Fred Schebesta has an impressive track record. Serial entrepreneur, award-winning digital marketer, author and international keynote speaker are just a few of the strings to his bow.
In 2006, Fred co-founded Finder, a global personal finance comparison website which now attracts 10 million visitors each month, has over 400 staff and live in 80+ countries.
We spoke to Fred about a few things he’s learned on his journey, and just how to create the perfect marketing machine.
Can you start off by telling me a little about yourself and how you got Finder off the ground?
FS: Before Finder, I started a web design business, eventually selling it but only after seven years of struggle.
I did whatever it took for seven years to master SEO, copywriting, how Google thinks, all the updates, everything. I actually learned HTML and how to code because that allowed me to master my channel. So when we started Finder, we launched with SEO and we still do this now, even in new countries.
I’ve spent 10 years building Finder as a bootstrapped company. I personally made all the mistakes, as well as all of the investments.
So, your background is in marketing?
FS: That’s right. I’ve been an internet marketer for a long time, and it’s basically a war. It’s not like your engineering and HR team, as they don’t have to go to battle every single day. It means you’re going to want to recruit slightly different people in marketing.
How do you go about hiring the right marketing people?
FS: We hire winners. That may sound very aggressive, but in marketing either you win or you lose.
Try to find someone who’s going to do whatever it takes to hustle and win. That’s what your marketing team needs. That’s what your growth engine needs.
What specific traits do you look for?
FS: My secret formula consists of 7 key habits.
1: They know their customer.
Have you actually picked up the phone and spoken to your customer service team? Have you sat on the live chat and dealt directly with the customers yourself? That’s what great digital marketers love to do.
2: Excellence in one specific channel.
These guys have spent years mastering something. And if they’ve mastered one channel they know how to learn. They know how to go and get another channel that your business will need and grow that as well.
At Finder, we’re launching an app in Australia and I’ve got one guy focussed purely on app store marketing. But I’ve chosen one of the guys who I know will go and master that channel.
The first thing he did was sign up for an online course with one of those really cool internet marketers and he’s going to find the best tricks out there. That’s the behaviour you’re looking for.
3: Finding a hack, they always find a way to get an edge.
They’re not going to give you a normal campaign, they’re the people who come to you with all the crazy ideas and are always thinking outside of the box. Normally, those are the ones you need to dial back slightly, to say 70%, because you don’t want to do anything illegal! But they’re the ones that are going to really push your marketing forward.
Then they’ll write processes and systems and actually document it to share with someone else. This is the crew you want. That’s what’s going to scale your growth team.
4: Find someone who is remarkable.
By this, I mean people who create something that someone is willing to remark to someone else about. That’s the level of campaign you need to aspire to.
Normal is one of those things I’m allergic to. I once saw an interview with the Chicago Bulls coach and he was asked, “you’ve got Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen on the team, but you’ve got Dennis Rodman on there as well when he turns up drunk and misses practice, why?”. But then he goes and scores points, he rejects people and he hustles and helps the Bulls win games. And the coach said, “you can only have one Dennis Rodman on your team”.
I call them brilliant jerks and if you can manage them, that’s someone you’ve got to have. It’s one of those little catalyst formulas that take you from normal to remarkable.
5: I always look for people who are constant learners.
Great marketers understand the tech team because they can code, they understand the designers and copywriters because they have those skills, it’s important in order to create these attention-worthy campaigns and the level of growth that you need.
6: The next one is simply about making money.
Great digital marketers talk in dollars, not just impressions and visits and how many likes they got. The people that are going to drive your company forward and create growth and money in the bank, they’re going to think about how to spend and save dollars as much as the founder.
So this includes being frugal and understanding where they can save. When a media agency says it’s gonna cost this much, will your marketer actually go and be frugal like the owner? That’s the question because that’s what’s going to drive your marketing that little bit extra. Are you going to get another 25% from that media buyer because you save 25%?
7: Finally, I look for a superpower.
Maybe you’re in a negotiation with a media agency and they’re not going to budge, but somehow this person knows someone inside the company. They’ve made a call and everything’s smoothed out. They just pressed their superpower button.
As a marketer, if you’re looking for your superpower it’s something you’re going to win 99 out of 100. It might be a small thing, it might be a very contained thing like being really good under pressure.
To find it you can look back and reflect on those moments when everyone else was stressed and you weren’t. It also tends to be the place that you go to when you want to relax and do your natural work, it feels fun and you enjoy the work.
Very unique small superpowers that sometimes go together actually make the growth that allows your company to go forward.
Given the secret formula you’ve outlined here, how do you conduct an insightful and predictive interview?
FS: For each habit, you want to either ask a question or create a task which proves the thing you’re looking for. I’ve talked about mine, you might look for conscientiousness or attention to detail.
When I interview someone I will not give them the address. If they can’t Google and find the address then that person is instantly not hired. I also think the interview starts from the very first moment they contact you, so I will set tasks and little tests along the whole process because I’m trying to find their habits and behaviours.
I actually write on the bottom of all my emails that if you want to skip the queue just email me directly. So I don’t even read the details that get submitted through the normal place. If you don’t email me, you didn’t read that, you don’t comply and you’re not proactive. You’re not going to complete the task and you’re not going to follow up. That’s an issue.
Many of the skills and traits you’ve mentioned assume years of experience. Where a startup can’t afford to hire experience, how would you tweak your recruitment approach?
FS: I love hiring graduates, they’re the best and we still do it today on a big scale at Finder. Because when you turn that idea on its head, you get an opportunity to sculpt someone into who you need and what you want, it’s awesome.
So the question, I think, is really how do you spot the traits in a graduate with no experience?
I look for people that show passion. A designer who goes to art museums at the weekend because they’re really passionate about it. There is an innate genius inside that graduate about design. That’s what I look for.
What do you do with someone who has all the traits but is slow at getting shit done?
FS: The first thing you want to rule out, is this person incompetent? But normally they’re a fairly smart individual and you’ve recruited them, so let’s skip that.
The next problem, I think, about ‘getting shit done’ is when the person says “I don’t have time”. In my view, this is a failure of prioritisation.
How would you address an issue of priorities?
FS: First, have you and everyone in the business loaded their queue with a lot of little tasks? Is some of it your responsibility?
Focussing on the task list is next, and having a conversation about what is a priority. In the beginning, I used to create a document and I’d write “These are your two priorities, I want you to spend 60% of your time on this and 40% on this”.
So, whatever other tasks they accept I’m going to measure them on this. And ultimately you want to get to a place where they can measure the result themselves.
These lessons I’ve learned after many mistakes, so I totally empathise as well.
What is your personal role in marketing these days?
FS: I think there are a couple of areas where it’s super constructive to be involved. The first is your brand.
The hottest topic is let’s go and rerun our logo, but redesigns are probably the most frustrating and brutal process. Who we are and what is our brand, I believe marketing and the Founder are responsible for making the final call.
The second thing is you need to raise the bar. In the beginning, it was OK to get this out there and start testing, but your role is to come in after a while and say, “Hey, what was great before is now only good. We need to make this better.”
In the forming of any team, have a rudimentary understanding of what they’re doing so you understand and can measure what’s good and bad. I think you do need to get involved to some extent to turn things from good to great.
Thanks so much for your time, Fred!
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We caught up with Fred when he spoke at Velocity² back in January.