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Priscilla Shumba: There comes a point in business where you, the founder. Realizes that working harder stops being the answer. There's a level of growth that starts demanding a different kind of decision, and often that decision is people. And today I'm joined by Alec Broadfoot founder and CEO of Vision Spark, who has built a career around helping entrepreneurs make better leadership hires.

He's a former COO and integrator, a frequent speaker and founder in Leadership circles, and the author of Hiring Your Right Number Two Leader. A book focused on the most important hire many founders will ever make. So if your business still feels too dependent on you, this episode will help. And by the end of our conversation, you'll have a practical understanding of what the right number two leader does, why founders so often miss on this hire and how to think about building your business.

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Priscilla Shumba: Welcome to the Entrepreneur's Kitchen, Alec Broadfoot. We'll jump right in, you help founders make the most important hiring decision for their business. Tell us your story and why this became your mission.

Alec Broadfoot: Yeah, so about 20 years ago I had a mailing and printing company, and we were doing really well. We were super profitable. We were nominated for Ernst and Young Entrepreneurs of the year. We put some competitors out of business. Based on how we were doing things, we were just efficient and timely.

We would pick up mail from the major companies here in Columbus and accurately process it and have it to the post office that evening. It wouldn't be uncommon for us to do between 200 to 300 thousands pieces of mail within about a five to six hour period. And so we were just, we were killing on all levels except when it came to hiring and when I looked at my numbers [00:02:00] and, it was some.

Humbling because we fired about seven outta 10 people we hired. And I finally, I just said, this can't be the right way to do things. so I reached out towards a mentor of mine and I said, what am I doing wrong? He asked me if I was using any sort of data or science or assessments in our hiring process, and we weren't.

So I started including an assessment tool and our numbers flipped. instead of us firing seven outta 10 people, we actually retained seven outta 10 people. this assessment was just tremendous and were using a version of it. Right now in our search practice. So it's that strong, an assessment.

a few months later I needed an office manager and we went through a number of candidates and I finally interviewed this woman who just hit the interview outta the ballpark. And, 20 years ago I did not know how to interview and she just, she nailed the interview. I had her take [00:03:00] the assessment.

And the assessment the results came. Back Horrible. I'm like, this can't be right. It said that she was gonna be a slow learner a low attention to detail and, not able to work with numbers said that she would be a social butterfly and very insecure and Just not a good fit.

I'm like, this can't be true. So I reached out to her references and again, I didn't know how to ask really good reference questions like I do now. And they all said that she was good. And so I hired her and within a couple of weeks we fired her. Everything the assessment said was spot on. She had low attention to detail, making mistakes left and right, couldn't grasp basic concepts.

Things went through one ear and out the other. She was never at her desk. She was always socializing. Needed tons of affirmation and so I'm like, never again will I go against this assessment. Fast forward a few years, I sold my interest in that company and I started doing consulting, helping entrepreneurial companies.

Improved their cash flow of profits, and I saw that a number of them [00:04:00] had some major people issues I started addressing those and they started making some changes. And so in 2012 I decided to start Vision Spark, which is my company now with a passion of helping entrepreneurs find and hire great leaders.

that's how I started. It was all from the concept of using assessment tools. I saw my colleagues making the same hire mistakes I was making and I said, we have to do something incredibly different. And that's why I started Vision Spark.

Priscilla Shumba: I can see a person who's quite charming, when you're talking about the hire that you made. See someone that people say, oh, she must be great, but what do you do when that tension the gut feel and the assessment to people who are in that space where it's maybe there's potential or you try to reason when you like someone or they come across in a way that you think there's a lot of potential there.

What would you say to that entrepreneur? 

Alec Broadfoot: You don't wanna hire for potential unless you have a proof on paper. There's a lot of individuals that hire for potential and are very [00:05:00] disappointed. One of my friends. My colleagues Chris Johnson, he's also in the search and recruiting space and he's I am done hiring for potential.

And it's hard because I think as humans we like to hire people that are a lot like us. We tend to like the person we interviewed or we have compassion for them. We want to be a hero. We want to see if we can help them. We wanna see if we can make them happy, 'cause that'll make us happy. And those are all bad hiring mistakes.

I always say trust your gut when your gut is telling you not to hire the person, but don't trust your gut when it's telling you to hire that person. You really need data, facts, assessments, need to know how they think, their personality. Some strong interview questions. It'd be great to have some other people help you in the process to make that decision.

