Happy Sunday! 

If you’re reading this, I hope you’ve enjoyed a relaxing weekend, you’ve got your feet up, your arm resting on a pillow, and a beverage in your left hand (I’ve got some Olipop). Today we’re talking about how I have had success in hiring people.

But before we get into the newsletter, some goodies for you:

  • Moiz and I recorded an episode of Limited Supply in Austin going deep on last-minute BFCM tips. Listen here!
  • Sharma Brands gets expedited onboarding at Amazon’s Buy With Prime. If you’d like to get connected with them for BWP, fill out this form.
  • If you know someone who would enjoy the newsletter, please tell them to subscribe at: visit.nik.co/subscribe (how do you like that page!!)

Today I'm going to walk you through how I hire at Sharma Brands. Over the last 24 months we’ve grown our team, and everyone we’ve hired is an expert at what they do. We’ve got absolute killers on our payroll, and a lot of it comes back to how we hire. Whether I’m hiring someone in our New York office or we’re hiring someone in Sri Lanka, we use the same process. We’ve never lost an employee at Sharma Brands, which is not easy for most companies to say. This process has netted us incredible talent.

I can’t write this newsletter without giving a big shoutout to my business coach, Kevin Cape, who helped me formalize this practice over the last 24 months. His insight, being an executive in the aviation industry where everything MUST go right or someone can die, is next level.

The Broken Hiring System

So, if you think about the typical hiring practice for a company, it usually look like the following sequence:

  1. A company realizes that it needs to fill a new role for any number of reasons.
  2. They create a job description with their ideal “role and responsibilities.”
  3. The job description talks about the “requirements” which are typically made up like “This person needs a bachelor's degree or a certain GPA, or 5 years of experience in a similar role or field” etc.
  4. They post on LinkedIn (that damn “Easy Apply” button) and on various job boards hoping that they get some qualified leads for the role.
  5. They don’t do a good enough job selling the position to the candidate and convincing them WHY they might be interested to apply in the first place.
  6. They also don’t talk enough about the downsides and why this role might not be a good fit. 

And the truth is, I think that the old way of hiring is pretty broken. I think that the idea of having strict “requirements” or “years of experience”' doesn't matter at all. The only thing that really matters is the culture fit and the results achieved as they pertain to your specific company and the specific role that you’re hiring for. 

When I was 18 and applying to roles, I got automatically rejected from almost every role I applied to because I didn’t have a college degree, a GPA to fill out from college, and at the time only had 1 proper tech job, DJing in high school, and doing social media for celebrities under my belt. I like to think that a ton of companies missed the opportunity to hire someone like me, who was incredibly hungry, ready to grind, and was extremely passionate about digital marketing. As a result, our hiring practice is setup to filter for candidates based on their knowledge and potential, versus just people who only have a college degree.

Disclaimer: Obviously, if you’re going into a field that requires a degree (medicine, law, etc.) then you need a degree and need to filter for it. And this is also not an endorsement to not go to college either.

In my process, I have a few key steps:

  • Identify the need
  • Job description
  • Qualifying the candidate
  • Phone interview
  • In-person interview
  • Test project, if applicable

Let me walk you through each step.

For The Job Description

In the job description, I begin with selling WHY a candidate might want to work with Sharma Brands in the first place. I talk about our recent growth, our amazing clients like Feastables, Eight Sleep, Chamberlain Coffee, Cuyana and more, our growing team and our recent wins. I always start with the sizzle to get candidates excited to apply. 

Then, I talk about the RESULTS that need to be achieved in this specific role, not the “years of experience” that are required. 

And in my opinion, if you take one thing away from this email, it should be that you (or your hiring managers) should avoid “requirements” and focus exclusively on results when hiring for all new roles.  

