Only Hire A Players

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[00:01:19] Welcome to The Missing Secret Podcast. I'm Kelly Hatfield. And I'm John Mitchell. So, our topic today is only hire A players. Kelly, I bet you're a fan of that philosophy, right? I am. Yep, absolutely. I'm a fan of A players and even more. And this is the... It's going to be interesting. I'm excited to talk more about this today. It's how to, you know, I think, how to keep A players because lots of companies screw that up and lots of leaders screw that up.

[00:01:49] So, I'm excited to dive into this topic today. Well, and I think as I look back, you know, I didn't sometimes have the wisdom and the courage to make sure I just had A players. I mean, we've all been down that road where we've accepted poor performance because we had 30 other things to deal with and didn't want to deal with it, right?

[00:02:17] Yeah. And I think, too, you know, where we... The A players, where we often lose the A players is by spending so much time and energy on the C players. Yeah. You're not investing in the A players because, you know, you don't need to worry about them. They're killing it. They're, you know, spending all of your time on kind of the problem children. And in the meantime, you know, you're overlooking the people that are the A players. So, yeah, I'm really excited about getting into this.

[00:02:46] Well, let's play it. This is from Darren Hardy. It's just exceptional. It's about a five-minute video. Let me hit you with something that'll probably tick you off. Here's why. Deep down, if you're being brutally honest with yourself, you'd already know what I'm about to say is right. You ever wonder why some companies don't just grow, but they absolutely dominate?

[00:03:15] Their teams don't just execute. They crush it. Innovation pours out of them like water. Problems vanish before they hit the CEO's desk. And their engagement and energy is freaking electric. Meanwhile, other companies in the same market with the same resources, hell, even better funding. They just limp along, barely surviving, treading water, making excuses and wondering why they're still stuck in the same place. The difference isn't strategy. It's not tech.

[00:03:43] It's not marketing genius or VC fairy dust. It's simpler and way more painful to admit. It's whether you've built a team of A players or you've quietly settled for B and C players. Yeah, I said it. Settle. And here's what keeps the best leaders I know up at night. It's not the competition. It's not the cash flow. It's not the economy. It's their team issues. It's the gnawing realization that someone on their team just isn't cutting it.

[00:04:13] Maybe you can relate. Like, you've got that super nice person everybody likes, but when the pressure is on, they fold like a cheap tent. Or the chronic underperformer with the endless excuses of traffic and sick kid and server was down and mercury was in retrograde or whatever. Or the veteran who was a rock star in 2015, now coasting on ancient glory, collecting a check, treating every new idea like a personal attack.

[00:04:38] Or the one who needs their handheld through every single freaking task. And if you're not on them, crickets. If you're nodding your head right now, congratulations. You've got a team of B and C players and they're quietly killing your company and your legacy. Here's the cold hard truth. You're going to want to write this down. One A player can outperform 10 mediocre performers. Not two, not five. I'm talking 10.

[00:05:07] I watched it happen over and over again. One person walks out the door and suddenly you realize you now need to hire three or four people just to cover what they did. You see, that was an A player. Netflix built their entire culture on this. They famously say a smaller team of exceptional talent will smoke a larger team of average people. Every single time. No contest. So what separates the A's from the B's? Here are A players. They don't just hit goals.

[00:05:36] They obliterate them. They bring solutions, not problems. They own outcomes without being babysat. They elevate everybody around them. They obsess over growth. They get fired up by challenges. They beg for feedback because they're addicted to getting better. And now, B players, they do just enough to not get fired. They need their tasks broken down like they're five years old. They wait around for somebody to tell them what to do. They defend how we've always done it.

[00:06:06] It's like it's the Constitution or something. They have a PhD in excuse making. They get wounded the second you coach them. They love to say, I don't know, or that's not my job, or that's what I was told to do. The ripple effect, detest it. Now, here's the part that will really hurt. Your A players know exactly who the B players are. They see it every day. And every day you let it slide, you're telling your stars, mediocrity is fine here.

[00:06:35] Performance is contagious. Excellence breeds excellence. And mediocrity, it spreads like the plague. Netflix has this thing they call the keeper's test. Every leader asks themselves regularly, If this person quit tomorrow, would I fight like hell to try to keep them? If the honest answer is, they don't wait. They don't hope. They act. They move that person out with dignity, with severance, and they upgrade that seat.

[00:07:06] Harsh? I don't know. Maybe. Necessary? Absolutely. Because keeping B players isn't compassion. It's cowardice. It's a slap in the face to your real performers. So here's your wake-up call and your marching orders. Take out your Darren Daily Journal. Number one is to define your A player standard. Get crystal clear. Write it down in blood. What does exceptional look like for every single role? Hire for hunger. Train for skill.

