position and the full-time people keep applying to it, but they are like, “You haven’t been part-time. I can’t risk that this doesn’t work for them. I need somebody that is choosing a life that needs a part-time position.” That’s out there. The fact that they have worked with me to get that clarity, hiring part-time is different.

You very specifically have to vet them for what in their life requires part-time, and what in their life keeps them motivated to stay part-time. Otherwise, if they take your part-time gig just to get some cash in the door, while they are still looking for full-time. We are talking 90 days and they are out the door and that’s just a huge waste of cash and time.

You are an expert. You see all of the pitfalls that if we are not experts, we are not going to see those pitfalls. We can’t head them off in the past and that’s what you do for them. Here’s my question. You heard my story at the beginning with my boss that should never have been a boss, clearly. Do you have to be a heartless, ogre, and jerk to get the results? He was abusive. We’d get in the car and I’d be like, “Go ahead and go scream. I’m ready.” I used to think people driving by because he’d be screaming. I could see the veins. I’m like, “Do people see this?” I’m looking out the window, he’s a moron and he is yelling at me. I’m not learning anything from being yelled at. Do you have to approach business that way and treat employees mean to get crap done?

Not. One hundred nine thousand ten percent exponential or whatever you want to say. Not. The issue is those people, they are bosses by power and by will. If you look at those companies, funny enough, you said you were a financial advisor. Don’t talk about the company right now, but that industry more than others, and there are some that hire to burn through people and it breaks my heart. They put out an ad that’s very general. They attract ten people and they are hoping that they have got one that will make it through, they make it like a boot camp and who’s motivated by that? Somebody who’s very monetarily maybe, but there’s no allegiance, loyalty, or tenure. There’s burnout.

Communicating And Sharing Expectations

It is so backward in my world. I just don’t understand that. More often, I work with the people that go the other way. They are trying so hard. They are like, “I give them so much flexibility and I have given them every chance.” I’m like, “There’s our problem. You have got to tell them what you need for success. You have to define that for them and hold them accountable for it. Have you told them what you need them to do?” There are so many places where we can very excitedly be like, “This is the job,” but we are not taking the time to communicate what success looks like for the person working for you as the boss, working for the company, and then also working as a part of that team.

CSG 87 | Thriving Boss — Thriving Boss: You have to tell your team what you need for success. You have to define that and hold your team accountable for it.

There are so many different ways we have to check for alignment in our hiring process. Maybe we check once, some people check too until they work with us. They don’t understand all the things you need to be truly taking the time to vet. That’s how you are going to find people that are going to come in and you don’t have to yell at them. They get it. They are on a mission, they like to work the way you like to work, and you get to all celebrate the same way because you value the same things. We talk too fast. I don’t know if you noticed, but I talk a little quickly. What I have to do is all of my vetting, I don’t want to talk slower to my team. I will for podcasts and I will for my clients.

When I’m excited in my office, I don’t want to slow down. I don’t want to have to repeat myself a lot. I vet for people that can absorb audio information quickly. I don’t need them to speak back to me quickly. I just need to know that they can catch it and they can move on with it and use it what they need to do. That’s important.

I have clients that start and they are complaining. I have to repeat myself 100 million times. I’m going insane. We get down to it and we find out some of the characteristics of the habits that this person brought with them. We weren’t clear about what we wanted. We found out that they are never going to be successful with what we want. Now it’s a mismatch hire and we have to decide how we are going to handle that going forward.

It’s about clear expectations. What are the boundaries and goals? It goes back to what we were saying before too, the value added. Does the company’s values meet my values? As soon as there is a misalignment, that’s when you get distressed. That’s where my boss sucks. That’s where I want to leave. All of those pieces of the puzzle. I agree with that clarity. It goes back to my super genius is communication. I have my communication style assessment and all those things.

We don’t communicate as humans because we are not taught to communicate or share expectations not as my boss did. He was horrible. We can share our expectations so that people could see the value of the organization and where they are coming from. We could see the value of the employee. Is it a match? If it’s not, it doesn’t mean they are bad people or a bad organization. They just weren’t a match. That’s okay.

One of the big things that I go through with my clients when we are working through the management side of what we do in Bossification is I remind them that a lot of your communications, especially with your underperformers, is giving them the space, the permission or the blessing to let them know that it’s okay that this is not a job for them.

