BRAND POSITIONING: HOW TO CONVEY YOUR POSITIONING OF EXCELLENCE BY BUILDING THE INFRASTRUCTURE OF YOUR COMPANY WITH OVERACHIEVERS

Most entrepreneurs don't realize that recruiting employees is part of the overall branding strategy a company should follow.
Recruiting is a very sophisticated art and one of the greatest endeavours an enterprise can undertake.
During my career I have developed a simple principle that a company should follow to preserve its values and ambitions:

                                               “Quickly fire. Slowly hire.” ​

Most entrepreneurs don't realize that recruiting employees is part of the overall branding strategy a company should follow.
Recruiting is a very sophisticated art and one of the greatest endeavours an enterprise can undertake.
During my career I have developed a simple principle that a company should follow to preserve its values and ambitions:

                                               “Quickly fire. Slowly hire.”

Entrepreneurs and HR departments usually do the opposite.
They
                                                              “Quickly hire. Slowly fire.”

Any employment is in sales.

An employee, regardless of department, internally and externally represents the company’s core values.

By all means, he is included in your brand positioning, which is the specific idea you want to represent in the mind of your prospects.

It’s difficult when all your crew isn’t rowing in the same direction to reach the company’s goals; even a single member can undermine the solidity of the team, destroying your long term vision of excellence and over-achievement.

(Unless you simply hope to survive; in that case, your illusion will soon become your problem.)

As an entrepreneur you should see every single employee as an ambassador of your company.

In the recruiting industry, there is an assumption that the brand positioning of the company that a candidate previously worked for directly reflects the candidate’s own brand positioning.
If you have worked for a good company, you must be good.

However, this reflection will open a huge debate that I am not interested in addressing in this article concerning the old-fashioned criteria the recruiting industry and HR departments are still using to select the right candidates for an opening.

What a candidate does outside the company should concern you as much as what he does within the company.

Every single member of your crew is charged with staying aligned with the outside perception you want to convey in order to establish your brand positioning in the minds of those you are targeting as potential customers.

Excellence isn’t a matter of fact.

Excellence is a perception.

If you want to convey the perception of excellence (which should be your goal) you need to build the infrastructure of your company around the idea of excellence, thus involving excellent people (who are those that are perceived as excellent).

Even your accountant is a sales person in your company.

The credibility of your company is the direct consequence of the credibility of your employees.

People do not buy companies.

People buy people and the expectations that those people represent.

Good luck if you even want to think about disappointing those expectations.

How can you check the credentials of a candidate, then?

Well, this is a serious question.

You can’t fully understand the credentials of a candidate just by reading his CV.

When you hire an employee, it’s mandatory to check not just the CV and cover letter but also the public record of the candidate.

Here are a few suggestions:

1. Does the candidate have third-party recommendations or references?
2. What is the main feature discussed in those recommendations?
3. How does the candidate represent himself in social media?

Related to question number 3:

1. Does the candidate want to be perceived as someone who loves enjoying life?
2. How does the candidate love enjoying life?
3. Is he featured in pictures where he publicly misbehaves?
4. What kind of people does he get along with?
5. Where does he spend most of his time?
6. Does he post politically controversial statements?
7. If he says something about his political inclinations, you should be very careful: how does his political affiliation influence how he sees working in a company or being an entrepreneur?

These are all questions you can answer by simply checking out his social media profiles.
Social media can tell you in five minutes what someone can hide in a sixty-minute interview.

In spite of all the non-discriminatory policies, if a candidate publicly declares his likelihood to vote for a left wing party that considers entrepreneurs as exploiters who enslave people, you might not want this person in your company.

They will never work a single minute more than what is in the contract. They will always think that you are exploiting them and the paycheck will always be too low, thus allowing them to justify their laziness and be entitled to work less and less unless you pay them more.

They will believe that having a job is something they are entitled to rather than a privilege they must earn on a daily basis.

How about the social perception of your company?

You, as an entrepreneur, will be perceived as an exploiter who doesn’t pay people their real worth.

This is going to automatically be black PR for you and your company.

Your credibility will drop instantly without having the need of your competitors to discredit you.

You have made the clear choice to have an enemy inside your company.

How can you increase the perception of your brand positioning using the recruiting process?

It depends.

1. If you are a well established corporation: You will hire people with specific psychological executive traits, able to incorporate externally decided orders to be implemented for the overall benefit of business automation, described in a handbook of proven procedures. These people will usually come from top tier universities with values that directly reflect the brand positioning of the university they attended.
2. If you are a start-up or a SME: You will hire totally different people with specific psychological traits who are proactively looking for a position where they can be in charge of decision-making, people with a proven track record that certifies what kind of results a specific method has allowed them to achieve. You do not want people who try. You want people who know exactly what they are doing. They are usually loyal and will do whatever is necessary to see the company succeed. Being in charge of the decision-making, they know that the success of the company is the direct result of their success, and that their success is the direct result of the overall success of their company. Considering the fact that SME are probably 95% of the companies on this planet, you will need to find these rare people and pay them more than the average salary for the type of position you are offering. You can’t select these people by checking their grades. You cannot evaluate the quality of a candidate by his ability to repeat concepts, but by his ability to solve problems which have an economic repercussion. You need people that, before applying to your company, have already distinguished themselves for things they have done.

However, you can’t have peak performers and pay them like average employees.

You need to pay them a bit more and economically incentivise them when they reach specific, predetermined results.

Now…

How can you discover this rare breed of overachievers who are self-motivated and unafraid of doing the dirty job of hard work without any sense of entitlement?

Among your friends?

Among your family?

On the contrary.

Family and friends should stay as far away from your business as possible, because the emotional attachment you have will prevent you, as an entrepreneur, from making necessary business decisions.

You will find your ideal employees in the crowd of hungry guys, which is a very specific niche among the job seekers.

There are three questions you can ask to discover if they are among the hungry guys and not the average job seeker who will consider your company a central bank which prints money once a month to pay their salary without the need to bring additional and exceptional value into your business:
​

1. What is your lifetime goal?
2. When do you plan to reach it?
3. How can this company help you achieve it?

If it takes more than 20 seconds to answer the first question, you already know that this person doesn’t have a clue about his life, and he can’t rationally answer the questions that follow. This person will change the direction of his life according to the direction of the wind. He will never die for your company.

If he has a lifetime goal, he will also have a deadline.

Thus, be sure he gives you enough reasons how he can help you achieve your goals, and ask him for results that prove his ability to do so.

Overachievers, if you keep your promises and treat them fairly, will be the most loyal people you will deal with in your life.

They will help you because you will help them.

They will do whatever it takes to make your company a success, because for them your company is an instrument, not a destination.

These candidates will not be a ship that navigates the sea according to the direction of the wind without a destination.

They will adjust their path according to the wind in order to reach an established geographical port they envision in their future.

People who have a destination, who have a clear vision and a specific project, are the most valuable asset you will bring within your company, with the awareness that one day they might leave you to move on to the next step in their journey.

However, in the meantime your compound interest will have been exponential.

If you are really sincere in your statements...

If you really want to be different and make a difference…

If you want to fight to win, not just to try…

Then go out there and find them…

It’s your only chance:
​
if you want to be perceived as exceptional, look for the exceptional, go for the exceptional and treat the exceptional as it deserves to be treated. ​