Are you still climbing ladders to clean gutters at 6 p.m. because your “reliable” hire ghosted you? Or maybe you’re the dog walker getting called in for a shift because someone bailed an hour before it started. I know you’re exhausted, and I know you feel like you’ve tried everything even praying about it or putting it out into the universe. But the truth is, you’re likely hiring on a hope and a prayer because you’re desperate for help, not work.
In this episode, I’m pulling you off the hamster wheel. We’re moving from chaos to a proven system: the 10-Step Jump Hiring Method. I’m breaking down how to stop hiring “anyone with a pulse” and start building a team that actually values the opportunity. We’ll talk about why your gut feeling is lying to you, how to write job ads that read like love letters, and why investing in your people from day one changes everything. Stop guessing. Start building.
In This Episode You’ll Discover
- How to stop looking for “hard workers” and start defining your dream team member.
- Why your boring job ads are attracting people who don’t care and how to write ads that hit emotional buttons.
- Using “anti-questions” to make the wrong people self-select out before they waste your time.
- Why hiring off a “gut feeling” is like getting married on the first date (and how to fix it).
- The simple math equation to know exactly when you can afford to hire without the late-night anxiety.
- A simple trick to ensure you talk only 20% of the time during interviews.
- How to make a new hire feel like a human, not a cog in a machine, from day one.
Timestamps
02:29 – The reality of ghosting and why “hiring on a prayer” fails.
04:54 – Why hiring based on a “gut feeling” is like getting married on the first date.
07:17 – The math of hiring: How to know if you can actually afford to grow.
09:38 – Phase One: Defining your ideal candidate avatar beyond just a “pulse”.
12:01 – Using knockout questions to make the wrong people self-select out.
14:24 – Building a phased process and using an Applicant Tracking System (ATS).
18:49 – The “Drink Test”: How to master the 80/20 rule in interviews.
Notable Quotes:
“Your hiring process should make people work for the opportunity to work for you.”
“When you hire based off of a gut feeling, you’re hiring someone you liked, not someone who’s competent.”
“Hiring is not a panic decision. It’s a math equation.”
Resources and Links
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Get organized and stop the resume chaos. Click here to try my favorite applicant tracking system: Breezy HR (ATS): bellavasta.com/breezy
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Want to stop losing your best people? Grab the book that changed how I look at retention: Never Lose an Employee by Joey Coleman
- Take the guesswork out of personality and honesty. Use these assessments to vet your next hire:
Assessments: Orion Test or Predictive Index - Ready for a personalized audit of your system? Book a session and let’s fix your business together:
Strategy Call with Bella: bellavasta.com - Have a specific question or need a partner hookup? Shoot me a message directly: [email protected]
Transcript
Welcome everybody to another episode of Bella in Your Business. My name is Bella Vasta. Today, we’re going to talk about something that almost every single one of you are affected by. And that’s how we feel about our hiring method. Are you the one that’s still climbing ladders to clean gutters at 6 p.m. because your reliable employee ghosted you? Are you the one answering emergency HVAC calls at midnight because you can’t trust anyone else with your clients? Are you the dog walker that’s getting called in because someone decided to call out an hour before their shift?
If you’re stuck on that hamster wheel, alright, spinning and spinning and spinning, working in your business instead of on your business, we’re gonna fix that today. We’re gonna talk about it because you’re not alone. You’re actually very similar to a lot of other people there and I’m gonna help give you all the information you need in this episode to help get you over that hump once and for all. Because here’s the thing, like I know that you need help. I know that you can’t scale like all by yourself, but like every single time you try to hire and you have, you really have tried to hire properly, okay? It’s a disaster. You’ve given it your all, you’ve done every single thing you know how to do. Even prayed about it or put it out into the universe, okay?
But today we’re going to move from chaos and hoping for the best to a proven system, the 10 step jump hiring method. And by the end of this episode, you’re going to know exactly how to build a team, all of the steps. And I would even maybe recommend that you record this episode. Here’s a quick little AI hack. Record what I’m about to tell you right now, or go grab the transcript from the show notes and then put it into Chat Sheep E.T. to give you all the Cliff Notes. That being said, please stay with me for this whole episode because you’re not going to want to miss out on the inspiration that you’re going to get from hearing what I have to say.
