CHAPTER 5
THE MAGIC HAPPENS WHEN YOU HIRE SUPERSTARS
To run a successful business, top-notch marketing is critical. You can’t do without it. High-quality products and services—definitely important. Good ideas—essential. But you can get all of these things, and more, if you have one thing.
I’m talking about the right people to help build, operate, and grow your business.
There are bad employees, mediocre employees, good employees, excellent employees, and superstars.
You must fire bad and mediocre employees quickly, give good employees a short window of time to become excellent, and treat your excellent employees well. I’ll explain what I mean by that a little later in this chapter. But first, let’s talk about superstars.
Superstars are dedicated and hardworking. They know their stuff. They understand and care about the business. But with their rare combination of intelligence and ambition, they can do something for you that you can’t do on your own. They can—and will—take your business to new levels of success … if you let them.
One excellent employee is worth three good employees. But one superstar is priceless.
About 10 years ago, I got a call from one of my clients. “Jim,” one of his junior copywriters—a young man I had recommended to him—was about to be fired.
I was surprised. I had spent some time with Jim and thought he had what it takes to eventually become a key person in my client’s business. I saw him as a future superstar.
I asked my client what happened.
“He’s hopeless,” he told me. “We haven’t been able to use any of the copy he’s written for us. What’s more, he’s insolent. And cocky.”
I admitted that the kid had a tendency to exaggerate his own importance, but I argued that he really did have a lot of natural talent.
“Let me work with him,” I said.
I had put my reputation on the line. I didn’t want to be proven wrong. And the moment I began working with Jim on his copy, I could see that he was as good as I remembered. He had an instinctive understanding of marketing. And within three months, he wrote a sales letter for my client that was the breakthrough of the year.
One success followed another. A year later, Jim had not only written a string of strong promotions, he had created several promising products. I told my client that he needed to make a new deal with Jim. I suggested that he let Jim start his own division and give him a significant share of the profits it would produce.
“If you don’t,” I said, “I’ll hire him myself to start a business for me. And in two or three years, I guarantee it will be making millions.”
My client grudgingly agreed. Today, he insists that he never had any negative feelings about Jim. He tells me my recollection of events is wrong.
In any case, Jim is now my client’s most successful division head. He has built his sales from zero to more than $100 million … with no end in sight.
That is what a superstar can do for your business.
Most of the successful businesspeople I know rely on one or several superstars to help them grow and run their businesses. An entrepreneurial business that has only one superstar (you) can grow only to a certain degree. If you are typical, you can develop a healthy $10 million business by yourself. If you are extraordinary, you can do significantly better. (I know one entrepreneur who singlehandedly built an $80 million business.) But with the help of a superstar, you can do it much faster and easier.
Your superstar will learn your secrets faster than you can explain them. He’ll take on any challenge. He’ll figure out solutions before he tells you about problems. And he will share (or exceed) your enthusiasm and vision.
When I first wrote about this subject, I was working with three such superstars. Each was running a business with revenues of about $10 million. Today, those companies have increased their revenues to $50 million, $55 million, and $60 million. And it was done with very little help from me.
From the very beginning, you have to keep your eyes open for potential superstars. The likeliest candidates are people who are already working for you. Which means you should never settle for second best when filling any position.
Everyone you hire should have:
Think about what executive recruiters do. When they call Person A with a job opportunity and Person A is not interested, they end up with three phone numbers or e-mail addresses for people Person A knows.
So when you have a job opening, think about all the people you know, especially when you’re looking to fill a middle- or upper-level position. If none of them are right for the job, call them anyway. They may know someone who is. Keep collecting names and numbers and making more phone calls.
If you are looking for more of an entry-level employee, try advertising in a trade publication. But do some research first. Read the ads the publication normally prints and make your ad better. Make your position sound rewarding and exciting. If there is room for advancement, mention it.
You can also use Career Builder, Monster, eHire, and other online job search engines. You’ll probably have to sift through hundreds of applications, 99 percent of them useless. But you may luck out.
Even better than advertisements … and far better than online job search engines … is networking. I look for possible employees everywhere I go.
When I attend industry events (which I often do), the cocktail parties are my favorite networking places. (You get a real feel for the personality and style of the people you meet.) When I give presentations, I tell my audience that I am available to talk about job opportunities. When my kids were younger, I’d talk to other parents while attending their soccer games.
You can network anywhere. Wherever there are people, there’s a chance to find someone who might be a good fit for your company.
When you meet a potential superstar, start a relationship. Strike up a conversation. Find out as much as you can about him. Show interest. Follow his career. Offer to help. When the time is right, drop hints. “If you ever want to do such and such … give me a call.” Say it every time you see him. The message will get through. Eventually, he will call.
When he does, hire him. Work with him closely for several months until you’ve seen what he can do. If he has the potential you’re looking for, it will be apparent. Invite him to share your future. Give him a place on your core team.
