Roofing Success
The Roofing Success Podcast is a show created to inspire roofing contractors to achieve optimal success in their roofing businesses. The host, Jim Ahlin, is the co-author of the book, "Internet Marketing For Roofing Contractors, How to TRIPLE Your Sales and Turn Your Roofing Website Into an Online Lead Generation Machine", and Co-Founder of Roofer Marketers, the Digital Marketing Agency for the roofing industry. On each episode, Jim will be sitting down with industry leaders to talk about their processes, the lessons they learned, and how to find success in roofing.
Roofing Success
STOP Hiring the Wrong People: Build a Dream Roofing Team Fast with Jody Underhill
Unlock the secrets to revolutionizing your recruitment strategy with marketing principles, guided by the expertise of Jody Underhill, the visionary behind Rapid Hire Pro. Discover how Jody's innovative approach has transformed the hiring process for over 4,000 trades industry professionals. Learn how to captivate and retain top talent by marketing your company to potential employees, just as you would to customers. From crafting compelling job ads to leveraging social media, we explore effective strategies that help you stand out in a competitive job market.
Explore the vital role of company culture in attracting top-tier candidates. We delve into how aligning your organization's values with those of potential employees is key to building a thriving workforce. Jody shares groundbreaking practices like one-way video interviews and automated systems that ensure employee satisfaction by reducing unnecessary hurdles. Understand the significance of competitive pay, work-life balance, and a strong online reputation in drawing the right talent who will excel in your business environment.
Navigate the complexities of optimizing recruitment with marketing strategies, including the use of DISC assessments and multi-step qualifying processes. We discuss the importance of maintaining a robust hiring pipeline, even during slower periods, and aligning recruitment efforts with retention goals to ensure long-term satisfaction. Gain insights into effective interview techniques that uncover genuine motivations and the true potential of candidates. With actionable strategies and expert advice, this episode equips you to build a sustainable hiring pipeline that drives lasting success.
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🔑 Key Takeaways:
- Recruitment is Marketing
- Culture Drives Retention
- Automation Saves Time
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Imagine hiring 4,000 people in just four years. That's an incredible milestone our guest today has achieved, transforming the way companies in the trades approach recruitment. But here's the kicker he's not just filling seats, he's attracting the right hearts to drive lasting success. In this episode, we'll dive deep into the art of attracting, nurturing, qualifying and hiring top talent. Our guest reveals why marketing principles don't just belong in your customer pipeline, but are critical to building a winning team.
Speaker 1:Jody Underhill is the mastermind behind Rapid Hire Pro, a company that has revolutionized recruitment for the trades. With over 300 clients and 4,000 successful hires, Jody has honed a systematic approach to turning job seekers into engaged and motivated team members. What sets Jody apart is his ability to blend technology with empathy, creating a recruitment process that feels as personal as it is efficient. Whether it's crafting targeted ads on social media or leveraging automation to keep candidates engaged, jody's methods are redefining the hiring game. Today, you'll learn actionable strategies to stand out in a competitive hiring market, from crafting compelling job ads to building a culture that attracts the best talent. Let's jump in with Jody Underhill and uncover the secrets to building a dream team in roofing. Welcome to the Roofing Success Podcast. I'm Jim Alleyne and I'm here to bring you insights from top leaders in the roofing industry to help you grow and scale your roofing business. Welcome back Jody and scale your roofing business. Welcome back Jody.
Speaker 2:Hello, I'm doing amazing. How are you doing Awesome, man?
Speaker 1:My friend Jody Underhill from Rapid Hire Pro. It's great to have you back. I really, you know I've been on this kick recently and I guess it's not recently, but but like all, business is people. I we're always looking at. You know what SOP to create. Next, we're looking at man can we, can we? You know what material should we use, what you know like what. There's all these other things, but really at the core of it, it comes down to people, and so that's why I wanted to have you back on. You know, as you're building out Rapid Hire Pro and you know hired I don't know how many people have you guys hired now.
Speaker 2:It's over 4,000 in the last three years.
Speaker 1:So you've learned a few things about people, Jody, yeah, and so I wanted to have you on today to talk about how to attract, nurture, qualify and hire the right people. So how do we do that? How do we attract, nurture, qualify and hire the right?
Speaker 2:people for attracting, especially in the trades it doesn't matter what trade it is is where is the go-to source right? It's the job boards. They go there because that's the. That's where, that's the easy thing to do, to go out and post a job description and post a job. But is that really attraction? Now, if you think about the way you market your business, are you just posting something somewhere on, so hoping that there's no job boards for getting customers right? So what you have to do is you have to market your business, you have to advertise your business so you can attract customers. And what you have to do it's the same thing whenever it comes to attracting employment candidates is you have to basically market your company to make you the choice that they lean to. Because every person that you want to hire because I hear over and I've done over 300 plus, we have 300 plus clients and interviews and everything with them and to say, say the same thing is that you know that it takes a lot of time, but they're just looking for a players. No, doesn't matter if they have experience or their apprentices, and the thing is that you need to be looking for the right people with the right seats and attracting them to you, and the way you do that is marketing your business to them, the same way you market to get customers. And so to attract them, you have to advertise for them. And I'm not talking about the job boards, I'm talking about going to places. Where do they spend time? Right, I mean, it doesn't matter. Americans, canadians, most of them spend two and a half hours a day on social media. That's where you need to be. That's where you need to be.
