Jeff Cassman, Author at Jeff Cassman

The Beginners Guide to Reference Check Questions

Reference check questions, as mundane as they might seem at first glance, can ultimately help you avoid a terrible contract or a bad hire. Taking the time to follow through by asking the right questions is one step toward a better hiring outcome.

It can be hard to know what questions to ask because a lot of it depends on context and experience. In this guide, we walk through the basics of asking good reference questions, the tools you can use to improve your reference checks, and ways to ask better questions regardless of who you’re talking to. Let’s start with the basics.

What Are Reference Check Questions?

Put simply, once a job-seeking candidate hands you a list of professional or personal contacts, you can reach out to those people to ask questions that’ll give you less biased information about that candidate. The better reference questions you ask, the better insight you’re able to gather about your job candidate. This way, you’re able to make the right choice when you’re trying to decide who is the best fit for the job.

The Basics of Reference Check Questions

Once you break down reference questions into a few key components, you’ll be able to run a successful reference check for any potential hire. Here are some considerations to note as you prepare to run reference checks:

Clear Consent

Before you pick up the phone and start contacting anyone, it’s good practice to ensure your potential hire knows you are reaching out to their references.

You can do this in a variety of ways. You can contact the candidate directly by phone or email to let them know you’ll be reaching out to their references within the next few days. Or you can include a spot in your job…

Answer the Call of Leadership–Live2Lead 2020 Virtual Event

Over the past several months, as we’ve all negotiated and navigated our way through the Coronavirus pandemic, one thing has become exceedingly clear:

If you’re going to survive, you must adapt.

If you’re in leadership, it doesn’t take you long to learn that lesson. But decades in, some leaders forget. Some feel like they’ve reached the end of the road, achieved all they want or need to achieve, and they suddenly find themselves relearning old lessons—only this time, the lessons cost more to learn.

That’s certainly been the case for some leaders this year. They’ve been caught flatfooted in the face of Covid-19, their lack of growth and development suddenly on display for everyone to see. Whether its through bad decisions or a lack of leadership support, times like the past few months reveal the truth that leaders who stop learning stop leading.

Since the opening lines of my 2018 book Leadershift, I’ve spoken passionately about the leadership deficit, how we need to raise up more and better leaders to create a better world.

I’ve shared this message all over the globe, and our Enterprise has seen tremendous response, but our voice alone has not been enough to turn the tide. Now, with everything that’s happened in 2020, it seems as if the world itself is calling out for everyone to step up to the plate and lead the way.

That’s why today I am excited to share one of the biggest announcements in our Enterprise’s history:

For the first time ever, L ive2Lead—our annual leadership development event—will be virtual!

I am excited to bring you this news, especially since yesterday we just completed our first-ever virtual International Maxwell Certification for The John Maxwell Team. With our largest single attendance for an IMC, the choice to go virtual was continually confirmed and affirmed by the comments and interaction we saw between attendees. Now, we are building on that success to bring you Live2Lead!

Our team has worked diligently to bring this event to your home or office, your laptop or phone, and they’ve done so because this year it is critical for more leaders to invest in themselves and developing the leaders around them. They are convinced that 2020 is the year for leaders of all stripes to answer the world’s call to lead.

Whether it’s through Alan Mullaly’s message of how strategic leadership rescued the Ford brand from bankruptcy; in Kat Cole’s message of how the chaos and circumstances of life honed her heart and hustle in leadership; through my discussion with Steve Harvey about the need for men and women capable of communicating clearly to mobilize a generation to greatness; or through the urgent and practical teaching of my friend, Craig Groeschel.

Our global crisis is revealing unending opportunities for each of us to answer the world’s call to be agents of change for the good, and Live2Lead will echo and amplify that call.

That’s why today we’re bringing back…

Episode 1390 Scott Adams: Is Critical Race Theory Marxist, How to Know Who is Projecting, Capitol Riot Commission, and More

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How to Establish an Agency Content Strategy When Outbound Stops Working

Agencies looking to grow have traditionally relied on fostering strategic relationships to land deals and increase sales. Cold email and referrals have often been quite effective.

