Sunday Apr 06, 2025

Episode 10: Hiring - Interview Keys

In this episode, host Sid Graef continues with the month’s main theme: hiring. He introduces Jim DuBois, a seasoned business owner from “Squeegee Pros,” who’s spent over 25 years building a 45-plus-employee team. Jim shares his strategies for creating a company culture that naturally attracts and retains A-players, from designing compelling job ads and hosting engaging hiring events to filtering out uncommitted applicants who don’t fit his team’s mission. His core takeaway: Build a great company first, and great employees will come. If you need to expand your workforce with high-quality team members, Jim’s approach offers fresh tactics and valuable clarity on how to stand out as a top-tier employer.

Show Notes

  • Guest: Jim DuBois, Owner of Squeegee Pros (Window Cleaning/Pressure Washing, ~45 employees)

  • Key Topics:

    1. Crafting “magnetic” job ads aimed at your ideal candidate demographics.

    2. Hosting hiring events that reveal real A-players through engagement and Q&A sessions.

    3. Emphasizing the importance of presenting a business that top talent wants to join.

    4. Using your company vision, culture, and “unique selling propositions” to attract and retain the best employees.

  • Mentioned:

    • Squeegee Pros (no direct link provided)

    • WindowWashingWealth.com (Jim’s high-level coaching company; URL mentioned only in passing)

Resources

Transcript

Sid Graef (Host):
Welcome back to the Huge Insider Podcast. Hey, my friend, it’s Sid Graef here, and The Huge Insider is the show for home service professionals that are striving to break the million-dollar revenue mark. So if that’s you, you’re in the right place. And if you’re already over a million dollars in revenue, you’re gonna get even more out of this show.

So why is this the show? It’s not your typical podcast. It’s not an interview show. It’s not an expert-driven show. Instead, what we’ve done is we’ve gathered wisdom and insight directly from seven- and eight-figure business owners—people that are running companies doing anywhere from 2 million to 40 million dollars a year in revenue. And we’re bringing you their best insights, all focused on a single topic each month. These are real owners; there are no armchair philosophers and no fake gurus. These are the ones that are quietly building empires behind the scenes. They’re not on social media looking for attention; they’re in business, making things happen.

So it’s still the month of March, and we’re wrapping it up. We’ve been diving deep all month long into hiring. If you have a big dream, you’re not gonna build it by yourself—you have to hire people to carry it out and build a team. And today, you’re gonna hear from Jim DuBois. He’s been on this show and shared with us one other time, but Jim is in South Carolina—or, well, maybe North Carolina (forgive me, Jim)—and he’s got a window cleaning company. He’s been in the business for over 25 years, he’s got over 45 employees, and they hire people all the time. They’re constantly screening for great talent. So he’s going to share his experience and how he separates the wheat from the chaff—how he finds A-players and how he sorts them out.

Everything he talks about in the show is in the show notes. Everything we discuss on the program is in the show notes, and we have a downloadable action guide for you regarding this episode available at thehugeinsider.com. So let’s get into it.

Jim DuBois (Guest):
I’m Jim DuBois with WindowWashingWealth.com—my high-level coaching company—and Squeegee Pros, which is my window cleaning/pressure washing company. Forty-five employees make up that company.

So today’s Huge Insider tip has to do with the hiring process and dialing in the interview itself. It’s a very powerful process when implemented. The problem is, so many will miss the mark on properly recruiting, and they can’t gain the needed traction to grow. The thing is, you need good employees that stay with you if you’re gonna get to the next level in your company. Most, well, they have a revolving door and they continue to struggle. They get frustrated, and some even put their hands up and say, “You know what, I’ll just go back to doing it myself.” Have you ever felt that way before? I know I have—way back in the day.

So you’re gonna have to know how to find good employees, and then know how to keep them. That’s what we’re gonna talk about here over the next few minutes. And what I want you to do—I want you to imagine that I just flew out to your city, and I say, “Hey, meet me at the nearest hiring pond.” And around this pond are other service providers that are—well, they’re hiring also. And I find you, and I’m walking up to you and I’m kind of shaking my head ‘no.’ I’d say, “You know what, give me your fishing rod, and here, take mine. In fact, use my bait instead of yours. Go ahead, put the rod back in the water, let’s give it five or six minutes, and let’s see what happens.” And sure enough, your fishing rod starts to bend, your back is arching, and out comes a big fish—an A-player! Everyone around this pond, they’re looking at you and they’re saying, “Where in the heck did this guy come from, and how did he get this A-player? I’ve been coming here for weeks!” Well, this is due to a built-out recruiting system. And when you learn how to separate yourself from everyone else by doing what they’re not doing, well, you get attention—kind of like a red Ferrari in a parking lot of white painters’ vans.