Some entrepreneurs admittedly say they're really bad at hiring, they won't even allow themselves to hire without a team around them.

Priscilla Shumba: , Because hiring is so important, why [00:06:00] do you think we've put it as, something that's not as important as everything else, as the marketing, as following cash flow and all those kind of things, and yet it's really key to making everything else work.

Alec Broadfoot: Yeah, I think a lot of people think they're a good judge of character and, they think they're good at hiring. But when you look at their track record, if you were to say, out of the last 10 people you hired, how many would you rehire, knowing what you know now? And most of the time the answer is two or three, right?

So you're in that 20 to 30%. Gallup, the organization, they do a phenomenal job of surveys and they found that. There's an 82% failure rate amongst companies hiring the right managers. And so that's, two outta 10 roughly. Success rate. In line with those numbers. So for some reason we tolerate that, we wouldn't tolerate A-A-C-P-A firm that was only 20% accurate.

But when it comes to hiring, oh yeah, they're two outta 10. That's pretty good. And really it [00:07:00] shouldn't be.

Priscilla Shumba: That's quite alarming. When you hear the statistics. Maybe let us know what you mean by the right. Number two, let's talk about the concept in your book, maybe talk us into.

Alec Broadfoot: Yeah. All entrepreneurs are super talented and we can, and I'm an entrepreneur myself, and at some point we hit a ceiling where by working harder, we can't grow our business and we need to hire individuals. And so if we look at what we're really good at most of the time it's inventing, creating, building relationships.

Things along those lines. if you look at the percentage of time that you're spending in that area, you realize that there's a lot of time that you're not you're spending time managing people meetings holding people accountable, communicating, refereeing, arbitrating dealing with customer issues, employee issues.

And that is not in most entrepreneur's unique ability. So the whole concept is you hire a number two to run your company. There are some really good books that talk about this. One is called Make the [00:08:00] Noise Go Away. Talks about the power of a number two. Another is called Rocket Fuel by Gino Wickman.

They talk about having the visionary and the integrator, so they call the number two an integrator. So a lot of our companies do run on EOS that's talked about in that book, rocket Fuel. So when you have a number two that can run the organization, they are managing your leadership team. It frees you up to grow your business.

And so that actual investment. In that number two is an investment is not a cost. You'll get 3, 4, 5, 6 times the return of what you're paying that person. And so it's a wonderful decision on getting more freedom. There are a lot of our clients that have gotten a lot more joy back. We've had a few clients that were ready to throw in the towel, close their business, but they hired the right number two, and their business is thriving and they're happy and joyful.

they have more time with their family and to pursue other [00:09:00] passions their energy is back. That's something that I personally realized when I hired my number two in 21, that I have a lot more energy because I can spend more time doing what I love to do and not in, the day to day operations and day-to-day management. 

Priscilla Shumba: in the book you mentioned how tiring it is to go from visionary to operations to back to visionary, I mean, reading it you just broke my brain with that. I can totally feel that now to the person who says, how do I know it's the right. Time for the number two because I know in the beginning, maybe entrepreneur, you're doing everything and you get pretty good at decent at doing everything , things are happening.

How do you know it's not time for me to look for a number two? 

Alec Broadfoot: it's really about your growth and how you want to grow as an entity and you want to grow smart. And in a fun way, or do you want to grind it out? So if you're starting to lose sleep at night, if you're losing sleep because of people issues or customer issues or process issues, or day to [00:10:00] day issues, if you're saying, man, I just, I can't do this.

If it's gonna get done, I gotta do it myself. You start to see your joy tank, if you're feeling fairly miserable in your day to day, if you're not wanting to. Go into the office fight the fights. Those are good signs that You need someone else to hire. It could be a number two.

Maybe you start out with a really strong assistant because they say in Strategic Coach, if you don't have an assistant, you are the assistant. It's really good to have a good assistant. And then maybe it's time to hire a fractional number two or an interim number two, someone that can give you a day or two a week.

But generally speaking, if you need someone one or two days a week, you can probably use someone full-time. And most of the time when we partner with our clients, we can find them a good number two for what they would spend on someone one or two days a week. 

