I once spoke to a group of about 100 engineers for a local trade association. Though the average age of the attendees was thirty, at one table sat a man in his fifties who stood out for both his polish and his confidence. I met him after my program and he introduced himself as Robert. He owned an engineering consulting firm in the region. I said to him, "Robert, I am looking around and this room is not exactly filled with your peers. Why are you here?" He looked right at me and immediately gave me this answer: "That's simple. I am recruiter in chief for my company."

Figure 5.1. Sources of A-Players: People in Your Circles

As recruiter in chief for your company, you own the responsibility for identifying A-players and bringing them to your team. Robert made himself available to the members of this engineering group as a leader and mentor in order to build his farm team. He did not actively recruit everyone he met or hand out business cards after my program. But he understood the power and importance of building relationships with A-players before they were looking for a new place to work. He made connections with the seasoned youth in this group and tapped into a pool of potential A-players. Taking a leadership role in the group and showing up at the meetings gave him an opportunity to get to know these younger engineers over time. He was constantly interviewing people—whether they knew it or not. Over time, these contacts grew into strong relationships, which in turn generated some great new hires.

A-players have big aspirations. They look for role models, people I call "Big Dogs," whom they can emulate and follow. Robert was a Big Dog in this engineering group. He owned his company and had 50 employees working for him. Everyone else in the room was collecting a W-2. The younger engineers wanted to get to know him in part because they wanted to be like him one day.

If you are a successful business owner or executive, you are already a Big Dog in the professional groups in which you participate. Whether you know it or not, you serve as a role model for ambitious people. A-players want to work for strong leaders, but unfortunately there are not that many strong leaders out there for these people to follow. When you invest your time in a trade association or professional group, you give the A-players in the group the opportunity to sample your leadership style and to get a picture of what it would be like to work for you. That experience is the first step in hiring the best of them for your company.

Several years ago, I was talking with the partners of a civil engineering firm about strategies for creating an A-player team. They mentioned that they hated sending their top employees to the continuing education classes that were required in their industry. At these classes, their best employees rubbed shoulders with executives from the competition, and some of these relationships inevitably resulted in job offers. The recruiters in chief from these competitive firms were out in force—and this firm was sending their best employees right into their sights.

While you usually can't pull your employees out of these events, you can turn them to your advantage. Get everyone in your business who participates in these events focused on identifying and connecting with A-players. If you don't talk up the importance of this relationship building, most of your people will never give it a second thought. Remember your A-player mind-set, and remind everyone that these events are full of A-players who could be big contributors to your company. Starting on the morning of the first session and continuing the length of the event, your team should be on the lookout for the next addition to your company. I don't care if you are tired after a day of boring lectures—go to the bar with everyone and hang out. You are just one conversation away from finding your next A-player.

This does not mean that you or your people should be aggressive recruiters at these events. In fact, it's just the opposite. Adopt a laid-back attitude with everyone you meet and avoid mentioning employment opportunities at your company. Just connect with people, get to know them, and learn about their areas of expertise. Add them to your contact database and include good notes about your conversation in their record. Send them a good-to-meet-you email once you are back in the office. In the following months, give them a follow-up call just to stay connected. When appropriate, you can even tell them about an open position at your firm and ask, "Who do you know?" Don't be aggressive; be intentional. If you develop and cultivate enough of these connections, you will add some terrific people to your farm team.

If you are in the market for salespeople, you can plug into almost any professional association or trade group and find happy hunting. Salespeople populate these groups because they are always looking for prospects. While many of them are not good enough to hire, the top one or two salespeople at these events would make a fantastic contribution to any team. When you get involved in the leadership of a trade group that holds some interest for you, it's always a good idea to get to know the salespeople who regularly attend. If, over time, you become impressed with someone's sales approach and results, make sure that they know you are always interested in talking about career development with A-players.

