Most companies don’t stall because of bad strategy. They stall because they tolerate B players for too long.
In this episode of Entry & Exit, Stephen Olmon and Collin Trimble break down the hidden cost of hiring “good enough” talent — and why average employees quietly cap company growth, culture, and valuation.
They unpack the lessons learned scaling Alarm Masters, including why A players multiply output across the business, how mediocre hires increase founder dependence, and the mindset shift that changed how they recruit leadership talent.
The conversation dives into hiring psychology, identifying true high performers, why process alone can’t compensate for weak talent, and the operational ripple effects of building a team stacked with A players.
Inside this episode:
→ Why B players often create more work for founders
→ The difference between A, B, and C players
→ Why process can’t turn average talent into elite talent
→ The real opportunity cost of mediocre hires
→ How A players improve every department around them
→ Why hiring cheap talent slows company growth
→ The impact of talent on enterprise value and acquisitions
→ How to identify A players in the first 90 days
→ Why top performers want to work with other top performers
Connect:
Stephen Olmon — http://x.com/stephenolmon
Collin Trimble — https://x.com/TXAlarmGuy
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We thought you could take a B player with an A plus plus S tier process and make them an A player. Somebody that does their job exceptionally well and is adding value and things outside of their little box.
That's an A player. Okay, how's your merit on a scale from one to two? You can't say seven. You're in the A to 10 category. Like things are looking up. Can't say seven seven's comfortable.
Every minute you don't have an A player in that role is where you're not growing. Maybe they're really just a C player. Dang, that guy is like, he's doing what? Why? That's not even part of his job. What is he doing?
Most of the time, what you get at the beginning is what you're gonna have all the way through. And if they're not an A player, maybe they're really just a C player. Welcome
to Entry and Exit. My name is Steven, and I also have Colin here with me. He's my my business partner, my co-host. I better have to say. And uh today we are talking about the hidden cost of hiring B players. Yeah.
This is one of those ones where we uh we learned this one the hard way. Um we've talked about this on prior podcasts before, right? That like we thought you could take a B player with an A S tier process and make them an A player. And uh you can't, you can't do it. And I think the problem a lot of people realize like there is a difference between a C or D player, like somebody that's just not that great, but you kind of keep around because they kind of do their job, and somebody which I would define as a C or D player. And the difference between them and a B player is somebody like, yeah, they do a pretty good job, they do their job well, but they're not adding value. And that's the difference between a B and an A player. Somebody that doesn't do their job great, but they do it enough to where it's like, ah, I don't know, that's a C D. Somebody that does their job well but doesn't add value, that's a B. Somebody that does their job exceptionally well and is adding value and thinks outside of their little box, that's an A
player.
The harsh reality is a lot of people like I love uh one to ten rating systems where you can't say seven. Yeah. And so this is true of what what people think of as a B player. So stick with me for a moment. Hey, how is your marriage on a scale from one to two? You can't say seven. Well, if we're in six land, you're in one through six, and yeah, you know, things maybe aren't peachy. Okay, if you're in eight, you're in the eight to you're in the eight to ten category, like things are looking up. Can't say seven. Seven's comfortable. Seven's like, that's fine. Can't say seven, but you can't say B really, because if they're kind of this B B minus, they're really a C player. Like I I almost would argue maybe there are no B players. Um, I think it's good to think of it like that. So uh also I have not seen many B players become A players. Uh we talked about process, maybe they're immature, like that's kind of the only thing I can think of. Is maybe you hired someone who's really young and they just hadn't totally grown up yet, and there's a lack of maturity. But most of the time, what you get at the beginning is what you're gonna have all the way through. And if they're not an A player, maybe they're really just a C player.