Priscilla Shumba: I think of the entrepreneur who's hesitant. Now they know that they're at that point where it's I need help. I really, this is. [00:11:00] Becoming not fun anymore, but they're also hesitant to see, there's something they've built to hand it to someone or to trust it in the hands of someone.

Maybe you can speak to that, 'cause I'm sure you've seen a lot of that. Or give us a story about and how entrepreneurs can really think about that.

Alec Broadfoot: Yeah, so I remember one client she gave me a call. She knew she needed a number two. The consultants around her were saying, you need someone to help you hire a number two. She reached out to me and said, could we have a conversation? I said, absolutely. I just love helping entrepreneurs that are just on the fence, and we identified what her obstacles were.

Number one, there was a monetary obstacle, if I'm gonna pay this person, am I gonna get the money back? There was also an obstacle of the. We're not sure who they were gonna be after they hired them. They, their identity was in the craziness and what am I gonna do if I don't have all these fires to put out and all these [00:12:00] hours to work?

And we talked through that and once she realized that man, she's gonna be able to be super successful, have a lot more impact if she didn't have to focus on the day to day, and so it's going through each of those, I call it head trash. I don't know if you've heard that term before, but going through the head trash, what's the obstacle and what would be a strategy to overcome that obstacle?

And so yeah, for those entrepreneurs out there that are on the fence just do it and do it right because there's so many times that you do it wrong and it ends up costing you, several hundred hours of time. Several hundred thousand dollars. But if you do it right, your business will thank you for it, and you will see the success. 

Priscilla Shumba: I can imagine for many entrepreneurs maybe you don't know anyone in your immediate circle that you think would be a right number too, which is, why people come to you at Vision Spark for that. Maybe talk us through that, because I think a lot of people probably think I don't know anyone who I feel could take [00:13:00] over. Yeah.

Alec Broadfoot: most of the time we think, who do I know who can be a number two? So maybe you're looking at your friends or family. Maybe you're looking someone already on your staff. And most of the time they are not the right person. So we know that we see a lot of hiring mistakes, and that tends to be when you hire from a pool of one or a very small pool.

you ideally want to choose from a large pool of qualified applicants, and then you have objective data along the way, and that's how you make the right decision. So if you're going to choose from a pool of one or someone on your team, that's generally. What you're not supposed to do, there's that old expression that you'd rather work with the devil, than the devil you don't know.

And when it comes to hiring nine times outta 10, it's better to find someone from the outside and bring them in because you'll get a much more qualified, much more talented individual. 

Priscilla Shumba: In the book you mentioned a couple of famous number ones and number twos. .

Alec Broadfoot: Yeah, so you look [00:14:00] at, Steve Jobs he was the visionary, right? He wasn't excelling at running the organization. doing the day to day, he was the visionary, inventing, creating what the customers want, the client experience, all that. And then, apple fired him at one point and then brought him back.

apple was on the verge of bankruptcy, and they said, we need a true visionary. And so they had hired a manager who was managing them into the ground and they said, we actually need a true visionary. And so Steve came back and he was able to create an invent because of that they took off.

if you can have both a really good visionary entrepreneur and a good number two, sky's the limit. And so, you know, you see that in a variety of organizations where you have. One person that likes the limelight, one person that likes to run the backstage, right? You have a front stage person and a backstage person.

And that's really the ingredients of a successful partnership. 

Priscilla Shumba: when you're looking for the right number two, what [00:15:00] sort of traits are you looking for commonlyin a number two.

Alec Broadfoot: yeah, so we've done hundreds of these searches and we have found that there are indispensable traits that each of the number twos have. one of the big ones is their problem solving ability. And so we know that. Really good number twos can problem solve. They have good strategic thinking and problem solving skills.

They can innovate, which is key. And that's becoming more and more apparent. It's almost its own separate category, but I would put that under that same heading. And so they need to have a high mental acuity, their learning speed. They need to be able to process information. Multitask. So those are things that we look for.

We actually have an assessment that we use it's called the TIP assessment, which is short for talent impact profile that measures someone's learning style. It measures their mental acuity.. And then we want to make sure that they have good organizational skills and [00:16:00] oftentimes.

Individuals, candidates can pretend or fake it, that they have good organizational skills. And that's something that a true interview and an assessment will find out. And so you want someone who's organized good time management skills they can plan ahead, they can anticipate they value planning, they stay with the plan.

