Delivering the Systems and Expertise You Need to Make Great Hiring Decisions
A Time for Thanks
Last night, after more than 5 months of hard work by our Development Team, we released the incredibly powerful and fully re-vamped Talent Vault. This web-based system, the enabling technology behind our entire service offering, has been entirely re-written and, thanks to Jonathan Bryce and Robert Collazo at Rackspace, takes advantage of every aspect of Cloud Technology.
Our business has never been better or our results as strong as they are today – and that’s not going to stop. However, this new system, along with what will be an entirely new branding campaign and name change to Hire Better in the coming months, will be targeted at the BPO world and, more specifically, PEOs, HROs and other service providers who are pursuing greater client engagement through both software and service channels. The team that we’ve been able to build is exceptional and their commitment to efficiency and consistent delivery has been incredible.
So many of you have been instrumental in this development and I owe you all so much:
Andrea Azdril for the inspiration to re-write it and for helping me understand its true potential.
Andy Meadows, Josh Baer, Dean Dzurilla, Eric Rachal, Cruce Saunders, Chris Dollins, Jade Bourelle, Scott Fritz, Keith Kreuer, Mike Umansky, JayC & SuperChunk, Vic Tanon and so many of my friends from EO and MIT: thanks to each of you for your thoughtful feedback on architecture, design, feature sets and for being so open and honestly describing the pitfalls that I’d likely face through this process.
Neelan Choksi for your ongoing evaluation of the system and service offering and me, personally as well.
My Mentors & Advisors – your tireless and patient support and counsel through the smooth and rough times has really helped – especially those rough times.
If you’re in to this kind of thing, you can follow the progress of The Talent Vault and the Hire Better team on Twitter (@TalentVault and @HireBetter).
We’re excited to be positioned so well to go attack the marketplace. Look out!
To you all I’m sincerely gracious,
Tags: @hirebetter, @hirebetterteam, advisor, american workforce, BPO, business process outsourcing, cloud computing, cloud files, cloud sites, could servers, enabling technology, hire better, hire better systems, hire better team, HRO, LAMP, mentor, metrics, mosso, MySQL, NAPEO, OtherInbox, PEO, PHP, process, rackspace cloud, SAAS, talentvault, technology, thank you, the cloud, twitter.com/talentvault
Noise Goes Up But Quality Remains The Same
It’s not often I’m floored by the comprehensiveness of a Blog Post simply because too many people write them with speed in mind or just for Search Engine Optimization.
Today I was floored.
Gina Kleinworth is one of the Team Members at American Workforce. A significant amount of her role here is being responsible for combing the web every day to find articles that reinforce our goal of helping companies HIRE BETTER. (Are you following us on Twitter? You should – we invest a lot of time in making you a better leader. We’re Tweeting 2-3x per day under the moniker of @HireBetter.)
Gina found an article today written by Auren Hoffman on his blog Summation. It’s title: “Why hiring is paradoxically harder in a downturn“. Its subtitle is what I chose for this blog post’s title: “Noise goes up but the quality remains the same”. You can also read it on the Huffington Post.
His comments rang true with me again and again as I read the blog 3 full times. Here are some of the points that he makes throughout this well-written post (read it, seriously):
“Great people are more likely to be employed with a company since a great person is often over 3 times as productive as a good person. Joel Spolsky argues in Smart & Gets Things Done that an A-player is anywhere from 5-10 times as productive.”
“In troubled economic times, anyone can get laid off, but a disproportionate number of layoffs tend to fall on C-players. This is because they are the lowest performing people in a company and there generally are more C-players at a company than any other caliber. Note that this isn’t always true, as evidenced with Yahoo!, a company that has recently experienced many layoffs but doesn’t have many C-players. In Yahoo!’s case, majority of the lay-offs fell on B-players and even some A-players. Yahoo! is an exception and is an exceptional company — most large companies, however, are chock-full of C-players.”
“There are A-players that are MORE likely to leave. Tough times often paint companies into a corner and force them into maintenance mode rather than continuing to innovate. Great players love to innovate and usually NEED to innovate. It’s usually very hard to keep these type of A-players caged-up and thus this presents a big opportunity for recruiting.”
“Great people are often first to leave sinking ships. They don’t feel they need to stick around for a severance because they are confident they can always get another job.”