Okay. Can we actually talk about ghosting for a minute though, before we get into all of it? Like you’ve posted a job on Indeed. You maybe get like three responses. You schedule the interviews, you arrange like your entire day just to be available for this meeting. You are hoping that they show up and it’s amazing. but then they don’t show up. There’s no call, there’s no texting, nothing. Or worse, they do show up for the interview, you hire them and then maybe one day they’re cleaning houses and poof, they vanish into thin air. You text them, nothing. You call, straight to voicemail. And then like two hours later you get some halfway email saying, sorry, I had something come up. Does that sound familiar?
I’m pretty sure that every single business owner has experienced a version of that at some point during their career. But here’s what’s happening. You’re hiring on a hope and a prayer and you’re so desperate for help, not work, and those are two different things when someone works for you versus helps you. But you’re so desperate that you’ll take anyone with a pulse. Your job ad probably says something boring like, pest control technician needed or dog walker with a list of requirements that sounds like a corporate robot wrote it. And you feel great because you’re like, hey, AI helped me write this. And then you wonder why you attract people who don’t care.
Let me bust a myth right now. The problem is not that good employees don’t exist. And that’s what everyone wants to say because that takes it away from being their problem. or they’re them as a part of the solution. I’ve seen it happen countless times. The problem is that you don’t have a system. You don’t have hoops. You don’t have filters. So when someone could just walk right into your business and get hired after one conversation, they have no skin in the game. They didn’t earn it. And they also don’t want it. They just kind of need the paycheck right now. So therefore they don’t value it.
Is this starting to like, it might rub up against some of you a little harshly right now because it’s stuff that you kind of know is already true, you just don’t want to hear. But don’t worry, because I’ve got solutions for you today. Your hiring process should make people work for the opportunity to work for you. And we’re going to talk about exactly how to do all that. What about the gut feeling though? Any of you guys, you know, like hire off of your gut? You interview someone for your service. They seem nice. They smile a lot. They tell you they’re really good with details. You like them. So you hire them on the spot. You’re like, my gosh, something just, I just feel so connected to you.
It’s like being on a first date and like getting married. It’s not gonna work. Here’s the analogy. Like literally like you go and you want a first date with someone and you meet them and you decide to get married that night. That’s never gonna happen. But in hiring, one interview, you’re basically handing them the keys to your business and your clients homes. But the danger is massive here. When you hire based off of a gut feeling, you’re hiring someone you liked, not someone who’s competent. Those are two completely different things. Now, you definitely have to like them, but you don’t know if they’re competent yet. And that friendly person who seemed really great turns out they don’t know the difference between a flexy lead and a hornist.
But hey, they made you feel good. And the fix? You need a process that forces you to date around. You need to interview multiple people before making a decision and go on multiple dates with that person. You need to test their skills, their reliability, their attention to detail. Your gut is great for some things, but hiring? You need data and you need a system. Here’s another big thing that I see happening. And I’m asking you all of these things because I really want you to understand I know exactly where you are, okay? Like the fear of investing in the late night worrying, okay? How many of you lay awake at night, and I’m willing to guess this is everyone listening right now, saying can I even afford to hire someone? Or what if I invest all this time in training and certifications and education and then they quit?
What if I buy them uniforms and equipment and they disappear? I get it. Like I’ve been there. The fear is real. And what happens is this makes people say, well, after you’ve been with me for 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, then I’ll get you the certification or uniform or whatever it might be. And the counterpoint to that, this is gonna change your business forever. You don’t invest in them. If, no, sorry, if you don’t invest in them. They have no real reason to be loyal to you. Like think about it, you get a new hire, right? And you don’t give them a company shirt. You don’t give them a proper welcome packet. You don’t train them correctly, just the bare minimum. You throw them on a job and they hope they figure it out. Like why would they stick around? Why would they give you more than bare minimum? You’ve shown them that they don’t matter to you. Bet you never thought of it that way, huh?
Now flip it, imagine you hire someone and on their first day they get a welcome packet with their name on it, their company uniform, a detailed manual, and you investing time to show them how to do their job. How do you think they’re going to feel? Valued? Important? Part of something bigger? And let’s talk about the money fear. Can I even afford this? Here’s the solution. Know your numbers. I always say, like especially when you’re first starting out, till about your first 400, 300, 400,000 in revenue. Used to do 30 % for you, 30 % for the business, 40 % for labor. Now, I’ve done lots of other podcasts that go way deeper into that, so we’re gonna just stop there for this one.