When it comes to hiring salespeople, first look for great sales skills and work ethic. While you can always educate someone on your products and industry, it is much more difficult to teach people how to sell. I know a plumbing distribution company that has had great success in hiring former car salesmen and training them to sell their products. Another company in the sales incentive industry tried mightily to recruit salespeople from their competitors because they thought industry experience was so crucial. Yet their top two salespeople had no industry experience before coming to the company. The lesson: Find great salespeople no matter their background. They will pay off for you.

Professional associations, industry conferences, networking events—you are likely already attending such groups. You don't have to engage in much more networking than you already are to find A-players, but you do have to make the networking you're doing pay off. Some people are natural networkers who thrive on meeting new people. I recently went to my wife's twentieth high school reunion. Among the people I met that night was a friend of hers named Matthew who works in business development for an advertising firm in New York City. At about 11 p.m., I glanced around the room, and there was Matthew, laughing and talking with a bunch of people at the bar not associated with our group. He was standing in a room full of old friends and was having a great time making new friends as well. To people like Matthew, a stranger is just a friend they haven't met yet. They can't get enough of networking events, and they typically know how to get results out of them.

While I've developed into a strong networker, I'm no Matthew—I have to work at it. If you're like I am, use my number-one principle for making the networking you are already doing pay off: stay until the quesadillas are scorching. At networking events, the appetizers are usually set out in silver chafing dishes with little cans of Sterno beneath them warming the food. You already made the effort to show up at this event. Now you have to stay until the last of the quesadillas are scorched to the bottom of the pan and are about to burst into flame. The best conversations inevitably happen at the end of these events, not at the beginning.

Most networking events follow the same pattern. You arrive, grab a drink, and work the room. Everyone is talking to one person while their eyes rove around trying to locate other people they know. The crowd and music are so loud that you can hear only one word out of three that anyone says. Then you sit down to a mediocre dinner and listen to a speaker who is average at best. As soon as the program is over, 50 percent of the crowd hightails it for the door. Believe it or not, the best part of the evening has just begun. When the crowd diminishes, people relax and feel like they have accomplished what they came to do. Now is the time to strike up a conversation and make a valuable addition to your network. Instead of scanning the room for someone more important to talk to, people can take a few minutes for real back-and-forth. Ask questions about them and their businesses. Take an interest in what they have to say. The best networking connections happen on the way out of this kind of event, so keep your eyes on those quesadillas!

I recently helped a company in commercial heating and air conditioning hire a new salesman and implement a sales management process to make sure that he produces for the company. In addition to setting financial goals, we set activity goals for this salesman (i.e., how many phone calls should he make each day, how many networking contacts should he make each week). I made the point to the owner that you have to be careful about giving someone a goal to make "10 new contacts per week via networking events." There is nothing easier, yet less valuable, than going to a networking event and amassing a collection of business cards. To me, new contacts are people you get to know well enough that they take your follow-up call and schedule a face-to-face meeting. If you can't accomplish that, you don't have new contacts; you just have names on a pile of card stock.

Consider these two members of a business association or professional group. Networker A attends a few meetings, misses a few others, and otherwise is uninvolved in the group. Networker B attends every meeting and joins the membership committee. Guess which one is going to uncover more A-players and find more business opportunities? Networker B, without question. If you want to get the most that membership in any group has to offer, you have to get deeply involved.

My family and I attend a great church in Philadelphia. It is not particularly prestigious, nor is it frequented by a lot of movers and shakers from the business community. But it is a good fit for our family, and we are very involved in it.

I recently received a phone call in my office and, upon looking at my Caller ID, saw the call letters of a local television station pop up. (Rule number one for any consultant: you are never too busy to talk to a reporter.) I answered the phone, and the reporter introduced herself and said, "Mike Murphy told me that you are the hiring guru and that I should talk to you." Mike, a contact from church, knew both what I do and what help he could give me because we were involved together in our community. Instead of being just another handshake on Sunday mornings, Mike has become a friend and an important member of my network. The conversation with the reporter culminated in my taping an interview that aired on the evening news.