Those are really good traits of a number two, someone that on the opposite side that likes to wing it. They don't really value planning. They don't stick with the planning that's usually. Not a great ingredient. And that's actually common for most entrepreneurs and visionaries is to be more on the disorganized side.

And so if you hire someone like yourself and oh, this person thinks on their feet and they can adapt, and you're thinking this is a great person, when in fact you really need someone that, Hey, we're gonna come up with a plan and we're gonna stay with that plan. So they're all about those.

Quarterly planning sessions, annual planning sessions your weekly meetings, they're all about that. Another [00:17:00]trait is that they are really good communicators. And so they don't mind communicating several times using different means to communicate. They're very articulate. So that's another trait.

There's eight indispensable traits. And so those are three of the eight that we're looking for. And so there's about five more that we look for. And if we don't see them in the candidates, we will not move them forward in the process.

Priscilla Shumba: It's so much that often you don't think about when you are hiring. I wonder, Alec,, for the founder, who's struggling between, am I a visionary? Am I an integrator? And for those who may be, it is best for them to be a number two. I don't know if you've come across that situation 

Alec Broadfoot: yeah. So there are people that are talented in both areas. I think.

Oftentimes humility plays a part, right? So if you're truly honest with yourself, you'll know what you want. There was a woman that I've known for years and she was one of my entrepreneurial [00:18:00] friends integrator. She ran that business and whenever I would speak to her, I would see that she's just a visionary.

I said, you're a visionary in an integrator's clothing. And she's no I don't agree with you, Alec. Why would you say that? I said you're a very good integrator, but I see you ideating. I see you creating things. I see what you're doing on the side in your free time that you're creating these communities.

You are a visionary. We probably had that conversation three times over a five year period. And a couple years ago, she reached out to me, she's Alec, you were spot on. I truly am a visionary and I did not want to believe that I wasn't a good integrator. But I truly am a visionary. And if you're not sure, there's an assessment called the Crystallizer Assessment.

It's on the EOS worldwide website. That can help you. I would encourage you to be super honest with yourself because you could make the right choices that would essentially make that questionnaire a little bit biased. And I would ask yourself, where am I most happiest?

what [00:19:00] can I do all day, every day? What will I never get tired from? where would I continue to get better and better? So those are ingredients for someone who is looking, should I be a visionary or an integrator? 

Priscilla Shumba: I wonder

When you hire the wrong number two, what do you see as the common pitfalls that make that partnership with the right? Number two, fail. Yeah,

Alec Broadfoot: Yeah, so we don't often. Hire, the wrong number two for our clients. So we actually have a 98% placement rate and a 96% retention rate. So we are very accurate. If there is an issue, generally it's not on our end. Generally it's on the client's end where their culture is pretty dysfunctional. The visionary was micromanaging or the visionary was the exact opposite. Very much an abdicator. The visionary did not communicate what success looks like. They were not willing to meet with this new hire, this new critical hire on a consistent [00:20:00] basis. So that's usually where it goes wrong.

It's usually in the visionary standpoint. So I would encourage visionaries to be super clear, super intentional take the time. To meet with this individual once they're onboard, and every week at minimum for two hours at minimum in their first month, it should be every day for two hours and maybe once a week for four to five hours.

And but that's where we see the mistake often, is that visionary who makes the wrong mistake if for some reason we did make a mistake they probably did not have one of the eight traits of an indispensable. Number two. So there was one of the eight traits that was off. and so usually that doesn't happen because they know that I would be pretty upset if they sent someone through the process that didn't have the eight indispensable traits.

Priscilla Shumba: I'm also thinking of people who've tried to do this on their own. Alec, I'm thinking of the person who maybe has a child that they're sort of groomed to take over their business and they felt okay, I can now step away and let's. My son or my daughter [00:21:00] run the business.

For that person who, doesn't have that specialized knowledge that you have at Vision Spark, I'm assuming they've grown up in the business or been groomed for the business or something like that to that person who's wondering why, is my son, my daughter not ready?

Or why is this not working? 

Alec Broadfoot: Yeah, no, I think it's great. I have three children and it'd be great someday for one of them to take over the business. They're pretty young right now. I would say if you're considering that, have them take the talent impact profile assessment. We can compare the results to several thousand other.