But through my work with dozens of agencies, it’s clear outbound alone is no longer enough. The most successful agencies are beginning to invest more time and money in content marketing to establish expertise in their industry and, more importantly, generate inbound appointments.

In this article, I’ll outline how to create an agency content strategy that fuels your business development efforts and generates the optimal kind of organic traffic.

Mining your clients for pain-points, success, and topic ideas

When starting out, many agencies blog about topics directly related to their offering. This is great if you’re creating success stories, but less so if you’re writing about high-level, tactical fluff. It’s unlikely your ideal client is interested in a generic “5 ways to produce better ads.”

Many agencies invest as little time and energy as possible into their content efforts.

But the problem is, creating a content strategy that attracts your ideal client means understanding what matters to them. It involves putting in the work.

I’ve found that interviewing your existing clients is one of the best ways to create valuable content for your ideal audience.

Customer interviews allow you to uncover:

Why they decided to do business with you;
Why they love working with you;
What other challenges they have in their business;
Where they go for new information.

While keyword research matters, your clients are a rich source of insight for your optimal content strategy. Your customers can provide you with pain-points to write about, as well as success stories to attract new clients.

The same goes for your sales conversations; why did new leads seek you out, and what objections do you hear during the sales process?

Digging deep into your client’s responses is the bedrock for an effective content strategy. At Grizzle, we couple these qualitative insights with data-driven research—here’s our 3 step process.

1. Collect data sources for quantitative insights

Data sources include the publications, competitors, influencers, podcasts, and communities that your audience engages with the most. Uncovering popular articles and conversations will show you what people are most interested in, which is useful for “seeding” your content research.

Using a tool like SparkToro, you can uncover the channels and influencers that your audience is most engaged with. For example, let’s say you offer digital transformation services, and your ideal client is looking to modernize their digital experience:

Here are some initial sources uncovered by this search:

Websites like Econsultancy and McKinsey that publish content on digital transformation
Niche influencers and social profiles like Adaptive Path (using the “hidden gems” filter in SparkToro)
Podcasts by brands like CMOTalk and the Cognizant Podcast.

You can use these sources to identify patterns of the content they’re publishing consistently. For example, certain publications are talking about modernizing legacy…

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The Beginners Guide to PTO Policies

Regardless of your business type or industry, everyone needs a break. If employees are working around the clock 52 weeks per year, they’ll suffer from burnout, and the work will suffer along with them.

That’s why companies need to create good paid time off (PTO) policies.

The best PTO policies attract and retain top-level talent while ensuring your staff has an outstanding work-life balance. This keeps everyone happier and more focused when they’re on the job.

What Are PTO Policies?

PTO stands for paid time off.

Rather than having separate categories for vacation, sick time, and other personal needs, PTO groups all time away from work into a single category.

PTO policies offer more flexibility and privacy to employees as well. Instead of accrued sick time going to waste, employees can use that time for a long weekend or personal day at any point throughout the year—as long as it falls within the policy rules.

In short, a company PTO policy defines the rules for how employees can take time off of work.

The Basics of PTO Policies

Before you implement a PTO policy, it’s essential to have a firm grasp of your options. We’ll take a closer look at the core components of PTO policies below.

Types of PTO Policies

Every business is different, so PTO policies will vary across the board. With that said, most PTO policies fall into one of three categories:

PTO Banks — PTO banks offer employees a certain amount of paid time off per year that employees can use for any purpose. There’s no difference between a sick day, vacation day, or personal day.
Traditional Time Off — Traditional time off policies separate work leave reasons into different categories. For example, companies might offer ten vacation days, six sick days, and four personal…

How to Not Be a Complete Idiot in Your Next Meeting

A great meeting is a work of art. A lousy meeting is a train wreck. Lord, give us more artists.

4 things to never say about the people upstairs.

