Power Move #3 · Make the Money Moves That Matter
Consider a New Hire Like a TV Pilot, Not an 8-Season Series
What Beth Mazza Said on The Free Lunch
Beth talks Power Move #3 with Eddie Ross on The Free Lunch, considering a new hire as a TV pilot, not an 8-season series. Eddie Ross opens by saying a company is not a family, and Beth thinks the hiring version of that is even more useful.
Nobody greenlights six seasons off a script. Instead, they shoot the pilot, watch it, and wait to see how other stakeholders react before making a real commitment. Victoria and Beth used to do the exact opposite. We read the resume, fell in love with the reputation, and hired the person — basically greenlighting a series run before a single scene exists. That once left us with a so-called industry superstar who lasted thirty days before hitting on a junior associate in the company kitchen.
A brilliant HR hire changed how we thought about every employee. Everyone got a probationary period. We did everything we could to help them succeed, but until day ninety we treated them as short term. That fixed the math. A hire stopped being a six-figure commitment for a year and became a four-figure commitment for a month.
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Our first head of the new ESG practice gave Victoria night sweats before the offer letter went out. The practice did not exist, and while we had an okay pipeline of potential clients, we had zero revenue.
On the car ride to the airport after winning our first ESG client, we called our brand new hire and said, “ congratulations on the job, we already sold your first engagement.”
Days 1 to 30. Does she build the scope or ask us for one? We had sold a concept. She came back in nine days with a work plan nobody asked her for, plus four things we had promised that could not be delivered on that timeline. She flagged all four before the client did.
Days 30 to 60. Who does the client call? At first, us. By week eight they were calling her and copying us.
Days 60 to 90. We stopped joining her client calls at day sixty-five. Quality held. Margin held. The client renewed for a much larger client.
At day 90 we stopped calling it a pilot, rewrote her job description, elevated her role and called it a series. Oh yeah, and that practice later changed what buyers were willing to pay for the entire firm.