Superstars are rare birds. If they don’t know their worth when you hire them, they will soon enough. It’s much smarter (and cheaper in the long run) to treat them like partners-in-training from the get-go.
I recognized one young man’s potential in the late 1990s. At the time, he was making about $36,000. I convinced one of my clients to hire him. And within a year, he had devised and launched a new product that was more successful than any my client had seen in years. We immediately raised his compensation and gave him a sizeable share of the profits. Today, he generates more than $60 million in sales for my client. He makes a seven-figure income. He’s worth every penny of it and more.
I recommended another outstanding young man to a different client. This time, the client refused to put him on a partnership path. Why, I cannot say. At any rate, after two years of doing great work and feeling unappreciated, the young man quit and went into business on his own. He is now one of my client’s major competitors. He has sales of more than $30 million and has hired some of my client’s good people away from him.
It doesn’t matter where you are in your business-building process—even if you’re still in the learning phase—you need to start thinking about hiring superstars.
Keep in mind that superstars are few and far between. Don’t let scarcity tempt you to accept less than the best. You cannot make an ordinary person extraordinary. It will eat up all your time and end in failure.
Start your search now. Go to industry functions. Talk to people. Even if you can’t yet afford another salary, start looking.
“Hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it. … Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine.”
—David Ogilvy
Let your superstars know why you think they’re special. Don’t flatter them. Just tell them the truth. Tell them that you want them to rise all the way to the top. Spend time with them, quality time. Teach them everything you know. Don’t hold back anything. And, very important, give them room to grow. Superstars die in bureaucratic environments.
Specifically, here’s how to keep your superstars motivated:
The fundamental principle governing your relationship with your employees is goodwill. If you care about your superstars and want them to succeed, they will stay with you. If you see them simply as human energy to fuel your own engine, they will eventually leave you.
Remember that along with their many other positive qualities, exceptional employees are usually very perceptive. They will know if you are faking. They will understand that they are better off working with someone who wants them to succeed than with someone who wants them to help build his own career.
One way to make it clear that you value their contribution is to schedule time—at least once a year—to talk to them about the work they’re doing. Take each one out for a nice lunch and, while you’re enjoying the meal, ask questions like these:
Your goal is twofold: to find out if they are experiencing any problems, and to see if they have any ideas that will help you make your business better.
“When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be.”
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
You should have superstars in every facet of your business. When your future is at stake, there is no room for mediocrity.
Identify the key functions you need to meet your business goals. Then, when considering people to fill each of those roles, ask yourself honestly, “Is he really great?” If he’s not, look for someone else.
Having six people reporting to you is ideal. If you have fewer than that, your business won’t be able to grow as fast as you might like. If you have more, you won’t be able to keep track of what everyone is doing.
Having a six-superstar business is a wonderful thing. It will make your business six times stronger right away. But you can double that by insisting that every one of your superstars hires at least one superstar himself. And you will increase the growth potential of your business by 3,600 percent when all six of your superstars have six superstars working for them.
Some superstars don’t need to be told to hire superstars. Some do. Don’t leave this all-important task to chance.
If top-notch talent is limited to a single level—the one directly below you—your business will never reach its potential. New projects and possibilities will either fail or be put off indefinitely because your best people won’t be able to handle them.
When Michael Bloomberg was elected mayor of New York City he insisted that all top city managers have a “replacement” for themselves in their employ. I don’t like that way of putting it—it’s too negative. But the idea of having a superstar in your corner to take over your current responsibilities so you can move up and on to greater opportunities … that, I like.
Your initial six-superstar business might consist of the following:
Then, when all six of your superstars have hired their own superstar-in-training, your 12-superstar business would look like this:
Before long:
That’s a company full of superstar employees all working toward one goal: the success of your business.
I was a superstar for one of my first mentors. Through his careful tutoring, we were able to take a startup marketing business and grow it to $65 million in about seven years. His son took on my former role and helped us double that business in three years.
After we sold the business, I partnered with a brilliant businessman who saw in me a marketing superstar who could grow his business. And it did grow—from $8 million to $26 million in one year.
We then located six more truly gifted superstars. They helped us (they did more than help) grow the business from $26 million to $260 million.
“Start with good people, lay out the rules, communicate with your employees, motivate them and reward them. If you do all those things effectively, you can’t miss.”
—Lee Iacocca
I was once asked, “What’s the best investment you ever made?”
My answer? Undeniably, it was the time and money I invested in great people. Let me give you some examples:
When you invest in great people, the return compounds. Great people—well-taught and motivated—hire, train, and motivate other great people. And that expands your business and your wealth geometrically.
Investing in great people can not only make you rich, it will simplify your life. In the early stages, you’ll spend a significant amount of time on your protégés and get little back. But then they become independent and operate on your behalf without needing much (if anything) from you. And even if they strike out on their own, they will always be happy to help you out.
More than half of the wealth I have came from people I believed in. Put differently: If I had spent my career trying only to make myself rich instead of helping to develop the careers of others, I’d be a much poorer person today.