But when you know this formula, hiring is not a panic decision. It’s a math equation. And coming from a girl who had to take college algebra three times in college to pass it, and who transposes numbers and does not like math, I get it when you’re like, I don’t want it to be a math equation, but this is what you have to do to be a successful business owner, okay? You can look at your revenue and know exactly when you can afford to hire. No more guessing, no more late night anxiety attacks. You are ready to start, you ready to stop hoping and start building. Can we do this together? I’m gonna teach you this in 10 steps right now. Are you ready?
Okay, so phase one is the pre-hire. It’s when you define your ideal candidate. I want you to close your eyes, literally, and just think about who is your most best employee, like if you could dream them up, okay? Picture them. Not just someone who shows up to you, but someone who’s a dream member, okay? Are they college students who love working outdoors? Are they a retiree who likes to stay active? Are they someone looking for a second income who takes pride in making properties look beautiful? Are they career-focused or certified hungry? Are they detail-oriented type A who can’t leave a room until it’s perfect? Are they efficiency experts? Whatever you come up with, this is gonna be your first avatar, okay?
And when you know exactly what you’re looking for, you’re gonna recognize them when they walk in the door and you’re gonna recognize who they are. when they walk in the door too. Okay? You don’t just work for hard-working people who have a pulse and showed up on time. The second step, we’re going to write attention-grabbing ads. Okay? So if yours says like, pest control technician needed, must have a valid driver’s license, apply within, that’s boring. Delete it. Start over. Your ad needs to be a love letter. Yes, I said it. A love letter. to your most ideal candidate.
Let’s use the pest control thing just as an example. Get paid to protect families from creepy crawlies. Earn 800 to 1200 a month part time with flexible hours. That sounds a heck of a lot better than pet control technician needed now, doesn’t it? Or for landscaping. Love being outdoors? Get paid to make properties beautiful. Now hiring? No experience necessary. Or maybe if you’re like a house cleaning service. Detail obsessed? turn your superpower into a paycheck, flexible cleaning schedules available. You see the difference? You’re not writing a boring corporate job listing, you’re speaking directly to your avatar. You’re hitting their emotional buttons and you’re making them excited to apply. And here’s a pro tip, tell them what they’ll make, not just what they’ll do. $1,000 a month is way more appealing than competitive pay.
All right, number three. Establish your non-negotiables. Here’s what most home service owners mess up. They hope the applicant will tell them the truth. Are you comfortable working in hot attics? yeah, totally. Spoiler alert, they’re lying. They just want a job. Instead, use knockout questions. These are so ridiculously powerful. They are designed to make people self-select out if they’re not a fit. Don’t ask, are you willing to drive to job sites? Ask. How do you feel about putting 150 miles on your personal vehicle every week if you don’t provide vehicles?
Don’t ask, are you okay working weekends? Do ask, our busiest days are Saturdays and Sundays. If you can’t work both days most weekends, this position isn’t a fit. Does it work for you? See what I’m doing? I’m being crystal clear about expectations. The wrong people will drop out and the right people will stay. They’ll literally say like, that’s perfect for me. And that’s exactly what she wants. All right, number four, create a phased process. And this is probably one of the most important ones that so many people don’t do because they’re afraid of it. Like they feel like, it’s too much. And they also don’t have a system that they can easily activate these phases.
When I say phases, I mean three different phases, and I mean three different specific things you’re testing for. And these are emails that go back and forth between you and the applicant. People always tell me at the beginning, it feels like overkill. But guys, what you’re doing right now is underkill, if that’s a word, okay? The other thing that really helps is having an applicant tracking system, an ATS, much like, let’s see. Another thing that really helps is having an ATS system, an applicant tracking system, like Breezy. If you wanna check that out, just go to bellevasta.com forward slash breezy and it is an affiliate link, but it is the most cost effective, friendly, easiest to use system out there on the market right now.
And it’s just for you. There are many other systems out there. They’re very expensive. This one is a really great price point for a lot of small service based home providing businesses. So these phases are multiple hoops. and it’s multiple hoops they have to jump through. And it’s because if someone can’t follow simple instructions now, they definitely can’t follow your detailed checklist in your business later. Here’s an example of some phase process. They apply by emailing their resume with a subject line of whatever your job is. If they don’t follow their instruction, they’re out. Then they filled out a detailed application with scenario-based questions. Then number three is a phone screening. and number four is an in-person interview, and number five is a paid child shift or shadow day.