Speaker 2:Putting your job ads out is on Facebook and Instagram to get their attention, because whenever they're in between jobs or whatever they're doing, what do you think they're doing? They're scrolling. So you have to not just put out hey, we're looking to hire roofers, we're looking to hire roofing salespeople. It's kind of like now hiring, but what is it that's going to cause them to want to come work for you? Gone are the days that we just put out an ad and say people line up, people are looking for a job fit A players don't want to come work in a company that doesn't have good branding, that doesn't have good reviews, that doesn't have all their systems in place. They want to come work somewhere where they know that they're going to be enabled to make as much money as they can while providing a great service to you as a business owner. So with that, it's about positioning, looking at your branding, looking at reviews. That is what starts to attract them. So you're going to, basically, you're doing, you're pulling them to you with that.
Speaker 2:So going out and running the ads on Facebook and Instagram, which is difficult because it is a special ad category. They don't let you pick and choose by age or gender. You have to do it only by geography. So the first step in that is attracting them through showing them a better opportunity to where they're currently working. Because, even if they have no experience and you're going to train them from scratch the thing I hear over and over is we want to hire people with good attitude and aptitude. Well, guess what? If they have a good attitude and aptitude and they're of working age, they're working somewhere and they're not necessarily spending time on the job boards looking for a job if they're comfortable. What we want to do is get them. Take those people who are comfortable and show them a better opportunity to come work for you. That's the attraction part.
Speaker 1:Now we need to nurture them because I'm assuming this is a marketing funnel now, and it's what I've talked about many, many times on this show you know you have to be marketing for your future employees. It's part of it. I think you're marketing to your current employees, marketing to your future employees. So we have the marketing funnel top of funnel. We're nurturing them. They're becoming aware of us. Now they're in our eco. How do they get into our ecosystem where we can nurture them? What's the funnel there?
Speaker 2:Sure. So you want to take them off of whatever platform you can get them from, even if you're using the job boards. Get them off of there and get them into a system that's going to be able to communicate with them on the channels. You want to be able to text them, you want to be able to email them, you want to be able to call them or have voice drops. So bring them into a system that allows all of those things to happen instantaneously. So they need to have something as soon as they submit their form. They need to have something that's starting to communicate with them within seconds, not hours, not days. Within seconds, because we have the attention of a goldfish. Most people have the attention of a goldfish. So it's got to happen quickly and it's got to have something that messaging has to be branded to them, and the best thing I always tell people is using a local number to have that system, do that communication and then continue to communicate with them every day until you get them to take the action you want to. Because if we go back and talk about social media ads, we hear, oh, they don't work. No, they only always work.
Speaker 2:So you had to bring them in and it's about what didn't work is what you did to nurture that lead of that candidate. But you got it and it's mainly getting them to go fill out an application so you can start the qualification. Where most companies fail or they drop the ball is they send one or two things and they stop. But I tell everybody that I talk to is like, once you get that lead, you have to call the lead, you have to text the lead, you have to go to work to work them in order to get them to start to be able to qualify them. And those are usually happening in a manual process which takes a lot of people's time. So the more automated you can have that and I'm not talking like going, because some of the people right now people in their brain are going. I hate AI, it doesn't have to be AI. Now, people in their brain are going. I hate AI, it doesn't have to be AI. It's just, basically, it's set marketing language, right, you're marketing to them. So it can't be hey, go fill out the application. It's got to be hey, you've taken the first step. The next step is X, y, z, letting them know what's going to happen as they go through that and telling them more about it, telling them more about the pay and more about the benefits and the benefits of like.
Speaker 2:As you're nurturing them, you're also indoctrinating them into your culture, right? Because culture is a big thing and culture isn't your slogans on the wall or the things you say on your website. It's how your employees feel Sunday before they have to get up and come work on Monday day. If they're dreading that, that's probably a culture problem. So you're indoctrinating them into that culture with that succinct marketing messaging, moving them through there to get them to where you can start, to qualify them, and then, with qualifying, there's several different ways you can do that. We have a way that we feel, because mostly what we're doing is we're hiring helping hire salespeople or service technicians or installers, and so we have a very specific, quick way of identifying the ones that fit best into that, and I'll be more than happy to share exactly what that is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll get into that. We'll get into that in a little bit, and then and then. So you're qualifying them, you're making sure that they're, that they fit the key criteria that you're looking for in your in that role, and then and then hiring the right person. What's that thought process? I guess actually let's go back all the way to attracting. I had a couple of questions there.
Speaker 1:When you hear a candidate because this is, I think about it, you know, like I kind of had a little aha moment here when you have a prospect in your roofing business and they know who you are before they make the phone call, it's a different phone call, right, it's a different conversation. Your salespeople become order takers in a way right, just don't screw it up right. In a way, right, just don't screw it up, right, what? What can someone look for in the conversation with potential candidates that lets them know that their marketing is working right, like that, that they're you know how. How do you know if this, if this marketing, this attraction campaign is working well? Like, what are candidates saying? Yeah, I see you guys everywhere. What are they saying in the like, how are they? What's the response that you're getting from candidates? That's different from just a job board, I guess.
