Curriculum · Team
Hiring Your FirstCrew.
Bretton and Dan on the high-stakes game of scaling through people — treating hiring like sales, the banana test, working side-by-side before you trust the china, and building a merit-based culture from day one.
- Hosts
- Bretton Auerbach · Dan Hunter
- Runtime
- ~15 min
- Topic
- Team
“Hiring is sales with a worse close rate. About one in three new hires actually works out — so build a funnel, not a single bet, and never put a stranger on the china on day one.
— Bretton & Dan, LocalMovers.com
In this episode
- 01
The Hiring Pipeline
Hiring is like sales — you need a large funnel because only about 1 in 3 new hires will actually work out. Always be recruiting, even when you're fully staffed.
- 02
The Banana Test
Filter for people who can follow instructions: drop a random word into the job post and see if applicants mention it. The ones who do read the whole thing.
- 03
Trial by Fire (Slowly)
Work side-by-side with a new hire for 5–10 moves before trusting them solo. And never hand them the fragile, high-value "china" load on day one.
- 04
Vetting for Vibe
Source from referrals and networking — TaskRabbit, Craigslist — and feel out the working relationship before you bet payroll and customer reviews on someone.
- 05
SOPs for Success
Give people an environment where they can win: document every expectation in a Standard Operating Procedure so success is repeatable, not personality-dependent.
- 06
The First 30 Days
Set a super-strict execution bar in month one. The culture you tolerate early becomes the culture you scale — and it's what earns the 5-star reviews.
- 07
Surprise and Delight Training
Task new hires with the small gestures (coffee for the customer, treat for the dog) from their very first day, so the brand reputation is built into the crew.
- 08
Merit-Based Growth
Build a culture where today's labor becomes tomorrow's dispatcher or marketer — people who learned the business from the truck up run it better than outside hires.