I’m going to quote a really smart guy. His name is Jonas Olson. And he said something that stuck with me forever.
When you have A players, it brings other A players to you.
A players bring more A players. And here’s the flip side. A players do not like to work with B and C players. That’s just how it is. And they want them off the team as fast as possible.
That’s the biggest reason we want to hire A players. And let’s be honest, not every single person is always going to be an A player all the time. But we’re optimizing for A players. We’re trying to find the closest thing to A players we can.
I own several pest control and cleaning companies. I’m also a fractional CMO for service based companies across the country. And I can tell you that the single biggest differentiator between companies that scale and companies that struggle is the quality of people they hire.
Let me show you exactly how to hire A players for your pest control business and how to keep them long term.
The First Hire Trap
Here’s something kind of funny. Every time I’ve started a company, I’ve thought the same thing about my first employee.
“God, this person is going to be with me forever. They’re an A player. They’re going to be a partner someday.”
And I get so excited about that first hire that I almost want to give away half my company to them.
I see it and hear it all the time from other entrepreneurs. You get so excited for that first employee. You think they’re going to be there forever.
But here’s the reality. That person can only take you so far. Not always, but typically.
Your first employee is super important. They’ve got your back when you need it most. But don’t put the whole family rope on them. Don’t give away equity or make promises you can’t keep.
Just make sure that first hire is solid, and build from there.
What Specific Traits and Mindsets Separate A Players From Average Hires?
I love this question because it gets to the heart of what really matters.
Relentless Mindset
Having a relentless mindset is super important. Someone who has an entrepreneurial mindset, or maybe not necessarily entrepreneurial, but someone who just doesn’t give up.
Someone who always has a good attitude. That’s really, really big for our culture.
We don’t want complainers. We don’t want whiners.
In fact, Jonas has a sticker on the front door of his office. It says, “No negativity beyond this door.”
That’s super important to look for in candidates. Because you can train people on technical skills, but you can’t train people on their attitude. They choose their attitude.
So hire on attitude and culture, and train on skills.
Big Goals and Clear Vision
A players want to do big things. They have big goals. And you need to have a clear path for them to get there.
Paint the vision. Show them how they can grow from a tech to a branch manager to a regional manager to potentially a partner.
If you can’t show them a path to six figures and beyond, you’re not going to attract or keep A players.
Culture Fit
You have to hang out with people all day long. Make sure you like hanging out with them. Make sure they’re just a good fit culturally.
If you dread seeing someone at work, that’s a problem. And if you’re the owner, you can fix it.
You Have to Be an A Player Yourself
One thing I want to mention. If you’re looking for an A player, you have to be an A player yourself.
You have to be the example first.
If you show up to work with a bad attitude, if you’re not going the extra mile for customers, if you’re not knocking that extra door, if you’re not showing positivity, if you’re not leading from the front, you’re not going to attract A players.
You’re going to attract B or C people because you’re not acting like an A player yourself.
It’s like the law of the lid from John Maxwell. If you’re a six or seven in leadership, you’re only going to be able to lead a five.
So you always have to be working on yourself and growing yourself.
Traits I Specifically Look For
Traits that I look for are people who are putting in the work outside of work hours.
Someone who wants to learn more constantly. Someone who goes to events or wants to go to conferences. Someone who wants to get more certifications. Someone who reads books on their own.
Those are the people I see putting in the work outside of work that I want to develop into real leaders. I want to put my energy into those people.
Those people are almost always going to become our managers. Because they’re constantly trying to improve.
Where to Find High Performing Candidates and How to Stand Out as an Employer
Jonas taught me a lot on this. Build the right culture and they’ll come to you.
Of course, you can build the right ads on Indeed and ZipRecruiter. But the best employees I’ve ever gotten have been people who have come to us or been referred by other employees.
Those are the best people. They want to work with their friends. They want to work with people they like. And here’s the key. They only want to bring in A players.
So if you have one or two A players, they’re going to attract more A players. Birds of a feather flock together.
If you have A players who are having fun and making good money inside your company, they’re going to bring their A player friends.
We’ve talked about culture a lot, but it really comes down to this. If people love working for you, they’ll recruit for you without you even asking.
What Interview Techniques Reveal True Work Ethic, Adaptability, and Culture Fit?
We do a three interview process. I talked about this in a previous video, but let me break it down again.
We like to go through what you could call a rigorous hiring process. We do a skills assessment test and then we do a culture fit test.
We’re checking if they’re the right kind of person and checking their skills too. Because depending on the position, if they can’t think on top of their head, they might not be a good fit.
Questions I Like to Ask
I like to find out what the hardest thing they’ve done was. What’s the biggest obstacle they’ve overcome?
What are their goals? Where do they see themselves in five years?
I’m looking for a certain set of skills and mindset.
I Look for Competitive People
I always find athletes do really, really well. And they don’t have to be athletes, but they need to be competitive in some sort of fashion.
It doesn’t matter if they’re male or female. We have a lot of female techs who maybe weren’t even athletes, but they have a competitive bone and they’re awesome. I love our girl technicians.
The qualities I’m looking for are people who want to learn, who want to get better, who see the vision, who are good team members, who like to help others.
People who have empathy for your customers and empathy for employees.
Those are the main ones.
How to Structure Compensation and Growth Opportunities to Retain A Players Long Term
I love this question because compensation is critical to keeping A players.
We like to compensate everyone for pretty much anything. Reviews, sales, referrals, anything of that nature.