Speaker 2:So first of all, it's the. You get more responses because most of the job boards, while they say they have messaging, you're manually going in there and sending things. Whenever things are automated, people understand they're automated. But if they engage with those automations to start moving through and the fact that they are moving through the steps because the first pushback we usually get is if you do that assessment, how many people are actually going to do that One of the things we're really big on is having them do a one-way automated video interview.
Speaker 2:We've asked around our office and everybody here says they wouldn't do that. I'm like, well then, I said but do you really want to hire people who aren't willing to take the steps necessary for you to be able to understand whether or not there's somebody that you would actually like to have an interview with? You have to value your time, but you have to make sure that they're willing to take those steps. The thing is that some people don't feel comfortable. The ones that aren't going to do the steps are just not going to do them. But the way you know you're starting to indoctrinate them is if they say they do like the first part and they go. I don't really feel comfortable doing the video interview, and it's usually people that look more like me, that are older, that don't want to do the video interview Usually with your younger generation. They don't mind doing it, they see it, it's fine, they do it very quickly. But the fact that if they don't want to do it, that they'll tell you, rather than just not doing it, and the engagement that when you know your marketing is working, because people are moving through the process, because we get that a lot, so that seems like a very complicated process. How many people are actually going to make it through? I was like, well, because of the level of intent, you're going to get about half of them that are going to make it all the way through. That's because half the people are just filling out the form to see what the next step is, because you can't tell them everything right. So it's like we know that's going to happen.
Speaker 2:So the thing is, is that understanding? It's not about the quantity of leads, it's about what are the quality of the people that make it to that point that you're actually going to want to talk to them. And if they're being indoctrinated into seeing your communication, your branding those, then getting them and asking them in that video interview. So what is it you feel attracted you to ABC Roofing? And they'll tell you. The thing is, the other part of it is the reason I love that one-way interview is they see themselves right. It's like a FaceTime right. With FaceTime, you see the other person, person, but you can make your. They see themselves. When they see themselves talking, they tend to not only be more engaging but they also tend to be much more truthful. When they see themselves saying the thing which is kind of a, which is one thing we didn't really think about completely when we started doing it, it's like now it's like we get people.
Speaker 2:Well, my application, I said such and such, but really, and they'll tell you, it'll be more because you they'll be more truthful when they're looking at themselves in the mirror right. Exactly so that gets you to that point of being able to see that they tick the boxes, somebody who is going to meet the avatar of what you're looking for.
Speaker 1:Of the companies that you're working with that are doing the best at this. What are some of the things that you have found that are most attractive? Like is it? Is it like the, the, the culture, the like the, the events and the like. I'm just trying to think of like promotional things that our company will do, like oh, our sales reps are you know, we'll go on a trip every year or like those types of things. Is it, is it what? What are those things that people are like? These are the connections I'm making on this attraction level.
Speaker 2:So the first is paying benefits. But the thing is, everybody has good pay benefits, right? I mean the ones that don't. They kind of stick out like a sore thumb, but it's your, it's the benefits, the pay, pay, the branding. Those boxes tick. Now it is the work-life balance aspects of it. What is work Cause?
Speaker 2:Right now, with the younger generation, work-life balance is as important as pay and benefits. They want to know that they're going to be able to go to their kids soccer games or baseball games. They want to know that the other things that they're able to do to go to their kids' soccer games or baseball games. They want to know the things that they're able to do. And even now it's not just company truck provided. It needs to be a newer, reliable company truck, fully stocked truck.
Speaker 2:One of the things I had a conversation with a company last week that just joined us. They said we don't experience technicians that are tired of doing their own inventory because with the system we have in place, anytime they use a part, the inventory, it's automated inventory. They don't have to worry about it. All they have to do is swing by and pick up the parts that have been ordered to go on their truck from the parts that they've used. And what they've even gone a step farther is they have a delivery person that goes around and delivers the parts to them, to them on a daily basis, when they're on the, when they're on the job. So they don't even have to go to the parts house anymore. So it's not only great company truck, reliable company vehicle dispatch from home they start and end their day in the driveway but also now it's, like you know, on demand truck stocking, fully stocked break room.
Speaker 2:Some of those things that show them that they're going to have a great experience and not have not have the hurdles that they've had, possibly where they're currently at. People all the time say so it's like dispatch from home is a big deal, like, yeah, if you have to go to drive 30 minutes to the shop every morning before you start your day and that's those are that's work life balance yep, definitely so.
Speaker 1:Time and money.
Speaker 2:Time.
Speaker 1:and money is the beginning, right, that's the beginning, right, but that time aspect in that work, like getting their time back, buying their, is a big, like you know, contributor, I'm sure. And and and making sure that people understand that that's like this is this is part of it. So that work-life balance is awesome. How can, how can you stand out, how are, how are these companies standing out versus the competitors? I hear that Like that's amazing, like the, because it's people are thinking about the. What's in it for me Is there are there other things? I'm just digging a little deeper.
Speaker 1:Are there other, like kind of not just that, but like are there things that are like they're seeing something in these companies that is different?
Speaker 2:So one of the things that we do is we ask people about getting into like not just the culture, but how are they as a company. It helps us in creating. We're asking them like if your company was a movie, what would it be Right? Or a TV show, what would it be Right? So some kind of like oh, we were kind of like the office we all have, we have fun, we do so. It's like that's versus changing versus a company. That's like well, we're like a, you know, like a a seal team six operation. So but in in putting positioning that in the ads in a way that kind of tells the personality of the company, because people want to work for one versus the other. So it's not about standing out that they're going to attract everybody. It's standing out in a way that they're going to attract the people that are going to best fit into the type of company that they are, because every company has an identity.