“Unfortunately, it is really hard to tell the difference between an A-player, B-player, or C-player just from a resume. Which means you need to engage with candidates and therefore you’ll have far more candidates to deal with given this economic climate. My guess – for a standard job announcement, you’ll have three times the number of C-players applying, twice the number of B-players, and the same number of A-players.”
Tags: A-Player, A-Players, american workforce, auren hoffman, B-Player, C-Player, hire better, hiring, hiring is hard, Interview, joel spolsky, Recruiting, Scorecard, talent acquisition, topgrading methodology, tweets, Twitter, unemployment, unemployment rate
Topgrading is too Dangerous to Try
Our phone has been ringing a lot recently with CEO’s of companies who are reaching out to me with questions about how to do a better job of implementing Topgrading – both to analyze their existing team to make it lean as well as to prepare for new talent acquisition as the economy is heating up and they’re ready to begin scaling again.
In nearly every situation, when I ask them why it is that they’re calling, they tell me, “Well, we tried Topgrading and it it was too hard or it took too long.”
It reminded me of an email I got the other day (I wish I could give credit but I entirely forget where I got it) that I thought I’d share in this blog:
Let’s conduct an experiment.
In the next paragraph, I’ll ask you to try to stop reading, close your eyes and count to 10. After which, you can open your eyes and continue reading.
Ready?
Close your eyes and count to 10. Give it a good try.
-
-
-
-
-
Did you stop reading, close your eyes and count to 10?
If you did, you didn’t try: you actually did stop reading.
If you didn’t stop reading, you didn’t try.
Confused?
Here’s the point, there is no “try.” You either do something or you don’t.
“Try” is a slippery word. At best, it communicates an intention; not a commitment.
I’ll try to make some call some people that should be on my “virtual bench” today.
I’ll try to get back to that compelling candidate this week.
I’ll try to get a firm plan from my management team around our talent needs for the next 12 months before the end of the month.
I’ll try to work with my HR Leader to help them understand the significance of Topgrading and why they need to learn about it.
You either schedule the time to complete the activity…or you won’t do it.
There is no in between.
Take a look at these two examples:
I’ll try to stop for the red traffic light.
I’ll try to love my children.
When the outcome is important, we leave “TRY” out of the equation.
The next time you’re about to say that you’ll “try to do” something, reconsider.
If the outcome of the activity is important, don’t try. Because if the activity (like Hiring the Right People) isn’t important, then why even try?
Tags: A-Players, american workforce, chris mursau, hire better, if outcome is important, recruit don't absorb, Recruiting, Scorecard, strategic HR, talent acquisition, Topgrading, topgrading methodology, try, virtual bench
In Defense of our Culture at Hire Better
Earlier this week I found myself on the phone with one of our service providers at Hire Better. The company: Monster.com. We’ve used their service with average satisfaction for about 5 years. Every year we step back and evaluate it but ultimately, we’ve chosen to invest the $10,000-$15,000 that they want to charge for access to a huge database of largely uninteresting people – many of whom need work Visas to make career moves.
Our account comes up for renewal at the end of May. We haven’t heard from anyone in their company since last September when our account was nearly cancelled FOR FRAUDULENT ACTIVITY.
A little bit of history – Last year an interesting thing happened: their Compliance Department caught wind of a report that the “seats” that we paid for were being used by IP addresses that weren’t in Austin, TX. This set off all kinds of alarms at Monster.com and I received a disturbing voicemail from a woman who more than suggested that we were guilty of fraud because of our usage and that the legal team was looking into canceling our account without a refund – essentially a loss of $10,000 for us.
Why were they accusing us of Fraud? Because our Corporate Address is in Austin, TX. ”If your address is in Austin, why would you have anyone with an IP address in Iowa, Kansas or Arkansas?” they asked. How very 1993 of them. I challenged that same Legal Team and their Compliance Team by asking,
“Have any of our seats EVER been logged into by more than one person simultaneously and in different geographic regions?”
“No, never once.” they responded.
“And is our usage on any of these accounts outside of our terms of use or so heavy that it would make you think that we were trying to be fraudulent or mis-represent ourselves in any way?”
“No, not at all.” was their answer.
It took me a week and about 20 hours of our senior team’s time to explain to their Legal Department that we’re a Virtual Company that’s built around team members who work from their homes because of the Balance that it provides to each and every one of us. We finally settled on an agreement with their team that we could give each and every one of our employees their own usernames and passwords and split up the usage of each “seat” into what was the equivalent of 50% of a traditional license. This satisfied their Legal team and it allowed us to avoid a $10,000 loss. My Account Representative at the time was a gentlemen named Chris Shaw. He stuck up for us, was the internal champion for our cause and put his reputation on the line with that same Compliance Department to vouch for us and insist that there wasn’t any fraudulent intent or activity.