It’s okay if this job is not for you. It’s okay if you don’t want to handle these responsibilities. I just need to know. Is this our two weeks’ notice? It’s okay, but let’s just talk it out. We don’t have to fix it. Fixing is so expensive. I’m not saying don’t take the time to communicate clearly. “Boss, we didn’t set the expectation correctly. We didn’t communicate the responsibility correctly. We didn’t communicate the result and the goal that we are looking for because that’s a big part of it.”

My example would be that somebody says, “Paint that wall and I need it done by Friday.” They say, “Okay, what color?” “Green.” The boss comes in Friday and it’s lime green and they walk up to you, they go, “You are fired. I wanted forest green.” “We never discussed that. You said green and then you gave me no more information.”

Now you need to cultivate a culture where that person’s going to go, “Just so you know, there are a lot of greens at the paint store, so let’s talk about what this exactly is that you want.” It’s hard for an employee to come to a boss and say, “I’m not clear on my job. I don’t know what I’m doing. I need you to help me solve this problem. Please don’t fire me.”

An open-door policy is only effective when we have created the communication and relationship that shows that you are accessible and willing to solve problems for them because that’s the big shift. Boss Actions, we firmly 100% everything we teach and work on the boss provides the tools and the team builds success. If they don’t know what they are doing, shame on me.

Open door policy is only effective when we have created a relationship that shows you're accessible and willing to solve problems for the team. Share on X

It’s accountability on both sides. We have got all people accountable who got to hold ourselves accountable as leaders.

It’s not about being mean. It’s about being clear. If we don’t know what to be clear on, that’s where our processes come together.

It was funny when I hired my VA, she was very quiet. At our first meeting, I said, “What you are bringing to the table, I see the value but we have to be able to communicate.” She’s young. She’s 21. I said, “You see things I don’t see as a 60-year-old woman and I have been in business long. You know technology much better than I do. I need you to verbalize, if you see something to think, ‘This is a perfect match for what we are building within the business,’ you have to bring it to me.” I love it because I will say something and she will give me the scrunched-up nose and say, “Maybe we can do that a little differently.” I go, “Yeah. What do you want to tell me?”

We have the best relationship because she’s not afraid to approach me and say, “I know you did this. I don’t think we should do that. I think we should do this. This is a new technology. I think it’s worth the money.” I sent her things, “I saw this new technology. Can you vet it? Can we use it?” She will come back, “No. We are doing that with XYZ. We don’t need to spend more money.” She understands that we communicated so that we hold each other accountable. She’s got me accountable too. She said to me, “I’m giving you homework and you have to do it.” I was like, “Okay.” She understands she can hold me accountable because it’s for my business and my best interest.

The real critical super boss move that you did was you gave her permission. From the get-go, you were saying when you first met with her, those first six weeks are so critical to setting the standard. It can be a learning process if it’s the first few hires because somebody is telling them they are not doing their job and it’s a little uncomfortable. My assistant will do the same thing. She will be like, “You didn’t tell me which one you chose. I will go do that but which one?” I was like, “You can’t read my brain.” It’s not a strategy. You have got to articulate. It does happen but the key is to be clear in setting that and then how you respond when they do it.

Bosses will go in with the best intention and they will be like, “I don’t know. She’s always asking me for this. He always wants that.” There is some awareness that you need to bring to it that maybe the way you are communicating with this person isn’t setting them up for success. If you can approach it from, “Not that you are doing something wrong, boss,” but from the idea this is what they need to successfully give you the results you want, you can take that personal stuff out of it.

Let’s just get excited about the fact that they want to deliver for us. Again, the mismatch might happen if we didn’t vet them correctly when we were bringing them on. What would have happened if she came from a culture, background, or family that you would never talk back to authority? She might not have found success.

She was young and that was where her shyness was. Some young people are shy because of their family, that’s disrespectful and they would never do it. It could have got to a point where that wasn’t going to work for you guys. You can do the right things as a boss and that’s not going to work for everybody so you have to just be able to recognize that. Can I just go off on one thing?

You can. Go for it. Bring it.

The Virtual Assistant

The VAs are going to love this. This is in defense of them. A VA is a Virtual Assistant. Saying you need to hire a VA is like saying, “I’m hungry. Let’s go to a restaurant.” What do you need them to do? Is it a marketing assistant, organizational assistant, client-facing, or scheduling? Now more than ever, the VA umbrella title some are expansive agencies and some one person work in their basement and are a bookkeeper. It could be anything. That just speaks to that clarity when you are saying, “I need a virtual assistant.” I want you bosses out there to think, “I’m looking for somebody to give me this type of result and back into what that successful person will bring to you.”