Speaker 1:That's a good one.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Let's dig into that a little more, because I think that's the that's a big point is how do you filter through your attraction process? How do you filter people through your attraction process?
Speaker 2:So part of it is under looking at how they answer and seeing. Is that somebody, whenever they're answering the questions, and even whether it's written, whether it's in the profile that you're doing or in their video interview, the way that they answer the questions also fitting into? Does that fit what you're doing? Or in their video interview, the way that they answer the questions also fitting into? Does that fit what you're looking for in the culture? And one of the things that, like, we do right? So whenever we're interviewing somebody, we, we initially we tell them, we put on our video interview our core values and we put on there. So how do you feel about this core value? And we give. And so it happens instantly.
Speaker 2:Our number one core value is gives a shit. And whenever we say that when we're talking to somebody, I say, well, our first core value is gives a shit, tell us how you feel about that. And we feel like, well, I would never say that. It's like you're probably not going to be a fit, right? It's like it's okay, or they're like they went. It's like it's okay, or they're like they went. It's like oh, and there's probably and there's your people on here, if they heard me say that and they're like oh, then we're probably not a good fit to work with as a company, either as a as a customer or as an employee. So it's like identifying, looking at those core values, and it's, it's more than oh, no-transcript the theme of what they would look like as a movie and say we're very highly, we work as a really well oiled machine. Tell us how you would fit, how you're going to fit, into that mechanism, to see how they fit that or you know we really we are.
Speaker 2:We have a lot of camaraderie, we like to have fun. Tell us, tell us about to tell us how you will fit into a fun-loving environment that gets them to then see whether or not they're like. Well, I mean, it's mainly about what you know by their answer, if they look like, and then it's not an all be all, it's just making the decision through these multiple pieces of the qualifying, if it's somebody that you actually want to take the time to interview. The other thing that happens is like we have people that apply for a selling tech position and they take a we use a disc personality profile and they're very high on cautious thinker. Then they're not a selling tech, they're an installer.
Speaker 2:Right, you can tell, because you can take. You put a service tech in an installer truck or an installer. Right, you can tell, because you can take, you put a service tech in an installer truck or an installer truck in a service tech man. Both of them are unhappy and are pissed off. They're not in the other side, they're not in the other one. So it's you know. From that standpoint it's helping with that as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Finding the person that's right for the seat, that their personality fits the role for sure. Let's go into that qualifying a little bit more. What are some other qualifying criteria that you're using, say for a sales rep?
Speaker 2:So, on the selling side, the first thing we'd look at is their soft skills and their decision making, you know. So if they're going to like, if they're in the in the sales environment, if they come across a situation with a customer and a question they've never heard before, do they call their supervisor, do they phone a friend, do they watch a YouTube video, or do they muddle through and do the best they can? Well, it's probably what they need to do is say I would ask another question to find out why that question was important. That's what you're really looking for, because too quickly, salespeople jump to answering a question without understanding the question behind the question, and that's really what we're looking for. Is the write-in right? It's like I wouldn't do any of those. I'd ask them why did they ask that question? Or to get to the question behind that question, you know, just like you know, somebody says that. You know I don't like running ads on Facebook. Most people would go right into. Well, facebook is so good.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:So help me understand. Why do you think that?
Speaker 2:Why do you think that you don't like running ads on Facebook? You know, digging in a little more to get to that point. So it's from that standpoint. The other aspect on a sales side with a disc profile, a lot of people, oh, that's old school and that's like, yeah, but it also identifies the I for influence. So anybody in the sales role needs to be very high on influence. And the thing they don't need to be high on is D, because most people are like, oh, salespeople need to be dominant. No, they think if they become really high on that D, on that scale and dominant, they think that they should actually be the boss and so it's like no, you got to understand the balance of where that needs to lay in there. And now I said, having done this and helped hire not only hire over 4,000 people, we probably ran over 10,000 plus profiles, both of our proficiency, both of the soft skills and disk and marrying those, we have a pretty good idea of exactly how that should fit.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure. Let's go into, like, the nurture sequence a little bit. You know someone, so you're running ads, people fill out their application or submit their resume, I don't know. However, that process works, you'd said, like multiple touch points, right Calls, texts, like automations, things like that, like what is it? What is a? Because you know, I think about that from a. You know, from the marketing side, on a form submission, you have to follow up. You know, within the first five minutes you have to follow up. You know five to seven times, a lot of times, just to get that appointment book. Is it the same?
Speaker 2:Yes, it's identical. So the thing is, is that so, when you're looking at it, most of what we're doing is on Facebook and Instagram, right? So your intent is not as high as somebody filling out a form that's looking for a job. They're just seeing it, they're scrolling through, they're looking at the latest brisket knife or a golf training aid or you know so. Their kids, neighbors, neighbors, soccer kids, soccer team and then they see the ad for your company. They've, they go there, they put the information in to get to the next step. So all they can really give you is first name, last name, email and phone number. So the next step is you got to get them to fill out the application.