You know what I hear a lot from my peers, not in our not necessarily in our industry, some, but other people I I hear this all the time. No, that person wasn't bad a bad employee, they were just on the wrong seat on the bus. Every time I hear that and I ask my friend, like, where are they now a year later? Like, yeah, they don't work for us anymore. And it's like, yeah, of course not. There's no, they're on the wrong seat of the bus. Like, an A player is never on the wrong seat. They're they figure it out and they provide value. They may move roles because they want to, or you think that they would be great in another role, but there's no, like, hey, you suck at this job, and so I think you might be better over here. And I just, I don't know, it just doesn't work out a lot. I know it does sometimes, and obviously, we haven't been doing this for 30 years, like some some folks that we know, but it's just like I think generally speaking, an A player is an A player known. I I generally say you can find out if somebody's an A player within the first 90 days, just generally speaking, hot take, like clip it. You know what I mean? Make it a short.
The
other thing that's true is if you just want to have a lifestyle business and be in like maintenance mode, kind of maintain status quo, hire a bunch of nice non-toxic B players, you can probably kind of just maintain neat. That's not what we're about, that's not what we're doing, that's not what we advocate for. So all of this is kind of through the lens of hey, we're trying to grow, you know, we're we're trying to excel, and um, we have you know big dreams, big vision. So this is kind of speaking through that lens. Like if you kind of like where you're at and you want to just stick there, you probably can more affordably find some just kind of average B talent and keep it running.
Yeah, I agree. I think it depends on what you're looking to do. If you're listening to this podcast, you're probably listening to you're probably looking to grow. Um, I would say that the real cost you need to be thinking about is you need to change your perception away from the cost of their salary and what the cost of hiring somebody that's not going to do well. And I don't mean like there's this other thing where it's like, oh, you hired the wrong person, there's an opportunity cost, like all that time and money you spent on training. No, it's just like every minute you don't have an A player in that role is where you're not growing. Like it's it's like rising tides that raises all ships. It's that same concept of like every time you add an A player, it should elevate the whole company. When every time we have added an A player, it's been felt across every department. Everyone's like, dang, that guy is like, he's doing what? Why? That's not even part of his job. What is he doing? And that's what an A player does. And we always were trying to find, and we're honestly, we're interviewing right now for a couple roles, and this is a thing that we're trying to get out of our mindset of is like, what can we get that employee for? You know, and it's like, no, we're gonna just start establishing what we believe that this role is worth, and that's what we're gonna go hire for. And if that person is not, we're moving away from can we, we've got a $100,000 role. Can we find somebody that's maybe decent and hire them for 60? It's like, no, I'd rather find somebody that's so overqualified and they want 110 and I gotta stretch to 110. Like, yep, that's because that that they're gonna create more value. And I think part of it too, Steven, like this is a tough reality, but like if if in the first 90 days you detect that they're not an A player, you need to start putting them on a path to like try to remedy that or try to get them to a place where they can be performing. And if they're not by a year, maybe even six months. Yeah, I yeah, six to nine months. You you really gotta make some tough decisions because again, it's not that you're you're there's a person out there that isn't a player, and and I think part of it is sometimes you have to look for somebody that's like not even done that role sometimes. So, like our director of ops didn't do ops before, but he was like overestimation, so he was at a big low voltage company, so he was interacting a lot on the ops side, but a lot on the pre-sales side. But we knew the way that he thought and we understood his like DNA and like how he thinks about things, and he's absolutely crushed ops, but didn't has never installed a fire panel in his life, but like absolutely crushes ops, yeah.
And that's that's part of the magic. It's hard to see potential, like it's hard to coach people, even if you're listening. Like, I don't know if I have a perfect solution to try to identify kind of that up-and-coming a talent. Um, I think because we've done it a few times, now we kind of have experienced that, and maybe we are starting to get a little better at making those sorts of decisions, but a lot of that is kind of trial
by fire. But I think um another kind of important thing to talk about is like why why we started to get into the habit of hiring maybe some some talent that didn't meet our standards, and why other people do like there's a few different reasons. One of them is like you just start growing, like we we were buying customer accounts, and we now we started to have like so much activity going on that you're like, man, we've just gotta get bodies in here, but that's not a good perspective, typically is a mistake.
