19. Acquiring Talent

On this episode, Eric Forney and Michael Bounds discuss how powerful finding good talent can be, and the difficulties involved in finding those people. Eric talks about how there can be ego involved in thinking that you can train someone and essentially change them to fit the mold you need them to fit in, and how to attract talent, you need to have a method of dispersing who you are so that the right people can discover you. Michael shares how he started a job at a car dealership changing oil, but his boss immediately recognized he would be better as a salesperson, which leads to a discussion about how sometimes hiring talented people is more important than hiring someone to fill one job opening you have. They also explain the importance of not over promising things you can give someone when they come on board with you, because you want to find people who are a culture fit that want to give something to the company instead of just getting something from it.