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Most service business owners are terrified of hiring. They’ve tried before, failed miserably, and convinced themselves they’re better off doing everything alone, even if it’s killing their business and destroying their personal life.
Kasim Aslam built and sold the world’s #1 ranked Google Ads agency for eight figures by thinking differently about talent. Instead of trying to “retain” top performers, he created systems that benefited from peak performers while they were with him. Instead of treating employees like commodities, he recognized them as miracles capable of incalculable value.
When Kasim sold Solutions Eight to a SoftBank-backed company, he had 100 employees managing $100 million in ad spend. One employee, John Moran, managed 40% of the entire company’s revenue and became a millionaire through equity when the business sold.
This wasn’t luck. It was the result of a systematic approach to hiring that most business owners get completely backwards. While others focus on retention and control, Kasim built flywheels that attracted peak performers, leveraged their talents, and created win-win outcomes that lasted long after employees moved on.
This show is sponsored by Blue Crocus Solutions, a web design and SEO agency focused on helping home service companies grow.
• Peak performers care more about growth than compensation: Once financially satisfied, top talent prioritizes learning and advancement over higher pay
• The Pareto Principle applies to hiring: 20% of employees do 80% of the work, and you can actively recruit from this top tier
• Trial projects beat interviews: Two-hour paid projects reveal actual performance while interviews only test interview skills
• “Flytraps” filter thousands down to dozens: Simple instruction-following tests eliminate candidates who can’t execute basic requirements
• Black Box Delegation prevents micromanaging: Define desired outcomes and inputs, then stay out of the middle process entirely
Most business owners approach hiring like they’re buying commodities. They think, “I need a graphic designer” or “I need an EA” and then try to find the cheapest option that meets minimum requirements.
Kasim’s first step is philosophical: “People are not commodities. All that is valuable about a human is not commoditizable. All that’s replaceable about a human is.”
This shift changes everything. Instead of looking for “a graphic designer,” you’re looking for “a miracle who could probably be good at graphic design at some point.”
“If you don’t believe people are miracles and they’re capable of incalculable value, I don’t think you deserve to employ people. And I hope you fail miserably.”
The Pareto Principle supports this approach. In any organization, 20% of employees do 80% of the work. But here’s what most employers miss: you can actively recruit from that top 20%. You don’t have to accept average performers and hope they improve.
When you understand that peak performers exist and can be identified, hiring becomes a treasure hunt rather than a desperate scramble to fill positions.
“You’re not looking for a graphic designer, you’re looking for a miracle who could probably be good at graphic design at some point.” – Kasim Aslam
The biggest fear most business owners have about hiring top talent is cost. They assume great people are expensive and will leave for higher-paying opportunities.
Kasim discovered something counterintuitive: “Peak performers care more about growth than they care about compensation. Once they’re financially satiated, they do not give a shit. They want growth and education.”
This insight came from watching John Moran, who managed 40% of Solutions Eight’s revenue. Even with 10% equity in a multimillion-dollar company, John could have left to make more money freelancing. When Kasim sold the business, John didn’t start his own agency: he got another job.
“He loves the craft, but he doesn’t want all the other stuff. He’s a scientist. He’s a literal genius. He doesn’t wanna have to deal with HR and finance and ops.”
Most people aren’t entrepreneurs. According to Douglas Brackman’s research, only 5% of people experience the chemical cocktail of entrepreneurship: feeling love (dopamine and serotonin) in pursuit of goals rather than upon completion.
This means 95% of your potential employees are “farmer brains” who prefer stability, clear direction, and opportunities to excel within established systems. They’re not trying to steal your business; they want to contribute to something bigger than themselves.
Understanding this removes the fear of hiring talented people and opens up possibilities for creating growth-focused partnerships.
“Stop being afraid that your employees are gonna steal your ideas, steal your business, start their own. They’re not entrepreneurs. But that cuts both ways. You can’t dishonor them in their endeavor.” – Kasim Aslam
Instead of trying to retain peak performers forever, Kasim built systems that benefited from their talents while they were there and continued generating value after they left.
His model was transparent: “I know I can’t keep you forever. I’m an incubator. What I need from you is a two-year commitment. I will help you grow, help your career, refer work to you, help you launch your own agency. But I need two years at minimum, and before you leave, you have to find and train your replacement.”
This approach attracted people who were already successful but saw the opportunity for accelerated growth. Colin Schmick, now Twitter-famous in the Google Ads space, was already making good money freelancing when he joined Solutions Eight.
“Colin gives me his two years. I have this amazing employee for two years. I get to benefit from all of his knowledge and wisdom. He trains other employees of mine, grows my business, finds and trains his replacement.”
The flywheel effect kicked in after Colin left. He started referring clients to Kasim that he didn’t want, while Kasim referred boutique clients that didn’t fit his scaling business model. One referral from a former Pakistani VA led to Jay Abraham as a client.
“Don’t try to retain top talent. Sometimes you end up with a John Moran who stays for six years and owns 10% of the business. But most of the time, you build the flywheel that allows you to benefit from top talent while they’re with you.”
