Searching for the perfect hire

I have a lot of conversations with Financial Advisers about either hiring or inspiring staff. Most have this perfect ideal of what their future hire should look like. That may be what they want, but most of the time it's not what they need. That's when I need to take the conversation deeper.

Here's a great example. The Adviser who has spent twenty years building a great advice business and now wants to add another adviser into the team. They are searching for someone who has the ability to hunt and bring in new business and then to service said clients. And they want to make their KPIs all about rewarding the new business in the door and the revenue they're generating.

I have very sad news to give to that person.

You may possibly find that person but you won't keep them. And they're not what your business needs.

Because, even with equity stakes on the table, you're trying to hire a younger version of yourself. And if they have that fire in their belly and that ability to bring in the new business, then sooner or later they'll realise that they don't need to buy into your business. They can just go down the road and start from scratch.

So let's dig into what the business needs. What you need.

In this case the owner will have a view of how much revenue the additional adviser will need to service in order to make the operation worthwhile. A common view is 3 x salary but some work on a flat rate, one I recently spoke with adds another adviser for every $750k in revenue.

Here's the thing. There are far more servicing advisers available for hire out there in the market than there are hunters. People who are quite content to just come to work and do their job, often with bank or corporate experience. They're not entrepreneurs, they're risk averse.

So I ask you. If you've been able to build up a successful business then why don't you take on the role of hunter and start handing over your lower value and new clients to a farmer while you continue to be the rainmaker?

Make your role that of the business developer.

There's a reason many are afraid to take that path.

They're afraid that once they've handed their clients over to the new hire, that person will leave and take their clients with them.

I also have an answer to that. Two answers actually.

First, build a culture that makes your staff want to stay with you. That means more than just how much you pay them. It's about building an environment where your people feel like they've found a home. That's a bigger conversation than I have time for while on this topic, but it's an important one to have.

Second, build a process that makes your clients relationship rest with the business, rather than with the individuals within the business. Make every single person in the business replaceable, especially yourself. That last part then leads onto to another conversation about building out a succession plan. The first step in a good succession plan is to make yourself replaceable. Again, another conversation.

I've focused here on the role of an adviser in the business but the broader conversation here is about learning to better identify what your business needs rather than what you think that you want.

If your criteria for a new hire is to find a superstar then you need to redesign your process. Because if you're stuck looking for that one in a million employee then I wish you good luck finding them and even more luck replacing them if they ever leave.

How about building out well defined processes and role descriptions that enable a greater variety of people to fill the roles? If you do happen to find that superstar then that's wonderful, but for business continuity and risk management I would strongly suggest building roles that are suitable for mere mortals.

It's often hard for us to see these things with clear objectivity and for that reason I suggest getting an external voice to sit with you and to have deep conversations to discover what you actually need. For this purpose the last thing the business owner needs is a "yes" person. They need someone who will challenge them and dig deeper into the "why".

Next, I'm a great advocate of personality profiling for yourself, for your team and for new hires during the recruitment process. I've always used Myers Briggs typology because that's a framework which I'm familiar with, but there are plenty of other models such as DISC profiling or Belbins Team roles.

Getting your team to go through personality profiling with a professional can be a fun and educational team event, helping you and your team to better understand how to work with each other. It can also help you to build a better profile of what type of person you actually need in your business.

An example occurred recently when a firm full of introverts brought in a new hire. The person they found had plenty of experience, had a real can do attitude and was a marvel of organisational skills.

And they were completely wrong for that business.

They needed constant human interaction to keep up with their very vibrant extroverted self while everyone around them wanted to keep their heads down and work away quietly. It was an unsatisfactory and avoidable result for everyone.

For me, personality profiling helps us to not only objectively assess a candidates suitability to a role but also to their placement within a team. What other traits to look for in the extroverted sales and relationship people which will enable them to work harmoniously with the detailed completer finishers who support the business.

Here at Centrepoint Alliance we have Regional Managers like myself who have spent years having these conversations with business owners and Practice Managers about these topics. Call on us to play devils advocate and to help you to design the right organisational structure and culture for you and your business.