For me, it was the admin stuff that was bogging me down. I should be out doing business development, not being bogged down with website errors. Not looking to hire someone. Technology and admin were my two big things and she’s just stupendous. She’s a superstar. Shout-out my Denise. I keep teasing her saying, “You can never leave me.” She tells me, “You can never die.”

Now you walked into another door. Let’s talk about it. How long has she worked for you?

A year now 2023.

You Always Need To Be Hiring

That’s fantastic. I’m sure you are the exception to the rule. However, let’s be clear. Our society does not value people staying in positions for a very long time. Traditionally, most small business hires good ones who will stay for 18 to 36 months. That’s why it’s so critical. Again, good on your hiring process. You got somebody that could be effective quickly and get the job done and get what you needed. You did a great job there.

A lot of people think they are going to find somebody and teach them how to do a job. They will find that young 21-year-old and teach them. Now we have lost 3, 6, and 9 months of that tenure. The issue is the sociology of our business world suggests that they are going to leave a boss before the boss can fire them. It’s a very deep conversation. That’s not the point.

The point is they are going to get skills they are going to develop in their experience, and so they are going to be ready for the next rung. As small business owners, unless you are making $50 million or more, you are still a small business owner. Small business owners don’t have the layers to promote people into different responsibilities as quickly as our team usually develops. Does that make sense?

It does.

Sometimes, especially in assistant roles, you will find somebody that wants a career as an assistant. It’s unusual but it does happen. That would be true of some of your leadership roles. You are going to hire somebody as a manager of operations that turns into your director of operations and maybe your COO. Even in management roles, five years is a good tenure for somebody.

Small business owners don't have the layers to promote people to different responsibilities. Sometimes, you will find somebody that wants a career as an assistant. It's unusual, but it does happen. Share on X

We are going to always need to be hiring and yes, make jokes, but don’t buy the gold watch for retirement yet because she probably will have another opportunity that you are going to bless her and want for her. It’s just going to be heartbreaking for both of you because you do jive well together and it’s a great environment for both of you.

I will share it with you. She and I talk about her career pathing all the time. In the next decades, I’m scaling my business to the point where either my kids take it over if they want. There’s never any pressure from me. If they don’t, I want to be in a position to sell it. What do I need to bill? What’s the infrastructure and all of that?

She’s just so bright, so good, educated, and all of the things that I respect in her. She’s super organized and a go-getter. I said eventually I’d like her to become the project manager and have a team under her as we start to build and scale. She’s building her VA agency so she’s creating a business. We both gain from each other because she’s learning business from me and she’s doing all these amazing things on the backend for my business.

As we scale, as every decision we make, we make together. I include her so that the scalability is there and then how is she going to fit into that so that she can look at a long-term career. If not with me, then someone else who can deliver that for her. It’s a great relationship and it works. I believe in educating her and growing her skills because I see her superpowers. I sent her to classes. I’m like, “I think you need this. Forget that you are not going to use it with me. You need it for you and your future. You go and do it. I will pay for it whatever it might be.”

The #1 Mistake Business Owners Make

She’s very appreciative. We give back to each other a lot. It’s a great relationship. I have another question. You have been doing this for quite some time now. What’s the number one mistake that you see business owners continually make or maybe shoot themselves in a foot that hopefully people reading can avoid?

It’s trying to hurry through a hiring process. They wait too long. They are slammed or they got a big contract and they are like, “Now I just need bodies.” No. “It’s okay, Talmar. It’s a referral from my best friend.” I’m sure they are a lovely human, but we can never skip the steps. We can’t because that referral person knows them as their aunt, their mom, or even in the capacity. A VA is a great example. Your best friend refers to it. “I love this VA. You are going to love them.” The issue is if we don’t take the time, which a lot of people at that point, their best friend recommend it, they are going to call and say, “You are done hired money. Here you go. Let’s just make this happen. Let’s get started.”

If they don’t take the time to vet them, again, they are going to find out that that virtual assistant is a brilliant person at the organization. What I wanted was social media marketing. I see you two months later and I’m like, “Best friend, you must hate me. Why did you recommend this person? They are horrible. I keep asking them to get this stuff out and these posts done. They can’t write for anything. I don’t even know why you referred them,” because we had different jobs. We have to learn the process. Take the time and get clear on what success is for you, boss. You can’t outsource as a piece.

This is about building your team. Once you have got the program and the process developed, that’s when you can start to bring in your team to learn it and understand what makes your team successful. It’s always going to take time to be clear now, especially for small businesses. You talked about scaling. The need is going to change. Your customer service years ago was different than your customer service now.

