Council Post: Why You Shouldn’t Just Hire People Who Are Like You

By Tommy Mello, owner of A1 Garage Doors, a $100M+ home service business. Sharing what I’ve learned to help other entrepreneurs scale.

As business owners or leaders, we often find people to work for us who are like us: people we’ll have a beer with while discussing our favorite topic and people we’ll hang out with all day.

That might feel good, but that can be one of the biggest hiring mistakes.

Let me explain:

When we hire people who are like us, we don’t hire the people we actually need to grow the business. And when we do need to hire, we rush the process, we hire whoever seems promising and we often end up hiring the wrong people.

What I recommend doing from the very beginning is this: Hire based on strategy instead of last-minute needs.

Here’s what I mean by that: Hire people who are different from you, who can keep learning, and who can even “split the sea” for you.

Hire people who are different from you.

In your org chart, circle roles that make you cringe—roles that you would hate doing. Just ask yourself: “What are my biggest weaknesses? What’s holding us back?”

Then, hire for these roles. And if you don’t have money to hire everyone just yet, just hire for your weakest link. For example, if you aren’t the best at having tough conversations with your employees, get someone else to do it. That frees up your time for you to do what you’re great at: say, sales or marketing.

(And remember that your hire is likely not going to be like you.)

The benefit of all this is that you get to do things you enjoy in the business. As the visionary, my role is to keep the vision and momentum going. And because I’ve spent all of my life hiring around my weaknesses, work doesn’t feel like work for me—I get to do what I love doing every day.

Of course, hiring just for your weaknesses isn’t enough. Here’s another important thing to look out for when hiring:

Hire people who can grow with the business.

The same employees who got you to $100,000 might not be the employees you need to go over $1 million. Why?

Your company might just outgrow the employee. When that happens, you may have to demote or even let go of them. I’ve had these conversations, and it often feels like divorce—it’s that tough.

That’s why it’s important to hire people who love learning and improving themselves. As the business grows, they are less likely to be left behind.

Now, here’s a big disclaimer to what I just said:

Hire people who can ‘split the sea’ for you.

When it comes to top C-level executives, I’d pay $500,000 for someone who can literally split the sea and tell me what to do, rather than $100,000 for someone who’s very good but still has to learn on the job.

In other words, I believe you want someone who’s been where you want to go. They should be able to come up with an entire strategy and give you options, which is so important when you are not sure what to do.