Fast forward to this week: my new Account Representative called me 4 times over the course of a week – only bothering to leave a voicemail once (a hint: while we’re virtual we do have “real” phones that have caller ID). When Cortney, my Assistant, finally reached him to book our phone meeting, we were less than a week from our renewal. Here’s the breakdown of the conversation:
9:15 AM Central Time comes and goes (our agreed upon call time)
9:21 My phone finally rings. It’s my new representative. It’s clear he doesn’t understand how OCD I can be about the timing on phone calls. He starts the call with, “So how’s your business doing these days?” with an artificially chipper tonality. I politely asked if he had turned on the news in the last 9 months and then reminded him that we had 15 minutes booked for the call and we were down to 7.5 minutes left because of his tardiness.
9:32 I’ve had to explain, at length, what the entire situation was that had happened during the previous September. Apparently, the CRM system at Monster.com isn’t equipped to keep track of week-long legal boondoggles with clients that have paid them nearly $75,000 over 5 years. If you’ll remember, I mentioned earlier that Chris Shaw, our representative at the time, was a great advocate for us. Our new representative made it a point to remind me, at least 3 times during these 11 minutes, “Well, based on all of these exceptions that you benefitted from in the past year, you’ll clearly understand why Chris isn’t with our company any more.”
9:34 I’m now 4 minutes late for a commitment I made to call a prospective candidate for one of our biggest clients. As politely as I can muster, I shared with our representative, “Look, I appreciate that you’re not a fan of Chris. I also respect that you have a precious “rate card” that you’re allowed to discount from by 75% (side note, if a sales rep can discount by 75% off of a rate card, what’s the point of even having a rate card?), but unless you can wrap your brain around the fact that I’m VERY familiar with your legal contract and that I’m not willing to buy ONE seat (as he suggested) and pass around the username to everyone (which is in violation of their agreement) or 9 full, individual seats for our employees who spend about 1 hour per week each on your website, we don’t have much more to talk about. And I’m late for my next call. I need to go.”
9:36 It’s starting to get ridiculous. Every effort that I’ve made to be polite so that I can move on to my next commitment has been ignored. It’s as if I’m speaking an entirely different language. My representative has shared with me things like, “You know, 2 years ago we were only permitted to discount by 15%” and “What you received last September was clearly a one time thing and there’s no way I could get that approved again.” His arguments were as pertinent to our conversation as the amount of snow they received in the Napa Valley last year. ”I know we’ve gone a bit over our alloted time this morning Jonathan. Why don’t you let me go back to my managers and that Compliance Team from last September and see if I can work something out for you.”
3:10 Central Time – My representative called me back to share the news with me. ”Jonathan, what I’ve gotten approval for is to sell you 9 individual seats at 75% off of our rate card. This is a great deal. Can I send over the agreement?”
If you’ve hung with me and read all the way down to this part of this blog post I hope you’ll let me clarify something: My intent of this post was NOT to air the dirty laundry of my discussions with Monster.com. However, sharing that level of detail was critically important because this is what I want every company who acts as a service provider for us to understand:
- Our Core Values are NOT something that we just hung on a wall for everyone to ignore. Earning Trust, Having Balance, Adding Value and Respect play a significant part in every decision that we make every day.
- I (and We) will never apologize for or alter our decision to have hired the team that we have in place that just happen to work from their homes all around the country. Because we have Balance in our lives, the quality of the work that we do for our clients is TOP NOTCH. When we work, we work hard. And then we stop and spend time with our families. We don’t waste time commuting, attending pointless meetings or waiting in line for lunch in the same 15 minute period that everyone else has to run to the local fast food joint.
- We may need a concession or two from you, as a service provider, because we ARE different. Here are some of the companies who have acknowledged that and will be Partners of ours for a long time:
- Pioneer Bank in Dripping Springs, TX
- 8×8: the providers of Packet 8 Phones
- Apple
- Otherinbox
- 37Signals
- Jintech
- Clutch Creative
- Spross & Associates
And one final note to Monster.com: it’s 2009. It might be time for you to take a good hard look at services like LinkedIn, ZoomInfo, Recruiter’s Earth, Door64, Google, Craig’s List and a host of other websites that passed you by a long time ago. For me, I’ll take the $13,000 I just saved by not renewing with your service and I’ll spend it on training our employees on AIRS. After all, our commitment to our clients is that they’ll HIRE BETTER. Your website simply doesn’t help us do that any more.