Speaker 2:So we have about a five to seven day nurture sequence. We have instantaneous like hey, thank you so much for your interest. Remember, the job has this pay, these benefits. Here's a link to go ahead and apply now and an email and within five minutes, a voice drop hey, this is ABC, this is ABC Roofing. We've got your information. We just sent you a link over by email and text message, whichever one you feel better with going into filling it out. Go ahead and get started. We look forward to hearing from you soon, 24 hours later. Hey Jim, just reaching out to let you know that the job has work to dispatch from home. Give them different tidbits in the message you can't make it a book, just different, highlights Different benefit.
Speaker 1:Fill out the application.
Speaker 2:Now we get down, we send them a picture of a dog. Hey, this is Benji. He's our mascot. Every time somebody completes an application, benji gets a treat. Go ahead and fill it out now. Benji's counting on you. It's marketing Now as soon as they do the application.
Speaker 2:Some of them do it immediately, Some of them don't do it for five days. We get down to day five. We're like hey, we've been sending you these messages for the last five. If you want us to stop, just let us know. Or if you want us to keep sending them, type one, if you want us to stop, two, if you want us to keep sending them, kind of thing. And then, once they do it, doing the video interview, hey, the director's on set, he's ready to yell lights, camera action, it's time for your big debut.
Speaker 2:It's not just hey, here's the link again, here's the link again, here's the link again. Because what most people do whenever it comes to messaging for marketing is basically it's hey, buy my stuff. By the way, did you see the link to go buy my stuff? You know what If you haven't bought my stuff yet? So here's the thing to go buy my stuff. Did you know we have stuff for sale? I mean, that's what the messaging is like and that an application. Did you see the application? But it's like no, you have to encourage them. You have to court them, so to speak, entice them, encourage them to go, take that next step and let them know what's going to happen. So, when you do the video interviews, hey, it's just three or four quick questions, We'll take you less than five minutes. Go ahead and click the link, Tip your hand when it gets to like. We do the disc profile, hey, it would take you less than five minutes to fill out the profile, but let us know that we're ready to move to the next step and get you. Move you to the head of the queue.
Speaker 2:It's the same thing as marketing, right? It's always getting them and making it so simple, Because what do we know as marketers? The confused mind always says no. So we have to make it easy and make it where we want them to do it. Not hey, you better do this or you're going to miss out. No, we are encouraging them with encouraging language each step of the way, and that's where I mean most people look at what we do. They call it like an ATS, right, An applicant tracking system. Really, that's what you want your system to do is track applicants. I mean, that's that sounds. How about? How about we have something where you have an applicant marketing platform, so you know something where you can amp it up, so to speak, and that's what we want to. We want to do is make it, because that's what we're doing. We're marketing and that's where we have to keep that in mind is, if you're not spending as much time, effort and energy to get and qualify candidates as you are to get customers, you know you're kind of missing the boat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, and that's there's a lot of opportunities for people right now. It, you know, you look at the unemployment rates in the job. You know there's a lot of stuff going on, but but, man, there's still a lot of opportunity People have. I think people have more choices than ever, right, like, and, and. So they really want to make a choice that for a company, that, that, that, that that fits who they are, what they want to do, their goals, all of those things. Now we have them through the nurture process. We you talked a little bit about qualifying and the criteria for qualifying. We talked a little bit about disc profiles and things like that. How can a business streamline the qualifying qualification process without sacrificing the quality? Like, is there a streamlining? How do you make it efficient? Because it's the time, right, a lot of it is the time. The owner is the person interviewing, doing these things. It's a time thing. How do we?
Speaker 2:streamline that. So the main thing is that you want to have them do multiple steps before you're even looking at it, right, because the thing is, yes, all of that takes time, but when you've had them go through three basically like we call them like qualifying gates, you know, it's kind of like a process where you get to this one. If they looks like a roofing company, right, a person you get a lead. You ask them you know, do you do you own the home? Nope, boom, they're out. Yeah, they own the home. You know, how long have you owned the home? How old is the home? Two years old, probably, not going to fit.
Speaker 2:So you kind of do the same thing with these gates, with with, if you're looking at the application, when they do the first step, whenever you know the first step in the process, and if it's a video interview and they get on there and they're applying for a sales job and they look like they just rolled out of bed or they're not wearing a shirt and they're sitting there in their car and it's like, yeah, there's no sense to go to that next step, so have it, go ahead and exit the process. So the only people that you look at are the ones who have completed all of the qualifying steps and have passed the qualifying step. So, just just like a lead, they own their own home. The home's 20 years old. They've seen water spotting on the ceiling. Okay, we probably want to go talk to them With this. They felt the application. They have a good work history and, after work history, they nail the video interview. They go through the skills assessment. It looks great. This fits the job that they're looking for. And even if it doesn't fit the job they're looking for, but they fit the last two, then maybe instead of being a service tech or a salesperson, they can be an installer or be a CSR or a dispatcher.
Speaker 2:So you don't want to look at them until they've done all the steps, because now you're not wasting. You're only looking at that and then deciding if that's the person you want to interview. That and then deciding if that's the person you want to interview. That's the main thing that you do is you're wanting to save the time of no matter who it is, whether it's the owner or a recruiter or the head of HR or just the ops manager, because he's going to be looking at him. You want to make it where they're only looking at the pieces of the puzzle, but we'll give them a leading indicator that it's somebody that's going to fit the avatar, because we want to make they got to make sure they fit the culture and the mission, because, really, what you're looking for Most, most companies have been in a position that we just need to get butts in seats, we're just going to get people in the van, right, but what you really want to look at and the way we classify it, is you really what you want?
