I’ll get right to it: an understanding of the kind of people your business needs and the willingness to do whatever it takes to bring out the best in them.
Despite all the factors required for successful business management, including product marketing, operations and finance, if you don’t have the right people in place, it’s like a new captain in charge of a ship with a sketchy crew. Doomed to failure? Not necessarily, but there will be a lot of scary near-misses, and a high risk of sailing into a disastrous storm that could’ve been avoided.
Some clients will think they can do everything themselves, or make do with cheap, often unqualified, labor. For that we say: since you don’t want to sell the cheapest product or service, why hire the cheapest staff? It doesn’t speak well of their business acumen. What they will get is just poor performance and sagging sales.
Hiring the right people, and treating them right is the foundation for a successful business. Here are some thoughts to consider as you work with the crew who are running your ship.
- Hiring Uncle Al because he’s your uncle, or taking in the cheapest labor because they’re, well, cheap, is not a recipe for business success.
- Empower your employees with the job duties they deserve. Trust them, and stand by them. This fosters loyalty and commitment that translates into positive customer interactions.
- Respect and help your staff. Offer training, up to date equipment that works and gets repaired in a timely manner. The more you invest in them, the more they will give back.
- Creative people are at times quirky and eccentric. Take that into account and work with them, rather than try to change them, which then can stymie their creativity.
- Don’t be controlling. By constraining excellent people, morale drops, and turn-over in personnel results. Plus, you’ve lost the opportunity to create a truly winning environment and now find yourself stuck putting want ads in the paper.
Realize, as well, that you may need to seek expert advice or a particular skill-set outside your business. Legal, financial, technical are all aspects that which require highly specialized knowledge. Once this is realized, you will not put unreasonable demands on your staff, nor waste valuable time trying to figure it out yourself. Embrace the notion that while you are a very smart and resourceful entrepreneur: you cannot be an expert at everything.
Dr. Bert Shlensky, president of www.startupconnection.net, offers experience and skills, and a team devoted to developing and executing winning strategies for businesses of all kinds. This combination has been key to client success.
