By Keith McFarland

Last month in my column, I suggested that far too many people use maxims like "getting the right people on the bus" as an excuse for failing to develop the employees they already have (see BW Online, 2/16/05, "A Company's Long Road to Greatness"). All that said, companies that succeed in hiring great people will always be a step ahead. So I figured it only made sense to introduce you to one such entrepreneur, who focuses relentlessly on nabbing the best talent -- and in doing so, he has grown his startup into an industry-standard bearer.

In 1984, Jim Crane borrowed money from his sister to start a small freight-forwarding company in Houston. Today, publicly-traded Eagle Global Logistics (EAGL ) is one of the world's top logistics companies, with operations in more than 100 countries and annual sales topping $2.7 billion. Eagle has some of the most sophisticated technology in the industry, which enables it to serve the likes of Dell (DELL ) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ ), companies that put logistics at the center of their ability to compete.

I recently asked Crane about the secret of his company's success, and he gave me three simple rules:

• Find the best people available • "Get 'em in a headlock and don't let them go till they are on the team" • Make it personal

To find the best people, I assumed a company of Eagle's size would have a recruiting budget measured in the millions, if not tens of millions. But I was wrong. In 2004, Eagle spent almost nothing on executive-search fees. So how did it find all these great people, I asked?

THRILL OF THE CHASE.  "Simple," Crane responded. "We ask the customer. When I want to expand into a new region, I visit 10 to 15 top customers in that region and ask, 'Who is the best freight-forwarding person in town.' [More than a decade ago] I asked customers in southern California that question, and the name Joe Bento kept coming up. So I knew that some guy named Joe Bento was the guy I needed to get."

I later met Joe Bento (now president and chief marketing officer of Eagle's $1.3 billion North American operations), and asked him about the lore. He laughed. "To understand the way this company works," Bento said, "you need to hear the whole story." He explained how, out of the blue, Crane began calling and urged him to join the company. At the time, Eagle was only a $10 million outfit, and Bento had a great job with a company five times its size. The more Bento resisted Eagle's overtures, the more determined Crane became, phoning him every month with a new angle.

One day, Crane called Bento's home, and his wife, Teri, answered the phone. Crane introduced himself and asked if Teri and Joe would join him at the Ritz-Carlton for dinner. Teri accepted. During the meal, Joe got up to go to the bathroom, and Crane then reached into his pocket for his checkbook. He wrote out a check for a five-figure signing bonus, and slid it across the table to Teri. "The day your husband comes to work with us," he said, "you can cash that check." When Joe returned from the restroom, Teri turned to him and said, "Honey, you start Monday."

INSIST ON THE BEST.  Stories like this cropped up again and again as I interviewed Eagle managers. The team has learned not to take no for an answer from a potential recruit they covet. As I reflected on this, I realized how often companies "fill a position," instead of insisting on the very best.

I decided to try this out myself. Over the past several months, I have been searching for a writing partner for my upcoming book. During a recent meeting in New York, I got the glowing recommendation I had been looking for. Within the first five minutes of my call to her, she gave me four reasons why she couldn't accept my offer. I asked her to take a minute just to listen to the concept for the book, and at the end of my comments, asked her what it would take to convince here to say yes, since I was simply unwilling to settle for second-best.

Within an hour of hanging up, I got an e-mail from her, saying that she had spoken to her agent, researched my proposed book title, and was seriously considering partnering with me. I don't know where the discussions will lead, but I know that if I hadn't followed Crane's advice, I would have never even had the conversation with her.

IT'S PERSONAL.  The third, and probably most important part of Eagle's "hire great people" strategy is to make it personal. Crane tells the story of being turned down by a person he was recruiting with the line, "It's not personal, Jim. I just don't want the job." To which Jim responded, "It may not be personal to you, but it is to me. And what I am asking you to do is to make it personal, because that personal is how we run our business." The recruit took the job.

Reflecting on that simple statement -- make it personal -- I thought of all the books that have been written on corporate culture, and how convenient the concept is in making the spirit of a company seem somehow separate from the people running it. I realized that if more leaders did what Jim suggests, particularly small businesses, which are inherently more personal, maybe a lot of the problems we categorize as "culture problems" just might go away on their own.