The more specific that you are about the results that need to be achieved each week, month, quarter, and year, the better your hiring (and management process) will be. For example, a few months ago when I mentioned I was hiring for my Chief of Staff, one of the many results that I listed directly in my job description was:

“Document notes, date-bound action items, and date-bound accountability follow ups in every meeting Nik attends or facilitates, and drive each of those items to completion within the prescribed time frames.” 

Now that’s a KPI that clearly sets expectations for both the employee and the manager about what is required in this role. There is no confusion on either side about the job to be done and there is no confusion as to whether or not this task was actually performed by the employee on a daily basis after they get hired. 

For our design team’s lead a result was, “Build team capabilities (resources, processes, team) to produce 40 landing pages per month with 2-3 variations per page with pages delivered within 10 days for clients.” and then use this baseline to manage performance on a weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis for that specific role. This is an old result, but you can see how it’s very clear, including the task, the context, and the timeline. The best part of results, is now when you have 1:1’s with team members, you can just review progress toward these results and not waste time or try to find things to talk about last-minute.

Qualifying The Candidate

The next question that comes to mind is once a candidate see the role and decides they want it, is how do I qualify them? 

Once the role is posted, the candidate can see the results that we want them to achieve. To qualify them properly, I put together a Google Form (you can use any form software), which will ask them to complete a writing assignment. At the top, I have a very blunt explanation for what the role requires. For example, I said: 

“I'm looking to hire someone based in New York, NY, has the ability to travel when needed, and wants to be a CEO or COO in a few years. Across the 7 active projects I have, I need someone who is organized, attentive, analytical, and can be where I need to be, when I can't. You must have exceptional attention to detail.”

Below that, I take the top 3 results from the job posting, and make 3 questionss out of them with long-form written responses. I tell candidates each question should take anywhere from 10-30 minutes per question. 

Back to the Chief of Staff result from above, one of the questions I asked, was: 

“Tell us about a time that you were responsible for documenting notes, date-bound action items, and date-bound accountability follow ups for another leader or executive.

How did you ensure to drive each of those items to completion within the prescribed time frames?

Describe any systems or tools you used or developed, how you used them, and who was responsible for each step in these processes. How effective was it? What evidence do you have to support that claim?” 

I felt like this question got to the heart of the KPI that I wanted this hire to achieve, and it gives them an opportunity to prove they have the chops. With a ton of inbound interest for roles, these questions help you figure out who’s legit, and who’s not. When you strictly explain that you need systems, tools, processes, evidence, etc, you can quickly see if someone is BS’ing you or not. 

For this part of the screening process, I’m trying to assess: 

  1. Can this person follow directions and answer my questions clearly with relevant responses? 
  2. Is this person telling the truth and do they have real world examples and data to back up their claims?
  3. Is this candidate’s thinking reasonable and aligned with how I might approach the role or what I’d like this hire to do? 

If the candidate can impress me regarding all 3 of these points with their written responses, I typically move to a Zoom call to learn more. 

Why I Like This System: 

I like to ask questions and receive detailed written responses from potential candidates for a few reasons. 

1. It’s async and candidates can respond on their own time. I want candidates to have plenty of time to think carefully about their responses and reply with their best foot forward. I personally hate when people do live “gotcha” questions on interviews and candidates don’t have enough time to prepare.

2. This format gives someone the chance to apply without feeling like they may be judged on anything (race, skin color, religion, gender, etc.). It’s solely based on the replies they send in.

1. 50% of people who I ask to answer questions like this in writing literally don’t answer the questions and are immediately disqualified at this stage. Saves me time.

2. Another 25% answer the questions but, due to their answers, lack of effort in the answer, or something else, it’s clear that they aren’t the right fit. 

3. The final 25% write thoughtfully and I can tell pretty quickly that their responses align with what I’m looking for in this role. It’s the best way that I’ve found to know if we’re on the same page before moving forward to a call. 

The Phone Interview: 

The next stage in my process is to do a phone (or preferably Zoom) interview.