Speaker 2:Is you want hearts and trucks. You want to make sure the person in that truck has the heart to provide the level of service and represent your company the way that you want it to be done. And the easiest way to do that is to not only have the qualifying pieces but then also interviewing them in a way that's going to let you know that, yeah, they have the heart to do that. And now, why do they want to come work for you? Making them not only qualify to meet the qualifications, but letting you know why they want to come work for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so what are some of those? Like what, what are some of the best hiring questions you've heard? Or, or like that, or what's a framework for it, or or what, something that that gives people like a like okay, because I think a lot of small business owners is, you know, roofing contractors, home service providers, things like that, and a lot of people started as a sales rep or they started on the production side and it's not like they have HR experience, right, and I always thought for years and years, I thought HR the hiring process is dumb. Years and years I thought HR, like hire the hiring process is dumb. Resumes are dumb, interview questions are dumb, like I always, just until I learned, oh my goodness, there's a science to it, there's a, there's like there's a reason that they're asking these questions. But I think that you, like a skilled, a truly skilled HR person, will ask, ask the right questions. I think, as a small business owner, we may just say well, what are your weaknesses?
Speaker 1:you know, what I mean and use like the standard kind of kind of fair that we've heard for years, but we don't know why we're asking that question. So what are some good hiring questions that lead to the why that that you're asking them, right?
Speaker 2:so the very first one because the thing is is the job interview. It's like a first date, right? The real person doesn't show up, right. So it's the second and third day to see where you start to really get to know each other. So the thing to do is to get rid of the chit-chat, small talk, and really sort of look at that and say you know what? We've looked at everything. It looks really good. So I've been asking them.
Speaker 2:So tell us why do you feel that this is the place of all the places in the county that you could, or city you could, work for? Why do you feel that this is the place that you want to come work and find out what motivates them? Because there's a wall, I can make enough money, or I really like the fact that, I like the way that your branding is. If they tell you the story of why you work there, then that starts to all of the reasons that they should. But if it's like, well, because I can make $2 an hour more than where I'm currently at All, right, so then we'll tell us how do you think the other, what do you, what do you like best about the company, then Instead of then kind of getting them to tell you and sell themselves, sell themselves on why they're working for the company. And then the one I like best is, whenever you know, I ask them so what's the what? What's the latest book you've read? And I'm like, uh, you know, even if it doesn't matter if it's an installer or a service tech, if they can't tell you the latest book they've read, it's like all right. Well, tell me what if you could read any book right now? You wanted to. What would it be? And kind of because you want them to be looking at things that they're doing to improve themselves, there's been like their greatest accomplishment.
Speaker 2:But then the whole we all know the whole thing of tell me about your strengths, tell me about your three strengths and tell me about your three weaknesses. And oh, oh, it's about all my weaknesses. People say I just am too dedicated to quality. Right, so take your weakness and make it a strength. The way I get around that and I got it from the book who is? Ask them. So you know, jim um, whenever I call your last two supervisors and I ask them what they feel your biggest weaknesses, what do you think they're going to tell me? It's not. If I call them, it's when I call them. What do you think? What do you think they're going to tell me? Your biggest weakness is because now it's like, hmm, you know and so, and you tell me it's a different answer, right?
Speaker 1:now they gotta really think about it. I think back to the book question. You could also ask them what podcast they listen to and if they say roofing success just hire them.
Speaker 1:It's an instant qualification button like this is a good person, just hire them. So add that to all of the interview questions. What podcast? And if they say roofing success, hire them. What I'm hearing, jody, is the attract and nurture and qualify as your marketing process and the hiring is your sales process. And the best process for sales, or what is sales? Sales is asking good questions, right, and so like. When we're thinking about this, it's we're marketing through and then we're digging deeper. We're finding the problems that they've had at other jobs, why they want to find out, why they want to work for you. If those problems stemmed from things that you may not want to deal with at your company, that may come to light, right, and you could qualify them as a prospect. But you know. So sales is asking good questions and that seems what, that seems to be what the hiring process is.
Speaker 2:And as an interviewer. Here's one more thing. As an interviewer, we tend to get to the habit of we feel so great about the company, we know so much about it. But it's a lot of times and I've seen this because we work with companies that have 23 locations and where we've had to kind of go in and see what are they doing, because some of them are really really good at hiring and some of them have a lot of turnover because they don't make good hiring decisions and what we found was that the ones that had a lot of turnover were the ones doing all the talking, because they were used to being in sales, they were used to like selling things and so really, in the sales process, you really shouldn't be doing all the talking. You should be asking the questions. So one of the things we had to get them to do and I teach this when I teach sales training, I do it everywhere and I have them write W-A-I-T at the top of the paper W period, a period, I period, t period and what that stands for is why am I talking?
Speaker 2:The person that you're interviewing should be doing the talking. All you should be doing is asking questions. You're getting them to sell you on why they should work for the company. You are not having your. Like I said, you are selling them on working for the company because you're the one asking the questions and the person asking the questions and is winning the person doing all the time. So you're asking the questions in that sales format but they're doing the talking, selling you on why they are a good fit to come work for your company and why the company is a good fit for them. It also shows you if they took any time to research to look at who they're coming to work for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that that's part of the. A good thing to do in the, in the interview process, is is dig a little further right? Why is that Right, like just why do you think that right? Like and getting them to express a deeper level of of of what they're thinking about. Right, like well you know, that's paid $2 an hour more. You have better, a better commission structure. Why do you want that?