So when coaching business owners, I often hear them—well, they have this frustration that they just can’t find good employees to work for them. Their confidence—well, they lose it. And what happens is, as soon as they get good employees to show up, well, they think to themselves that their business will finally run the way that they want it. This is not true. You don’t add good employees and then get a great business; it’s the other way around. You create a great business, and good employees get added to it. Does that make sense?

So before you even start searching for your perfect employee, take a long hard look at your business and ask if your company is a place that good employees want to work at. Because chances are, if you’re not hiring the employees you want, well, your company isn’t structured to attract the A-player. So start with your perfect employee avatar, and think about what you want in a great employee. Then think about what the employee will want in an employer. Now build your company in a way that would attract the very best employees. So that’s the baseline or the foundation. This is the crux of the whole mission of the interview (or leading up to the interview) to hire the right people.

So there’s a couple of hiring points I’m gonna go through with you right now. So one, well, it’s the job post or the ad. Most, well, they do this all wrong. Their job post looks like everybody else’s. So in this example, let’s use technicians, right? So first, determine your job-position avatar—who you’re hiring, what’s the demographic. For technicians, we’re probably hiring those in their 20s, their early 30s, right? So write your ads to speak to that demographic. Speak to the A-player inside that demographic, using language that they can understand and relate to, versus saying what everybody else says. So what are we doing here? I mean, would you prefer to hire the A-player or the D or F player? Excited? And now you’re separating yourself as a company from all the other companies hiring out there in this same pond. With me so far? Now we have a magnet to attract who we want.

So the second part to this is the actual interview, ’cause now you’re ready for it. We don’t do your typical interview—we do hiring events. Why? Well, one, we save a tremendous amount of time, and two, we hire who we need almost every single time, versus one-on-one after one-on-one with the no-shows and the wrong people showing up. We need people now, so you end up hiring the D-player. You hire the person you’re not really excited about, and the revolving door continues.

Anyone can do a hiring event. It doesn’t matter if you’re a one-person operation or a 50-person organization. I’ve done them in parking lots, fast-food places, conference centers; you can do ’em in workspaces or at your own office if you have the space. So our hiring events at my office are not what the typical interviewee is expecting. We have music playing, we’ve got PowerPoint going on with pictures of us working, happy faces, our brand, technician testimonials. We have a basket of drinks and snacks and, of course, applications. And you might not be able to do all of this right now, but you can build up to it just like I did.

So I scan the room—I’m looking to see who’s got what going on, who’s on their phone, who’s looking around. You begin to learn to read people, and you can have an assistant in the room too with a clipboard. I’ve done this—the assistant draws out the room, remembering who was sitting where, right? And then I go around the room, and I ask, “What’s your name? Where do you live? What was it in the job post or the job ad that made you come here?” We’re making notes on this, and the assistant makes these notes and continues the note-taking that I need to know for later, right, when the interviews are done. So it’s just making notes on things like who was on their phone when I was speaking, who was asking me questions, what was their body language like, what was their eye contact—were they looking to me or looking around?

I often use an analogy when I’m doing these interviews—this hiring event—I start off with what I call the “bus analogy.” And I’ll say, “How many have been on Interstate 77 here in town? Ever pass those big, clean, beautiful, unmarked buses? And you wonder, who’s in there? Is it Taylor Swift? Is it 50 Cent? Is it Bon Jovi? No, that’s my bus. It knows exactly where it’s going, and right now it stopped, and the doors just opened. And there you are standing, as I decide if I want to hire you to come onto my bus or not. And if I do, you’ll come in and you’ll take a seat in the back of my bus, and every quarter, the bus is gonna stop and the doors are gonna open; we’re gonna do a performance review. If you’re doing your job well, you’ll probably move up a few rows, and if not, we might boot you off my bus. See, my bus is an A-player company full of A-player employees, and we’re looking for the right fit for you to possibly come onto my bus.” So that’s kind of what I do to set the stage—pretty much word for word, and this is kind of all memory now.