Here, I ask a lot of the same questions that I ask in the form and I dig deeper into their responses. I’ll ask questions to get more granular detail. In this interview, I’m looking to ensure legitimacy of the answers they wrote in. I also begin to get a sense of what it might be like to work with this person as I get some time to interact with them live. 

Additionally, the Zoom interview is a great opportunity for me to discuss all of the reasons why this job might NOT be a great fit. 


As I mentioned above, Sharma Brands is a fast growing company and we work with high-profile clients in the retail and DTC space. Our clients expect a lot from us and I expect a lot of my team to be there to deliver.

I clearly state in the job description what my expectations about work are. 

That could be about the hours we’re working, the occasional request to jump in and do something on a weekend, or the need to reply on Sunday night before a big Monday meeting. Obviously not every week is like this but it’s important to set expectations upfront about what the work environment will be. I also talk about the fun stuff, summer fridays, PTO, various team outings and more. That said, we have a strong culture of excellence at SB and I think it’s incredibly important to spend a few minutes on the call explaining why the job might not be a good fit. Explain these things and see how the candidate reacts to learn more. 

If they pass the Zoom interview, I’ll invite key hires to come meet my team in person for the final stage. 

The In-Person Interview

The last stage of my process is an in person interview where they can meet my team and I and spend the morning or an afternoon at the Sharma Brands HQ getting a feel for what it might be like to work here. 

In this section of the interview I like to ask about their career aspirations, values, what they hope to achieve in 1-2-5 years and do a trial run of what it's like to have them in the office for the day. 

I also try to have the candidate meet whoever else they might be working with regularly on the team. After they leave, my team gives me high-level feedback on what they thought and then I’ll know whether or not to move forward with extending an official offer to join. 

Although this sounds like a lot, it’s still a fast process. It’s typically 2-4 weeks to progress through all of the stages for senior hires at SB. When we are serious about a candidate, we’ll move quickly to get them. 

A Test Project

Now, this process does differ slightly based on the kind of role. 


For creative roles, we still focus a lot on their portfolio and then we typically do a paid test project alongside the exercise above. For a paid media role, we may do a paid media test or exercise. For an account manager, we’ll ask them to present something as if we are the client and we’ll try to poke holes (just like a client would) to see how they will react. There is some variation for each type of role but the beginning of the process is always the same. 

By running a strict hiring process and having a high-bar for talent, we end up hiring exceptional people who end up staying with us for a long time.

Promotions

I love tying job descriptions and the interview process to key results because it makes managing and promotions much easier to assess the give.

At the end of the year, if someone checks the boxes and hits all of their results, they will get a promotion. If they didn’t hit their results that they agreed to hit, then maybe they aren’t quite ready for a promotion yet. In my opinion, this method of stating and managing toward key results from day 1 is the best way for both managers and direct reports to be aligned on the key results, jobs to be done, and macro goals. 

As the CEO of Sharma Brands, my job is to set the strategic vision for the company, hire exceptional talent, bring us the perfect match of clients for our skills, and manage a key team of department heads who help manage many other individual contributors and direct reports. 

Every year in Q4 (I am about to do this exercise), I do results planning for the year ahead. Once I have clarity on my own key results for 2024, I’ll work with my other department heads to operationalize the strategy across every area of the business. My top 3 results is what my direct reports will align their results toward, and their team will do the same for their top 3 results.

It has the same intensity as the finance team does as they close out the year’s books and prep next year’s targets, but it’s how I like to lead and steer the ship. 

Anyway, I hope that this provided some clarity and gave you a few key nuggets on how to structure your hiring process around key results to make both hiring, managing, and promoting much easier in your business overall. The beauty of what you likely do, if you read this newsletter, is that everything can be tied back to performance, which means it can be tied to results.

Hiring well and giving promotions are incredibly important and one of the most rewarding things that you can do as an entrepreneur or executive. There is nothing quite like the feeling of giving ambitious people new opportunities, helping them grow, and winning together. The last thing I always recommend people keep open is the door for people who might be wanting to work with you, even if you’re not hiring for a formal role. At Sharma Brands, 4-5 people had emailed me just stating their intentions of why they wanted to work here, and it turned out to be a perfect fit — they are also the fastest people to get up to speed.