[00:07:35] Number two, audit your team right now. Run the keeper test on every person on your payroll. No exceptions. Not even for your buddy's nephew. Be ruthless in your honesty. Number three, make the tough calls. Set clear performance expectations and timelines. Level up or move out fast. With respect, of course, but zero hesitation. And number four, pay your A players what they're worth. Not market rate, not budget. Pay for impact. Act.

[00:08:04] You'll need fewer people and you'll afford it easily. The payoff? A leaner, meaner team that crushes the competition. A culture that attracts more A players like a magnet. And a far more enjoyable existence on planet Earth. The bottom line is this. Your business doesn't rise to the level of your goals. It settles to the level of your standards. Especially your people standards. So, the choice is yours.

[00:08:30] If you're ready to stop pussyfooting around, drop hashtag A players only in the comments below. And send this to every leader who needs to hear it. So, Kelly, what'd you think? Every single thing that he said, it's just like, yeah. Yeah. Okay. I love Darren. I went through his, we both did, went to his on-site, I can't remember what they're called, forum. Yeah. Performance forum. I can't remember.

[00:09:00] Yeah. Yeah. But this is where, so, and that was probably 10 or more years ago. And I learned this whole A player. He's, this is something he has espoused for, you know, so long. And so, I'm really lucky that, you know, I got, that this concept is something that's been ingrained, you know, in me. You know, but at the same time, it's a good reminder to like, I'm going to do the keepers

[00:09:26] test on the team that we have that he just, you know, and see if there's anybody that, you know, and I think there's one. So, we will. Right. Yeah. But it's a good reminder because sometimes it's easy, like everything to just kind of get into a rhythm. And yeah, but I've been in the past guilty of, and have been at companies prior to owning my own company where, you know, as an A player myself watching, you know, doing a ton of heavy

[00:09:54] lifting and watching them, you know, media folks get by, you know, and skate bio. They have kids, they've got whatever, you know, and message that that sends to the A players on the team, you know, it's like, you know, so there you go. That's why you leave and start your own company. That's what happened with me. Right. Right. Well, and you know, I, I lived that, you know, in fact, when I grew up, my reverse voyage company, we had, ultimately had 175 people.

[00:10:22] And probably at the, about the 75 people point, I really blew up the company because I had allowed way too many B and C players onto the team. And, and one of the things that really sort of helped me as I thought through it, you know,

[00:10:43] was that I was playing the role of the CEO and managing the people when that was not my strength. There are people like, ultimately I got Ginger to become the president and way more of a people person than I am. And, and, and put her in charge of, of, uh, she was the president and she ran the operations and I handled the strategy and the, and the marketing.

[00:11:11] But I see that even Ginger probably didn't have that, that I'm only accepting A players. And that's a hard thing to do. I mean, I, I compromised it way too often. And, and I see that there is a point where you just go, you wake up one day and go, that's it. That's it.

[00:11:36] I'm just, you know, I'm paying these people good money and I hired them and I'm not getting their full effort. And so that's, that stops and you can't fire everybody at once, but you can change that attitude at once. And, and just, you have to man up or woman up if you're the owner and go, you know, I'm creating more hassles for myself than, you know, anything else. So I need to up my game.

[00:12:06] And I, I, I know you sort of have gone through this over the years, right? Yeah, absolutely. And I think one thing that Darren mentioned that really resonates with me is you keeping B and C players is a reflection of you and your leadership. Yeah. Like the message that that sends to the A players by letting the B and C players underperform, get away with murder.

[00:12:35] I mean, like what he said, then everybody's standards start to look, you know? And I think that, you know, when we talk a lot about, you know, getting clarity, you know, in our identity and when you're the owner of a company, you know, getting clear about your identity, who it is, how it is you want to show up in your business. How it is. So like, I was able to tie those, those two things really closely together. Like, how do I want to be perceived within my business by the staff?

[00:13:06] You know, a pushover isn't one of them. You know what I mean? Right. You know? I don't think anybody would think of you as a pushover. But, you know, I have that tendency to be like, to, you know, lead with my heart a lot of the time. And that has gotten me, that's why this training has been, had been so great for me, you know, early on in my entrepreneurial journey, because my heart would get me into trouble. Yeah. And I would hang on to people and give them just chance after chance after chance.

[00:13:36] And the message that that sends again to those top performers, you know, again, and that's why specifically I use the word pushover, because earlier in my entrepreneurial journey with my team, that might've been a word that they used, you know, because I was a softie, you know, when it came to like, oh God, they're going through some stuff right now. I want to, you know, and while that's true, I still have a business to run. This isn't a nonprofit, you know, what I mean?