I’ve had several of the D (as in David) players—D and F player types—get up and walk out of my hiring events, and that’s okay, because it’s what I want. Working here is not for everyone, and it’s okay if you get up and you use the back door to exit. You need to be on your game, or you won’t be here very long. But why? Because we’re only looking for—we’re only talking to—the A-players in the room. We’re not talking to the D-player. They know this. So the first 15 minutes, I’m not even talking about the position; I’m talking about my company’s vision—where we’ve been, where we’re going—the company mission, and how we’ll arrive at our company vision, and how the right people will help us get there. I’m talking about my company’s unique selling propositions—the things that make us different, better. This way, they can see we’re world-class at what we do. They’ll see not everyone’s going to qualify, but only a select few. And the A-player, well, they love this. The D-player could care less, and many of ’em just walk out.

See, I’m framing this as not just another job, but elevating it into something that they’ve never heard before. Why? Because this is what the A-player wants to hear. Then I create engagement and dialogue during the event by asking questions while I’m going through the interview process. I’m going around the room—try it yourself and watch what happens. See, the A-players will—they rise to the top with this engagement and dialogue. You begin to see and you begin to notice the A-player and the B-player surface—they just rise above the others. And this is all strategy here. I’m also repeating the points they already saw in the job posting. Why? Well, remember, the ad is what got them there, so keep them excited during the interview process by reiterating what they read in the ad. This way they know it’s true.

Thank you. Jim DuBois, WindowWashingWealth, Squeegee Pros, and hey, we’re here for you every step of the way.

Sid Graef (Host):
That’s a wrap on this episode. So what did you learn about hiring—specifically about the screening and interview process—from Jim? But more importantly, what are you gonna do with it? His strategy is simple, but don’t let that fool you—it is powerful. It’s powerful because the foundation of every successful business is high-performing, reliable employees—a great team. You’ve gotta have that.

So here’s the next step: Take some action. Everything we covered today is in the show notes. The most important thing is to download the action guide. We put together a five-page action guide to help you execute this week’s strategy, and you can grab it at thehugeinsider.com. So, thehugeinsider.com.

Here are more ways that you can level up your business. You know, this podcast is just one way that we help you to grow. Here’s what else you can plug into: We’ve got a weekly free newsletter called, ironically, The Huge Insider. You can click here and subscribe. We’ve got a Facebook group and community for like-minded business builders who want to get help and help each other.

Every summer, we have the Huge Convention. Huge Convention is the ultimate event for home service business owners. It’s the largest event of its kind for home service business owners—specifically exterior cleaning, holiday light installation, and guys like you and me, right? And this year, it’s back in Nashville, Tennessee, August 20th through 22nd. Tickets are still dirt cheap right now, and you can grab yours at the link in the show notes—it’s thehugeconvention.com. Do it before the prices go up. I’m publishing this episode at the end of March for the month of April, 2025. If you click and go get your tickets to the Huge Convention, use the discount code INSIDER—all caps, INSIDER—and you’ll save 50 dollars on your ticket. That discount code will expire at the end of April.

So this event, though—The Huge Convention—this is where real breakthroughs happen. It’s the best place for networking, for high-level business education. We’re not gonna teach you how to use a squeegee or a power-washing wand better; we’re going to teach you how to run a better business. That’s what it’s all about, and we’ve got the biggest trade show in the industry for our industries.

The last thing to make you aware of is The Huge Mastermind. Huge Mastermind—if your business is over a million in revenue, and you’ve got more than five employees, this is the fast track to a freedom business. You’re gonna learn and implement the Freedom Operating System to get your time and money freedom back, predictably, step by step.

And the very final thing I want to mention is we would love to feature you on a future episode of The Huge Insider Podcast. If you’ve had a big win, or if you’ve had a painful lesson—falling flat on your face trying to do something good, and then you picked yourself back up and learned from it—we want to hear from you. So call us and leave us a message at 804-600-HUGE (that’s 804-600-4843). It’s also in the show notes, and leave us a message. Tell us about your victory or your failure or something you’ve learned, or just tell us something you really want to learn about that we can put on a future episode. Then we might just feature you in an upcoming episode of The Huge Insider.

That’s it for this week. Don’t just listen—take action. We want you to win and prosper. I’m Sid Graef. I’m your host of The Huge Insider Podcast, and we’ll see you next time.

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