Welcome to day 6: Episode 278 — How To Hire Wisely To Fill Strategic Skill Gaps
Day 6 of 30 Days to Prosperity

The real strength of any great leader isn’t measured by how much they do alone—it’s measured by who they surround themselves with and how effectively they empower those people to succeed on behalf of the organization.

This is a truth most founders learn the hard way.

You launched your brand because you’re passionate, creative, mission-driven, and ready to make an impact. But at some point the business grows, complexity increases, and you hit a wall where the “I’ll just do it myself” approach no longer works.

Today’s episode is about helping you avoid that wall altogether by learning how to hire wisely, fill key skill gaps, and build a team—or ecosystem—of people who elevate your strengths instead of draining them.
Let’s dig in.

Why Most Founders Struggle With Hiring (And What They Get Wrong)
When I went to college, I studied management. I learned about process, structure, hierarchy, and systems. Ironically, a lot of those concepts create bottlenecks in modern entrepreneurial businesses. They can restrict creativity. They can unintentionally crush team spirit. And worse, they often overlook the most important part of your business:
The humans doing the work.

It wasn’t until I encountered the work of Tom Peters—In Search of Excellence—that things clicked for me. Peters celebrated innovation, individual greatness, and high-performance teams driven by passion and empowerment.

That became a core pillar of how I lead, how I consult, and how I help brands today.

The truth is:
None of us can be great at everything. And none of us should try.
Successful founders learn to double down on their superpowers and surround themselves with people who complement their strengths.

Trying to be good at everything dilutes your energy, weakens your brand, and slows your momentum.
Hiring wisely multiplies it.

Identify Your Superpowers — And Protect Them
Every founder has a unique genius zone. It might be:
Product innovation
Storytelling and branding
Vision and leadership
Sales and relationship-building
Operations and execution
Community-building
Your business will grow faster when you spend more time in your genius zone.

But here’s the trap:
A lot of founders did well in an accounting class once…
Or learned Excel…
Or took a marketing seminar…
So they tell themselves, “I can handle this.”
Sure—you can.
But at what cost?

Just because you can do accounting doesn’t mean you should. Just because you can manage operations doesn’t mean that’s where your time is best spent.

There is a huge difference between book smarts and street smarts.

This program—and all of my content—is about street smarts:
leveraging real-world experience and expertise to gain a significant and sustainable competitive advantage.

If you’re an innovator creating disruptive, category-changing products, handling your QuickBooks will choke your creativity.
If you’re a strong salesperson, spending hours formatting decks will drain your best energy.
Hiring wisely is how you protect your superpower.

Masterminds, Mentors & Communities Help You See What You Can’t
One of the most underrated benefits of being part of a mastermind or connected community is the way it expands your vision.

Entrepreneurs naturally see opportunity—that’s our default setting.
But what we don’t always see are:
Bottlenecks
Blind spots
Skill gaps
Repeated mistakes
Time drains
Operational weaknesses

Your advisors, mentors, and peers will identify those gaps quickly. And once you see them, you can hire strategically to fill them.
Surround yourself with people who can look at your business from angles you can’t see.
Encourage your advisors to flag skill gaps early and recommend specialists. The right expert can make the difference between struggling and scaling.

Effective Leaders Multiply Talent—They Don’t Try to Replace It
A powerful leader doesn’t do everything.
A powerful leader brings out the best in everyone.

Your job is to:
Identify strengths
Fill gaps
Empower people
Remove obstacles
Provide clarity
Set the direction
Hold the standard

The right hire makes you stronger.
The wrong hire drains your time, energy, and momentum.
To illustrate how this plays out in the real world, let me take you behind the curtain…

A Story About Insight, Data, and the Power of the Right Expertise
When I worked with SPINS years ago, they only sold data at the regional level. That meant neither brands nor retailers could see store-level performance. You couldn’t diagnose out-of-stocks. You couldn’t track distribution gaps. You couldn’t measure promotional lift accurately.
In other words, everyone was flying blind.
And blind decision-making is expensive.

I was consulting with a small independent retailer at the time. They couldn’t understand why their promotions weren’t working. Customers were frustrated. Shelves were empty. Hot items weren’t available in every store.
They were relying on assumption instead of insight.

To solve this, I created what later became known as the Distribution Tracker—a tool that identified:
Which SKUs were contributing to category growth
Which SKUs were underperforming
Which stores lacked distribution
How much sales were being lost due to gaps
How to close those gaps strategically
Using the 80/20 rule, I quantified the lost opportunity.

Here’s what we uncovered:
A legacy brand ran a huge promotion across the chain…
But the item wasn’t in every store.
Shoppers were frustrated.
The retailer panicked and called the distributor for emergency stock.
The distributor emptied their warehouse to fill the gap…
But by then the promotion window was closing, and millions were left on the table.
In total?
A $2.7 million opportunity gap.
All due to lack of insight and lack of the right expertise.