Visionaries or integrators and see how they're gonna do. So you're gonna know their strengths and their weaknesses. If you know their strengths, then your productivity in the organization's gonna go higher because you'll be able to delegate the right things to them. And then you'll know their weaknesses.

You'll know where should we have some training and development in their career. It's not uncommon for there to be an interim strategy. So for example. There's a company here in Columbus. The dad wanted to retire. [00:22:00] His son was in his late twenties and there was a huge gap between him and his son in terms of their ability.

He hired a president to come in the organization, run the organization, and mentor his son, and so that was about 10 years ago Now, 10 years later, that son is a phenomenal leader. Because that dad had the foresight to say, Hey, my son's not ready. I'm ready to retire. I'm willing to invest and bring someone in.

And it was a great decision. the business it's been great. they've taken off and doubled their sales and they're having new products and being able to really help their customers and their needs. 

Priscilla Shumba: Yeah, when you talk about that process, preparing someone for that leadership, that does take away all the just hoping that someone is ready. So thank you for that. A lot of founders, intuition is big a lot of entrepreneurs, they go on gut feel a lot.

So for you to say, oh, don't follow the gut [00:23:00] feel when you're hiring, .

Alec Broadfoot: Yeah, we, I mean we, entrepreneurs, we do so much based on emotion and gut and, we've made it this far on that. And I would ask yourself, how many times has your gut been right when it comes to people? Look at that, do an inventory. Lately I look at my number two, who's been with me almost five years now, and there's probably been a dozen or so times where we've disagreed.

And I would say, I put my foot down as the owner, investor, visionary. said, Hey, we want to go this direction. And I've been right maybe 25% of those times. if I look at where I relented and allowed my number two to make the decision, he's been right about 80 or 90% of those times.

I think it's okay to rely on your gut, but you gotta have data. If you're looking at a candidate and you're like, man, I really like this guy, or I really like this woman, and they have a two in learning [00:24:00] style, their mental acuity is a two out of a nine. I don't care how good your gut is, you do not hire this person to run your business.

They are not gonna have the critical thinking skills, the problem solving skills. Or, your gut's. Like, well, I think they'd be really good at process and implementing processes. And creating processes. But if you look at the assessment and the assessment says, man, they're gonna be horrible at this.

You gotta go with the assessment. There's a lot of. Research that went in and put together an assessment. most assessments are hard to fail um, and some assessments can be gained. sometimes people can take assessments, so I'm gonna tell 'em what they want to hear.

So our assessment actually has a BS meter in it to see if you're being open and honest. And you wanna look for an assessment that has some sort of BS meter that can spot out exaggerations or fabrications. 

Priscilla Shumba: Yes. 'Cause there is that sort of people who've become professional at taking assessments, it's great that you have that built into that. Alec now you [00:25:00] have your number two, you say spend a lot of time with them in the beginning. What are you focusing on

because people might think VisionSpark has done so much work to make sure I've got the right person. And it should mean that I can just hand over and now I'll be free to do other things. What are you spending time doing with your right?

Number two in those early days?

Alec Broadfoot: Yeah, number one, it's so important to communicate how you're gonna hold them accountable and how you're gonna measure their performance. And so you need to create a, what does good performance look at the end of 60 days, 90 days, 180 days, one year. So that has to be crystal clear. You also want to. Look at what your priorities are.

And I'll share this example. Before I hired John I had, I just offered him a job and he accepted, and it was a couple weeks before he was coming on board. And, I had a, a legal pad on my desk, and I just started writing down all of the things that I wanted him to do. And so I called it John's priority list, right?

[00:26:00] And so there were different projects. And as the day got closer with him starting, I prioritized that list from, I think it was like maybe 15 different things I wanted him to work on. And I prioritize the top five. Here are the top five I want you to work on. And if you picked one, here's number one.

And so I picked a major people issue that we had in the organization that was pretty complicated. It had many different layers. It impacted our organizational chart, our clients financials. And I said, this is your number one priority to sort out. And it was a perfect project for him because he learned the organization, he learned the people, he learned our customers.

And that's something that I did, at Vision Spark, Once we help you hire the right person, we don't let you go. we do some check-ins along the way at 30, 90 and 180 days. The tip assessment that the candidate took, we do a side by side with the candidate, with the hiring manager, the visionary.

