Episode 44: Svetlana Tarnagurskaja – Hire Great People Before You Need Them

When we spoke before, you said that, you know, obviously in early days, people know it's a small business.

And you said something like, you know, those first 10 people who decided to join, like did it when there was very little track record to point to, you know, kind of like they must have had questions about joining a small business.

Some of those maybe have been BGSS people, some may not.

But like, why do you think they took that bet on you and Topp?

Well, very good question why.

I think that, well, many of them worked with me before, they knew what to expect in a way, they knew the way how I work, they knew that I really care about what I do and I care about people I work with.

And I don't know, maybe they like my jokes, but I guess they just felt like, It's worth the front.

And I knew that they believe that together we can make it work.

When we're working with people who are in the kind of scaling phase of building a business, One of the questions we often, or some that are even bigger, but kind of maybe branching into new areas and a question that often comes up of like, okay, well, how do I find the right balance between hiring ahead of the curve, if you will, getting comfortable hiring people if the work's not yet sold versus how much do I wait and then rely on associates? It's like, you guys were, it was your money, it was your time, it was, you know, it had to start.

How did you think about hiring in those early days? And maybe even as you scaled and that balance between acceleration or not of hiring?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I think that's one thing that I learned from kind of, well, people like James Whitehouse and guy, Mark Robinson, if he's listening, people I worked with, with BGSS, like it, People who are truly great and outstanding, you hire them in respect.

If you can afford, obviously, not if you can't and you have to put the business at risk.

If you genuinely can afford it, it's always a bad words making and things tend to sort themselves out.

But here you're obviously just randomly hiring to the bench, not advisable.

in consultancy business.

But if you come across people who are truly great and you can see that they can bring a lot to the team, you have to have that leap of faith.

You have to, I think, back yourself up and you have to kind of keep placing those bets on the fact that strong team will figure it out and clients will see it and you will keep growing.

we very rare, maybe like when the role is super specific and for whatever, and for like some strategic reason, you really kind of, need to kind of do it, and then you would hire for a role.

But as a rule of a kind of principle, we don't hire for the role.

We hire for kind of our community of practice, basically.

Obviously, it's very easy.

It's very easy to get a job at Dot Collective.

You need to be really good at what you do and you need to be a nice person, and then you're fine.

And I think, however naive it sounds, I think it holds because people who are really good at their craft, at their profession, They do tend to enjoy to work with other people who are really good because teams like that, they move incredibly fast.

When we spoke before, you said that, you know, obviously in early days, people know it's a small business.

And you said something like, you know, those first 10 people who decided to join, like did it when there was very little track record to point to, you know, kind of like they must have had questions about joining a small business.

Some of those maybe have been BGSS people, some may not.

But like, why do you think they took that bet on you and Topp?

Well, very good question why.

I think that, well, many of them worked with me before, they knew what to expect in a way, they knew the way how I work, they knew that I really care about what I do and I care about people I work with.

And I don't know, maybe they like my jokes, but I guess they just felt like, It's worth the front.

And I knew that they believe that together we can make it work.

When we're working with people who are in the kind of scaling phase of building a business, One of the questions we often, or some that are even bigger, but kind of maybe branching into new areas and a question that often comes up of like, okay, well, how do I find the right balance between hiring ahead of the curve, if you will, getting comfortable hiring people if the work's not yet sold versus how much do I wait and then rely on associates? It's like, you guys were, it was your money, it was your time, it was, you know, it had to start.

How did you think about hiring in those early days? And maybe even as you scaled and that balance between acceleration or not of hiring?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I think that's one thing that I learned from kind of, well, people like James Whitehouse and guy, Mark Robinson, if he's listening, people I worked with, with BGSS, like it, People who are truly great and outstanding, you hire them in respect.

If you can afford, obviously, not if you can't and you have to put the business at risk.

If you genuinely can afford it, it's always a bad words making and things tend to sort themselves out.

But here you're obviously just randomly hiring to the bench, not advisable.

in consultancy business.

But if you come across people who are truly great and you can see that they can bring a lot to the team, you have to have that leap of faith.

You have to, I think, back yourself up and you have to kind of keep placing those bets on the fact that strong team will figure it out and clients will see it and you will keep growing.

we very rare, maybe like when the role is super specific and for whatever, and for like some strategic reason, you really kind of, need to kind of do it, and then you would hire for a role.

But as a rule of a kind of principle, we don't hire for the role.

We hire for kind of our community of practice, basically.

Obviously, it's very easy.

It's very easy to get a job at Dot Collective.

You need to be really good at what you do and you need to be a nice person, and then you're fine.

And I think, however naive it sounds, I think it holds because people who are really good at their craft, at their profession, They do tend to enjoy to work with other people who are really good because teams like that, they move incredibly fast.