You finally made the hire. You were so relieved to have someone in the seat that you handed them a login and a Slack invite and said ‘let me know if you need anything.’ Three weeks later they’re confused, disengaged, and quietly wondering if they made a mistake taking this job. Sound familiar? That’s not a people problem. That’s a missing system. A bad onboarding experience, a rushed interview process, or a team structure that was never defined clearly enough will sink a great hire every time. This page and the 15 episodes behind it will show you exactly how to fix that.
Why most bad hires are not actually bad hires
Here is a hard truth: the majority of people who fail in a new role were set up to fail before their first day. The interview process tested the wrong things. The job description promised one thing and delivered another. Nobody owned their onboarding. Nobody defined what success looked like in the first 90 days. The new hire did not lack skill or effort. They lacked a clear system to plug into. When you understand that, you stop blaming people and start fixing the gaps.
What a real onboarding system looks like
Onboarding is not a checklist of logins and HR paperwork. It is a deliberate 30, 60, and 90-day plan that answers four questions for every new team member: What is expected of me right now? Who do I need to build relationships with? What does winning look like in this role? And how will I know if I am off track? When those four questions have clear, written answers, a new hire can orient themselves without needing to interrupt you every hour. That is the kind of structure that turns a good hire into a great one. Without it, even the most talented person will spin their wheels.
How to interview for the right things
Most interview processes are designed to confirm what you already want to believe about a candidate. You like them in the first five minutes and spend the rest of the conversation looking for proof you were right. A stronger process forces you to define the outcomes the role needs to produce before you ever post the job description, then build interview questions that surface evidence of those outcomes. Ask about specific past situations. Ask what systems they used to stay organized, give feedback, and handle conflict. The answers will tell you far more than a polished elevator pitch ever could.
Managing contractors and part-time team members
Contractors and part-time hires have a reputation for being hard to manage. In most cases, the difficulty is not the working arrangement. It is that nobody built a clear scope of work, nobody set communication expectations, and nobody defined what done looks like. The Unstoppable Team framework applies here just as much as it does with full-time staff. Contractors need a clear lane, a clear deliverable, and a clear feedback loop. When those three things are in place, a well-chosen contractor can move faster than a full-time hire who has been there for years.
Building a team that does not depend on you to function
The goal of great hiring and onboarding is not just to fill a seat. It is to build a team that can run without you in the room. That means hiring for the skills the team currently lacks, not just the skills you are most comfortable evaluating. It means creating role clarity so each person knows their lane. And it means building in feedback loops early so small misalignments get caught at week three instead of month six. When you treat hiring and onboarding as a system instead of an event, you stop cycling through people and start building something that actually lasts.
All episodes on this topic
- Ep 235: Why your new hire is not working out (and how to fix it before it costs you). When a new hire is not working out, it is almost never a people problem. It is a process problem caused by two gaps: an interview that skips values and expectations, and an onboarding that skips knowledge transfer. Lia walks through both gaps with a real example from Google and gives you the fixes to de-risk your next senior hire.
- Ep 219: Did you make a bad hire? How to know and what to do next. Most ‘bad hire’ situations are actually bad onboarding or missing feedback situations. Lia walks through a 30/60/90-day check-in framework that helps you assess a new team member clearly, without panic or dragging it out too long. This episode is especially useful for founders and small team leaders who are second-guessing a recent hire.
- Ep 191: The two onboarding mistakes that kill a new hire’s excitement before week one is over. Most onboarding failures come down to two problems: new hires left with nothing to do and no direction, or new hires who charge in too hard and alienate the team. Both happen because the leader never set clear expectations before day one. This episode walks through exactly what to fix, with Lia’s own story of a disastrous first day as the centerpiece.
- Ep 190: Three hiring mistakes that wreck your team (and what to do instead). The three most common hiring mistakes are moving too fast, underpaying, and bringing on a high-skill but low-collaboration person who poisons team culture. Lia walks through each mistake with real examples and shares how slowing down, paying fairly, and enforcing a no-jerk rule are your best protection against costly turnover. This episode is essential for founders, team leads, and new managers who have ever felt the pressure to fill a seat fast.
- Ep 188: How to manage contractors and freelancers without the headache. Fractional talent fails not because of the people but because leaders skip the basics: onboarding, expectation setting, and clear accountability checkpoints. Lia shares three keys that fix the most common freelancer and contractor breakdowns before they become expensive disasters. This episode is essential for founders, team leads, and anyone leaning on freelancers or agencies to scale right now.
- Ep 138: How to hire the right way and build a team that actually sticks around. Hiring well starts with knowing exactly what you want before you ever talk to a candidate. Lia walks through four practical moves: defining the role clearly, identifying your non-negotiable values, asking behavioral questions that reveal character (not just skill), and paying competitively so your best hire does not walk out the door three months later. This episode is essential for any owner or leader who has ever left an interview thinking “I still have no idea if that person is the right fit.”
- Ep 112: The one thing that saves you time and money when hiring new team members. The single biggest lever for a successful hire is defining your criteria for a great fit before you ever post a job listing. Lia walks through how to build a hiring matrix that covers both hard skills and behavioral qualities, so every candidate gets evaluated on the same standard. This episode is especially useful for founders and small business owners who have hired on gut feel and ended up starting the process all over again.