“I got access to humans that I could never have afforded if the only trade I had to offer was compensation.” – Kasim Aslam
Kasim’s hiring process eliminates guesswork and consistently identifies peak performers. Each step builds on the previous one, creating a funnel that filters thousands of applicants down to a few exceptional candidates.
Step 1: Mindset Shift: Recognize that people are miracles, not commodities, and that you can actively recruit from the top 20% of performers.
Step 2: Create a Sales Letter Job Posting: Most job postings read like prison sentences. Write yours like marketing copy that attracts winners. Include your mission, vision, values, compensation, benefits, growth opportunities, and ascension path.
Step 3: Distribution Strategy: Post your job on every viable network, not just one. Repost weekly until you find your peak performer. Treat this like a marketing campaign, not a one-time posting.
Step 4: Insert Flytraps: Add simple but specific instructions that filter out people who can’t follow directions. Example: “To apply, your subject line must read ‘I actually read the instructions.'”
Step 5: Run Trial Projects: Pay shortlisted candidates for 2-hour projects that mirror actual job requirements. This reveals real performance while interviews only test interview skills.
Step 6: Put Your Skunks on the Table: In interviews, discuss everything that might suck about the job and make candidates sell you on why it won’t be a problem for them.
Step 7: Onboard for Peak Performance: Give new hires 12 things to do when they can realistically complete 10. This creates functional constraints and teaches prioritization from day one.
“You’re seven steps away from the greatest hire you’ll ever have in your entire life. But it requires you changing the way that you act.” – Kasim Aslam
Most business owners try to pay the least and get the most. Kasim does the opposite: pay 10% more than the high watermark and attract peak performers who deliver exponential returns.
“When you pay 10% more than the high watermark, you don’t get 10% more output. You get 10 times, five times, 500 times, 5,000 times. That’s the Pareto distribution in action.”
The math is counterintuitive but powerful. If the salary range for a position is $80,000-$100,000, most employers try to pay $79,900. Kasim pays $110,000: 10% above the high end.
This premium attracts candidates who are already successful and looking for growth opportunities rather than desperate job seekers who will take anything. It also signals that you value excellence and are willing to invest in top talent.
“There’s no amount of money I wouldn’t have paid John. 40% of my revenue, dude, I’m like blank check at that point.”
The key insight: when you find a true peak performer, the compensation conversation becomes irrelevant because their impact far exceeds their cost.
“Winners wanna win. Money’s how we keep score. That means you have to pay more.” – Kasim Aslam
When you create an attractive job posting and distribute it widely, you’ll get overwhelmed with applications. Kasim once received tens of thousands of applications for a single role.
Flytraps solve this problem by automatically filtering out candidates who can’t follow simple instructions. If someone can’t read and follow basic directions in the application process, they definitely can’t execute complex work projects.
Common flytraps include:
“If you send an email and your subject line doesn’t read ‘I actually read the instructions,’ you automatically get filtered out. My hiring team never even sees your application ’cause you’re an idiot.”
The beauty of flytraps is they’re self-executing. You don’t waste time reviewing applications from people who can’t follow directions. Only candidates who demonstrate attention to detail make it to the next round.
This isn’t about being difficult; it’s about finding people who can execute in a world where details matter and instructions must be followed precisely.
“I wanna know that you can slow down and follow instructions. Super simple. There’s some people that just cannot do it.” – Kasim Aslam
Resumes lie. Interviews test interview skills, not job performance. Trial projects reveal how people actually work under real conditions.
Kasim pays shortlisted candidates for 2-hour projects that mirror the actual job requirements. This investment, typically $50 per candidate, prevents the most expensive mistake business owners make: hiring the wrong person.
“You pay 10 people $50, which is the most you’ll ever pay. It’s the $500 insurance policy to save from the most expensive thing that business owners do, which is hire the wrong person.”
The trial project must be ultra-applicable to the role. Instead of asking a graphic designer to create a specific design, give them a client problem to solve with brand guidelines and communication objectives. Make them think, not just execute.
Kasim adds additional flytraps within the trial project: wrong login credentials to test problem-solving, scheduling conflicts to test persistence, and timeline management to reveal work habits.
“I used to do interviews and then trial projects. I found out when the trial projects came back, person number three always blew the other two people away. I realized interviews are bullshit unless you’re hiring a professional interviewer.”
“I’ve learned that resumes and interviews tell me nothing. What I’d like to do is I’d like to pay you in advance for a trial project.” – Kasim Aslam
The interview isn’t about determining who gets the job: the trial project already did that. The interview is where you start managing expectations and prevent future complaints.
“Take everything that sucks about the job and I make them sell it to me.”
If the role requires communicating negative information to clients, discuss that challenge and have them explain why they’re good at it. If the position involves nights and weekends, address that upfront and get their commitment.
“What ends up happening is when they get the job, they can no longer complain about that thing ’cause they sold you on why they’re so good at that damn thing.”
This approach prevents the most common hiring failures: misaligned expectations. When employees know exactly what they’re signing up for and have actively sold themselves on handling the difficult aspects, they’re much more likely to succeed.