Tags: 8x8, A-Players, AIRS, american workforce, amwf, bad hires, career history, clutch creative, hire better, hiring, LinkedIn, Monster, monster.com, OtherInbox, pioneer bank, proactive recruiting, purchasing decisions, recruit don't absorb, Recruiting, research, talent acquisition, talent vault, Topgrading, tweets, Twitter, unemployment, unemployment rate, virtual bench, zoominfo
Build It Right – Right from the Start
Hanging out with Early Stage Entrepreneurs is about my favorite thing in the world to do. For the past 18 months I’ve been actively involved in EO’s Accelerator Program which is dedicated to helping companies between $250k-$1mm grow faster and more efficiently through peer to peer learning, introductions to advisors and facilitated learning opportunities.
This morning I got the chance to share some of our best practices with the Portfolio Companies of Austin’s newest Incubator: Capital Factory. (If you’re interested, you can follow them on Twitter: @capitalfactory). I find it exhilarating to spend time with new companies and brilliant minds and I’m proud to have American Workforce be a supporter of this organization. This morning we focused on how each and every one of their companies has a chance to do things right – right from the start. None of them have started to hire employees yet but each of them has the plan to in the very near future. We talked about a number of strategies and the ways that they can make their companies attractive to top talent without having to spend a lot of money. But what I really challenged each of them to do was to analyze their Virtual Bench, build a repeatable screening process that gets to the point of what they need to find out about someone before hiring them, and thinking about the candidates’ perspectives when they are considering joining these new companies.
There were FOUR main questions that I asked them to really think about as we were wrapping up. If you’re a Business Owner, aspiring Entrepreneur or Manager, you should be thinking about these questions too:
- What is the first impression we provide to prospective A-Players when they come on-site to meet us?
- If we’re interviewing an A-Player and everyone knows it, are we willing to make our decision on the spot? If not, what else needed to happen during screening to make us comfortable and confident?
- Have we acknowledged the spouse or significant other and included them during the recruiting process? How could we?
- Are we ready to have new A-Players on our team? Can our management style challenge them so that they’ll stay and thrive in our company?
And the BONUS Question: Are we comfortable hiring people that have the potential to take our position?
Sure, Topgrading is tough to implement. But in the 2 years that I’ve been involved with it, I’ve found that it’s the questions above that impair companies and limit the effectiveness of the process more than conducting 4 hour interviews or executing on TORC. What are you doing in your company to Hire Better?
Tags: @capitalfactory, @joshuabaer, A-Player, A-Players, american workforce, amwf, aspiring entrepreneur, Austin, capital factory, chris mursau, emerging entrepreneur, EO, EO Accelerator, Fame, Family, Fortune, Fun, hire better, hiring, Interview, job description, josh baer, recruit don't absorb, Recruiting, Scorecard, talent acquisition, Topgrading, topgrading methodology, TORC, Twitter, virtual bench, who the book
CEO Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-05-09
- The EOers who are improving the world for Emerging Entrepreneurs: @lead_by_change, @andreazdril, @strategista, @sweetriot. #EOGLC #
- @sweetriot love the energy, passion & insight you brought to Accelerator’s Global Cmtee meeting this morning. Welcome aboard! #EOGLC in reply to sweetriot #
- When Facilitation goes right: identifying Dangers get people engaged, reviewing Opportunities gets them inspired! #EOGLC #
- The benefits of EO continue to amaze me. I simply can’t imagine trying to be an Entrepreneur without it. #EOGLC #
- #EO member just shared with me: Topgrading looks great! I read all 600 pages. How do I do it? #EOGLC (via @Topgrading) #
