What We'll Build
The Core Fit Blueprint isn’t a checklist or a collection of ideas. It’s a structured system that we build together over time.
Each phase focuses on creating specific tools, processes, and rhythms that support engagement, accountability, and growth. These aren’t theoretical frameworks. They’re working systems your team uses every day.
The order matters. Each phase builds on the one before it, creating a foundation that allows later stages, like bench building and scaling, to actually work.
Phase 1: Stop the Bleeding
Before a business can improve hiring, engagement, or growth, it has to stop the constant pull of urgent problems. This phase stabilizes the people side of the business so leaders can stop reacting and start building.
Hiring Stability
Reduce open roles, backfilling, and reactive hiring.
A Clear Stop the Bleeding Plan
Focus leadership on the issues that matter most right now.
Documented Core People Processes
Document sourcing, hiring, onboarding, and engagement processes to create consistency.
A Functional Recruiting System
Create structure and visibility across recruiting, whether improving an existing ATS or implementing the right one.
Recruiting Capability
Train the team on recruiting best practices, screening, and job advertising.
Leadership Alignment
Align expectations to eliminate mixed messages and confusion.
Engagement Visibility
Establish an engagement baseline with clear, ongoing reporting.
Execution & Accountability
Support and accountability to ensure changes are implemented, not just discussed.
Why This Phase Comes First
Without stability, every improvement effort creates more friction. Phase 1 removes the noise so the business is ready to build what comes next.
Be the Employer of Choice
Create trust, clarity, and momentum so the right people want to join and stay.
Purpose, Values, and Vision Alignment
Clarify why the company exists, how everyone behaves, and where it’s going.
High-Trust Leadership Behaviors
Establish leadership habits that improve communication, consistency, and follow-through.
Opportunities for Growth
Create clear paths for development so employees see a future, not just a job.
Industry-Leading Growth & Reputation
Position the company as a strong, stable place to work through consistent messaging and execution.
Normalize Money Conversations
Create healthy, transparent conversations around pay, stability, and expectations.
Engaged Workforce
Create the habits and expectations that keep people connected, accountable, and invested.
Engagement Tools
Track engagement and address issues before they turn into turnover.
Employee Referral Program
Turn current employees into a reliable source of quality candidates.
Why This Phase Matters
When people trust leadership, understand the direction of the company, and see opportunities to grow, engagement improves and hiring becomes easier. Being the employer of choice creates the conditions that make later phases possible.
Put the Right People in the Right Seats
Eliminate mis-hires, role confusion, and performance drag by creating clarity, structure, and consistency in how people are hired and placed.
Organizational Design
Clarify the roles the business actually needs, including identifying gaps and overload, especially where owners are wearing too many hats.
Clear Expectations
Define responsibilities, outcomes, and success measures so people know what “good” looks like in their role.
Role-Based Assets
Create complete hiring and onboarding assets for each role, including job descriptions, job ads, screening guides, interview guides, and onboarding plans.
Core Fit Interview
Implement a structured, end-to-end interview process to evaluate capability, fit, and alignment consistently.
Supervisor Interview Consistency
Align all hiring managers around the same process so decisions are fair, repeatable, and defensible.
Hiring Manager Capability
Train leaders to interview, evaluate, and place talent with confidence instead of relying on gut feeling.
Better Placement Decisions
Ensure people are placed based on strengths and role fit, not just urgency or availability.
Why This Phase Matters
When every role is clearly defined and supported with the right tools, hiring becomes faster, onboarding becomes smoother, and performance improves without constant supervision. Putting the right people in the right seats removes ambiguity so the right people can succeed in the right seats.
Align Your People and Processes
Turn clarity into consistent execution so people don’t just know what’s expected – they actually do it.
Consistent Onboarding
Roll out a structured onboarding experience that helps new hires think like you think, do like you do, and win like you win – accelerating productivity and profitability, not just compliance.
Connect Work to Results
Establish clear ownership of responsibilities and outcomes so employees understand how their work connects to results.
Role Clarity
Roll out expectations company-wide so everyone understands their responsibilities, success metrics, and priorities.
Performance Conversations
Equip leaders to address issues in real-time, hold people accountable to clear metrics, and have productive conversations before problems escalate.
Better People Leaders
Train supervisors to communicate expectations clearly, coach performance, and manage day-to-day execution with confidence.
Behavioral Assessments
Apply a behavioral assessment across hiring, onboarding, and teams to improve communication and trust.
Operational Consistency
Ensure expectations are understood and reinforced so people actually follow the playbook, not just acknowledge it exists.
Why This Phase Matters
Aligning your people and processes moves systems out of documents and into the business. Expectations are clear, accountability feels fair, and execution becomes predictable instead of reactive. When people understand their role, their metrics, and how their work connects to results, everything that follows becomes easier.