[00:14:05] In a wayward girl, you know, school for girls, you know, where I hear you. Well, what to do here. And so I always tie it back to, again, that identity, you know, and how do I want to show up and be a leader? And this is one of the things that you kind of look at is like, how am I perceived by the team? You know, how am I showing up with the team is how I'm showing up getting the best out of my team, you know? So, you know, I'd say I remember back.

[00:14:35] And I know you, I've told you this story before, but there was a point in my reverse mortgage company where I felt like my loan officers were running me rather than me running the loan officers. Yeah. And I'm like, this is ridiculous. I am done. I am done. And I remember that I'm like, okay, here's what we're going to do. I am going to go on a hiring spree.

[00:15:02] I am going to, I'm going to create these great ads that are way beyond what is normal. And I'm going to have lots of candidates and I'm going to hire before I need to replace somebody. And basically six months, I was able to flip the dynamics and, you know, because I would have, you know, with each loan officer, I'd make, you know, on average about $25,000 debt

[00:15:31] profit a month. And so I would get sometimes some pushback that they didn't want to follow the systems or they wanted to do this or they, you know, they, they were just difficult. And, uh, they may want to follow the script and it, you, and I was always fearful that, oh God, if they quit, then there's 25,000 a month profit going out the door and it'll take me three months to, to replace them. So they had me over a barrel.

[00:16:01] But then once I sort of woke up and started aggressively recruiting before I needed people, they'd come in and go, well, you know, I don't, I don't know if I'm, uh, like following the script, I'm go, no problem. Maybe this isn't a place for you. Good luck in your next job. And they'd be stunned, you know, that I was now so cavalier about no problem. If you want to go down the road and, uh, man, it was a game changer.

[00:16:30] And, and I also saw that my best loan officer literally would do probably four times what the average loan officer would do four to five times every month. And, and I was always, I always paid her really well, but I probably should have paid her even more, you know, like Darren says, pay them based on the impact they're having on your business. Yeah. So that's the great lesson is just pay the performers, right?

[00:17:00] Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, too, I went through something similar, you know, just even a year ago, you know, where I kind of said, okay, we got to whip this thing into shape. You know, I've gotten a little too far removed from the business and getting back involved in it. When instead of going on a hiring spree, I went on a firing spree. Right. And we did, we, you know, kept the A players, half the staff over double, you know, what we did last

[00:17:27] year close to, we'll see whether we finish as our best year ever on the direct hire placement side with half the staff. And we did in a year's time, you know, so it, what he is saying is true, you know, about the impact. Cause we've, you know, I had people that were hanging on that were non-producers that I was like, okay, well, what else can I do as a leader to help them be successful? And it's like, what point, you know, does this become, you know, is this on the responsibility

[00:17:53] of the individual versus, you know, if you've done everything that you can as a leader and I, you know, that would be almost excessive for me where I would be like, well, maybe this, maybe, you know, it's like, no, you know, it's gotta be, you know, Darren listed out those traits of an A player where he's defined that, you know, and it's like, okay, there's no black, it's pretty black or white. You know what I mean? This is what defines an A player for our organization. This is a B player for our organization. And then we've got, you know, the keepers tests that we do.

[00:18:24] If we, if they were gone tomorrow, would we miss them? Yeah. We'd be able to, and that's a really like a cold glass of water in your face as a business owner, you know, when the answer to that is like, no, we wouldn't miss them. Yeah. You know, and it's like, okay, well, what are we doing here then? Right. Right. Right. You know, on a slightly different topic, I want to share a lesson that, that I learned and I was telling you about this before we went on the air.

[00:18:50] So I'm teaching our methodology to MBAs and about 10 days ago, and I've done this every time I've taught the class, Ginger and I teach a class on relationships, romantic relationships. And so she comes to the class that day and we teach things like the five love languages.

[00:19:18] We teach, uh, this technique. If you ever have a fight, mirroring validation and empathy. We teach, uh, having the Sunday night relationship talk. And I talk about my journey of being single and how, how I openly found, uh, Ginger and, and how I knew she was the right one. You know, good, really good stuff. I think.

[00:19:42] Well, as it turns out, at least three of the 50 students, uh, uh, went to the administration and complained and said, this is appropriate for MBAs. So, so I get, uh, gold on the, on the carpet and, you know, it's interesting. And maybe this is just getting older, but I was telling them even, you know, just a couple

[00:20:09] days ago, I said, you know, everybody is a reflection of their genetics and what has come into their consciousness to this point in their life. And so everybody is, is interpreting things based on, you know, that, and maybe primarily what has come into their consciousness. And to those three people, that class was not appropriate for MBAs.