I don’t know what the people upstairs are thinking.
I doubt we can do it, but we have to try to keep the people upstairs happy.
We’re going to fail. Maybe the people upstairs will learn to stop asking us to do stupid things.
The people upstairs don’t get it. But we have to try anyway.

Middle management requires loyalty to the people upstairs when you’re with the people downstairs and loyalty to the people downstairs when you’re with the people upstairs.

3 things to never say to the people around the table.

“Trust me.” Anyone who says trust me isn’t trustworthy.
“I don’t know anything about this, but here’s what I think.” No one cares what you think if you don’t know anything.
“That’s stupid.”

2 things to do when you don’t know what to say.

The person running the meeting asked for your thoughts and you don’t have any. Now what? You don’t want to look like an idiot.

Ask about timelines, deadlines, and priorities.
Add to another person’s idea. “Mary’s input made me think about….”

7 tips for thriving in meetings:

Talk less if you’re a talker.
Contribute more if you seldom talk.
Stay engaged. Look at people when they talk. Take notes.
Stay on topic!
Use people’s names. Make a map of the people around the table when you’re in a meeting with people you don’t know.
Focus on getting things done.
Clarify responsibilities.

1 neglected agenda item:

Work on the way you meet.

At the end of your meeting ask, “What’s one thing we could do to make our next meeting more efficient?”

What would transform meetings into works of art?

2 Portions Of This Fish Prevents Type 2 Diabetes

This fish contains nutrients that can prevent type 2 diabetes and diminish heart disease risk.

Eating sardines at least twice a week can protect people with prediabetes against developing type 2 diabetes (T2D) and cardiovascular disease (CVD).

Oily fish, including sardines, are excellent sources of healthy fats called omega-3 fatty acids which reduce cholesterol levels and blood pressure.

On top of the protective effect against cardiovascular disease, consuming a diet rich in sardines help prevents T2D.

According to a study, sardines contain high quantities of nutrients such as taurine, vitamin D, calcium, fluorine, and omega 3 (EPA and DHA) that can stop or delay the development of T2D.

Taurine is a semi-essential amino acid, abundant in oily fish and has a hypoglycemic effect (lowers blood sugar).

Dr Diana Díaz-Rizzolo, the study’s first author, said:

“Not only are sardines reasonably priced and easy to find, but they are safe and help to prevent the onset of type 2 diabetes.

This is a huge scientific discovery.

It is easy to recommend this food during medical check-ups, and it is widely accepted by the population.”

Two portions of sardines

For this study, 152 adults with prediabetes (blood glucose levels between 100-124 mg/dl) followed a T2D-prevention nutritional program for a year.

They were divided into two groups with the same diet but only the sardine group had 200 grams of sardines every week (two cans of sardines in olive oil).

They were asked to consume sardines with bones and skin as these contain good amounts of calcium and vitamin D.

After one year, 22 percent of participants in the control group developed diabetes whereas only 8 percent in the sardines group remained extremely vulnerable to the disease.

The sardine group also had increased “good” cholesterol (HDL), reduced triglycerides, reduced blood pressure, decreased insulin resistance index and increased adiponectin (a protein hormone important for the breakdown of glucose and fat).

Dr Díaz-Rizzolo said:

“As we get older, restrictive diets (in terms of calories or food groups) can help to prevent the onset of diabetes.

However, the results lead us to believe that we could obtain an equally significant preventive effect in the younger population.”

Eating fish not taking supplements

Regularly eating sardines appears to have the protective effect against diabetes, but this is not true for dietary supplements.

Our body obtains taurine, omega-3, calcium, vitamin D and other nutrients from a healthy balanced diet that includes oily fish, but supplementation of these micronutrients won’t have the same effect.

Dr Díaz-Rizzolo explained:

“Nutrients can play an essential role in the prevention and treatment of many different pathologies, but their effect is usually caused by the synergy that exists between them and the food that they are contained in.

