How to Spot an A-Player Before You Hire Them

In this episode of the Ecomm Breakthrough Podcast, host Josh Hadley, an ecommerce entrepreneur who has scaled his brand to eight figures, shares nine mental frameworks for hiring senior-level managers. Drawing from over a decade of experience, Josh covers key principles including trusting your gut, starting the hiring process early, looking for clear green flags, using contractor trial periods, ensuring culture fit, verifying a track record of success, staying genuinely excited about candidates, accepting minor imperfections, and learning from hiring mistakes. His goal is to help ecommerce entrepreneurs make smarter hiring decisions and avoid costly errors. Bullet Points: Importance of trusting gut feelings in the hiring process Starting the hiring process early to avoid rushed decisions Identifying clear positive indicators (green flags) in candidates Utilizing contractors or consultants for initial trial periods Ensuring alignment of personality and company culture Verifying candidates' patterns of career success and technical competence Feeling genuine excitement about potential hires Accepting imperfections while avoiding overanalysis Gaining experience and learning from hiring mistakes Developing a comprehensive approach to hiring senior leaders in ecommerce Timestamps: 00:00:00 Introduction to Hiring Frameworks Josh Hadley introduces the nine mental frameworks he uses before extending a job offer for senior-level roles in his business. 00:01:05 Framework 1: Gut Feeling Trust your intuition and gut feeling about a candidate, as it's often the most reliable indicator of a good hire. 00:03:15 Framework 2: Start Hiring Early Begin the hiring process as soon as possible to attract a large pool of applicants, aiming for 1000 per position. 00:04:20 Framework 3: Don't Succumb to Business Pressure Avoid letting the immediate needs of the business force you into making a hasty or less-than-ideal hiring decision. 00:06:18 Framework 4: Look for Green Flags A-level talent consistently presents "green flags" in their case studies and interviews; a lack of them is a red flag. 00:07:28 Framework 5: Use Contractors First Hire new team members as contractors for 30-90 days to prove their fit before committing to a W-2 employee. 00:09:26 Framework 6: The Three Checkboxes Ensure candidates are a personality fit, align with core values, and have a proven pattern of success in their career. 00:12:33 Framework 7: Be Excited About the Hire If you have to convince yourself to hire someone, it's a warning sign. You should be genuinely excited about them. 00:13:33 Framework 8: Accept Imperfections No candidate is perfect. Ask yourself if you would regret not hiring this person, despite their minor, non-deal-breaking flaws. 00:14:39 Framework 9: Get Experience Through Reps Your ability to recognize and hire A-level talent will improve with practice, so don't be afraid to make mistakes. Links and Mentions: Hiring Process "Gut Feeling / Intuition": "00:02:09" "Hiring Process Timing": "00:03:15" "Case Study Evaluation": "00:06:18" "Contractor/Consultant Hiring": "00:07:28" Assessment Tools and Methods "Culture Index": "00:10:22" "Core Values Assessment": "00:11:15" "Pattern of Success Evaluation": "00:12:33" Hiring Concepts "Excitement for Hire": "00:12:39" "Flaws vs. Deal Breakers": "00:13:33" "Experience in Hiring": "00:15:38" Conclusion "Conclusion": "00:15:38" Transcript: Josh Hadley 00:00:00  Today, I'm going to share with you the nine different frameworks that I use before extending an offer to somebody that I'm about to hire in the business. Welcome to the Ecomm Breakthrough Podcast. I'm Josh Hadley. I've scaled my own ecommerce brand from 0 to 8 figures, and I'm actively building towards nine figures in sales. This podcast is where I document that journey and share the systems, the strategies, and the lessons learned in real time so that you can learn what actually matters and scale your own business. My name is Josh Hadley. First and foremost, I am a man of faith. I am a husband to a beautiful wife and the father of four children. I have been selling in the e-commerce space for over a decade, doing $20 million a year annually and selling multi-millionaire on Amazon, TikTok, shop and Shopify. I'm also the host of the number one business strategy podcast for ecommerce entrepreneurs, and that's E-com breakthrough. Today, I'm ultimately just going to share with you something that's on top of my mind as I'm looking to add some senior level managers and leaders into my business right now. Josh Hadley 00:01:05  And to be honest with you, I've gone through like multiple different people that I've been considering extending some invitations and offers to come join the business. However, I've come back full circle and I've decided that none of them are the right fit. And so I want to walk you through the different frameworks that I use. There's nine different ones to help me come to this realization that, hey, honestly, this is kind of the warning signals. These are not the right people for the business. And this comes after hiring people for the last decade. And because I've been hiring people for the last decade, like my pattern recognition has only gotten better and better over time. And in addition, I have more examples of what it looks like when somebody is not a great hire and what it looks like when somebody is an exceptional team member. So let's go through framework number one. And this is going to be the gut feeling. This is that gut check. And most, like so many people say, well, what is your gut say? What does that even mean? Right. Josh Hadley 00:02:09  What does that mean? I truly believe, like there we all have a soul inside of us, and there's something about that spiritual energy inside of us that I think is leading and guiding us on a daily basis. We just don't even know it like. But I think it does teach us things on a regular basis. And so it is that light and light is attracted to other light. And so I believe that when we make those gut decisions, it's really our conscious, that soul that is speaking into us, whether this is the right fit or it's not. And oftentimes this has been the number one indicator for me as to whether, like, somebody is going to be a great hire or not. Is that feeling that I get from the moment that I watch their case study that they put together for the business, and also the interview that I conducted What? That team member. If I'm getting that good, like, gut feeling, so to speak, those are very positive signs. But if I'm ever getting that feeling of, like, an uneasiness or like maybe that's the warning signal. Josh Hadley 00:03:15  So that's framework number one is like right down the gut feeling, your intuition that comes to you almost immediately because your brain is going to be able to begin rationalizing almost anybody, and you can rationalize anybody into almost any different role, but don't let your brain do that. And so often I've had that happen to me. Framework number two is start the hiring process as soon as you possibly can. And the reason why you want to start the hiring process as soon as you possibly can is because guess what? Finding the right person is going to take time. And so first off, I'm going to go through my framework. And before I ever extend an offer to somebody I'm going to ask myself, how many applicants have I even seen? How many people even applied to this job? My goal is that I've got 1000 applicants for every single one of my positions....

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