[00:20:36] Even though at the end of the class, they applauded. And I got a number, I got emails about how, thank you for being so vulnerable and all that. As good as that was, still, there were three that didn't think it was appropriate. And I see that when I was younger, I would, my attitude would be, oh, come on, you know, that's ridiculous. You're wrong. I'm right. Right.

[00:21:04] But now I have, I see, again, I interpret it different than they do, but that's how they interpret it. Like it, don't like it. That's how they interpret it. And the fact that three of them at least came up and, and complained about it to the administration tells me that maybe it's not appropriate for, for the MBAs.

[00:21:30] And of course you had the situation where the tail is wagging the dog here because most of them thought it was fabulous. Right. But the administration doesn't want to deal with, you know, a professor teaching something and now you've got, you know, more than one person complaining about it. It's just, from their standpoint, it's just not worth the hassle.

[00:21:55] And so my, my attitude, fortunately, as soon as they brought it to my attention, I'm like, no problem. We just tell you, I think you're probably right. If three people complain, then you're probably right. Not appropriate. And I even brought it up to the class yesterday. Just there's, you know, there's time in the class where I just talk about whatever in my head and I'm very transparent. I, I said that the three students did that.

[00:22:24] And I said, it's okay. It's not, I'm not mad about it. I'm just, you know, but so many of them came up to me after and they said, man, you know, we'd love that class. And, and, uh, but because the point of that, that story, you can be so mad at how people look at things and, you know, sort of politically, I think we, we see this today, how we see such

[00:22:51] unenlightened views and we get so mad about it. But the reality is whoever has those, those views, that's what they think good or bad relative to what has come into their consciousness and their genetics. And you just got to accept it, like it, not like it, but there's no sense really being mad about it. Do you, you agree with that? Yeah, I think so.

[00:23:17] I mean, that's their, um, that's what they think, not what they think. Right. You know? Um, and so I think that, you know, being able to not being mad about the fact that that's what they think. I'm always, again, it's that seek first to understand. I'm always just curious where I'm like, I'm confused, you know, can you help me understand your perspective, you know, and why you believe what you believe about X, Y, Z topic, you know?

[00:23:43] So I like having just a, you know, a conversation with people about it because literally I'm curious I want to know what has formed that thought or ideology or whatever the case may be, you know, but I'm certainly not, I can't be upset about it. It's not, I have zero control over that. You know, I can control my thoughts and I can control my actions. So I choose not to let my energy get all whipped up over something I have zero control over, which is somebody else.

[00:24:14] Right, right. Well, and, you know, I saw this is this, I just saw this a couple days ago and this came from the Wall Street Journal that, and the editorial section of the Wall Street Journal, which I really, uh, I love the Wall Street Journalism because in my opinion, gives the unvarnished truth. And they're talking about how they recommend that there be a committee or an investigation

[00:24:42] into why Trump is so favorable to Russia, to the detriment of Ukraine and, and to the American interests. And, you know, when you have the Wall Street Journal editorial board raising that issue that it needs to be investigated, you know, in this clutter of, of world we live in, that's a big deal. Yeah.

[00:25:06] And not that it'll happen, but just, that's a good example is of how in the hell are you, you supportive of Russia? I mean, what, what are you smoking here? Yeah. And that's certainly what we, we think, but you know, whatever he is spoken, you know, that's what he, he believes.

[00:25:30] And, uh, so I don't know, it's, uh, I don't know, somehow it, it makes me less angry at people just to understand why they believe what they believe and, and how they're actually entitled to what they believe. You know? I think- As long as it might be, it might be. Yeah. You know, interesting too, when we talk about the supporters, you know, of, of him, you know,

[00:25:59] two words, like when you ask, so if you were to ask them about, well, help me understand why you think it's a good idea for us to be in bed with Russia, you know? Right. Let me understand what your thought process is on that. Right. What you find 9.9 times out of 10, at least this is what I find, they have no knowledge or understanding whatsoever of the situation. They're parroting something they've heard on, through some social media, through somebody

[00:26:27] that they follow that believes that, but they have no actual context, insight, anything to share. They're uneducated about the topic itself, you know? And that's one of the things too, where I find fascinating when you ask that question, because I, that happens all the time with people I talk to. And I ask that question and they stumble and bumble and they don't really have an answer. It's like, oh, okay. Like now I understand. Like, you know what I mean? It just helps give me some insight.

