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As a General Manager with Mercedes-Benz, James was once called on to turn around a failing dealership.
The situation was dire. The dealership was losing money, staff were leaving in droves, and the team’s morale was at an all-time low.
Among other things, James was tasked with rebuilding the team from the ground up. This would not only save the dealership, but shape James’s approach to hiring and team building, something he’s now refined over two decades.
In this episode, James shares the lessons he gained from that period, lessons in building a successful team that have carried over into his work with online businesses.
He’ll discuss how building your team is more than just filling vacant posts.
He’ll outline effective steps for team hiring, including tips for screening candidates and advertising for jobs.
And he’ll talk about seeing employee potential beyond what’s on their resume.
Table of contents
1. The challenge
2. A structured approach to hiring
3. Crafting the perfect hiring process
4. Recognizing potential
5. Results and success
6. Reducing churn and improving leadership
7. Takeaways and recommendations
The challenge
When James stepped into the dealership, staffing in the management levels needed a complete overhaul.
The task at hand was not just filling vacant positions but finding the right people – people who were both skilled and aligned with the dealership’s goals and values.
Of prime concern, too, was creating a culture where people thrive and want to stay.
A structured approach to hiring
Luckily, James was equipped for the job.
In 2001, he was selected for intense training in Mercedes-Benz’s Dealer Management Development Program.
Crammed into a few weeks was an education in everything from financial literacy to peak leadership performance, learning how to manage people, present ideas effectively, and lead a team to success.
One of the key takeaways was the need for a structured approach to hiring and training. It wasn’t about what looked good on paper. One needed to dig deep for evidence of capability, and ensure a candidate was the right fit for the team.
Crafting the perfect hiring process
Upon returning to the dealership, James applied what he’d learned.
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1. Specifying the role
He started by defining job roles and success criteria. Beyond listing job responsibilities, this meant identifying key attributes and skills that would make someone successful in that position. For instance, a sales person for Mercedes-Benz would not just sell cars, but do it with integrity and professionalism.
The result was a worksheet listing the criteria for each role, that would guide the hiring process.
2. Advertising effectively
Next was getting the word out.
James crafted an ad for new car sales professionals, aimed at drawing in the right candidates. Entitled, Accelerate Your Career, it featured a pic of their then hottest car model, the SLK.
The emphasis was on the prestige of working for Mercedes-Benz, the opportunities for growth, and the supportive working environment offered.
The ad spoke to motivated, confident, eager-to-succeed candidates, and 150 people applied.
3. Screening candidates
With 150 applicants, James needed a rigorous screening process.
Twenty-one candidates were singled out for interview over three days. These were the ones who aligned with James’s vision for the dealership. The interviews contained questions to further uncover who had the needed attributes and skills.
One key marker was evidence of past success. How did they perform in previous roles, and could they succeed under pressure?
Another was cultural fit – did they align with Mercedes-Benz values, and could they work with the rest of the team?
Importantly, James involved at least one other person in the decision making. This second perspective lent objectivity to the final selection.
Recognizing potential
Sometimes the right person for the job isn’t obvious on paper.
One of James’s most memorable hires was a young man named Ozel.
Ozel applied for concierge at Mercedes-Benz and was rejected by the service manager. Something about him, however, caught James’s eye, and he had Ozel come in for a weekend to meet and greet customers.
Ozel did well, and James had him interview for a sales role.
As a sales cadet, Ozel learned the ropes, eventually graduating to sales rep and becoming number one in the dealership. He later moved up to management.
This taught James the importance of looking beyond the resume for potential that just needs the right guidance and opportunity to shine.
Results and success
The lessons James learned from effectively rebuilding the dealership team are highly applicable online as well.
With the same principles, James built and sold an SEO business with 38 employees, and a web development business with 10 employees. Today, he manages a world-class team that has been with him for over a decade.
Reducing churn and improving leadership
High turnover, says James, is often a sign of a defective hiring process. He’s created his current, stable team through a meticulous selection process, ensuring good cultural fit, and providing proper training.
Leadership is likewise key in reducing churn. If you can lead and not just manage, if you can give support where needed and commit the team to the task of furthering the goals of the business, people will stay.
The staff James hired for Mercedes-Benz not only stayed long-term, they were so good he was asked to train other sales managers on the recruitment process he’d arrived at by augmenting the training he’d received.
Takeaways and recommendations
James’s experience with Mercedes-Benz confirmed for him the effectiveness of a systematic hiring process.
He invites you to consider your own hiring practices – are they deliberate and structured? The success of your business depends on the people you bring on board. Don’t leave it to chance.
If you need help, there are resources available. James is, of course, available to mentor you at JamesSchramko.com.
There is also a great business service called VirtualDOO.com, run by Lloyd Thompson. He helps with the people and systems side of the business for visionaries. He can get in, find out who and what systems you’ve got, and start creating recruitment processes in house with you.
If you need a VA, of course, James and his wife run VisionFind.com, and they have the recruitment process down pat. They do all the screening and testing before you ever get the candidate, based on everything James has learned, and it comes with a hiring guarantee.
In James’s next episode, he’ll dive into the onboarding process. Hiring is just the first step — training and integrating new hires is where the real work begins.
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