- Stunned! Sitting with Remington Green in NoLa. His company employs all WAHMs in a virtual company. I’ve met my soulmate. #EOGLC #
- EO staffers backstage with the most incredible Mardi Gras Floats. Once in a lifetime! #EOGLC http://yfrog.com/0espgxj #
- Jindal flw-up: if you want new biz in LA we need access to talent. If the Ritz is example, the gene pool is shallow #EOGLC (via @HireBetter) #
- #followfriday Anyone at #eoglc – @sjagger @jmb3883 @amwf @matthewweiss @sweetriot @govindh @dhassell (via @JeremyBrandt & @HireBetter) #
- I’ve proudly accepted my new Global Committee role for #EO under the Leadership of @andreazdril. I call it: Head Whackamole-er. #EOGLC #
- Tried to scare 6 new Accelerator Site Champions away w/ the daunting work it takes to launch. All 6 said, “Bring it on!” #EOGLC #
- Developing your Human Resources in a downturn. Compelling point: it isn’t coming from the HR Dept http://bit.ly/kYc8O (via @HireBetter) #
- Results.com’s @stephenlynch provides great insight on Mgmnt By Walking Around in The Economist http://bit.ly/bR1er #
- If the growth & improvements of EO’s Accel Pgm are indicators, Entrepreneurs ARE the most qualified to lead us out of Recession #EOGLC #
- Hey GLC, thanks for the invite to your awards, I had a blast!!! Congrats to all the winners!! #EOGLC (via @ace_frehley) #
- RT @jmb3883: EO’s Managing Director Bob is cracking up the staff office at #EOGLC. Best. Managing. Director. Ever. (AMWF: I concur) #
- Enjoying the innovation & energy of 30+ EO member-leaders that will shape Accelerator in 09-10 #EOGLC http://yfrog.com/5323176772j #
- Jindal gave best “entrepreneurs are welcome here” pitch I’ve seen & he meant it. His policies prove it (via @adrobins) #EOGLC #
- The hosts for tonight’s Rock Star awards. #EOGLC http://yfrog.com/0hiu9j #
- Ace Freeley from KISS attempts to compare Emtrepreneurs to Musicians: “we all wear blue nail polish, right?!”. #EOGLC #
- Jackie Berry (@jmb3883) named #EO Employee of the year in front of 600 members at #EOGLC. That drives culture! (via @HireBetter) #
- Don’t know where in Louisiana I could live that’s as cool as #Austin but if there was, I’d pack up the family. Jindahl’s impressive! #EOGLC #
- LAGov Bobby Jindahl is giving entrepreneurs incentives to move their companies.. #EOGLC. (via @dhassell) #
- Jindahl: “Why are unemployed insured & lose health insrnce when they get jobs? People behave if you incentivize. #EOGLC (via @HireBetter) #
- Bobby Jindahl live! So wise & eloquent. Awesome to hear an Indian American with a sweet Southern accent. #eoglc (via @sweetriot) #
- RT@adrobins: B Jindahl: As long as who you know is more important than what you know, businesses are going to hold back investment. #GLC09 #
- Your 2012 Republican Nominee for POTUS: Bobby Jindal. #EOGLC. http://yfrog.com/0gmoeuj #
- Getting the chance to hear Bobby Jindal at #EOGLC. Only state in US to lose more population than it gained for 15 straight years. #
- Very cool: 09-10 Incoming Austin Prez for EO gives each Board Member a Texas Football Jersey. #EOGLC. Look out NoLa. #
- @sweetriot #envy. in reply to sweetriot #
- @JeremyBrandt is #EOGLC our official tag for the weekend? in reply to JeremyBrandt #
- The 3 Defining Moments of GenerationY (born 1977-1995): Challenger, Gulf War on TV, 9/11. #
- GenYGuy: Boomers consider this GenerationY group “lazy” but they are the 1st generation that will work for more than 60 years! #
- GenYGuy: whole room moans when he shares falling home values, dropping retirement accounts but their 28 yr old w/ a Masters just moved home #
- Listening to the GenYGuy in #Austin explain to the Baby Boomers why GenY isn’t remotely affected by the Recession #
- Single greatest challenge of a globally distributed team: meetings that start at 11 PM get you fired up and you can’t sleep. Sigh… #
- My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. Thomas Jefferson #optea (via @dcjc) #
- @Coachjimbo Not unless the company doing the interviews is strong enough to “land” an A-Player. If not, they’ll get frustrated fast! #
- @snasta I believe Corey Bell at TriFusion would be a good place to start. in reply to snasta #
Tags: A-Players, american workforce, amwf, capitalism, capitalist, hire better, Recruiting, Topgrading, tweets, Twitter