Speaker 2:What does that mean to your?
Speaker 1:family, right, like, and then you know so. So that's what I'm hearing, man, that hiring process is sales. I love it.
Speaker 2:The other thing is I tell it, it's like you're Dr Fillett, really Tell me more about that.
Speaker 1:That's right Tell me more, tell me more.
Speaker 1:Tell me more. It's, it's, it's such an important thing and it's it's the same thing that you're doing with your sales reps. If your sales reps are throwing up information all over people, that's not sales, it's are they asking the right questions? That's what we're looking to do Now. To me, there's a reinforcement in the hiring process because, just like when you make a sale, you know when you make a sale, you know when you make a sale, people have buyer's remorse, right Is there? Is there a hiring remorse?
Speaker 2:right Is there a?
Speaker 1:job acceptance remorse, and how can you overcome that?
Speaker 2:So, and here's what we see happening again and again people get excited and they offer the person the position on the spot and then they say it's a Wednesday, we're going to offer you the position, you're going to start on Monday, and then they no show. It's like why would they not show up? They didn't show up. What we found is you're okay, everything looks good, we'll get with you in the next day or so. Granted, you don't want to wait a week because you wait a week. Don't want to wait a week because you wait a week. They're gone, they've taken another job. But let them know that you're, you're not just falling all over yourself to give them the job. You've got to think about it a minute. Then you contact them the next day to then come up with their start date. You send them an offer letter to get them to sign the offer letter, because now they're accepting right, they're accepting the offer. They're, they're basically entering into a contract that they're accepting the offer which indoctrinates them more into your business and your culture, that you do things professionally, and then from there, then they have so much more of a likelihood that they're going to take those next steps, because you shouldn't just be hiring them on the spot and they show up and start working Monday.
Speaker 2:There's some qualifiers that have to come into play. Right, they need to. You need to send the offer letter, but then they need to do. You need to pull their motor vehicle report, because if they have a DUI, it doesn't matter how, what a great salesperson or technician they are, if they can't drive, you can't, they're, they're not insurable.
Speaker 2:Then you know if you have a drug screening some do, some don't but you're doing a background check. You know, in fact, guess, not guess what. People don't always tell the truth on their job application, you know. And then those things need to come into play. They can still come and start work on Monday with the contingency of everything passing on those, but now they're more tied into it. They've gone through the steps of submitting the information with the background check, doing the drug screening. Now they're more again indoctrinated into showing up.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we always feel like, oh, we better make them the offer and catch them right now. No, let them know that you have options, right, it seems counterintuitive, because everything I've set up at this point is market to them, encourage them. You want to attract them, but you don't want to just jump at the first opportunity. You want to let them know that you have other options and you'll let them know if you've got some other people in the community to talk with and you'll let them know in the next 24 to 48 hours if it's going to be a fit that you asked them.
Speaker 2:So if, in the next 24 to 48 hours, we decide this is a fit, you know, are you? What does this feel like it's a fit for you?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So you both are saying yes, you feel like, if it's a fit, then the next step moving forward is to sign the offer letter. And this is probably a lot more granular than it needs to be. But I want you to be thinking about because we hear a lot they no-showed. And I hear that when I get on a call Well, I don't do sales calls I go through and understand what people do, I make recommendations of what they should do, and it's like the same thing is I hear that the people no show the interviews. They know they take the job but then they don't show up for the job and it's like what do you can, what can you do to circumvent those things from happening? Because for most people, if they could just reduce the no-shows on the interviews and reduce the no-shows after they've offered the job, they would probably have enough people. That's right. Now. One more thing I want to mention very, very quickly. Do you know what the average turnover in the typical home service company is?
Speaker 2:Like timeframe no. The percentage of turnover over the course of a year.
Speaker 1:Oh, I would guess it's definitely above 50%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like 67% turnover. Yeah, one of the things that can help reduce. I'm sitting in a big bay window and the sun's hitting, so the thing is that the steps you do up front can lead to them staying longer because, having making sure that they fit the culture that they are well, they are a good fit for being like the office instead of being like SEAL Team 6. All of those pieces and as you go through that interview process, the more they're indoctrinated and really get the fact that this is a great company and where they fit, the longer they stay. And so it's not about retention, isn't about the things you do after you hire them that is important but it's about the things you're doing in the process of hiring them. That can also lead to that, because if it's just like you go back to EOS, you know if they've talked about right person, right seat, you got to get it, want it and can do it.
Speaker 1:And if they talk about right person, right seat, you got to get it, want it, and the ENPS score is would you leave your job for an offer that's 10% more? Right Like and, if you like? What you're looking for is to create an environment that people are in the right seat. They like, they love what they do and they and they wouldn't leave for for 10% more Like that's. You know. Now you start getting into 20, 30, 40%. More people have to make different decisions. Right Like that's it.
