Growing your business is hard enough.



You can’t grow your business if you can’t find people.

One of the biggest challenges companies face today is finding people.

We’ve interviewed business owners, reviewed headhunter techniques and scoured the web to put together the most up-to-date summary on how and where to find great people.

We’ve put them all together in the free book you already received,
Tips to Find Great Employees.

How are you enjoying your free book?  Keep reading to get even more free tips and tricks.

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Talk to Linda

Get multiple solutions to your greatest frustrations and costliest problems.

Raven CEO Roundtables are comprised of 8 to 10 business owners who meet once a month. These confidential, three-hour meetings serve as an informal advisory/accountability board for the members.

People Can’t Wait to Work for You.

You’ve got to change things up.  You need staff today.  You can’t do what you’ve always done and think it will work.

Here are the actions business leaders took recently that got the best results in finding people to fill jobs.

Company tours.  A business owner invited current employees, their friends and families and all the members of his church and bowling team!

Every adult attendee got a “goodie bag” that included a number of branded items; company cap, note pad and pen and a calendar.  A list of open jobs, pay ranges and benefits was also included.  (Children got their own “goodie bag” with snacks and toys.)

The event had a welcoming, festive air.  Each attendee was greeted by employees who gave tours and “talked up” the current job openings, pay and benefits.  In a couple weeks they had six applicants and hired three.

What would it save you to be sitting in a room with 10 business owners sharing ideas like this?

A Raven Mastermind group harnesses the power of top business owners and president’s and focuses it on your problems and your pain.  They come up with multiple solutions in minutes.

If you’re not in a business mastermind group, you’re missing out.


Whether it’s just you and the cat or you and 20 employees, running a company can be lonely.

Enter Raven Roundtables.  Groups of eight to ten entrepreneurs from non-competing businesses who meet once a month to share insights and best practices.

What did leaders like Benjamin Franklin, Walt Disney, and Franklin D. Roosevelt do to increase their success and improve their outcomes?  They were members of a mastermind group, like millions of other highly successful leaders.

If you’re not part of a group, you’re missing out.


We are:

Carefully organized.

Membership is not by chance but by invitation. Each group is carefully crafted to help leaders gain positive momentum for their companies and their lives.

Professionally facilitated.

Our coaching style results in candid discussion and practical advice.

Confidential.

What is said in the room, stays in the room.

Accountable.

Everyone benefits from having someone respected hold your feet to the fire; it’s even more profound when a dozen people collectively motivate you.


Talk to Linda

What did leaders like Benjamin Franklin, Walt Disney, and Franklin D. Roosevelt do to increase their success and improve their outcomes?  They were members of a mastermind group, like millions of other highly successful leaders.




Is your online information up to date?

According to an August poll of full and part-time employees 65% are looking for new jobs.  You want to be ready to fill your openings with the brightest and the best.

Prepare yourself.  Prospective Employees are savvier than ever about digging up information about prospective employers.  Here’s where they look.

  • Your website – it’s critical that you have the most up-to-date information posted.
    • First stop is the About Us page which is likely to give an overall description of the company and perhaps profiles of staff or senior leadership.
    • They’ll check out your mission and vision statements
    • Company values or Core Values describe your workplace culture.
  • Next, they check out any articles that have been written about your company on social media.
  • If they’re interested in your company, they’ll check out articles from trade publications, business journals and local newspapers covering your industry and community.

BUTTON – Schedule 7 Min  – links to scheduling software and has text that explains that it is a 7 min call…

  • They may even check employer review sites such as Glassdoor and Fairygodboss to read comments posted by employees, former employees and applicants who have interviewed at your company.
  • Culture fit is critical today and harder to uncover. Future employees want to know:
    • Do you have a relaxed culture or take a more buttoned-up approach?
    • Do you place value on a collaborative work environment?
    • Do you support work-life balance?
    • Do you allow working from home or a hybrid?
    • Are the company values aligned with their own?

There’s a wealth of information available online.  Make sure your story is clearly scripted, accurate and up to date.

Entice your competitors’ best talent

The war for talent is more competitive than ever.  One of the best places to find top performing candidates is with your competition.  There are advantages to recruiting from the competition.  They know the industry, have a provable track record in their field and know your other competitors and the customers served by your competitors.

Here are the TOP 8 ways to make sure your hiring strategy is the most forward thinking in your industry.


1

Go through your employees

A candidate who receives a job invite from a friend is 54 times more likely to be hired than someone coming in from the outside.  Companies are paying referral bonuses for successful hired

2

Bring down the walls of your company

Great candidates are more likely to accept an offer if the company has employee stories and video testimonials on their website.

3

Make them an offer they can’t refuse

Use all the information available to understand financial compensation and benefits of their current position. For many candidates, a pay increase along with a few unique benefits are enough to grab their attention.

4

Recruit teams, not people

Take a lesson from Google and Facebook. On their first day, encourage them to invite the team they were working with.  Ask who would they like to work with again.  It’s a proven fact, an employee stays in a role longer after a successful referral is made.


5

Reward all referrals

Set up a program that rewards employees who refers a candidate regardless of the outcome. Some companies offer a smaller bonus ($100 to $250) if a referral makes it through the interview stage

6

Emphasize culture and development

The reason an employee leaves one company for another is the culture and development opportunities.  Be specific about what your company offers over their current company.

7

Check non-compete agreements

If you are interested in an employee who has a well-drafted non-compete that is reasonable in its time frame and scope, it could represent a barrier to you hiring them. Be sure you obtain a copy of their agreement and get legal advice on it’s impact to your hiring plan.

8

Know where your competitors are advertising

Placing ads on similar sites for similar jobs can be the ideal way to compete for talent before the candidate even joins a competing company.

Your gain and your competitor’s loss is the attraction of better-quality candidates – including industry specific knowledge and the network they bring.  Tie that with research that suggests employee referrals perform better and stay longer. With this you’ve created a hiring strategy that becomes a sustainable competitive advantage.

Schedule a meeting with Linda

Learn more about Raven Roundtable Mastermind Groups. Members of our CEO Masterminds come together monthly to be accountable to their own goals and the companies goals.

Who is holding you accountable now?  Are you hitting your deadlines on time?

Raven Roundtable meetings have become a regular, personal, and insightful advisory board review of my most important business issues and strategies.

This ad hoc Raven / Packard advisory board share their perspectives of my new and most vexing issues and keep me from reinventing the wheel. And most importantly, from making mistakes I might have made without this discipline.

Working on my business is as important as working in my business (my first rule of business).

Strategic Corporate Acquisition and Partner Search

Mike T - President

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by Linda Laitala I’ve been posing this question to my Inner Circle members this month. The answers I’ve gotten have run the gamut from improving health to landing a million dollar project. The point of the question is to visualize what your life will look like next year. But don’t stop at the visualization – tell someone what you want
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As you plan for 2013, do you look back and wonder what you could have done to make 2012 stronger? If so, you’re not alone. Many plan but find gaps in execution. One frequent – but preventable gap is tunnel vision. It’s caused by being buried with work or by depending on people solely within your company or your industry
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