Most Owners Find Out at Month Six. You Can Find Out at Day 30.

I don't want history to repeat itself, but I think you've been in the same situation I am about to describe. You hire the world's best tech (at least this is what you thought when interviewing them and after receiving their signed acceptance letter). They let you know how excited they are, and you get the sense that they are sincerely going to put in their 110 percent.

You see good signs that your initial thought was spot on. They show up to work. They work their shift. They close a good amount of tickets. No one has any complaints. They seem like a fine hire. A worthy hire. You're relieved that no huge red flags popped up over the course of the 10 weeks they've been on the team.

At week 20, one of your best techs finally says something. Greg has been your best tech for over 6 years, never complained about anyone. Clients love him. He's a super hard worker. He comes into your office late in the afternoon one Thursday with an uncomfortable look on his face. He mentions that he's been quietly cleaning up after your shining star hire. He's been correcting minor issues (also bringing the issues up directly to the person) since they started. At first, he thought this was just a phase. As time went on, the occasional error grew worse. Details consistently were being missed. Details that Greg knew would piss off some of the VIPs at your best clients.

Greg was simply thinking he was helping out. He didn't realize that you had an expectation that the technician should have learned quickly to pay close attention to detail. This was explicitly outlined in their job offer. Greg never had a reason to say anything because nobody ever told him what to flag.

Let's do this math out loud. You have been paying roughly $60-80K for a fully loaded T2 tech. He's been on the team for about 6 months, so the information Greg had just spilled to you probably was worth at minimum $30K. That's a pretty expensive oversight. On top of the fact that your employment agreement mentioned a 3-month evaluation period. At month 6, you might have to go through more red tape to get this person off the team if they really ended up not being a good fit for the position. Apart from the payroll costs, think about your client exposure costs and the damage that could have been done if Greg wasn't looking over this guy's shoulder after seeing his work product.

Most owners hire on a feeling and then they keep evaluating based on their feeling. Your hiring should not fall on an expectation of a 50/50 outcome. 6 months with your fingers crossed that your new hire is killing it as the superstar you had expected him to grow into is not a way of running your business. That's what happens when nobody ever wrote down what good was supposed to look like. You hired this candidate because you felt they were a good fit. The right fit. You evaluated them the same way.

Your vague expectations killed your ability to judge them. You might be thinking that your occasional check-in to see how things were going would give you a gut check on their performance. Every time you asked Greg and others how they liked the new guy, they all responded in a similar chorus that the new guy was good. Your check-ins with the new guy were similarly a temperature check. Good job with your ticket numbers. How are you feeling? Not overwhelmed? Don't need any additional help? Sounds like you've got this. Your gut felt like it was in a good situation. Impressions don't tell the full story. Where's your bar?

Here's why that gut check fails. The way you were evaluating the hire probably started with some of the following buzzwords. When you checked in, they responded with busy week or still learning, or if something actually got to your desk about them that at all raised your eyebrow, they reassured you the issue was not a big deal and may have deflected the root cause onto someone else or a lack of clarity. All of this sounds good. I've been there. I've checked in with newbs after the first week with vague generic questions and have gotten these very vague generic answers that reassured me enough that my competent hire was getting through or on the path.

I wasn't adding all my data points up because I was fixated on things working out. Innocent until proven guilty is as much for the office as it is for the courtroom.

And I want to make it clear. This is entirely normal behavior. It is human nature to want to see good in people. As an entrepreneur and successful business owner, you are wired to see the positive side more clearly than the negative. Can you imagine running a business focused on everything that is negative? I certainly couldn't. What I mean to say here is not seeing the signs is by no means your fault. The system gave you and them nothing to measure against.

Repeat after me. Vague evaluation equals late discovery. Always. This is the mistake that we all keep on making because many of us fail to consider improving our onboarding system. Vague evaluation doesn't fail because you are a bad manager. Nobody gave you the specifics to check on. When you hired ABC candidate, you weren't crystal clear about what your expectations were as they joined your team, and because of it you lost track of an easy way to evaluate them.

They got along with the team swimmingly. Clients said they loved their demeanor. Tickets looked great on the surface (now you know why).

Let's consider how to evaluate your technicians. The evaluation does very much depend on their skill level. A T1 tech is going to be considerably different in outcomes from a T3. Bars are not created equal because titles come with different bars of excellence entirely.

Your 90-day evaluation of a T1

I want you to take 10 minutes and brainstorm what your best-ever T1 tech does in their day. Actually take the time to write down your expectations. Maybe your list is different than mine, but what comes to mind are the following:

• SLA timing is automatic, not something they have to think about

• Escalations dropping because they're documenting resolution plans as they go. The same issue never needs help twice

• He's making sure the next person never has to ask the same question twice. Documentation is clear and repeatable.

