Automate Your Agency
Are you a founder dreaming of breaking free from the day-to-day grind?
Or perhaps you're looking to scale your company without burning out?
Welcome to Automate Your Agency with Alane Boyd and Micah Johnson, a podcast dedicated to helping you systemize and automate your business for more efficient, scalable operations that can run without you.
Join our hosts as they share battle-tested strategies and cutting-edge tools that take the guesswork out of systemizing your business. Drawing from their experience of growing their agency to 600+ active clients before their exit, Alane and Micah offer actionable insights on:
✅ Implementing effective software solutions
✅ Leveraging automation and AI to do more with less
✅ Creating workflows and systems that allow your business to run without you
✅ Preparing your company for a potential sale or exit
Each week, they take a deep dive into real-world operational challenges and showcase solutions they've implemented. Whether you want to double revenue without doubling headcount or build a business that runs smoothly in your absence, this podcast is your roadmap to success.
Subscribe to Automate Your Agency with Alane Boyd and Micah Johnson now on your favorite podcast platform and join other forward-thinking entrepreneurs as they transform their businesses into well-oiled machines that are primed for growth and ready for whatever the future holds!
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It's time to work smarter, not harder – let's automate your agency and unlock your business's potential!
Automate Your Agency
Why we stopped requiring college degrees
If you're still requiring college degrees in your job postings, you're accidentally filtering out some of your best potential hires—and you might not even realize it.
In this eye-opening episode of Automate Your Agency, Alane and Micah share why they ditched degree requirements over 15 years ago and never looked back. Plot twist: the person with the master's degree still needed training on PowerPoint, while some of their most innovative team members never set foot in a lecture hall.
The reality is simple: whether someone has a diploma or not, you're going to train them anyway. The real question is whether they have the curiosity to learn, the drive to teach themselves, and the personality that thrives in your specific role.
Here's what you'll discover:
- Why degree requirements actually limit your talent pool without improving quality
- How to screen for the traits that actually predict success (hint: it's not GPA)
- The portfolio approach that reveals real skills better than any transcript
- Why former entrepreneurs often make exceptional employees
This isn't about lowering standards—it's about focusing on what actually matters. If you want team members who think creatively, solve problems independently, and aren't afraid to be wrong, this episode shows you exactly how to find them.
Ready to revolutionize your hiring process? Get started with our free hiring manager toolkit here.
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0:00:00 - (Alane): Welcome to Automate your Agency. Every week, we bring you expert insights, practical tips, and success stories that will help you streamline your business operations and boost your growth. Let's get started on your journey to more efficient and scalable operations.
0:00:18 - (Micah): All right, so, Alane, when it comes to hiring, because this is top of mind for us and probably a number of other people out there, there's a couple things that we might think about differently. Yeah. Well, just in general, but when it comes to hiring and who we're looking for and the types of people that we're looking for, one interesting thing that maybe we don't call out enough is that a lot of our team members are previous entrepreneurs.
0:00:51 - (Micah): They have experience with their own business, starting up their own things, going out there and knowing what sales and marketing is like, what they like and dislike about all of that, so that they can better speak to all of that. And I mentioned that because one of the things that we do differently is we do not require a college degree.
0:01:11 - (Alane): Yeah. We. We stopped requiring that over 15 years ago.
0:01:15 - (Micah): Yes.
0:01:16 - (Alane): And we haven't looked back. I don't even. I honestly, I don't even think about it when we do a job session. It doesn't even occur to me to put that in.
0:01:25 - (Micah): No. Doesn't matter.
0:01:26 - (Alane): Well, and what we were noticing is there was little difference between somebody that had a college degree and somebody that didn't when it came to training for the role. So we really were looking for people that had excitement to learn, whether or not they had one or not. So if they had excitement to learn and that they had a desire to teach themselves things.
0:01:51 - (Micah): Yes. I think one of the things that. That we hear from our team is that we run things differently than they're used to. And I think that speaks to one of the reasons that we considered taking this out and have never looked back. Because the reason that we originally took it out is because we weren't looking for people that just sat there and wanted to be told what to do.
0:02:17 - (Alane): Mm. We did. We didn't see a difference. Yeah.
0:02:21 - (Micah): Yeah. We wanted to find those people, like you just said, that are out there going, I want a job that gives me autonomy. I want a job that gives me freedom to think for myself. And as leaders in this company, we want employees and team members who can think for themselves and come up with unique solutions and come up with new ways of doing stuff and aren't scared of being wrong. And that's what helps us flourish.
0:02:49 - (Alane): Yeah. And what we did is just incorporate more either skills assessments or personality traits into our hiring process. So we can say does this person have trainable skills and does this person have the right personality for the role? You know, when we're looking at development team, we definitely see this core group of people that really thrive in that and, and even in, in sales and account management, like there's personality types that thrive better in those roles than other ones. Being on calls all day excites me. Being on calls all day for an extreme introvert could be very wary.
0:03:27 - (Alane): So with the hiring process, one of the things that I really vividly remember is we started hiring people and realized really how much training people need whether they had a college degree or not. And I top of mind because I was mentioning it to a guy this week at a conference I was at is we even trained on when to use reply and when to use reply all.
0:03:49 - (Micah): Yes, man.