What's my point? Despite the fact that my fellow churchgoers are not a particularly high-profile group, there are members with valuable connections. In terms of building your network, it's better to be a highly committed leader in a smaller group than a hanger-on in a large one. Leaders get respect. Don't get me wrong; if you had to choose between hanging out with a group of chief executives or a group of temporary workers, you would take the CEOs. But in the end, if you just hang around the fringes of the CEO group, you will never get any traction. Pick a group that you care about and get deeply involved. You will be pleasantly surprised at the connections you can make.

While any group has influential members who can help you to find A-players, not all groups are created equally. I once spoke to an audience of only seven business owners and got three new clients out of it. Ever since that happened, I focus less on the size of such groups and more on the quality and influence of the people in them. A smaller group of decision makers is typically more valuable to you than a big group of middle managers (unless you are building a farm team of A-player middle managers).

When Lyndon Johnson was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, he loathed every minute of it. It was too big—435 members—and he struggled to have any influence as a junior congressman. However, when Johnson was elected to the U.S. Senate, he stood in the Senate chamber, observed the much smaller group of 100 senators at work, and said to himself, "It's just the right size."^[7] He knew that in this smaller but more influential group, he could wield real power.

If you find that this quality versus quantity approach works for you too, join a group that is filled with decision makers, invest in it, and help it to grow and develop. In the process, you will build relationships that will help to fill your farm team and provide the next generation of A-players for your organization.

Influencers are well-respected leaders to whom others look for guidance. These people are often in roles that help them to know and be known by a large group of people. Business owners, volunteer and paid business association leaders, university professors, chamber of commerce board members, school principals, religious leaders, and the head of your child's parent teacher organization often fit this description. The list goes on and on. The key is this: determine which individuals are the Influencers in your world and cultivate your relationships with them.

To start, develop relationships with influential people who share your interests. Let's say that you love to ride Harleys. Then the owner of the local Harley dealership is a natural Influencer in that arena. He or she is connected to a huge number of people who share your passion and is the go-to person when this group is looking for advice. Perhaps you have kids involved with athletics. Your child's coach may be a natural Influencer for that group of people. He knows every kid on the team and every parent of every kid. Reach out to such people and tell them that you are always looking for talented people for your team. Be intentional about cultivating relationships with influential people in the spheres in which you move. Here are some more examples of Influencers with whom you can cultivate relationships.

Internal recruiters who work for other companies can be Influ-encers and terrific sources for A-player referrals. For example, Northwestern Mutual Financial Network (as well as many other insurance companies) has a well-developed recruiting system. It takes every candidate through a series of interviews and online assessments. If candidates fail to pass any of these steps, they don't advance to the next level of interviews. However, if your A-player profile does not require the same hard-core sales skills that these companies are looking for, candidates who don't fit their needs could be a great fit for you. So look for industries and companies that have well-developed recruiting machines. Figure out who oversees recruiting for the local offices of these companies and strike up a relationship. Refer people to them, encourage referrals to you, and see if you can uncover a few more A-players in the process.

Tom McKendry is a terrific salesperson and tailor for Tom James, the world's largest manufacturer and retailer of custom clothing. McKendry is in and out of corporate offices all day long, and he becomes well acquainted with a lot of office managers in the process. He knows that these people interact with salespeople like him all day long and are Influencers in their realms. So Tom lets them know that if they refer a salesperson whom he hires, they will get $1,000 of Tom James clothing as a referral gift. You know that every office supply, bottled water, and copier salesperson is getting the once-over from Tom's office manager friends. They want those clothes!

Rewards like these are not bribes. They are simply a "thank you" that keeps your A-player profile top of mind for people in your network. If people take the time to help you hire an A-player, why wouldn't you reward them for doing so?

When you're developing relationships with Influencers, don't start off by immediately trying to tap into their A-player network. These people are targeted by everyone, so their defenses are up. Instead, get to know them. Ask questions and listen, don't just talk and tell. Over time, educate them about your business and your A-player Profile. Let them know that you constantly interview. Sooner or later, this will pay off in referrals from highly credible sources.

Only good things happen when you develop relationships with Influencers. These people can be terrific sources of A-player referrals. They can also help you to acquire new clients, establish a higher profile in your business community, meet other influential movers and shakers, and gain access to schools, clubs, and networks that you would never reach on your own.