CEO Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-05-02
- AMWF CEO Jonathan Davis will deliver “Topgrading: Your company’s not ready for it” on June 4th in #Austin. (via @Topgrading) #
- Snowboarding in the woods & navigating the trees is like moving thru life: don’t look at trees…focus on the spaces (via @SteveSavad) #
- @SteveSavad will there be an #EO twitter feed today? What’s the hashtag? in reply to SteveSavad #
- Cloud Potential is just incredible. Thanks to Rackspace & Mosso for hosting the first Lunch 2.0. #
- Headed to meet @jbryce and @lewmoorman for the Mosso Cloud event in #Austin. #
- It’s not my normal tweet theme about Talent or Capitalism, but this is important about #swineflu: http://doihavepigflu.com/. #
- @GamePlanHayden the time you waste drinking the High Life is not time wasted at all. in reply to GamePlanHayden #
- Brad Smart suggests Topgrading Interviews save $60,000 per hour you spend. Do you agree? (via @Topgrading) #
- Google continues to do cool stuff: compare & chart unemployment rates in any area – http://bit.ly/9Q962 #
- “Bigger than Texas” – a blog post from results.com about the EO Texas Roundup http://budurl.com/bigger (via @andymeadows) #
- Just joined http://twibes.com/EntrepreneursOrganization. If you’re in #EO you should too. #
- @FrontRowDave buy-in for a Topdrading can’t come on the backend. People run from pain, they wander towards pleasure. in reply to FrontRowDave #
- 190 babies will be born in the next 45 seconds. India: 25 / China: 20 / USA: 5 / UK: 1 #
- “We have to do it in the Facebook, with the Twittering, the different technology that young people are using today.” – former RNC Chair. #
- Congrats to @neelan on the acquisition of Lexcycle by AMZN – less than 18 months after launch! http://budurl.com/ykfj #
- GDP Down >6% but Consumer Spending was UP 2.2% http://budurl.com/rpug #
- @FrontRowDave What kind of “elevator” pitch are you trying to create? I’m a bit of a Topgrading Junkie. in reply to FrontRowDave #
- Dig your well before you’re thirsty: Tips for building a Virtual Bench – http://budurl.com/2ejg #
- @BobGambert the irony in your question is that the one candidate to “decrease taxes” in Austin might be the one to raise them the least. in reply to BobGambert #
- @ChrisFerdinandi check out budurl.com. Comprehensive click stats. in reply to ChrisFerdinandi #
- Passionate about Improving Hiring Success, Topgrading or Technology? Visit http://twibes.com/hirebetter to join the HireBetter Twibe. #
- Just started a Twibe. Visit http://twibes.com/hirebetter to join. #
- Jeffrey Miron’s case for the Government doing NOTHING. http://bit.ly/DGQ0A #
- Thank you Quickbooks! They released a beta today that allows their Online Edition to work on Safari. Welcome to 2009. #
- Liberty never comes from gov’t but rather from its Subjects. Its history is resistance & limitation of gov’t power not expansion – WWilson #
- RT @Topgrading – Brad Smart: “Our society is in need of an ethical transplant.” He believes at least 50% of people LIE on resumes. #
- 72 hours of “vacation” at the Texas Roundup and I’m utterly exhausted! Thanks Houston for a great time. #EOH09 #
- Mid 50’s 4 cylinder Testarossa. 1st to carry the name. #EOH09 http://twitpic.com/40c9k #
- Private race team garage at Ferrari. #EOH09 http://twitpic.com/40c43 #
- Verne decided to hang out with us. #EOH09 http://twitpic.com/40b9h #
- Private party at Ferrari of Houston. #EOH09 http://twitpic.com/407q9 #
- 80% of Americans do not like their jobs #eoh09 (via @salesby5) #
- Cool non-profit: efefoundation.org. Helping young adults in the Middle East realize that there is opportunity available! #EOH09 #
- 1st real takeaway from Sinek: “When you compete against everyone else, no one cares. Compete against yourself & people will help” #EOH09 #
- Verne Harnish: everyone taking furious notes. Simon Sinek: they draw a bullseye and then zone out. #EOH09 #
- Simon Sinek on stage now. Interesting: yes. Applicable: maybe. Unique: not at all. Everyone talks about Jobs, Dell, Gates. Yawn. #EOH09 #
- Big ?s Bizs are asking: Pricing? Add new services/products? Srvc Biz Productizing/Prdct Biz Servicing? To decide: ask customers! #EOH09 #