0:03:51 - (Alane): When we were doing social media posts we had some really, really creative people on our team. But I would notice we were in office most of the time and would notice that they're pecking at their keys. We have 2,000 social media posts a week to write and you can't type. That's money down the drain right there. And so in the hiring process we would identify those things didn't matter if they had a college degree or not. Actually the one I'm thinking about, top of mind, actually did have a college degree put in type.
0:04:21 - (Alane): So then that's fine. They're creative, they're strategic, they've got great ideas, great team member. Which is we just need to train on typing so we pay for a typing class.
0:04:32 - (Micah): So what you're saying is over the time that we've been running businesses, the theory of if you go to college you are equipped for the workforce in a smaller team, a scrappy startup, all name any kind of popular fun place that you might want to try to work that isn't a large corporation.
0:04:56 - (Alane): Mm.
0:04:57 - (Micah): That maybe it's college is not fully preparing everybody for everything. And as founders, owners, team leaders, hiring managers, we need to remember that training is going to happen no matter what. There's not this foolproof plan of let's hire somebody with an Ivy League college degree and suddenly they can be dropped right in to a role? In some cases, yes.
0:05:25 - (Alane): I mean I want. My lawyers have gone to law school.
0:05:28 - (Micah): Yes, that's a. There's, there's definitely, there's definitely. And you know, some of the smaller agencies, we're not hiring Ivy league college degrees but even a four year college degree coming in, that's not it's not the. I don't have to train them to do anything. They're going to be able to answer all the questions. They're going to know how to a client account manage, they're going to know how to write every email, they're going to know how to type, they're going to know how to do everything that I need in the role that they're hired for.
0:05:56 - (Micah): Is not true.
0:05:58 - (Alane): And Micah, I wanted to point out too that you and I are on very different sides of the spectrum when it comes to formal education.
0:06:06 - (Micah): Yes, that's true.
0:06:09 - (Alane): Micah, you started your first business when you were 20. I think you dropped out of art school after your second semester and just went into serial entrepreneurism. For me, I always say I needed more time to grow up and figure life out. So I have two bachelor's degrees and a master's degree and I, I'm in that boat. I went into the workforce and I was like, I don't, I don't know how to do any of that. You got to train me.
0:06:36 - (Micah): Yeah, I mean, and I mean we can cut this out if you don't want to put this in a lane, But I'm thinking PowerPoints.
0:06:45 - (Alane): Yeah.
0:06:45 - (Micah): Slide decks. Right. When we first started working together, there was a big rift of client ready slide decks and now it didn't take long. Right. But there, there was, there was, there was some. Let's get up to speed on how we, how we need to do slide decks early. Early on.
0:07:07 - (Alane): Yeah. We don't have to cut that out. You can call me out. I was terrible at it and actually I took the lessons that you taught me and I had a whole power. This is how we build PowerPoints for clients. Training that I did and templatized a lot to try to keep that from it. But yeah, I needed a lot of help and I had already had my own company before I worked for you. So we need training, we need to be taught and a college degree doesn't necessarily tell us one way or the other.
0:07:36 - (Micah): So.
0:07:36 - (Alane): So we don't want to leave out those candidates. That could be fantastic. And what we did change though is when you initially apply, you have to send a portfolio of something to do with the position. So when it's a developer we're looking for, you know, what's something cool that you created. Show us a snippet, show us a recording. Do something to show what you have built. If it's in marketing, show us some campaigns you've created. Tell me a story that you a part of what you built here.
0:08:09 - (Alane): So we added that up front so that we could see what we were looking for in the applicant and know if we should continue with them in the interview process.
0:08:19 - (Micah): And I should probably clarify something to Alane. Our point is that we took it out of the job ads. We're not obviously restricting people that have college degrees or. Or discriminating in any regard by taking it out of the job description. It just means that we get the people applying that don't look at a job description or a job ad and go, I don't qualify.
0:08:45 - (Alane): Right.
0:08:45 - (Micah): I'm glad you said we want those people to apply because they may be people like me that are really capable. I. Well, just theoretically speaking, yes.
0:08:57 - (Alane): Yes. Okay. Okay.
0:08:58 - (Micah): You know, that could. Could be creative. May, for whatever reason, did not go to college, did not get a degree. It doesn't take them out of the workforce. They're some of the best people that we've hired for certain positions, but we still get the applicants that have the college degrees. But it just levels the playing field and gives us a more open experience to people.
0:09:21 - (Alane): Yeah. And the only time that alma maters come up is when you're around a tape, around a group of people that you notice they're from the same place that you, you know, when you're in the workforce, you're there getting work done. Nobody's like, oh, what's your college? What's your degree? Oh, okay. One of my favorites is our friend Rusty. His coworker and him went to very. Two very different colleges.
0:09:44 - (Alane): And he always goes, but yet we're here at the same table.
0:09:47 - (Micah): Yep. So true.
0:09:50 - (Alane): It is. And so, yes, we we thrive on having just the best of the best come work for us. We love finding those gems, whether they have a degree or not, and that they're just excited to do the work that we're hiring for. So maybe you can steal our hack and find other great people, too. Thanks for listening to this episode of Automate youe Agency. We hope you're inspired to take your business to the next level. Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and leave us a review.
0:10:20 - (Alane): Your feedback helps us improve and reach more listeners. If you're looking for more resources or visit our website at BiggestGoal.ai for free content and tools for automating your business. Join us next week as we dive into more ways to automate and scale your business. Bye for now.