[00:26:55] Like, and because if you can't put together a coherent, you know, argument for your perspective on something, then you're unenlightened. You know, it's not whatever that topic is, you know? And it's like, well, then there's an opportunity to, to, this just goes to the topic of influence and leadership again. Then there's an opportunity to, once you understand their perspective and like, they literally don't understand or have facts around this. Right. Then when you start sharing maybe some information that's different than what they had thought

[00:27:23] about, you know, well, did you know that ABC, you know, did you know that ABC, you know? And they're like, well, no, I'm not, that can't be true. And it's like, it is, look it up, you know? Well, you know, I tell you, I, and, and I've come to realize this really over maybe the last year. And, and, you know, it's, it's interesting. I see that this got fleshed out with me through AI, oddly enough, that, you know, it seems like

[00:27:51] today there is an absence of, of truth that everything is an opinion. There's not really, this is true and this is not true, but it, AI may be, Claude may be realize, he calls it, is this a, a preference or a view on reality?

[00:28:12] So when people open their mouth is what they're spouting off about a, a preference or a opinion of, of reality. And as an example, if I say, I think yellow is the best color, well, that's a preference. That's just, that's just a preference. And, you know, no problem. Everybody's entitled to that.

[00:28:39] But a view on reality is a completely another thing where there's empirical evidence as to what is true and what is not true. And, and oftentimes you can have people being either wrong or right. And when you really look at what are the, what's the empirical evidence behind whatever we're talking about, that's not just a preference.

[00:29:07] There is a true, that opinion is accurate and true or it's not. And I think there's value in calling inaccurate views on reality wrong because it's clear, here's the documented evidence, the empirical facts of the situation. And if your view is further away from the other person's, then you're wrong.

[00:29:37] Just accept it. And, and sort of, I think what you were saying essentially. Yeah, no, absolutely. And, you know, and it's, it's interesting too, we were talking a little bit before, I can't remember what was while we were recording or not, but about critical thinking. And now you just made something where today it's all about opinions, you know, well, remember, you know, when we were growing up to what were there for networks. Right. Watch the news, you watch the nightly news or you watch the news, you know, but you watch

[00:30:04] the nightly news where they reported on what happened in that day's news. Right. There was no opining, you know, for 24 hours a day. Right. On a channel with people who are unqualified to have conversations around this stuff, you know, and share their opinions about it as if it's fact, you know, there were people who would watch the news and you would be like, oh my gosh, you know, like that happened today.

[00:30:32] That like, and there's a whole thought process like about how you feel about what happened today. Yeah. Not about interpreting how everybody else felt about it and then deciding how you feel about it. There was, you know, like, so there was a real crit, there was real critical thinking that was going on around what happened and then you formed your own opinion about it versus taking on the opinion of others. And I think that's one of the challenges that we're having, you know, now is exactly that.

[00:30:58] There's just so many opinions that are, you know, many of which are not based in fact. Right. You know, that's a very good point. And, you know, you might find this interesting. You know where that really started? Where? In fact, many, many years ago when Princess Diana died in Paris. Yeah. I remember. All of a sudden it's like 24 hours coverage by every network.

[00:31:23] And, you know, that sort of opened the door to all these opinions and this whole new genre of media doing exactly what you're saying. And, you know, it just sort of morphed into now this world of you're either on the right or the left and you're believing this or that, but it's not necessarily based on facts.

[00:31:48] And I think the good news, though, is, and a lot of people may not realize this, the biggest group of people now are independents because they're sick of the Democrats and they're sick of the Republicans. Yeah. And it's like, I think it's like 48% of people today are independents and it's about, oh, something like 35% Republicans. Mm-hmm. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:32:18] It's going to be interesting how this all plays out, but it's really interesting how this time that we're living through has changed, you know, the way, well, the information that we're getting. We have an information problem. We have a truth problem. Right. You know, and I think that that's, you know, the biggest challenge that we're experiencing right now as a society is that our relationship with the truth has been completely turned on its head. But I think that's incumbent now upon us to go, wait a minute, what's the truth? Yeah. There's truth here.

[00:32:47] Let's figure out what the truth here is and let the facts be what they may. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, enough of our pontifications. Well, I can see you next week. Thank you for listening to the Missing Secret podcast. If you'd like to learn more about this 12 minute a day technique that gives you control over your life beyond what you've ever experienced before, visit themissingsecret.org.

[00:33:17] That's themissingsecret.org. Sign up for our free video that reveals the full secret of Think and Grow Rich and purchase John's book, The Missing Secret. Until next time, be the exception. Work smarter, not harder by leveraging yourself through science. It takes 12 minutes a day. It takes 12 minutes a day.