Hiring Smart and Managing a Virtual Agency Team

Matt Sunshine is managing partner of LeadG2 and of the Center for Sales Strategy, the 32-year-old sales performance firm that launched LeadG2 as its inbound marketing division in 2012. Andrew Dymski hosts this interview (episode 28 of Inbound Agency Journey) and Gray MacKenzie joins him for the recap. Matt gets specific about running a remote team of 35: the time reports he reads every month, the talent bank he keeps full, and the pricing mistake that cost them clients.

Virtual since 1983, with time tracked but not billed

Andrew asked how a HubSpot Platinum partner runs with nobody in the same office. Matt’s answer: the Center for Sales Strategy has been fully virtual since 1983, before the internet, and not being tied to one city is how it finds the right person for each job. Three tools hold it together: Toggl for time, HipChat for chat, and Basecamp for every project.

We use Toggl to track our time. Always. And we don’t bill by the hour, but I like to look at it, because then I can know if we’re getting burned out. Because one of the dangers of working from a remote office is that you never leave your office.

(Listen at 15:34)

Andrew wanted to know what Matt looks for in those timesheets at the end of the month. The answer is the gap between the estimate and the actual.

This was supposed to be a 20-hour-a-month engagement, just using that as an example. And I see that we’re spending 40 hours a month on it. That’s a red flag. Conversely, if I see that we’re spending five hours a month on it, that’s a red flag, too. If I see that it’s a 20-hour-a-month assignment and we’re spending anywhere from 18 to 22, plus or minus 10%, I think that’s exactly right.

(Listen at 16:37)

A one-month spike with a good reason (a client crisis the team jumped on) is fine by him. The numbers give him an early read on scope creep, which he admits LeadG2 really has, and a signal for when to hire the next person.

Lose sleep before the hire, not after

It’s not easy to get a job working for us, and we’re really, really proud of that. We believe in losing sleep before you make the hire, not after you make the hire.

(Listen at 18:13)

The process has two gates. The first is a talent interview built with a partner, which Matt describes as statistically valid; it’s static once built, and what changes per role is which talents need to be at a high level. The second is a set of fit interviews, since remote work isn’t for everybody. Fit means the company’s reason for being (turn talent into performance) and three standards all 35 people across both companies are held to: integrity, quality, and responsiveness.

Keep a talent bank full before you have an opening

Right now, I don’t have an actual opening for an inbound marketing consultant, but I expect to sometime in the next, oh, three to six months. I also don’t have an opening for a salesperson for our organization, but I expect to within the next three to six months. And I’m interviewing constantly right now for both of those positions, even though I don’t have an opening.

(Listen at 20:00)

Andrew asked where the candidates come from. Matt skips the usual “we’re hiring” ads, because he isn’t after people who are looking for a job.

I’m not really looking for people that are looking for a job. So we use a nominator process. The questions always start off, who do you know that? Who do you know that always delivers amazing results for their customers? Who do you know that works independently and actually gets energized by having lots of plates spinning? And I’ll put those nominator messages out on LinkedIn and Facebook and Twitter… And sure enough, every single time I do it, I’ll get five to 15 names.

(Listen at 21:09)

When a name comes in, Matt calls the person, tells them why they were nominated, and asks for a conversation even though nothing is open yet. As a manager using a talent bank for 15-plus years, he says a desk sat empty for two or three weeks at most instead of six months. Hiring whoever happens to be unemployed the week a seat opens is the “bad breath is better than no breath” approach, and he doesn’t want his customers dealing with it.

The clients who promised to write their own content

Andrew asked about a recent struggle. Matt named two: underpricing, and expanding faster than the business supported.

You hear it from your prospects: oh, I can’t afford that, and I’ll produce my own content. Famous last words… And in the beginning, we said, okay. And 100% of those clients are no longer clients.

(Listen at 27:13)

Clients committed to two posts a week, six weeks passed with nothing despite weekly reminders, and they churned without results. Matt says he believed them at first because LeadG2 writes its own content.

So now we don’t do any engagement with anybody unless we provide the content. Now, they can supplement, and we love it when they supplement, because then it’s their voice coming through, and we like that. But we’re not going to engage with anyone unless we can produce content for them.

(Listen at 28:53)

The second lesson was to use the same freelancers again and again instead of hiring ahead of demand.