We pay our technicians on a performance basis. We switched to this model about a year and a half ago after talking to Jonas about it, and it’s been awesome.
Why Performance Pay Works
You want to attract the best A players, right? The competitive ones.
The ones who are lazy, the ones who want to sit on their phone, the ones who want to drag their tail around, they’re not going to like working for us.
One, our A players won’t let that happen. Two, they’re never going to hit their numbers on a pay for performance model, so they’re just going to weed themselves out.
I’ve talked about this before. If you implement a performance pay plan and you lose half your team, those are the people you didn’t want anyway.
The new people who do like the new model are going to be like, “Dang, I’m making so much money. I love it here.”
I literally had a guy tell me this two days ago. “I want every one of my friends to come work here.”
The Goal: Six Figure Technicians
I want to make sure that all my technicians have a way to make six figures.
That’s the goal. If they’re willing to put in the work, they can make six figures as a tech. That attracts and retains A players.
Roadmap for Growth
For long term retention, you have to have a roadmap from day one.
When someone starts with us as a technician or sales guy, we have key metrics and numbers they have to hit in order to become a team lead, branch manager, regional manager, district manager, and eventually a partner with us.
There’s a model for them to grow. They know that if they really want to put in the work, they can have ownership one day.
So if they want to own a company one day, they start here as a technician, grow into being a branch manager, run multiple offices across the region, and eventually become a partner with us.
How to Paint the Vision
When we do the interview process, we actually have a sheet that we put down in front of candidates.
We let them sit there and look at it for a couple minutes. It has our vision of what the company is going to look like. The offices, the trucks, everything.
They have to read it for a minute or two before they come in and do the actual sit down interview.
So they’re already envisioning where they can fit into that vision before we even start talking.
I love that. It sets the tone for the entire conversation.
The Most Common Mistakes When Hiring A Players
The most common mistake? Hiring C players because you need someone.
It’s like putting a square peg into a round hole.
People typically don’t hire until they absolutely need someone. Someone didn’t show up. Someone quit. And they don’t have anyone to fall back on.
So they hire anyone and everyone just to fill the gap.
Always Be Recruiting (ABR)
Always be recruiting. ABC is always be closing. ABR is always be recruiting.
Always, always, always be thinking about recruiting.
You should always be recruiting. Keep interviewing even if you’re not hiring. Just talk to people. See if they’re interested.
If you run into people who are servers, waiters, or bartenders who are killers at their job, give them a business card. Exchange phone numbers.
Maybe in the future something could change. Maybe they’re not happy where they’re at now, but you really like them. Maybe they took good care of you. They’re good with people. They’ve got good people skills.
Always be recruiting everywhere you go.
The Pieology Story
Let me give you a perfect example of finding A players in the wild.
I was at a place called Pieology. It’s like a pizza place where you build your own pizza.
The two people taking our order were studs. Six foot three. Jacked athletes. Great with customer communication.
I started talking to them. “You guys in college?”
They were both like, “Oh yeah, we’re in college.”
I asked, “Do you like working here?”
“No, dude, we hate it. We hate it.”
I’m like, “Have you ever thought about sales?”
“Yeah, sales is interesting.”
“Hey man, let’s exchange numbers. You can make a lot more with my company knocking doors. You ever thought of knocking doors?”
And they started telling me a story about one of their buddies who does it.
We exchanged numbers and now they’re going to come knock doors for us.
You can literally find A players anywhere and everywhere. You just have to always be looking out for those opportunities.
If you’re not looking for them, they can just bypass you.
The Hundreds List
Here’s a strategy Jonas taught me that I love. It’s called the hundreds list. I didn’t make this up, I learned it a long time ago.
Here’s how it works. Usually people have a pretty big network. Everyone has hundreds of people on their Facebook, Instagram, contacts in their phone, Snapchat, whatever.
Make an Excel spreadsheet. Take a hundred people from your network. If not from each platform, take 20 from here, 20 from there. But get a hundred people total.
Then of those hundred people, take the top ten people you think would be great at this job. Reach out to them.
It’s the easiest way to find people.
Then when you bring those people in, have them do a hundreds list. Then bring in their referrals. Have them do a hundreds list.
Pretty soon you have five people on your team. That’s a list of 550 people to go after right away.
But most people are like, “Let’s just post on Indeed because it seems easy.”
You have these tools around you that are free. Start there. Use those resources.
Top Grading
There’s also a concept called top grading. Let’s say you’re recruiting and you’re walking around meeting people. And you find this absolute A player killer.
You’ve got a C player on your team. Hire that A player and get rid of the C player.
Constantly top grade your team. Always be upgrading your roster with better talent.
Start Hiring A Players Today
Look, hiring is the most important thing you do as a business owner. Your team determines how fast you grow, how much profit you make, and how stressed out you are.
If you hire A players, everything gets easier. They attract more A players. They push out the B and C players. They make your culture better. They make more money. And they stay with you long term.
But you have to be intentional about it. You have to always be recruiting. You have to paint the vision. You have to structure compensation to reward performance. And you have to build a culture that A players actually want to be part of.
If you want to learn more strategies for building a million dollar pest control business, join our free Facebook group, Pest Control Millionaires. We’ve got over 2,000 active members sharing what’s working every day. And if you want the complete playbook, grab a copy of our book, Zip Code Kings.
Now go build your hundreds list and start recruiting A players.
