How to Attract & KEEP A-Players

 Think about your worst Oh shit moment in business this year. What early warning signal would've helped you see it coming 30 to 60 days in advance? This culture and these values must be as attractive for your A players as they are as a repellent. To your B and C players. What if you could build a business in the modern world as big or as small as you want without having to compromise the things that were the most important to you in the very beginning?

This is the Wealthy Consultant Talks podcast with Taylor Welch and Mike Walker. They share with you today their learning lessons from stories in their experiences over the past 10 to 15 years, and share with you right here, right now, let's. Into it, what is going on? My friends Mike Walker here. Welcome to another episode of the Wealthy Consultant Podcast.

I wanna share with you a powerful topic that we covered recently with our chamber clients, our highest tier consultant clients here at the Wealthy Consultant, and, um, I post a question to them at the top of our call every single Wednesday we get together. Mastermind, it's great. It's one of my favorite times of the week, but I started the call with this particular question and I wanna pose this question to you because if you resonate with it.

And more, more, uh, specifically if you resonate with what the answers we got back, I think you're really gonna like what we talk about today. And, and that question was this, I asked him think about your worst Oh shit moment in business this year. What early warning signal would've helped you see it coming 30 to 60 days in advance?

And the, the problem or that, that quote unquote, oh shit moment that a lot of, uh, people had this year was losing a valuable team member. And sure there were a lot of other answers. There were, you know, uh, watch. We should have watched, uh, spend and expenses better. Um, there, well, were are some others. I'm looking through here now.

Client satisfaction ratings. Um. But gosh, as I'm scrolling through all the answers, a large majority of 'em was actually losing a high caliber, a highly valued team member. And so that prompted my thought today as I wanted to bring to you is what does it look like to not only attract A players, but most importantly keep A players?

You know, I see it say it all the time with clients like. Eagles don't wanna, uh, scratch around in the dirt with chickens, right? They wanna be flying high in the sky with other eagles. Well, that's great. So how do we attract those eagles, but then make sure they wanna stick around? Right? Well, there's some psychological things that we need to build into the environment, the culture, the value system that we have as as an organization.

And we also need to ask a very simple. But powerful question, which is, uh, something I'm gonna share with you today. So, uh, let's dig right into it. But again, I found it very interesting that so many people really, uh, were, were kind of caught off guard by losing a highly valued team member. So what does that present?

Well, we have to solve for that, right? I didn't see it coming. If I could have seen this person was starting to kind of waffle and not be that excited, that really would've been a big lift for me. So how do we do that? Well, um, obviously listening. I think one of the biggest things that people forget is that just like we have a marketing system for our, for our prospects and our general market, right?

What we call our tam, our, our total addressable market, we have a marketing system. We have a, we have to capture attention. We have to retain attention, right? Well, the same is true for your team. Like you. We can't, as founders, as leaders, as people that run an organization, we cannot forget that. Yeah. Every single person on our team is being bombarded with new information, new opportunities all the time.

In particular, those A players, those people that bring so much intrinsic value that their, their opportunities are, are, are almost limitless. And that is kind of the, the crux of this issue, right? Is we want those A players and yet. The A players aren't exactly just sitting around waiting for opportunity.

They have so much thrown at them that they, they really can kind of call the shots. And so we really need to build an organization that again, not only attracts these people, but keeps 'em. So how do we do that? Well, there's a lot of things and I wrote down some notes I wanted to share with you. Um, building a, uh.

A culture where the best ideas win is a big one. You know, just because, uh, you know, maybe an idea comes from somebody in, in a, a lower department, if you will. Right? It's not the C-Suite guy or whatever. We, what we try to do here at the Wealthy Consultant is build an environment where. Uh, good ideas could be brought forward from, from anybody, and they're respected as such.

And what this does is it allows a players from maybe in, in the part of the organization that wouldn't normally be considered, you know, the decision maker tier, that doesn't matter. Like we want good ideas coming up through the system. And so. With our managers, we always wanna foster an environment where they're encouraged to encourage their team, Hey, don't forget these people on the front lines.