And so there's things that we do. So it is important to know that once you hire the person that the hiring process hasn't [00:27:00] stopped, you have to successfully onboard them where you can feel free, that you can, take a vacation and take some time off, but it's so important. It's such a critical hire.

It's critical for your business you need to make sure you're having your weekly meetings and quarterly planning sessions to make sure that there's alignment.

Priscilla Shumba: Yeah, that's important. ' when you think about hiring, you think of the many places where things can break down. I think that point is a really big one where you finally got the right person and then you just dash out the door and all the work was for nothing.

So it's great to know that the hiring process is not over .

Alec Broadfoot: We actually had a client who hired one of our candidates and he spent three days with him, and then he left on a 21 day vacation and he was pretty upset at the end of those 21 days. He was asking me about it. I'm like, you left for three weeks after being with him for three days. you can't take a three week vacation three days after they come on board.

Priscilla Shumba: Sometimes you think, [00:28:00] ah, finally, or at least you think, oh, this person's way smarter than me. They should figure it out. But you do need to onboard people properly. I wonder Alec, what has Vision Spark taught you about culture fit, human psychology, things that most people miss . 

Alec Broadfoot: That expression from Peter Drucker culture, each strategy for breakfast. So culture is super important and I've learned the hard way. I have been my worst student, and so I have made all of the hiring mistakes. I have told my customers best practices, I've consulted and given Good talks at different organizations, and about six years ago, I was having so many people issues. I said, that's it. I have to take my own advice. And so instead of me hiring with my heart, I started hiring for what was best for the business long term. And that changed everything. And so there was just way too much drama because, a people pleaser wanted to help be that hero.

And I was in both seats, the visionary and integrator seat, and I said, [00:29:00] that's it. I said, I don't care how small we are, I have to make the right decision for the business.

Priscilla Shumba: Yeah, it's so important that you say that because for many people they've gotten to the point that they don't wanna deal with people. And I think it's not that they don't wanna deal with people, but like you said a lot of us have those kind of personalities where. We really feel for people, we really trust people.

We're not good at being judges of character. And then we end up not wanting to work with people. So it's good to know that there is someone who is a good fit for that, who can definitely help with that. If I can get into rapid fire with you Alec as we off. Okay. The clearest sign that a founder has waited too long to hire number two.

Alec Broadfoot: They are losing sleep at night and they're thinking of closing the business.

Priscilla Shumba: Yeah. Your favorite interview question for a number two.

Alec Broadfoot: Ooh. , We have some secret sauce interview questions, so I can't share those interview questions. My favorite, that's a [00:30:00] really good question. there's 200 questions. I've never been asked that before. That's a really good question. I think I would ask, if I were to talk to your previous employers, what would be the one thing that they would say that make you a difficult person to work with? 

Priscilla Shumba: Yeah. That must be a very interesting one in terms of answers. After you've made the hire, what are you focusing on in that probationary period with your number two?

Alec Broadfoot: Yeah, so I mentioned, putting a list of projects and prioritizing them. That's definitely what I would suggest doing in that meantime.

Priscilla Shumba: What are the red flags that one should look out for? After the hire, 

Alec Broadfoot: The best time to fire someone is before they're hired. Hopefully there's not any red flags after the fact, but if there is, you wanna fire fast, right? You don't wanna let it continue. So red flags, would be, is there anything about the process of the offer that drove you crazy?

Was that person getting really funny with money? I've actually rescinded [00:31:00] offers twice in my own team because they got really funny with money and the hiring process is not over. Other red flags would be, are they wanting to change things right away? They get in day one and they're like, okay, we are gonna be hiring this person, firing this person.

That would be a red flag. They really need to spend time learning the organization. Any sort of people issues, anything inappropriate would be red flags as well.

Priscilla Shumba: When you said funny with money, I got two senses. What did you mean exactly? .

Alec Broadfoot: If they started in negotiating hard for the compensation let's say the range was between 150 and 1 75 And all throughout the process they said, that's an acceptable salary. And then it came down to it and they're like, I want two 50. Or hey I need a base of 200 and I want a company car and I want ownership and equity.

those would be bad signs. Or if they started getting pretty just unusually assertive in that process where they started. Mandating that they wanted certain [00:32:00] things.

Priscilla Shumba: Oh, yeah that's a good one. What's one reason great hires fail when they join a business?