That's what I'd expect in my T1s. I wouldn't expect them to solve every issue they were given. I'd want them to learn how to solve issues, how to escalate, how to document new resolutions and validate those resolutions working. I'd expect them to communicate clearly in their tickets and to the client when questions arose, updates were needed, and that they were proactive and to the point of overcommunicating. If I noticed they made huge assumptions or left gaping holes in the documentation where something wasn't repeatable next time based on the level of detail, I'd expect them to quickly learn how detailed to be or find another job somewhere else. After creating my list of expectations, the things my superstar techs always did, I was able to compare and evaluate critically if the new rockstar filled those shoes.

Now let's look at a T2 at Day 90

I'd have higher expectations for my T2. These are the things that come to mind:

• Escalation rate dropped meaningfully. Use your 10-15% week-over-week figure; it's specific and strong

• Actively improving the KB for T1s below them, not just using it

• Resolved at least one ticket that on day one would have needed T3

I'd even quiz them a little. Can they rattle off client-specific quirks that aren't explicitly documented? For instance, ABC client's AD is weird because of the old migration, or CDF client always wants a call and hates email for security stuff. These are quirks that they identified and now have documented in the client profile. These are good indications of a killer tech.

And finally, T3 at Day 90

For those gurus that might know more than you, you might have a harder time seeing through the smoke. But after some reflection, I realized this doesn't have to be the case. Here is how I'd evaluate the T3 at 90 days:

• How is their coaching impact? Are they getting others on the team to take on more problems? Are others on the team learning and growing from the help and mentorship from this T3?

• 80%+ of escalations resolved through their coaching, not by doing the work themselves

• Led one full project start to finish, documentation clean enough someone else could support it without them

If this person likes to work in a bubble or doesn't like answering questions, they are on the wrong team. T3s are built to be problem unblockers. That means for your entire team. If they aren't leveling up everyone else and simply just working on complicated tickets and projects themselves, they are of little value to my team.

Here's my rule of thumb when it comes to tier evaluations. The bar moves, the rule doesn't.

So how does 30 days look to me?

I'm looking for some pretty specific things. Many people are hard to pin down if you aren't super clear with how you're evaluating them. You might find some of the following flags that might be second guesses. My red flag detector comes on for any of the following:

• Not "getting settled in" with the team or company.

• Not clear on company fundamentals without needing reminders

• If you didn't have anything glaring, but your impression isn't a firm yes, I would hire this person again.

Remember. Day 30 isn't a grace point. It is a firm checkpoint. If you are getting smells at Day 30, you will get stinkier smells on the next check. My question to you: do you really want to smell what's coming?

Day 60

When evaluating Day 60, you might be cleaning up misses from your last month's evaluation. But you should see some real strides in your hire at this point.

You should see a shift from following the system to strengthening it. That means not just following what they're told but making it better. If they were all in and in the right seat, you should see excitement turn into better work than you expected, which includes making your systems better or coming with new ideas and a fresh perspective for improving things.

They should be documenting resolution plans well enough that the next person doesn't need to escalate at all. They better be proactive with clients instead of reactive.

By day 60, the system should be getting better because this specific person is in it.

Day 90

This is where the real signal lives, and you need to be hard on them when evaluating the opportunity to fully integrate and be a part of the team on a permanent basis. I like to think of Day 90 as their graduation day. They no longer are the newb. They have the grit, cultural fit, and know-how to be considered simply part of the team. They aren't just competent but looking to move the company forward. Day 90 should give you some real information on whether this person is a fit and the right caliber for your team. I would highly recommend that by day 89, you concretely make your mind up and be convinced, with actual data, that they are or are not a good fit.

Where does this fit in your field guide?

Your field guide needs to explicitly define what your expectations are for every position. Your team will know what bar these people are being evaluated against and will help you flag poor hiring decisions quicker than you might expect. You will be more honest with yourself and them on how these candidates are doing and be clear about every checkpoint evaluation along the way to being part of the team.

I wouldn't just use this for new hires (although this is the best and most straightforward place to start). Your managers should use this as a literal agenda for each of their team member check-ins. As your team moves into new positions, you also reset their bars. Everyone knows where they have to stand. I would expect a 90-day period for anyone moving positions, whether it was an internal shift or new hire.

My question to you. Will you tolerate 6 months or is 30 days enough? You get to pick the time. The question is how much time will you tolerate mediocrity that may have long-lasting effects on your actual superstars.

My advice to you. Write down what excellent looks like at 30/60/90. Create this by role. Share it with your team. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it does need to be specific so everyone has clarity and can see excellence. Will you be able to tell by 90 days? Find out at www.builtorunmsp.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do 30-60-90 expectations need to differ across T1, T2, and T3?

Different tiers require different kinds of excellence, not the same checklist with a different job title attached.

What separates competent from rockstar at day 90?

Competent = doing the job correctly. Rockstar = making the system and the people around them measurably better.

Why does writing expectations down reduce bad-hire risk?

Replaces gut-feeling evaluation (slow, late) with specific evaluation (fast, early).