Had they brought in a category expert earlier—or hired someone with the right analytical skill set—those costly mistakes could have been avoided.
That’s the power of hiring wisely.
It changes everything.

Hiring Smart Helps You Make Better Decisions Faster
When you hire wisely, you:
Execute retail strategies more consistently
Forecast more accurately
Prevent out-of-stocks
Optimize promotions
Build stronger retailer relationships
Protect your margins
Scale without chaos

Hiring is not about adding payroll.
It’s about adding capability.
It’s about building a team that fills the gaps so you can focus on what only you can do.

How to Hire Wisely (Even With Limited Resources)
You don’t need a huge budget to hire strategically. You need clarity.
Here’s where to start:
1. Identify what only you can do.
This becomes your non-negotiable focus area.
2. Identify everything you do that someone else could do faster or better.
This becomes your hiring roadmap.
3. Separate the urgent from the important.
Your genius zone is always in the important.
4. Start with contractors, advisors, or fractional roles.
Small hires can make a big impact.
5. Prioritize hires that increase revenue or prevent losses.
Operations. Accounting. Category management. Sales support.
6. Look for people with real-world experience, not just theory.
Street smarts > book smarts.
7. Test small before expanding responsibilities.
Trust is earned through performance.

Day 6 Action Item: Build Your Strategic Talent Map
Today, I want you to list the following:
1. Your top 3 superpowers
(What you uniquely bring to the brand)
2. Your top 5 time drains
(Tasks pulling you away from your superpowers)
3. 3 skill gaps hurting your growth
(Be honest here)

Identify People who could fill those gaps
Mentors, advisors, fractional hires, masterminds

Identify One role you can delegate or outsource within 30 days
Make it real. Make it specific.
Hiring wisely is not a luxury—it’s how founders scale.

In Closing: You Grow Faster When You Stop Going Alone
Today’s lesson is one of the most powerful concepts in the entire 30-day series:

You do not scale by adding more tasks to your plate. You scale by adding the right people to your team.

Founders don’t fail because they lack passion.
They fail because they try to carry too much alone.

In doing this, you have been building your strategic growth map. You have identified the key areas you need help. Use this as a step-by-step path for aligning your goals with execution across your entire organization.

Tomorrow in Episode 279, we’ll talk about How to Build Operational Discipline—The Hidden Engine of CPG Scale, and why this one capability separates the brands that survive from the brands that dominate.

Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss it.
Share this episode with a founder who’s drowning in tasks and needs clarity.
And download the series guide to go deeper into todays topic

Surround yourself with the right people.
Empower them.
Elevate them.
And let them elevate you.
That’s how brands win.
And that’s how you build something truly extraordinary.

For additional inspiration listen to the following podcast episodes:
Episode 36 Compelling Selling Story Unlock Brand Success, John Foraker with Once Upon A Farm and Annies
The importance of a compelling selling story to get your brand into our shelves.

In this episode, John talks about how he never wants to be the smartest person in the room. John realizes that having the right people in place on his team and then taping into their genius gives the brand a significant competitive advantage. This is perhaps one of the best episodes on the podcast about why you need to surround yourself with the right people.

Episode 212 Lessons On Challenging A Giant To Grow Your Brand, Gail Becker with CAULIPOWER
In this episode, Gail talks candidly about how she needed to surround herself with the best people.

She realized early on that there were a lot of things that she didn't know about running a brand. A lot of things she didn't know about going to market and competing with the big brands. She needed to have the right people in place.

In this episode, you're going to hear her story. Not only was she able to bring in the right talent to compete in a very competitive category, but she was able to level the playing field and carve out a nice niche for herself.

Episode 125 Building A Solid Team Essential Strategies, Josh Wand with ForceBrands
Building a solid team is a critical component to every brand's success. In this episode, John shares a study that they just completed about what employees are looking for when they go to work for a company and what employers need to do to attract the best talent. In this episode, you can get some key insights into what you need to have in place to attract the right team.

Tip of the day: The Real Strength Of An Effective Leader Is Measured By The People They Surround Themselves By And How They Empower Them To Succeed On Behalf Of The Organization

Thank you for listening. This episode has an accompanying video with illustrations and additional information I can’t share on an audio podcast. You can watch it at retailsolved.com/30daychallenge.

You can get the show notes for this episode by going to RetailSolved.com/Session278. Tomorrows episode is The Importance of Knowing The True Cost Of Your Products.

This is a critically important episode because I find that when I work with a lot of brands, they have an idea what their products cost, but not specifically enough to maximize sales. You need to know exactly how much your product costs to put it in the bag and get it on the shelf.

This is even more important when you're trying to promote your brand. You need to know exactly how much it costs to promote it so that you can maximize the ROI from your promotions. In that episode, I'm going to be sharing a really cool tool that I made available for you for free that will help you assess the ROI from your promotions. The tool was designed to help you learn the most effective strategies that work for your brand.

This episode will build on today’s conversation. Thank you for listening. I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.