If you want to kill your ability to generate A-player referrals, simply fail to follow through on the referrals that you do receive. When Influencers—or anyone else—refer potential employees to you, make sure to:

One of the best ways to find more A-players is to become an Influ-encer yourself. Raise your own profile and meet more influential people in the process. There are many great ways to do this. Here are two great real-life examples.

Many colleges and universities offer professionals the opportunity to serve as adjunct professors. Not only do these roles enhance your credibility, they put you in touch with a big pool of potential A-players.

Todd Gibson is chief executive officer of Gibson Media, a Seattle-based advertising agency. Every morning during the school year, Todd teaches a communication class at Highline Community College. Teaching this class is a great way for him to give back to the community and a smart way to identify entry-level A-players. Todd gets to see students in action over a three-month academic quarter and discerns which ones are highly effective. After grades are in and the quarter ends, he often offers internships to the best of these students, which in turn can lead to full-time jobs. As Todd says, "Teaching keeps me engaged with cutting-edge material and helps me to stay in tune with the issues, passions, and concerns of younger people. It also gives me a built-in opportunity to screen students as potential interns and employees."

Todd's class includes live-fire assignments that get students interacting with executives in the local business community. For example, every quarter he asks each student to report on a Seattle area business that is giving back to the community. The students have to identify and contact the businesses, set up interviews with the executives, and conduct the interviews at the companies' offices. They then deliver a six- to eight-minute presentation to the class reviewing what they learned. The assignment challenges students to use and develop skills that really matter in business. It also reveals which class members are proactive, organized, and effective communicators.

Todd always waits until a class is completed and grades have been submitted before offering students an internship, as it's generally not a good idea to have a conversation about employment with a current student. However, after they've completed his class, Todd often approaches the top one or two students about an opportunity at his company. Gibson Media structures its internships to last from one to three academic quarters and pays at least $15 per hour (which is better than most student jobs). Students can also earn academic credit at the rate of 1 credit hour for every 30 hours worked.

Teaching helps to make Todd an Influencer. It gives him a perfect opportunity to see a lot of sharp people in action and to determine over time who has the potential to be an A-player in his business and industry. As Todd says, "During job interviews, we all tend to make snap judgments and then justify our first reactions. In my situation, I develop my impression of the person over three months. It is a much more logical and effective way to evaluate people."

When it comes to cultivating referral sources for A-players, keep in mind that maintaining these relationships does not have to take a lot of time if you do it right. Here are five steps to follow.

The steps that I describe in this chapter are critical not just for finding A-players but also for finding new clients, developing your career, and building your business. I am not asking you to do a lot more than you already are doing when it comes to getting out in the community and building new business relationships. Instead, I am giving you some strategies to make the networking that you are already doing pay off in finding and hiring A-players. Every day you meet people who could help you find your next great employee. You rob yourself and your business of crucial opportunities if you don't have a step-by-step process for cultivating these relationships and tapping into them for A-players.

A search consultant told me a great story about the importance of patiently cultivating relationships. A CEO asked her to find an A-player to fill a senior executive role. She found the perfect guy— and he turned her down cold. This executive was content with his current company. However, this recruiter wouldn't quit. It took her nine months to convince this man just to have breakfast with her client. No commitments, just breakfast. Three months after the breakfast finally occurred, this same executive quit his job and went to work for her client. The breakfast meeting was the first step in his realizing that this would be a great career move. This and subsequent meetings convinced him that he and the CEO could work as partners to achieve a common vision. Just as important, this executive connected with the CEO relationally. He realized that this was someone he could work with, learn from, and follow.

Strong performers want leaders they can follow and who have a vision they can buy into. When you expand your network, you are increasing the number of A-players you know who share your values and passion. Some of these people will buy into your leadership and vision; they are the future A-players of your company. But if you just sit in your office or hang out with the same small circle of people, you will never find these people. So get focused, be purposeful about expanding your network, and start filling your farm team with new talent.