- Changed our Blog’s title, bought a domain, registered a new Twitter handle and bought a book in the last 20 minutes. Thx Verne. #EOH09 #
- China’s biggest business challenge: CASH (they see so much opportunity). #EOH09 #
- India’s biggest business challenges: PEOPLE & EXECUTION. #EOH09 #
- Western Culture’s biggest challenge in 09: STRATEGY (by a factor of 4) #EOH09 #
- 4 Challenges in Business: People, Strategy, Execution, Cash. Will tweet the Global Priorities in 1min. #EOH09 #
- What does Toyota think of Six Sigma? “using a nuclear weapon to take out an ant hill”. Verne Harnish at #EOH09 #
- Price Cutting is this economy’s cocaine. Reducing your price will NOT increase demand, it will just kill your margins. #EOH09 #
- Verne’s challenge to us: what are the 1 or 2 words that your company can OWN? AMWF’s: “Hire Better” #EOH09 #
- Verne Harnish: “I don’t actually enjoy doing everything I teach.” Find a great #2. #EOH09 #
- Michael Dell now realizes the primary reason for Dell’s woes is that he turned his back on Marketing. #EOH09 #
- As a leader, we think we have all the answers. What we lack is the questions. Listen more, talk less, ask questions. #EOH09 #
- To start the morning: “We are all food for worms”. Are you awake yet? #EOH09 #
- Are you a Lion or Gazelle? #EOH09 http://twitpic.com/3yktd #
- A first for #EO: Ben Richter gets a morning event started on time! #EOH09 #
- @andymeadows couldn’t agree more. in reply to andymeadows #
- Looking forward to Verne Harnish @thegrowthguy in Houston. Follow #EOH09 for the feed #
- Hash update for the EO Texas Roundup: #EOH09 #
Tags: A-Players, american workforce, amwf, capitalism, capitalist, hire better, Recruiting, Topgrading, tweets, Twitter
CEO Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-04-24
- M.Luttrell quote, “If you’ve ever quit once you’re a quitter & it’s only a matter of time til you do it again”. This guy’s a badass SOB. #EO #
- @stephenlynch got to hear Simon Mundell this morning. Awesome! #EO in reply to stephenlynch #
- Seriously: how does anyone run a company without the help of #EO? #
- @lead_by_change I wrote about just that last week. Check it here: http://bit.ly/2ocC in reply to lead_by_change #
- Cultural Change can’t be achieved by a one-person Army. http://budurl.com/aexw #
- Word of caution: upgrade BaseCamp account to get SSL. Our GroupHub got hacked & that’s how hacker found FTP info needed to hack our site. #
- RT @Topgrading: Smart&Assocs is offering free phone consulting to co’s that License the Topgrading Forms & Guides for a limited time. #
- FU to previous tweet on Topgrading: company stands to drop $8mm annually to the bottom line with A-Player Middle Managers. #
- Quote from a prospect today, “We simply can’t afford to execute on Topgrading”. Wow. #
- Art show for Maggie Weaver tonight. Please come join: http://budurl.com/maggie #
- In Negotiations with a domain squatter. Offering him a 3,000% ROI. If he turns it down I’m dropping the legal hammer. #
- Blog with Wordpress got hacked! Anyone know how to fix it? #
- RT @dcjc: in teaching Economics, this would work for kids today…maybe they could teach their parents! http://tparty2.com/ #
- Headed to lunch with the “Gen Y Guy” Jason Dorsey to talk recruiting, on-boarding and managent strategies for Gen Y. #
- Called Dr to pay bill. VM for Girl says, “Due to volume I will call you w/in 2 days”. Is volume due to ppl paying or crappy billing? #fail #
Tags: A-Players, american workforce, amwf, capitalism, capitalist, Recruiting, Topgrading, tweets, Twitter
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HIRE BETTER CEO
- Conundrum: be on time to the Ballpark or put my son's new bike together. I chose the latter & now I'm hoping for no 5-0's on I-35. 4 hrs ago
- We saw Elvis on 6th Street in #Austin during #SXSWi - congrats Uncle Doug on Beale Street's opening! http://twitpic.com/17zywy 22 hrs ago
- Our new Director of Quality @HireBetter is causing me to re-think all of our processes. I feel so geeky - awesome. #LEAN 1 day ago
- If you're an entrepreneur, are you familiar with #EO &Accelerator? Spent the day in my Accelerator quarterly day-INSPIRED! (via @thomsinger) 1 day ago
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