Speaker 2:And one thing to keep in mind people would not usually they would not leave for 20 or 30% more pay to go to work for a company who has a bad reputation. And today, in home services, if you have less than 4.5 stars on your Google reviews, less than a hundred views and less than 4.5, people look at that as not good. They don't want it. I mean it's crazy that 4.5 is now not good, but because most companies you'll see have five, 600,000 reviews and 4.7, 4.9 stars and they look at that as okay. That's almost what it. That's. It's kind of like the standard it should be. Now, if you look at companies that cause we've made mistakes where we've, like, bought on companies that have like 3.9 stars in their reviews and and it just it didn't matter how many people that are our size or audience was, it's hard to get people to want to come to work.
Speaker 1:Same thing on the marketing side right.
Speaker 1:If you have a bad reputation online and you don't have as good or better a reputation than the companies around you, homeowners will not want to work with you, right, and so it's the same thing. It's a reflection, everything is a reflection. Online we're all looking in the same places is a reflection. Online we're all looking in the same places. I have another question that I thought of. We have marketing budgets for companies. Maybe speak to hiring budgets. What should a company allocate and how should they look at their hiring budget?
Speaker 2:What I would look at it is it's like if you're depending on let's just say you're hiring for one position, hiring for a sales position, and you're it's if you're needing to hire for for three or four people, you're probably going to be spending somewhere around $3,000 a month, including your ad spend on being able to do everything you need to do in order to not only get the candidates, nurture them all the way through the process of getting someone to be hired. And people ask us all the time what's the average cost per hire? It's like it depends on so many things. I mean we have companies that have 20, 20, 30, 40 locations and each location is different. Some locations we can get a hire for a thousand dollars of locations because a small population or whatever, or they don't have as big a brand and it's five or $6,000 to get a hire. But if you look at your budgeting around, they said for one or two positions around the $3,000 a month framework. That's pretty much where you're going to be. That's kind of the sweet spot. That's what has been on and off hiring, not hiring over the course of the year, somewhere in that sample.
Speaker 2:Now, if you have multiple locations, multiple positions, that obviously goes up, but there are economies of scale as well. So if you've got the same thing, you've got a location and you've got another location that's 100 miles away and you're going to be doing exactly the same thing, you're probably spending about probably around a third of that For the additional locations or the additional position. So there are some economies of scale because your branding is the same, the ads are the same, your process is the same, because once you have the process in place, your process is the same for each location. The ads may be a little bit different, but the process of your funnel is the same, so you can replicate those things. That's a lot more granular than you probably wanted but that's pretty much it.
Speaker 1:That's what a lot of owners need to hear, Just to get that clear vision of what they really need to be doing to have a successful hiring pipeline. And so I guess, to summarize or to wrap it up here, is you know, let you know how can businesses continually attract talent and build a sustainable hiring pipeline?
Speaker 2:That's just leaving it on right. You don't ever want to turn it off because you see, you know the whole thing from Glenn Gary, glenn Ross you'll always be closing and people. You'll hear the gurus in the industry. You know it's always be recruiting, you are always recruiting. It doesn't mean that you have to be full-on recruiting every step of the way, but you need to always leave it on, because what's recruiting is just like branding for marketing.
Speaker 2:Your recruiting ads become branding ads, but you turn them off. You're noticeably absent from the environment. You got to turn them back on. They have to ramp back up, just like anything in marketing. You turn it off, it's not turn it on and suddenly boom, here's a bunch of leads. They have to ramp back up. So the thing is always keep it on. If you don't need it right now, move it to the back burner. But keep the water bubbling, keep the boil, keep the, keep the faucet on. Don't turn it all the way off, because now, when you need to hire and you turn it back up, you also have a bench to pull from. You have leads that have come in during that low, slower time that you don't have to be as aggressive with, but they're still going through the process and now you can go back. Hey, guess what? Just like you do with your leads for customers, when you go back and you do it, you re-engage them. You do the same thing here. You re-engage those that came in whenever it was the slower times so that you can ramp back up quicker. So the thing is is just consistently keeping it there. If you change your branding, change your employment ads, if you whatever things you tweaks you make to your marketing campaign, make those tweaks to your employee marketing campaign, because and also change the ads, because people get banner blindness If they see the same thing over and over again, they just and I tell people this oh, they'll see it, they'll get it.
Speaker 2:No, we are creatures of deletion. And so the last instantly said what color is a stop sign? 99% of the people that are listening to this you say the word right now, they will say red. I mean sorry, you say yellow and it's not. They're red and white. I know they're red, but most people say that, sorry, it's not Back up. A yield sign, a stop sign, is red. A yield sign God, what a man. The sun is making me crazy. A yield sign? Most people say it's yellow. It's not, it's red and white. We're creatures of deletion. We saw a yield sign probably today or yesterday, and yet we still think it's yellow. They haven't been yellow since 1972. If they see that same ad over and over and over again, they don't see it anymore. They just scroll by. It's got to interrupt their pattern, to stop and look at it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, jody. It's been awesome. This has been another episode of the Roofing Success Podcast. Thank you for tuning into the Roofing Success Podcast. For more valuable content, visit roofingsuccesspodcastcom While there, check out our sponsors for exclusive offers, shop for merchandise and sign up for our newsletter for industry updates and tips. Also join the Roofing Success Facebook group to connect with other professionals and stay updated on the latest trends. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, like, share and leave a comment. Your support helps us continue to bring you top industry insights. The website link is in the description. Thanks for listening.
