As an business owner, sooner or later you’ll realize the power of having a strong team to help you accomplish your goals and grow the company.
The challenge is finding the right kind of people to join the team (I call them Superstars, which I’ll describe in a future article).
Some advice I have to offer is to never hire blind, after you receive applications, do your best to talk to, and get to know the applicant to see if you like them, if you will get along, and if they know what they are doing.
A good source of leads for potential help is to ask your friends and peers for their referrals and suggestions on who they know is good to come on board.
Once you are in contact with your candidate, watch them very carefully to see what they are made of. What you’re looking for is long term potential as training anyone is a huge investment on your part. You’re better off making sure the applicant is the right one for you first, before you begin than to cycle through a number of people until you get ‘the right one’.
Case in point: I was promoting a series of slow dancing events at the end of 2009 (www.slowdancenights.com) and brought someone on to host and market the event. She was enthusiastic about the idea, “slow dancing, how cool!”, but it soon became apparent that 1) she was terrible at marketing (had no idea what to do) and 2) despite that she did a BCIT program in marketing and claimed she wanted to become a marketer, she didn’t even like marketing. Last, but not least, she didn’t gel with the idea of being an independent marketer as her mindset was still in the 9 to 5, trade time for money, mindset. When I discovered this, I quickly offered her the role of being only the host, which she turned down as she wanted more money from the project yet she didn’t offer any alternative on how she could benefit more or earn more (a superstar should offer suggestions or try to brainstorm with you).
The lesson here is to recognize when someone does not have long term potential for your field and to fire quickly (future article about this coming soon as well). This person did not have the talent or acumen needed to become a marketing entrepreneur, but she would be great in a hosting or supervised position, which I was happy to keep her for.
The above advice is in relation to building out your company and team. The exception to this is when you outsource (i.e. hire) for short term specialized projects. Here you can get by on their portfolio, reputation and a bit of luck as it’s likely they won’t be around for a long while. Personally, I say make sure the short term help you hire are superstars too!
Regards,
Ronald Lee
Elevated Marketing
info@elevatedmarketing.ca
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