Ryan Englin on Small Business Pivots: Hire Better People Faster

I went on Small Business Pivots with Michael Morrison to talk about hiring, retention, and the people processes most small business owners never build.

Michael asked me where it all starts, and I told him the truth. My dad was an owner operator. Worked 12-hour days six or seven days a week. I watched him grind as a kid and swore I'd never do it. Went to corporate for over a decade. Hated it. Started my own business. And then I realized my dad's problem was never a lack of customers. No one ever taught him how to run people processes. That realization changed everything for me and became the foundation of Core Matters.

We started with the very first hire. Michael asked when an entrepreneur is ready, and I told him it's more mindset than process. Most entrepreneurs want a clone of themselves. That person exists. They're your competition. They started their own business. So before you bring someone on, sit down and define exactly what you need them to do. If you can't articulate the specific tasks, how you'll keep score, and what success looks like, you are not ready.

Then we talked about finding the right people. I reframed it the way I always do. Stop looking for people. Start attracting them. When you just look, the only thing you compete on is pay and benefits. Nobody knows you. Nobody trusts you. But when you put your culture out there, your vision, your career path, you give people a reason to choose you that the big companies can't match. That's the heart of recruiting as marketing. Your job ad is an advertisement. Your careers page is a sales page. Your interview is the sales process. Treat it that way.

Michael asked where to put all of this. Website. Social media. Review sites. I told him to stop making social media 100% about customer acquisition. Talk about where the company is headed. Your customers want to know you have a vision because they want you around next year. And your future employees are watching the same channels. If your Yelp reviews are average or negative, candidates see that too. They think if customers don't like working with this company, neither will I.

We spent real time on onboarding. I told Michael that onboarding starts at application, not on day one. Ask anyone who's married if they remember their first date. That first interaction sets the tone for the whole relationship. And I told him to stop faking it. If your business is a little messy, own it. Tell the candidate the truth. The second you put up a facade, you set a trap for yourself because they will find out. Then they leave and you blame them. It's not their fault. You faked it.

I walked through the alignment meeting, which is what we build into our four-stage interview process. Before anyone signs an offer letter, sit down and get every expectation on the table. Both sides. What does "on time" mean? What happens when overtime hits? What are the deal-breakers? When expectations are misaligned, that's when people quit. Every single time. And if you're hiring friends or family, this step is not optional. It's survival. The lack of clarity is what destroys those relationships.

Michael asked about A players. I told him the truth. If you look around your team and see no A players, you probably have a D player you're tolerating who is pulling everyone down. Your best people already know who the dead weight is. When you keep tolerating low performance, your A players read that as you don't care. They stop performing. Or they leave. Get rid of the D player and watch your A players come to life.

We talked about letting people go the right way. My test is simple. Will this person be surprised when I fire them? If the answer is yes, you still have work to do. No one who gets terminated from your company needs to be surprised. That means you haven't communicated, haven't held them accountable, haven't put them on a performance improvement plan. A PIP is not a corporate compliance tool. It's a clarity tool. Here's what I need. Can you deliver it? Yes or no. Nine times out of ten, the person will leave on their own once they see the expectations clearly.

I shared something I tell every business owner. Spend a third of your time on culture. You think that's a lot. You're already spending that time. You're just using it to put out fires because you weren't intentional about culture in the first place.

We covered the Core Fit Blueprint, the seven-phase program we take every client through. Phase one is stop the bleeding. Phase seven is scale with confidence. I told Michael the truth about timelines too. Rome wasn't built in a day. These problems didn't happen overnight. They're not getting fixed overnight. But they are fixable. We usually tell people three years of committed work. Some clients have been with us eight years because the business keeps evolving.

I closed with the one thing I tell every owner. Care about the things that are important to your people. Their growing family. Their marital struggles. Their kid's grades. Their health diagnosis. When you disconnect from the real life stuff, they disconnect from your business. Care about what matters to them, and they will care about what matters to you.

If you liked this conversation, I go deeper on all of these topics on Titans of the Trades.