Each phase is testing something different. Can they follow directions? Are they punctual? Do they communicate well? Do they actually know how to do the work? Now, I suggest when I work one-on-one with people, which you can also hire me to do all of this for you, I basically interview you and build it all out according to your specifications. And I like to find out like this is all company culture right now. We are building the company culture and giving them a reason to want to work for us. This process is so sensitive, okay? It’s dating. The beautiful part is that when you build out this process and it has all these tiny details according to your specifications, it’s going to make a world of a difference and people are gonna be really wanting to work for you, okay?
Now I’m going to tell you a quick story. I had a client who had, we built this whole entire thing out for her after she tried to push back against me for a couple of years. And finally she was in dire straits with hiring. So we came in and we redid this whole entire thing. Her, she had two really big results. One was one of the ladies she just hired, she said, it wasn’t a good fit. And they both understood that as they went through the process, which was great. It was like a mutual elimination. But the woman also said that it was so amazing that her husband was so impressed that he was copying what she was doing and putting it into his own business for his hiring. Isn’t that amazing? Your hiring process is, is wants to be copied. Okay. That’s like the best form of flaring that flair flattery.
The second thing is, she said that the people she was hiring now were so much more qualified. They had such a better attitude and she felt so much more confident in the training process and then setting them out free because it wasn’t just on a hope and a prayer. This system I’ve been doing with hundreds of people for years, it works, okay? Let’s move on to step number five. Take the emotion out of hiring. We need a standardized system to test their answers. I did an entire podcast on this one as well and it’s where you rate them all. it cannot, if your hiring process only depends on you being in it, then we’ve missed a step, okay?
We need to standardize our hiring process so that you literally could take the instructions and give it to your mom and have your mom step in and do the hiring. Yes, your mom. I want you to think about that, your mom or your dad, okay? And so you can rate each one by the points or, one through five, or how well did they explain their answers? Was it well thought out? Was it critically thought? Did they follow instructions? Depending on what your questions are, you can build out a standardized response or scoring system. Okay, you can also use personality assessments like predictive index or the Orion test.
These tests predict things like will they be honest? Will they likely stay long term? These are amazing. Do they work independently or need lots of supervision? If you’re interested in the Orion test, guys, I got hookups for everything, okay? So all you gotta do is just email me, bella at bellavasta.com, and I will hook you up with everything I’ve got. I’ve been doing this for a very long time, and so I’ve developed partners that have been tried and true and just people you can really trust. All right. Number six is you gotta prepare for the interview. They made it through all your hoops, now it’s interview time.
The first rule is that you are a detective, okay? Not the tour guide. Most home service owners talk the entire interview. They explain the business, they explain the scheduling and the staff and the clients and all this stuff. And maybe the candidate says like five words, okay? Don’t do that, please don’t do that. Flip it, you should talk 20 % of the time. they should talk 80 % of the time, okay? I even have a test, it’s called the drink test. My dad taught it to me a long time ago. I’m sorry, I was drinking. I couldn’t talk. Yeah, that’s the test, you guys. You want to ask a question and then immediately start drinking something so you stop talking.
It sounds so silly, but I’ve gotten so much feedback from clients over the years that this has been the single most best thing that has helped them interview better. You wanna ask a question and then sip and wait and let them talk. And don’t be afraid of also silence. Sometimes when you’re just silent, it makes them talk even more and you’ll get even more out of them, even better than like a follow-up question, okay? Number seven is create an exciting job offer, okay? Don’t just send an email that says, congratulations, you’re hired, you start on Monday. Make it an event. And you know who’s really good at this? It’s Joey Coleman. And it’s the book Never Lose an Employee.
And he talks about on the very first day, doing all these elaborate different ideas in this book. And one of my pet sitting clients, Becky, took this to heart. And she shows up, not only does she just say, like she gives this congratulations letter where it explains like what the job is and all of the legal things that you need, but she also meets them at their first job, blaring their favorite song from her car, holding their favorite like coffee order, okay? sometimes even with a poster board, and she invites other people who are also working that day, who are in the area to come.
So this person shows up to their first day, and they’re completely surprised. Tell me that you don’t wanna work for a company like that. That’s amazing, to feel seen and heard and loved, all of that, okay? So what it does is it takes the pressure off of you, okay? And it makes the real position feel earned, and that person to feel scene. Step eight, design an inspiring onboarding. Your first day sets the tone for the entire time with your company. Most home service owners are like, here’s a form to fill out. Here’s your uniform. Let’s go do a job. And it feels like just like another cog in the wheel. Okay?