It also creates psychological ownership. Instead of you imposing requirements on them, they’ve convinced themselves they can handle whatever challenges the role presents.
“You take everything that an employee would complain about, talk about it in the interview, and put your skunks on the table and make them sell you.” – Kasim Aslam
Once you’ve hired peak performers, traditional management approaches fail. Micromanaging destroys the ownership and initiative that make top talent valuable.
Kasim’s Black Box Delegation framework solves this: “You’re allowed to define the desired end result and you’re allowed to define the inputs. Anything that happens in the middle is none of my business.”
Desired end result: What you want accomplished, preferably with specific KPIs.
Inputs: Budget, timeline, stakeholders, brand guidelines, and other constraints.
The middle: How they accomplish the goal is entirely up to them.
“Authorship creates ownership. The minute you start telling somebody how to do their job, they take their hand off the wheel.”
When delegation fails, it’s always one of two problems: poorly defined desired results or inadequately specified inputs. Instead of abandoning delegation, improve your ability to set clear parameters.
“Every failure is just an opportunity to sharpen one of these two saws. And when you get good at those, so does the other person, and then you end up learning how to dance with each other.”
This approach requires courage. You have to let go of control and trust that peak performers will find better solutions than you would have prescribed. But the results justify the risk.
“Let people take ownership over their work and they will just do, they’ll outrun you. They’ll run faster and further and farther than you’d ever expect.” – Kasim Aslam
Executive assistants shouldn’t stay in that role forever. Kasim uses the EA position as an incubator to identify people’s unique strengths and develop them into specialized roles.
“The EA is the only role in conventional business where it’s okay not to have a job description. Not having a job description is the job description.”
Using the 2-6-2 framework, he gives EAs 10 different tasks. They’ll fail miserably at 2, perform adequately at 6, and excel at 2 better than anyone alive. Instead of focusing on fixing weaknesses, he doubles down on strengths.
“Stop making them do those two things and go focus on the two things that they’re amazing at.”
His track record proves the approach: first EA became director of automations, second became director of social, third became CTO and business partner. Julian, who now runs his Answer Engine Optimization company, started as an EA.
This progression benefits everyone. EAs get career development and specialized roles that match their talents. The business gets dedicated experts in critical functions. And the EA role continues serving as a testing ground for new talent.
“My first EA became my director of automations. My second EA became my director of social. My third EA became my CTO, my business partner, and then my best friend.” – Kasim Aslam
While most SEOs insist that AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is just SEO with a new name, Kasim’s data tells a different story. His team has spent a year studying how LLMs source citations, and the results reveal fundamental differences.
“65% of all search results in zero clicks. The LLMs function massively different than search engines do. SEO is link-based. AEO is authority-based.”
For local service businesses, this means focusing on platforms where authority can be demonstrated through community engagement and social proof:
Reddit was king until recently: 21% of citations came from Reddit, even beating YouTube despite being 19 times smaller. ChatGPT recently downregulated Reddit citations, but Google still heavily references it.
Yelp dominates local AEO: Despite Kasim’s personal hatred for the platform (“they’re horrible, pernicious evil”), Yelp gets prioritized heavily by local answer engines.
Instagram comments are the new link building: Multimodal content that generates engagement across platforms signals authority to LLMs.
Schema markup is essential: LLMs need structured data to understand and cite your content. Without proper schema, your website is invisible to answer engines.
The strategy: create one piece of content and distribute it everywhere. Podcast becomes YouTube video becomes social reel becomes carousel becomes Twitter thread. As people engage with that content across platforms, LLMs recognize it as authoritative.
“Answer engines like meritocratic content. Start focusing on the way your grandma uses the internet, ’cause that’s about how LLMs use the internet.” – Kasim Aslam
Kasim’s approach to hiring and management creates compound returns that extend far beyond individual employment relationships. Former employees become referral partners, industry advocates, and sometimes even business partners.
The Pakistani VA who became a freelancer referred Jay Abraham as a client. Colin Schmick continues exchanging referrals years after leaving. John Moran became a millionaire through equity and remained loyal throughout the entire journey.
“When you align your interests with really valuable people, most humans are not entrepreneurs. They don’t want to deal with all the other stuff. They want to contribute to something bigger than themselves.”
This philosophy requires genuine belief that people are capable of extraordinary things when given the right environment, tools, and opportunities. It means paying more, expecting more, and creating systems that benefit everyone involved.
The alternative, treating employees as commodities, minimizing costs, and maximizing control, creates adversarial relationships that limit everyone’s potential.
“People are miracles. That’s a literal miracle. And they’re capable of incalculable value. Just because they’re not an entrepreneur doesn’t mean that makes them less than you. Maybe makes them more.”
“Your endeavor goes first. You create the sandbox within which they function, but they’re the ones that create the sandcastle. And if you’re asking me, the sandcastle is actually more impressive than the sandbox.” – Kasim Aslam
Get Kasim’s Free Hiring Book: The Hire Book
This Podcast is sponsored by Blue Crocus Solutions, a marketing agency offering website design, branding, AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services for Home Service businesses.
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