Inspire a Future-Driven Team
Create long-term engagement by helping people see a future, both professionally and personally, while strengthening leadership along the way.
Personal Development
Establish a structured approach that holds employees accountable to setting and achieving meaningful personal goals over time.
Career Development
Define practical career development options within the company so employees understand how they can grow and progress.
Mentoring & Coaching Support
Introduce mentoring and coaching structures that support development through regular guidance from leaders, not one-off conversations.
Core Fit Conversations
Implement a non-traditional quarterly conversation that helps managers develop as leaders while addressing growth, engagement, and alignment.
Ongoing Engagement Insight
Move engagement from a periodic initiative to an ongoing discipline using practical methods beyond pulse surveys.
Growth Accountability
Create a holistic, structured approach that ensures employee growth plans are followed through on, goals are actively supported, and development commitments turn into real progress over time.
Why This Phase Matters
When development is structured and taken seriously, engagement deepens and retention follows. Inspiring a future driven team ensures growth conversations lead to action, not good intentions.
Fill Your Bench With Top Talent
Build the systems that keep talent flowing so hiring never starts from zero.
Build a Bench of Candidates
Create a continuous process for identifying and engaging potential candidates long before roles are open.
Bench Strength for Key Roles
Build depth for critical positions so the business is prepared for growth, change, and turnover.
Passive Recruiting Systems
Establish consistent outreach and follow-up systems that attract talent who aren’t actively job hunting.
Talent Marketing Funnel
Implement a multi-channel recruiting funnel using online ads, search, video, referrals, and partnerships to consistently attract top candidates.
Referral-Driven Hiring
Turn employees into a reliable source of qualified candidates through structured, ongoing referral programs.
Engagement Systems
Implement engagement tools and systems that keep candidates and bench talent connected and warm over time.
Hiring Readiness
Ensure roles, expectations, and interview tools are always current so hiring can move quickly without cutting corners.
Why This Phase Matters
When recruiting is treated like a system instead of a scramble, hiring, retention, and engagement become predictable. Filling your bench with top talent ensures the business always has access to qualified candidates without relying on last-minute fixes or job board desperation.
Scale With Confidence
Sustain growth without breaking the systems, culture, or people that got you here.
Leadership Depth
Develop leaders at multiple levels so growth doesn’t rely on a few key people.
Succession Readiness
Create clarity around future leaders and critical roles to reduce risk and disruption.
Robust Reporting
Use consistent marketing and engagement reporting to track progress, spot issues early, and guide better decisions.
Planning Rhythms
Establish quarterly and annual planning rhythms that keep people, priorities, and growth aligned.
Scalable People Systems
Ensure hiring, onboarding, engagement, and development systems continue working as the business grows.
Long-Term Stability
Build the structure and discipline needed to protect margins, execution, and culture over time.
Why This Phase Matters
Growth exposes weak systems. The final phase in the Core Fit Blueprint ensures the business can scale without losing clarity, consistency, or control. Leaders are prepared, systems hold, and progress continues without constant reinvention.
"I’m now focused on the big picture: where the company’s going, because I’m not worried about the day-to-day. We’ve set the people in place. We give them the tools and the power to do that.”
- Jack Nix, COO, Shelby Erectors Inc.
Josh Zolin, CEO
Windy City Equipment Service
Jennifer Nix, President
Shelby Erectors, Inc.
Chad Ridenour, Principal
Turn It On Electric
Tyler Sinsabaugh, VP of Talent
ColonialWebb
Rick McFadden, President
Enhance Property Maintenance
Debi Heileman, Owner
PuroClean Restoration Specialists
Randy Reed, President
TeamLogicIt
Roger Bowman, VP of Merchandising & Marketing
AZ Partsmaster
Dennis Gehman, President
Gehman Design Remodeling
Maria Escamilla, HR Generalist
Weather Shield Roofing Systems
Josh Weiss, President
10 to 1 Public Relations
Brad Waldrop, VP of Sales & Operations
Employee Benefits International
Jeff Vander Hart, VP of Operations
Weather Shield Roofing Systems
Ashley Gillen, Director of People Experiences
UrbanCore Construction
Tony Carver, Director of Operations
Schloegel Design Remodel
Thomas Raar, Owner
Mr. Handyman of Greater Grand Rapids
Jeremy Mullens, COO & COS
The Chamberlin Group
Jack Nix, COO
Shelby Erectors, Inc.
Nancy Ensman, HR Manager
Concord General Contracting
Scott Goddard
Goddard Consulting
Mike Ricker, CEO
Crash of Rhinos Painting
Chris Peterson, Co-Owner & VP of Production
Schloegel Design Remodel
Joshua Farley, Owner
Redline Electric
Ready to fix your workforce?
If you’re ready to stop the engagement leak, stabilize your team, and build a workforce you can count on every day, it’s time to start your Core Fit Blueprint journey.