Sardines will therefore have a protective element because they are rich in the aforementioned nutrients, whereas nutrients taken in isolation in the form of supplements won’t work to the same extent.”

The study was published in the journal Clinical Nutrition (Díaz-Rizzolo et al., 2021).

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How Marketers are Staying Up-to-Date in the Era of the iOS 14 Update

How Marketers are Staying Up-to-Date in the Era of the iOS 14 Update | DigitalMarketer How Marketers are Staying Up-to-Date in the Era of the iOS 14 Update | DigitalMarketer
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How to Create a Job Ad

Creating job ads is a necessary part of running a business, and some owners and managers find the process tricky.

Knowing how to summarize your position and hook in the right talent can be challenging.

Our guide will show you how to create an outstanding job advertisement that will inspire suitable candidates to apply.

The Easy Parts of Creating a Job Ad

At first, creating a job ad might seem like you have a mountain to climb.

You have to focus on the critical parts of the position and compete for top talent in an increasingly competitive job market.

How do you even begin?

The good news is that creating a job ad doesn’t have to be as trying as you think. For instance, you may worry about where you’ll post your job ad in the first place.

There are so many ways to reach potential candidates these days. It becomes far more manageable if you know what you’re doing. Using sites like LinkedIn and Indeed helps you reach a vast pool of talent, and there are others, too.

Not to mention dedicated recruiting software. Recruiting software is an up-to-date and easy way to hire top-level talent. For example, the software helps you post open positions across multiple job boards with the click of a button.

Tools also help schedule interviews for every applicant and take a lot of manual work out of the process.

Whether you’re a small team or a larger company, recruiting software can help. Some of the best software, such as Breezy HR, offers unlimited job listings.

Pricing for Breezy HR starts at $143 per month and goes up to $399 per month on the highest plan. Annual pricing includes two months for free.

We…

Four Signs of a Leader of Hope

Photo by Peter Boccia on Unsplash

On my podcast this week, I shared something with Mark Cole and our listeners that I don’t often share publicly. As I look around at our world today, there’s a certain feeling that comes over me, one that I don’t experience often, and I can’t help but bring it to you as we talk about the need for leaders who build bridges.

That feeling is “leadership sadness.” Given the struggles that our world is going through right now, it saddens me to see men and women in leadership positions and roles who choose to lead by pushing people apart rather than by bringing them together. I see too many leaders leaning into the things that separate us, stoking fear over hope, or leaders who simply shrink back from the moment and allow the darkness to swallow them instead of lighting candle to fight it.

This is a time of darkness. But there is reason for incredible hope.

We have the tools necessary to turn this moment into an opportunity that helps change the world around us. We need are leaders who believe that, leaders who learn and live good values in order to lift the people around them. We need leaders who will step to the forefront of the moment and say, with passion and enthusiasm, “If you knew what I know…” and then proceed to offer words and actions that inspire and ignite hope.

So how can you and I be that kind of leader? How can we step into this moment and be a difference maker instead of a division maker?

Here are four signs of a leader of hope:

They Dig for Gold While Others Dig for Dirt

This is an easy one to tackle, especially during a presidential election year. We’re often surrounded by attack ads and smear campaigns that seek to bring out the worst about a potential elected leader, and illustrate how things will only get darker if they’re elected. It’s a race to the bottom where no one wins. Divisive leaders aren’t afraid to tear things down and allow fear to run freely.

On the contrary, leaders of hope go looking for what’s good in others and in the situation around them. They believe the best of people and believe the best of our future. Leaders of hope inspire others to seek out what’s true, noble, good, praiseworthy, and inspiring. They paint a picture of a more brilliant tomorrow that everyone can see themselves in.

They Live Out Good Values While Others Live Out Emotions

This may come across a little harsh, as emotions are something everyone must wrestle. But while we all feel various emotions, divisive leaders put emotion at the center of their leadership, creating instability and uncertainty that only amplifies the chaos around them. When leaders lead from a place of emotion, they are at the mercy of those emotions changing—for better or worse—and so are…