You don't find hungry people. You build them

I got a message that asked the question I hear more than any other: Mr. Cummins, how do you attract and hire hungry, motivated people? If I had a coin for every time somebody asks me that, I could stop working.

First, be honest with yourself: how much of your own time do you spend hungry and motivated? It is not an easy state to live in. I am probably one of the most aggressive, driven people you will ever meet, and there are days I get beat up and do not want to lift a finger. Nobody comes out of the womb hungry and motivated. So stop hunting for a person who does not exist, and start building the environment that lets hunger come out.

Sort for the willing

When you hire, you will get three kinds of people, and the raw material you are looking for is called willingness.

Some hires are just negative. They drain you, they work angles, they try to get something from you without giving anything back. There is one thing and one thing only to do with them: get them out of your company fast.

Then there is a group that is harder to spot: sweet, kind, pleasant people who simply keep breaking things. The negative ones are obvious. These ones are smiling at you while the damage piles up, so you have to be willing to look honestly at results instead of charm.

Clear those two groups and you are left with the willing, and here is the good news: in my experience most of the people you hire are willing. They show up intending to do a decent job. That is your clay. Hunger gets built out of willingness.

The cage people build themselves

Now watch what happens on a real sales floor. I have run floors with hundreds of salespeople: same leads, same phone system, same computers, same product, same everything. And some reps earn two or three times what the others earn. What is the difference? One is hungry and one is full. That is what it boils down to.

A rep gets to the weekly number he is used to, and if he hits it by Tuesday, keeping him working Wednesday through Friday is nearly impossible. He built himself a cage out of his own expectations, filled it up, and got comfortable. He could have doubled his week, and he will not, because he does not have a need for it, and need is the engine.

So you get to know your people. You learn who has real goals: the family they want to lift, the places they want to live, the things they want to build. Everybody has goals somewhere in them. Your job is to connect the work to those goals so the cage door opens.

Compensation, competence, and the reward loop

Your compensation plan has to say one thing loudly: the more you do, the more you make. Then show them the picture: if you did five more deals, look what that becomes. And when they start earning at the new level, something wonderful happens. They get used to it. The new number becomes the floor they will not fall below, and they hold themselves there without you pushing.

We take people in at ordinary starting pay and we build them: train them, culture them, reward them the moment they do something better. We invest in the ones with real skill, and they grow to earning levels they had never seen before. That is making hungry people. You will not find them. You make them, you make them, you make them. Yes, occasionally a natural tiger walks in your door. Do you want your family's future to depend on the word luck?

And with executives, understand that it is not only money. I do not do this only for money either. I do it to demonstrate competence: look how well I can orchestrate a company, lead people, take care of my people, help others become successful. A painter demonstrates competence on canvas. My canvas is life, and there are people out there who want the same thing. Find them, and financially reward demonstrated competence. Can they make things get better or not? That is the test. Reward it when they do, and they will do it again, because there is no limit on how much better better can get.