Ok, now onto some fun stuff…

Vendor of the Week:

Black Crow — An intelligent data platform for brands advertising on Meta and using Klaviyo.

Last time I mentioned Black Crow, a few people replied saying it was the most valuable demo they got on all year, so I’m going to re-summarize the beauty of Black Crow. I met the founder in 2020, and have been a huge fan of their product’s innovation since then. If you’re a brand spending at least $100k/month on Facebook and Instagram ads, AND you use Klaviyo for email, here is how Black Crow helps you:

Black Crow has its own app/pixel on your site, that is assessing how customers interact with your site, and scoring their intent. So if someone goes to the EVERLANE website and goes to the homepage, scrolls down 70% of the page, clicks into the jeans collection, then into a PDP, clicks different sizes, etc., then Black Crow might score their intent as 8.4/10. If someone just goes to the site clicks on a PDP, and then leaves, it might score them a 2.3/10.

Once Black Crow scores a user, it’ll segment them into Low, Medium, and High Intent Shoppers. Now, when you run retargeting ads on Meta, you can show more lower funnel content to the High Intent Shoppers, maybe to Medium Intent Shoppers as well. And you can focus on more educational/upper-funnel content for the Low Intent Shoppers. This alone makes your retargeting budgets significantly more efficient, because you’re able to match shopper intent to the content that will get them closer to buying.

Black Crow’s second product is called SMART ID. When you install your Facebook pixel or Klaviyo pixel, even if it’s through serverside integrations, you’re only getting a limited amount of data. As a result, your site visitor might be tagged as a “new” shopper, when they’ve been to your site 4 times before, and they’re still getting asked to enter their email. 

When SMART ID is implemented, you can segment your Klaviyo list better, and you can pass more data back to Facebook ads as well. When we implemented this for Cadence, especially because their website is built custom, we saw a 20% reduction in CPA overnight. It was just as simple as better data being inputted back into ads manager, made the output of ads manager (the efficiency of the ads) significantly better.

Black Crow is an absolute no-brainer for brands that spend over $100k/month, are on Shopify, and also use Klaviyo. I’ve also tested other companies that do the audience segmentation based on intent, and Black Crow’s audiences always out-perform in the bakeoff. I could talk about Black Crow for hours, but instead, you should…


Book a demo and learn more about how Black Crow can help your business!

LP of the Week:

This week’s landing page we developed directly in Shopify for one of my favorite brands, The Outset by Scarlett Johansson. This was a holiday-focused collections page.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE PAGE!

Complimenting their holiday photography, the landing page looks great. It feels very editorial-like, and not pushy, but has amazing merchandising and education about the brand, for those who are on the fence of purchasing. This page is going to make a ton of money.


Why haven’t you had HOOX build your holiday landing pages yet? We’re pretty busy with holiday pages, but book a call with us and mention that you want Nik’s special price for the newsletter, and we’ll hook you up. We build the best pages in the industry, it’s no secret that there has been 5-10 companies who claim they build our pages or that they can build pages as good as HOOX. Book your call on this link, and let’s get you setup. 

That's all for this week

How was the length of today’s newsletter? It was half the size of last week’s monster newsletter, which I’m going to turn into a deck and share with you. I hope you had a great weekend and this is either your Sunday nightcap or your Monday morning ease into the week.

For those reading on Sunday night, don’t forget tonight is the night you must get 9 hours of sleep! You think you’re good with 6 hours of sleep or maybe 7 hours? You’re going to be running through walls with 9 hours… Mike Ross from Suits type of brain with 9 hours.

I hope you have an incredible upcoming week. If you plan to be at Main Street Summit, holler at me or just reply here and let me know. 

See you next Sunday!