- Ep 84: Onboarding is not just for new employees. Here is who else needs it.. Onboarding applies to anyone joining your team or taking on a new role, not just brand-new hires. Lia busts two common misconceptions and shows how a simple onboarding document (even a 20-minute one) sets expectations, protects your time, and keeps team energy high. This episode is especially useful for business owners and team leads who work with contractors, promote from within, or skip onboarding because they think they are too busy.
- Ep 70: Why great onboarding is the secret to retention, referrals, and a team that actually performs. A strong onboarding experience is an extension of recruiting, and skipping it costs you money, morale, and top talent. Lia and executive coach Jess Heller walk through the frameworks that prevent the leaky-bucket cycle, from 30/60/90-day plans to alignment meetings to re-onboarding team members whose roles change. This episode is essential for any owner, founder, or team lead who has ever hired someone and then wondered why they are already underperforming.
- Ep 43: New hire starting tomorrow and no onboarding plan? Here is what to do right now. A missing onboarding plan does not just hurt your new hire’s experience, it costs you real money every hour they sit idle and signals from day one that they are not a priority. Lia shares three things you can do immediately: block 15 minutes at the start and end of day one, send a welcome email to the team, and tell the new hire exactly what success looks like in week one. This episode is essential for any owner or team lead who hired someone before building the system to support them.
- Ep 41: Why your employee’s previous job shapes everything about how they show up for you. The context a team member brings from their previous industry and role quietly drives how they communicate, make decisions, and respond to feedback on your team. Lia walks through three moves: recognize the context, leverage what is valuable from it, and coach the person into what success actually looks like in your organization. This episode is especially useful for owners and leaders who have hired across industries or are onboarding someone whose background looks nothing like their own.
Also relevant
- Ep 223: What should you pay senior hires to attract top talent without overextending yourself?. You do not have to match Fortune 500 salaries to land a great senior hire. Lia walks through how to think about compensation as a full package (scope, equity, autonomy, incentives) and how to assess your real risk tolerance before making an offer. This episode is most useful for small business owners wrestling with whether they can afford a big hire or afraid they cannot grow without one.
- Ep 181: Why your team is burning out (and it has nothing to do with workload). The hidden driver of team burnout is not too much work but too little clarity when roles keep shifting. Lia walks through how to set expectations before someone starts, define success in each rotation, and dial up communication so flexibility does not turn into confusion. This episode is especially useful for founders and owners scaling fast who need fluid teams without losing momentum.
- Ep 149: Why your job titles might be driving turnover (and how to fix it). When team members ask about titles, they are almost always signaling one of two things: a need for clarity about their role or a need for recognition of their experience. Lia breaks down both motivators and gives a practical framework for matching titles to seniority, pay, and scope before you make a hire or a change. This episode is especially useful for small business owners and founders who have direct control over what they call their people.
- Ep 116: How do you know when it’s time to hire another manager?. It’s time to hire another manager when you can no longer adequately support, evaluate, or scale alongside your team. Lia walks through five diagnostic questions that help leaders assess readiness, from span of control to whether the team has natural department divisions. This episode is especially useful for founders and business owners feeling stretched thin across too many direct reports.
- Ep 85: How nailing the basics of managing solves your HR issues. Most HR problems are actually ops and management problems in disguise. Jackie Koch, founder of People Principles, and Lia break down the foundational moves that prevent people issues before they start: effective 1:1s, structured 30/60/90-day new hire reviews, and lightweight work tracking. This episode is essential for any owner or team lead who keeps putting out people fires and wonders why.
- Ep 66: How to hire for your gaps and stop trying to be good at everything as a business owner. Real leadership means recognizing where your skills end and hiring people who are genuinely strong where you are not. In this episode, Lia and fractional CFO Staci Millard walk through how to build a hiring strategy around your vision, why knowing your numbers unlocks better team decisions, and how to avoid the trap of promoting your best producer into a role they were never built for. Founders and small business owners scaling their first team will get the most out of this conversation.
- Ep 58: How your personal brand shapes the way you show up as a leader. Your personal brand and your leadership style are not separate things. Hannah Nieves, founder and CEO of HN Haus and This Hudson Studio, shares how authenticity, cross-collaboration, and clear expectations create teams that stay, grow, and actively help build the business. This episode is especially useful for founders and small business owners who want to stop being the bottleneck and start building a team that runs alongside them.
- Ep 32: How to build a strong team culture on a remote team. Strong remote team culture comes from closing the gap between what you say and what you actually do as a leader. Audrey Saccone, founder and CEO of Audrey Digital, shares the specific rituals and moves she uses to build psychological safety, create belonging across a distributed team, and know when to let go of control. This episode is especially useful for small business owners who are growing a remote team for the first time.
- Ep 11: How to empower your team to own their magic (and actually stay). Empowering your team starts with hiring for potential and transferable skills, then building the systems and clarity that let people bring their own genius to the work. Rebecca Cafiero, founder and CEO of The Pitch Club, shares the frameworks she carried from a Fortune 150 corporate career into entrepreneurship: share the five-year vision, ask people how they want to be managed, and pay for A-players rather than the cheapest option. This episode is especially useful for founders and small business owners building their first real team.
Want to go deeper?
The Unstoppable Team. How to build a team that runs without you in the room.
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