Alec Broadfoot: Yeah, they fail because the business. Doesn't have a great culture or they fail because they're working for a bad manager. And so if you see that, if you see that the people that you're hiring that, they don't seem to last in this particular department with this particular manager, you probably have the wrong manager in place.

And culture is everything. In this day and age, people do not wanna work for a lot of money. For a bad culture, they'd rather work. For a great culture with a little bit less money,

Priscilla Shumba: To the founder who says, no one else can do it as well as I can. What did you say to that founder, Alec?

Alec Broadfoot: hogwash, it's, they haven't hired the right person yet. They're so used to hiring someone that. Has inferior qualities and skills. When you hire the right person, you, when you hire an A player, [00:33:00] someone that fits with you and your culture, , you won't say that,

Priscilla Shumba: And how do you build trust with the number two? 'cause I think that's probably key, that relationship between you and the number two.

Alec Broadfoot: it's so important. Trust is everything. And so it's spending time. Number one, you have to share as the visionary, as the owner, entrepreneur, you have to share. Your goals, your dreams, where do you want this company to go? At EOS there's a 10 year target and a three year and a one year.

They call that the VTO, the vision traction organizer, or it's the one page business plan. You have to share that with that individual. And it's super important that you align what your goals are so that number two, he or she can help you get there.

Priscilla Shumba: . What's the one belief about leadership in terms of hiring that you think is very important? 

Alec Broadfoot: I would say right now in this day and age is that most organizations have to hire someone who is an AI savvy. Someone that embraces ai, someone that's [00:34:00] tech savvy that's super important. And someone who's people oriented, they have to be a coach, a developer of people. If they're all about numbers and tasks and they hurt people's feelings along the way.

And there's a lot of Collateral damage. That's not a good leader. Someone that, creates buy-in and encourages and gives people numbers and they hold people accountable. That's a good trait of a leader. 

Priscilla Shumba: I liked in your book that when you started, you talked about the leader sitting down and really having a good look at who they are and having that deep understanding. Maybe you can speak to that if someone's thinking of getting a number two. 

Alec Broadfoot: really know yourself. Like what do you truly want? What gives you joy? What gives you energy? What kind of impact do you want to make? And then look at your own skillset, knowing what your strengths and talents are. And that's where you're gonna get joy and impact.

So really [00:35:00] knowing yourself and then knowing the direction of your company where you want to go. 

Priscilla Shumba: I know for founders and entrepreneurs who may be listening, a lot of times it's thinking about that big number that you've gotta pay the number two. And I like the way you talk through it in your book. Maybe you can speak to that. So the person who's thinking oh, that's a lot of money for me to get a number two.

Alec Broadfoot: Yeah, so it really has to do with the size of your business and. Your revenue and the number of employees. There's really no number that's too small. So if you're just starting out, maybe you need an assistant. And maybe as get towards a million dollars in revenue, maybe you need a business manager, a project manager you start heading to that two to 3 million mark.

Maybe you need a junior COO an integrator. So we've helped companies as small as five employees to as much as a company with a billion dollars in sales, and so you know that the compensation can range from 80,000 to a million dollars. And what's great [00:36:00] about our team is that they meet with you and they say, okay, what kind of budget? What can you afford? What sounds reasonable to you? Knowing that the right person is gonna make that back in six months. Maybe less. And then also just being really reasonable with your expectations, right?

So if you're like my budget's 50,000, they have to have 20 years of business experience. They have to have an MBA, they have to be in bilingual, they have to live in my small town in eastern Idaho. we're gonna say, okay, time out here. But just being really reasonable with who you're looking for for the budget you're looking for.

Knowing that A players, you pay 10, 20%. More for an A player, you're gonna get two to three times the productivity. 

Priscilla Shumba: Thank you so much for that, Alec. Please tell the audience where they can learn more about you and a little bit about your book. Thank you.

Alec Broadfoot: Yeah. You can buy the book hiring the right number two leader. It's on Amazon. They can follow my company vision, spark, and LinkedIn, or go to our website, vision spark search.com. 

Priscilla Shumba: thank you so much, [00:37:00] Alec. I read your book and when you said it's who and not what, I totally understood that this is what entrepreneurs need to know. If there's a message you wanna leave with the people listening please go ahead.

Alec Broadfoot: You said it. Who not how instead of thinking, how do I get this done? Think who can get this done for me?

Priscilla Shumba: . Thanks Alec.