Hiring at Visto and the benefits of brand building
This week I discuss how the last week has been hiring at Visto, and why building a brand online can be so valuable (in more ways than you think)
Happy Monday folks,
As the summer comes to an end and the world picks back up, lots to talk about this week.
Let’s jump in:
Update: Hiring progress at Visto
Been focused on two key tasks in the past week: 1) hiring and 2) keeping our momentum going at Visto while making the time for hiring.
I touched on this last week so I won’t belabour the point, but it can be tough to make the time for hiring while all of your other responsibilities still remain. But hey, that’s our job as entrepreneurs, right?
Luckily it’s been a very productive hiring process for us and we’re likely going to make an offer or two today which I’m excited about. Especially since we’ve been able to move really quickly (and more details on our hiring process in my vlog video linked below).
I think the two reasons we’ve been able to move really fast is 1) having a good interview process in place, and 2) we got some really strong candidates to apply.
Item #1 mostly comes down to preparation, and it’s not that hard to put in place a really solid interview process if you have a good network to ask for help, Google and our good friend Chat GPT (great source of interview questions!).
For example, asking things like “what are 10 great interview questions to ask in a final interview for a junior sales role”.
For #2, I can’t stress how valuable it is to build your personal brand online. You might be thinking “what the heck does a personal brand have to do with hiring?”
Here’s what:
we will likely be sending 1, maybe 2 job offers this week for a sales role
we spent $0 on promoting the job, recruiters, software, etc.
I used Notion to create/share the job, and Airtable to collect applications and track them
Shared the job on LinkedIn (once), to our email list (twice) and in a few tech communities Alex and I are apart of
That’s it, and it led to dozens of applications, and some really really strong candidates. It boggles my mind how some companies spend thousands - sometimes tens of thousands - of dollars on a single hire.
Build your brand, build a following, build a community, and it will pay in dividends forever…
Key takeaway(s): please build your brand online
I know I preach this a lot, especially to those trying to build a business, but you need to realize 2 things:
the ultimate curreny in 2023 and beyond is attention. If you can get it easily (ie. through a strong brand/social media presence) you will never go hungry
building a brand can help with SO much more than just getting clients to build a business (eg. hiring, partnerships, referals, job opportunities, travel suggestions, the list goes on)
So it doesn’t matter who you are or what you’re trying to do with your career or life: if you build a bigger following, 99% chance it will be a net benefit.
And if you want to learn how to use video content to build your following online, read below…
Content for the week:
Some big ideas floating around in my head this week that I have to share:
as always, here’s my weekly vlog if you’re looking for the video version of my weekly updates:
I’m thinking of going back to a daily email (Monday to Friday). In an effort to continue building MY brand (because I practice what I preach) and share more of my experiences and stories throughout the week, I kind of like the idea of a shorter daily email.
Would you stick around if I went back to a daily email? And infused more stories and lessons from my experience, day in and day out? Let me know with a “reply” or comment on the post.
Lastly, I’m launching a monthly newsletter, where each month I do a deep dive on 1 topic or business tip to help you grow your business. This is for the folks who like my stuff but really want to take their business to the next level with actionable, helpful content. Note: this is a paid tier of the newsletter and ideally for those who have or are starting a business already (or if you enjoy my content and want to support!).
The topic for this month: leveraging short-form video to get more clients.
I dive into:
the importance of leverage
why video specifically is so important
my journey from 0 to 55,000 followers on Tiktok
talk about a client of ours who used Tiktok to literally build an entire law firm
and give actionable tips on how to start posting video content for growth
It goes live this Friday, and I’m giving you (my loving subscribers) a special launch offer! If you subscribe before the first issue (Friday, Oct. 6), you’ll get a 25% discount for the entire first year.
Two promises: 1) this will be the only launch discount I offer so if you like my business content then I highly recommend jumping on it before Friday, and 2) I’m pouring my heart (and brain) into these monthly newsletters to make sure you get at least 10x the value from reading each one.
You can grab the special launch discount by Friday here:
And that’s it!
Thanks as always for following along on my journey and have a great week,
- Josh Schachnow
Canadian immigration lawyer, CEO at Visto.ai
If you’re looking for more of my help, you can check out:
My immigration tech platform, Visto, that helps Canadian immigration firms prep and file applications much quicker.
My best advice of the month on the monthly newsletter here (issue #1 drops on Friday):
and shoutout to good friend Charles who also runs a great Substack newsletter here. He also had me on his podcast recently and I biasly recommend it.