Even after we developed the process, we still have to go, “What’s the most successful person bringing to my company to be successful and enhance this position?” I think that they want to speed through the first part thinking they can teach them. Now we are paying two salaries for them to learn to do a job that is not helping your business grow.

You are paying yourself, the trainer, and them. Maybe they will learn it or maybe they won’t. We don’t know if they haven’t done it. If we can’t see the skills in their experience, I don’t think that small businesses should be hiring for potential. It’s a huge waste of time. It’s great heart. I’d rather your business be hugely profitable and we build some great mentorship programs outside of it for you to give back to your community.

It goes back to communication. There’s got to be clear communication, expectation, and goals. Sometimes we don’t even know what our own goals are. Let alone how to bring someone along and train them or lean into whatever their superpowers are so that we can leverage and hands it off so quickly. They have to learn your system. They are running because that’s their zone of genius and that’s what you were looking for in the first place. It’s all about clarity.

To your point, that mismatch hire can happen because we are a small business and we are running and gunning. We decide we are going to go down this new income stream. It’s the next best thing. We believe it. We hire somebody great at this particular expertise. We get six months into it. They are great at that expertise, but it turns out we were wrong.

The market doesn’t want it. Our clients hate that we are associated with it. That person is great at what we thought we needed, but what we need is somebody over here instead of what they do. We have to be willing to go in and say, “You are a great human. I like you, but unfortunately, this is not what my business needs.”

As a boss, it is your job to defend your business and the rest of the team, and your customers. That includes looking at somebody brilliant at what they did. Admitting that you hired, which you should have done proactively, but the company doesn’t need that skill anymore. “We have to let you go.” It’s not fun.

As a boss, it is your job to defend your business and the rest of the team, and your customers. Share on X

When we are so scaling and we are so growing, those are the stories you hear. The big companies that scale up and a big boom, they hire everything and everybody and then twelve months later you hear them downsizing because they got too excited. They weren’t taking the time to watch for hiring triggers or to plan it out and create a strategy behind it. We are going to make mistakes. We are a small business.

Two important words are strategy and fluidity. As a business owner for several years, I can’t tell you the number of times I have changed my business model. Maybe some tweaks. It wasn’t a huge overhaul, but I have had COVID need I say more. We had to become super nimble and fluid because we didn’t know what was coming next. There were a lot of shots in the dark happening, but you had to be fluid so that you can easily go right to left, to forward, to back, or whatever that movement is.

We are out of time but I do want to share with everybody, if you are hiring, if you need to hire, if you are growing and you are just not sure where to go, please reach out to Talmar. Her website is BossActions.com or email Talmar at Talmar@BossActions.com. Additionally, you have a free gift to Free Boss Assessment. Can you tell everybody about that?

Absolutely. There are different types of ways we approach management and being a boss. We have narrowed it down to three different individuals. We will have you go through a quick little assessment and we will not only tell you which boss you lean towards and give you some best practices that you can start using immediately so that you can start to get what you needed from your team.

Great resource. Everybody, check it out. It’s a Free Boss Assessment and it will define which boss type are you. Talmar, what a delight. I hope everybody kept up with us.

No, they can slow down the speed. You can slow it down.

It’s so funny because sometimes even if someone speaks fast, I speed it up. I love that capacity on Apple even on YouTube you can speed things up or slow things down. I hope we didn’t go too fast. Thank you so much for being on and sharing such great pitfalls and ways to avoid spending money and time that as business owners, we don’t have. As I have a lot of corporate clients and they follow the show, no matter where you are, you are still a leader in an organization or a business owner. This was great information. I so appreciate the conversation. Thanks for being on.

Thank you for having the opportunity to be here. I love it. Thank you.

It’s always fun chatting with you. I hope you will join me as we question, build, and discover together that being a heart-centered leader or salesperson, it matters and it does make a difference. Don’t be like the boss that I described when I was a financial advisor. I hope that you are enjoying the conversations within the show. You know my motto. “Information is a beautiful thing. If you do nothing with it, it’s simply that information.” Take that information, take some of the tips, and take the Boss Action Free Assessment that Talmar is sharing with us. Take that information, do something with it, and I promise you, watch the magic that happens around you.

Thank you again for tuning in on WebTalkRadio.net with me. As always, I am honored to have you on this journey in business and life. I hope that our discussions help you move the needle to create a life that you desire and you deserve. I wish you all an inspired week. Do something different, try something different, and I promise you, magic is waiting for you on the other end. Thanks again and I will see you all next time. Have a good week.

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