They are being exposed to a lot of different aspects of our, our customer base that we don't necessarily see on a day-to-day level. It's hard to see some of these nuanced conversations that we're, that they're having in some kind of spreadsheet, uh, that we're seeing, right? And so we always want to, uh, foster an environment where it.

It allows ideas to move up the chain and allow, even if they are just a, a, you know, like a support team member, you still need a players in your support team, right? And so we need to make sure that for at every tier, every level of the organization, that A players are nurtured and encouraged to bring their ideas to the table.

And why is that so important? Because when they see their ideas being acted upon and valued naturally, they're gonna feel wow. I'm bringing something to the table here. There's a sense of ownership that they have in their position. One of my favorite questions to ask, and Taylor asked me this a lot when he and I first started working together, was, how you feeling?

As simple as that. How are you feeling? And at first you're like, well, I'm fine, but No, but how is it going? Like, how are you feeling about what you are doing on a day-to-day basis? Well, it's really busy, but um, yeah, I feel pretty encouraged actually. This so and so did this, and I'm seeing good results from the team as they're working on this project.

Right. What you're trying to do is you're trying to kind of nurture a conversation, a dialogue with your team. How do you feel? Yes, the mechanics of your job, your KPIs, these are all absolutely important. But we cannot forget that we are spiritual beings, have an emotional interaction in a physical environment, right?

And so we wanna make sure that our people feel good. And one of the best things we can do is just simply ask 'em, how are you feeling? How are you feeling? Simple but potent to be sure. Um, another one is, uh. The, the idea that this mission is more important than the chain of command and, and that all a players should have the autonomy to be able to bring, again, ideas to the table and feel like they have movement.

And this is a big problem in particular, when you have a team that's bloated or you have too many, you know, B and C players in your team is. Your A players are being surrounded by people that don't match their frequency, and so it's, it erodes at their confidence. It erodes at their, their motivation. And honestly, these people are, are a negative energy source.

They're actually detracting from the, the power that this a player could bring. And so what we typically find is when you remove those C players and those B players from the organization, you would think, oh man, we have all these empty gaps in the org chart. Well, not typically. What you'll see is you'll see that it gives the, the A players room to breathe and it gives them the ability to take on initiatives and be more creative and really think outside the box about, okay, we now only have three people doing this when we used to have 10.

So what are we gonna do? Innovate rather than just throw people at problems. That's a big one. Um, another one I wanted to share is that we have to remember that. Y when you establish those, those high standards, that is one of the, the greatest gifts you can give an A player is when you raise the bar and you say, yeah, this is hard.

That's why you are here. That's why we selected you to be on this team. 'cause we know that this is, uh, there's a big wall to hurdle here, and we chose you as being the person that we think has the capacity to do it. It, you know, inside here at the Wealthy and Soul, and I've even talked about this before on, on a previous episode, but it fits in line here is is our ACE framework, our ACE framework, and basically it's a CE, right?

Attitude, competency and experience, attitude, competency, and experience. And what we do is we, we run. Every single person in the org chart through that three, uh, three scores, essentially one through 10, attitude rate, one through 10, competency one through 10. How, how effective can they be here? Do they have the capacity to actually do what it is that they need to do in this position?

And then third experience, right? You'll notice that we, we prioritize in that order as well. Attitude. That's the highest one, because I don't care if you are the, the hotshot guy that can get it all done, good for you. But if you are like a cancer to our culture, right? If you erode at, at the energy and the the momentum that we have internally as a team, we don't want you round, I don't care how good you are as a hotshot ace or whatever, the reality is that we are not going to allow any kind of negative energy into the organization that's not synchronous to our collective, you know?

Frequency, our collective mission at at hand, and we, so we simply protect the attitude piece very, very highly. Uh, competency. Same thing is like, Hey, look, we love you. We think you're a great person, but do your natural. Aptitudes are, are they aligned with the, the outcomes that are required in the role that you are?