Yeah, I think desperation is makes it really hard. Um, and I think that you also hire B talent because you don't want to spend the time interviewing multiple candidates because that's annoying and challenging, and that's what I'm guilty of, honestly. Like I'm like, uh no, you I don't want to deal with that. Yeah, yeah. And so that's one reason. Um, you know, another thing though, one unintended consequence, by the way, I don't think we didn't cover this just now, but I think it's really important is B players create more dependence on the founder or the leader of the business. Um, because that means inherently be players, they've got gaps somewhere between them and some other department. And so you've got to fill those gaps versus an A player fills gaps. Like, should it be them or should it be the other, you know, should it be sales or should it be ops? Well, if it's an A player, it they're just gonna go do it. And like it may not be their job, or maybe it's whatever. Like the number of times I hear from my A players, I'm like, What why did you do that? Like, that's not your job. Like, dude, it just had to get done. Like, it just had to get done. And I was like, man, that's a player mentality right there.
A players, we talked about this earlier, want to play. You see this like in professional sports, like there's a really talented free agent, they want to go play with other really talented players, they don't go look for like a crappy team. Yeah, you know, so I think um a players want to play with a players, it does kind of like raise everyone's standard, but the inverse is also true, is if you're layering in talent that isn't up to the standards of some other people, it can be really demotivating, it can kind of hurt morale, it can slow people down, distract. Like there's can be a very negative, it's not necessarily neutral, like it can be a very negative ripple effect that's unintended, and maybe they're not like maliciously causing it, it's just because they can't keep up.
One thing I heard that I really like is that A players multiply output. So, like, as you get it's not like one plus one equals two with an A player, it's like one plus one equals four with an A player. And we've said this before. I'd I'd take one A player over two B players, like two B 80 hours from a B player gets less done than 40 hours from an A player. And it's like, is there a perfect equation for that? No, there's not, but you will like know, and and and I think I think that as you stack that, you start to see growth. I'm just I don't know, dude. I think that this has been a big thing for us, right? It's like as we started to hire a player, especially it's been extremely clear in our sales department, as we have started to hire just super high quality salespeople and sales management. This the average deal size, the sales cycle time, the close rate, the the gap between sales to operations handoff, number of activities, just raw output, also raw output, all of it. Yeah, all of it is significantly better. So I totally agree
with that. And then I think one thing I want to close on with with Steven is like, why does this matter from like a valuation perspective? Why do A players make your business better from an Eevee? If we're always thinking about how do we increase the value of our business, not just even just RMR lower revenue cards, like how does this impact that?
Well, a couple of things come to mind immediately. One, if someone's going to acquire a business, like there still needs to be a talented team to run that operation, right? So if you've clearly got really talented people on that team, then a buyer is gonna see that and say, okay, I could depend on this existing team, and I don't have to go through a whole hiring spree, and I don't have to rebuild. This is already a really kind of quality machine, so to speak. Um, another thing is we talk a lot about process. So A players create process, they improve process. So typically, a players aren't just like dancing around in ambiguity and just kind of like uh hoping that things happen on time well. They're gonna typically push to define process, push to improve it to satisfy customers, um, to limit mistakes, you know, like so all those sorts of things kind of make up a DNA of a healthier, more attractive business when you've got those people in key roles.
Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And I think I think what I would say is um the hidden killer of EV is um just owner dependence, you know, key man risk, if you will. And so the more hats the owner wears, the less valuable the business is. So I think the more A players you have, like every time we go by business, we always hear from the owner, I've got this guy or this gal. Oh my gosh, she runs the whole business, and it's like one or two people. And it's like, well, what would it look like if your whole business was made up of those people? You know, and it takes work, it's just like everything else in this world, it just takes freaking work. Um, and so anyway, I I think that this is it's a topic we're really passionate about, something we're still learning more about is like how do we get everybody to be an A player? How do we upskill if possible? It's very hard to upskill a person from B to A. And and then the other one is hiring. How do we hire better and just continue to grow?
So if if you're if you're an A listener, if you're an A subscriber, send it to a friend, leave us a comment, ask a question, share something insightful, subscribe, click a button. I don't know. Yeah, just let it happen. Thanks for listening.