Instead do a whole entire welcome experience. A welcome letter with your story, a uniform with their name embroidered on it, like an employee handbook. a schedule for the first week, maybe even a small gift of something that like they really like. This shows that they matter before they even start. It shows that you care about them and you thought about their individuality and you’re not just like, you are my robot work for me right now. Okay. The goal is that you should have them leaving their first day feeling so excited and so valued, not overwhelmed and anxious.
Number nine. implement or step nine rather, implement a structured training. So the way that I like to do this is in onboarding, we’ve already gone through the employee handbook, the manual, we’ve talked about things, we’ve done all of this stuff. And hopefully they’ve watched a video, they’ve read something, you’ve talked about it. Now they’re gonna actually go do it because you gotta remember that people learn a lot of different ways. And what I would do is on these days, I would kind of try to do training in like about two days or so. and each day focus on something different. This could look something like cleanliness and this could look like security of a home, right?
I don’t know, it depends on what business you have. But that could be it. And then there’s 10 things. It doesn’t mean that they don’t get to experience how to do all the rest of the job, but what it means is that their brain gets to focus on only 10 things instead of 200. and gets overwhelmed and flooded out and just turns off after two hours because they’re like, my God, this is so much information. And then they’re like, am I good enough? Am I getting it all? There’s like, what’s important? What’s not important? What this does for your trainer and trainee is it gives them a roadmap. It makes them feel like they have accomplished something at the end of the day. And so I would really encourage you to implement some sort of a structured training.
This also could be like assisted participation. or it could be just shadowing and just talking about it. It could be they get out and do it and then you have someone supervise, their trainer is supervising them. It could be that they go out and do it but they’re checking in constantly. It’s gonna look different in every business, but this is something that is a very important step that I don’t think people really think about during the hiring process, okay? And you really wanna make sure that every single thing you might say or have on video is in your employee handbook. It’s the Bible of your business. Okay, if you do not have a handbook or a manual, that is also something that I help a lot of businesses with and we can create them together on the spot. I mean, we could have it done in a week if we arrange the time to make it happen.
Okay, now number 10 to round up this podcast is analyze, analyze, analyze, analyze. And if you’re like me and you’re more of a creative person, probably doesn’t really get you excited. I get it, but we need to be able to analyze this. And so when we have all these 10 steps drawn out, what happens is that we are able to find out where it’s broken or where we need to improve on it. When it’s just like all thrown in one big thing altogether, we have no idea what’s not working or what we need to tweak. Okay. And so when it’s not a set it and forget it, if you haven’t looked at your hiring process for a while and you feel like you’re just not getting good applicants or they’re not getting through the stages fast enough, then this is the step where you’re missing, okay?
It’s a living system that you’re gonna constantly be improving. Even Becky, who I just told you about, she has updated her process since we did it for the first time back in 2022. Every single year almost, she does some tweaks to it, all right? So like, where do the applicants drop off? Are most people not responding to the initial email? Are most people not showing up for interviews? Are people quitting after the first week? Like what is your retention rate? Okay, are they staying at least six months? Are they leaving after 30 days? Check in with new hires, like hey, how’s it going? Week four, what’s been challenging? What’s been great? Month three, like hey, are you getting what you need from this position? Keep checking in with them because this is building company culture.
What you put out is what you’re gonna get back from this, okay? So let me bring this all home. If you feel like this episode, you’re, like, You were spitting on that hamster wheel. You’re stuck. Everything is just like overwhelming. You don’t know where to start. Reach out to me. I do these strategy calls where I can pinpoint where you need to work on very quickly. If you just go to bellavasta.com, that’s B-E-L-L-A, V-like and Victor, A-S-T-A dot com. And when you go there, you can get a strategy call. It’s only $300 and we go into your entire, you have to bring your entire system and I will audit it and tell you what you need to tweak.
or there’s other options where I can get in there with you or without you, honestly, if you don’t want me in there, but I do need you initially. And I can build this entire thing out for you. And it is brilliant. I’m sure that you started this business because you wanted more time and financial freedom. At the end of the day, that’s what you wanted, time and financial freedom. And now you’ve built this really great business and it’s growing like a weed. It’s this overgrown bush and you have no idea how to get control back over it. This is where I come in. So reach out, Bella at BellaVasta.com. I’d love to help you out. Let’s get this hiring figured out once and for all. It’s been another episode of Bella in Your Business. My name is Bella Vasta. Remember when life gets you down, always keep jumping. Bye now.