This is a big one, especially when you might have the right per person but in the wrong position. This is a big one for you founders and the organizational design is a, is a key factor here, is you're like, wow, I really like them. They're great attitude on point. But man, they, it just feels like there's a lot of, they're pushing a, a ball up, up a steep hill, you know, in their role.

Well, it might just be that, that you have, again, the, the right person, but in the wrong position where they could thrive somewhere, somewhere else. Or if there's not somewhere else for them to go, it might be that they're. Either outgrown or not kept up with the demands of that role and they need to move on.

You know, I see a lot of, uh, hesitancy when I meet with some of our clients about letting people go. It's a sensitive topic, obviously. I understand that it's not comfortable. Um, but in every single instance, 100% of the time when we have to have those uncomfortable conversations about, hey. You know, we just reviewed your chart, which is something we try to do about every 90 days.

Say, look, this person was great, but the team that got you to base camp one might not be the, the person and, and part of the team that gets you to base camp two. Nothing is static in this world. Everything changes. And, and that means the adaptability and, and the evolution of your team is, is absolutely gonna be part of that.

And that's one of the hardest things that you will deal with as a founder, as a leader is. Having to navigate the complexities of those nuanced relationships that are inside of your team and realizing that man, they've been doing great. But now the, the, the call and the demand that, that this new, that this role requires, has changed or it's evolved into something else, or that just simply doesn't suit them.

And that's where you either have to migrate this person over into a new environment in Interdepartmentally or simply, you know, transition them out in a, in a healthy, respectful, uh, way that gives them the ability to go excel somewhere, somewhere else. One of the worst things you can do is hold onto somebody.

That is a good person but not performing well because you like 'em. That's one of the worst things you can do for 'em. It is, is not treating them well by holding onto 'em just because you're like, well, we like them and we don't wanna let them go. That's, that's actually holding them back 'cause they could actually thrive somewhere else.

You need to go let them be planted in other ground and that where they can grow, uh, to their, to their own next level. Right. Even if that means not being with you. And so again, there, there are some big things here that, um. You know, are not always easy to navigate. But I wanted, I want to end with this and the, the, the idea being that you must have a, a fundamental and structural set of culture and value statements built into the company.

These are like the d and a of your organization, and the very day that somebody onboards with you, they need to be presented with these culture statements, mission statements of value propositions. Like what? What do we stand for? Because if you don't know what you stand for, you'll fall for anything. And I wanna make sure that when you have a new person come onto the team, that they immediately know, wow, okay, this is what it looks like to be part of this organization.

This is what it feels like to be part of this team. These are the expectations, this is the identity that I need to assume. To perform well and to fit in here. Here's the piece I'm gonna leave you with though. This culture and these values must be as attractive for your A players as they are as a repellent to your B and C players.

You should have people that onboard with you and tap out, yes, you heard me right? You should have people that come in and then realize, whoa. This is a different level. This is rarefied air that I don't think I'm, I'm prepared for, and I don't think that I can thrive here, and that is 100% okay. In fact, when someone taps out here at the Wealthy Consultant, we celebrate them.

We celebrate internally as a team. It's not like cheering because they couldn't make it. It is cheering because it means that our culture is doing what we want, which is to protect and fortify our brand, our voice in the market. And ultimately the internal. Comradery and culture that we have as an organization, you have to protect that.

You must keep the wall high because for every single C player and B player that you bring on, you are eroding at the performance opportunity from your A players. So I just wanna encourage you. Do not hesitate to raise the standards. Your A players will rise to meet it and your CS and B players simply will not be able to keep up.

And that's okay. You wanna celebrate that? All right, love you guys. Thanks for joining me today. I hope this helps drop in the comments too. If there's any instances of, uh. Getting rid of transitioning out team members that you would like help with or experiences that you'd like to share. We're all about knowing what's on your heart, what's on your mind as a business owner, a CEO, a founder, a leader.

We would love to help address those questions in future episodes. All right, take care guys. Cheers. We'll see you on another episode. Soon.