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Hire Nice People With Energy
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Wanda Brice, founder, Computer Directions, Dallas
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Transcript for this Segment

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4

HATTIE: Wanda Brice of Computer Directions hires hundreds as she is a staffing service. She is always is looking for people who have good energy and has her own quick way to detect it.

HATTIE: You have surrounded yourself with great people. How did you get them? Because other people can learn from you. What do you do in the interview process?

WANDA: Well, I have three criteria. One is I look for a quick study, somebody that really gets what you are telling them.

HATTIE: And how do you know that in an interview, though?

WANDA: In their communication and in their face. You know, you can see someone's eyes. Do they get it. And people sometimes make the mistake of not listening in an interview. They're thinking about what they want to tell you to sell about themselves, and they just need to listen and respond to what you're saying. Because an interviews, I always tell someone, is a two-way street. You need to be happy working for me as much as I need to be happy having you work here.

HATTIE: And so the second thing you look for?

WANDA: The second thing is energy.

HATTIE: How do you know discern energy?

WANDA: Well, my acid test is the handshake. If I can't feel your energy, then it's not going to work. Because people with a high energy level get things done. And the third thing is the hardest to define, which is a nice person. And I really want someone who is a nice person. I guess everybody's got their own subjective definition of nice, but I want someone who likes people, who has a positive attitude, who is going to look at the best side of things, who is optimistic. But a nice person.

HATTIE: Do you do start a person with a trial period?

WANDA: Yes. Everybody's here on a trial period. The first 90 days are a trial period.

HATTIE: So no one is hired for sure until 90 days.

WANDA: Right.

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Key Idea #4 of this episode
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1. Small Business School Hire Attitude Not Skill
2. Hire People Who Can Read People
3. Hire People Others May Overlook
4. Hire Nice People With Energy
5. Offer A Career Track
With Good Pay and Benefits
6. Create An Intern Program
7. Promote From Within
8. Put What You Want In Writing
9. Interview and Audition
10. Teach, Preach, Coach and Counsel
11. Provide real Training
12. Train Everyone, Not Just Sales
13. Listen To All Ideas
14. Offer A Job For Life
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Key Idea #4: Hire Nice People With Energy

Employees consistently provide the surprise element for the business owner. However, with a thoughtful hiring process, much of the surprise can be avoided.

Topic for discussion: How does Wanda determine the energy level of a person she is interviewing?

Answer: Wanda is an expert and she has years of hiring experience that have taught her that she can measure a person's overall energy by shaking their hand. Buddhism teaches that we have, "energy channels." These are veins within the body through which psychic energy flows. Could it be that Wanda's intuition tells her that by briefly holding the hand of another person in her hand she can learn something about that person's psychic energy? Other business owners have told us that they use a handshake to determine if they want to do business with a potential customer.

Sue Fox and Perrin Cunningham write in their book, Business Etiquette For Dummies, about the handshake. They say, "What a sloppy handshake says about the person behind the hand is that he or she just doesn't have things together. And if you're the sloppy shaker, you're telling the client, boss, or interviewer that you have problems. That conclusion can lead him to make a subconscious decision that he doesn't want to do business with you — or that you won't make a good representative of his company."

In addition to observing a person's handshake, like Bill Sugars, Wanda also watches for eye contact and a person's ability to actively listen and react to questions. Wanda believes that an active listener will be an excellent learner and she only wants to hire people who are teachable.

If a person passes the handshake test and is a good listener, Wanda then tries to figure out if the person is nice. Sounds corny but she only wants nice people on her payroll. Before we interviewed Wanda, we had already noticed how nice everyone in her office is. We mean sweet-and-gentle nice. This is another case for the point that like attracts like. The ninety day trial period is when Wanda can validate her intuition about a person's level of niceness, but Wanda says she can choose nice people. At Tires Plus they said they hired people with nice parents because they don't have time to teach people how to be nice. They are on to something here. Wanda has time to teach a person how to do a job, but, she doesn't have time to polish the rough edges of a person who is insensitive or uncaring. The group of employees who work in the home office of Computer Directions work in close proximity to one another. They share a kitchen and they share in the pay-for-performance plan. They have to depend upon each other. Wanda is wise. She knows nice people are much easier to interact with than the not so nice.

You think about it: What do you look for when you are hiring a new person?

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