YOU’RE ALWAYS RECRUITING (4)

Dave Anderson, author of the book Up Your Business (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2003), advises growing companies to print “eagle cards” that everyone in the organization hands out to top performers they meet in all walks of life. Anyone who brings in a star who is hired receives a bonus. The card is a recruiting advertisement, spelling out what kind of star performers the company is looking for, with a manager’s direct telephone number listed for follow-up. “As desperation rises, standards fall,” Anderson says. “If you want to hire great people, you’d better be prepared to go hire them yourself. You must go from waiting to be hunted to being a hunter.”

One of the best ways to have a ready stable of great candidates is to cast a wide net. As technology has allowed human resources personnel to sift resumes by keyword, job descriptions and resumes have gotten more and more specialized. It has reached a point where savvy job applicants game the system by customizing every single resume they send out.When all goes well, the company gets to hire someone with exactly the right experience for very specific requirements. But is thatperson really the best candidate? Could someone with a different perspective add more to the job and have more upside potential in the future? Could someone who is at the top of his or her game in another industry help you open new markets or develop new approaches? I am continually amazed at how specific some job advertisements have become. In sales, for example, I have seen successful salespeople move effortlessly among selling advertising, software, and consulting services. Yet, when I see advertisements for salespeople, they often limit themselves to a tiny sliver of the labor pool. One ad I saw recently was looking for someone with “at least 10 years’ experience in selling corrugated cardboard products in the Southeast.” I don’t mean to belittle this industry, but isn’t it possible to train a top sales performer on the ins and outs of selling cardboard?

Taken From:The 7 Irrefutable rules of Small Businnes Growth

YOU’RE ALWAYS RECRUITING (3)

It took a couple more years for us to build the critical mass to interest Scott. Once we could justify hiring him, he still rebuffed our interest on more than one occasion. But persistence paid off, and Scott became the key hire in an organization that grew from $2 million to $12 million in revenue during his six-year tenure. Looking back on it now, hiring Scott was more important than any marketing or financial decision we made.

I knew Scott was good. I now know he is the finest manager I’ve ever worked beside. He taught me more about what it means to be an outstanding manager than any class or anybook I’ve ever read. It may interest you to know that Scott has now gone on to be a successful business owner himself, building a successful, 40-employee cut-and-sew operation in the north Georgia hills at a time when apparel manufacturing has all but died in this country.

The Scott Halls of the world are few and far between, but they are out there and it is your job to find them. You can’t wait until you need a Scott Hall before you start looking. The chances of having an all-star employee’s availability coincide with your own opportunity are miniscule. You need to be building a database of outstanding people and continually forging relationships with them to better your odds.

Taken From:The 7 Irrefutable rules of Small Businnes Growth

YOU’RE ALWAYS RECRUITING (2)

Guess what—it just doesn’t work that way. Hiring the best and the brightest should never be an event prompted by a recent transition or growth spurt. You need to be in hiring
mode every week of the year. It doesn’t keep you from your job. This is your job.

For example, the finest manager I ever hired was a gentleman named Scott Hall. Scott was the plant manager of VF Corporation’s Lee Jeans manufacturing facility in Jasper, Georgia.When I first met Scott, he was managing hundreds of people. I knew I would eventually need someone of Scott’s caliber, but I didn’t know when that time would come.

Years before the company could justify or afford Scott, we began the process of wooing him. I asked him first to a friendly lunch just to get acquainted. At that point, I made no mention of being interested in someday hiring him. A few months later, I had him visit our small but growing organization. At that time, this 20-operator cut-and-sew operation must have appeared quaint to this big-time operational expert. You can imagine his surprise when I eventually confessed that I had designs on one day hiring him to lead our production team.

Taken From:The 7 Irrefutable rules of Small Businnes Growth

YOU’RE ALWAYS RECRUITING (1)

Most small business owners I’ve observed see hiring as an unpleasant chore. It’s a to-do list task to be squeezed in between other more important duties. I hear them say things such as, “Man, you’ve got to kiss a lot of frogs to find the person you’re looking for,” or “I can’t be wasting time in all those interviews.” The worst one is, “In my town, you just can’t find enough people who want to work.” You can talk to an owner in Buffalo or Boise and get the same lament.

My friend Charlie Wonderlic, president of Wonderlic, Inc., knows more about small business hiring and training than anyone I know. His company is not only a privately held, fastgrowth company but also a leader in helping employers hire and retain the best people. “In too many privately held companies, more time and effort is spent evaluating the cost and benefits of a new copy machine than a new employee,” explains Wonderlic. “Equipment purchases are always based on a thorough analysis of features, functionality, price, and return on investment. Hiring decisions are typically made based more on ‘gut feelings.’ Think about it—which is the bigger investment?”

In most cases, these business owners have waited until they’re desperate for help. They then throw out a quick classified ad on Monster.com or in their local paper and have an assistant sort through 50 resumes to find the best 10. The manager then interviews three and hires the first person who looks as though he or she can do the job without screwing up too much. These business owners just want to fill the position so they can “get back to their real job.”

Taken From:The 7 Irrefutable rules of Small Businnes Growth

YOU’RE NOT AT A DISADVANTAGE (4)

An Expedia survey found that one in four employees would take a pay cut to have more time off. As you go up the management ladder, the desire for more time off rather than more money increases. In a survey sponsored by Hilton Hotels, 65 percent of the participants (again, two-thirds) said that they would be willing to take less pay to get more time off.

It’s not just a choice between time and money, of course. In a CareerBuilder survey, 45 percent of workers were dissatisfied with the opportunities for career advancement within their own organization.

As a small business owner who wants to grow your business, you need to be clear on the advantages you have to offer.

What can you do that a big company cannot? What can you
do that will attract winners to your organization?

Taken From:The 7 Irrefutable rules of Small Businnes Growth

YOU’RE NOT AT A DISADVANTAGE (3)

So think about it.You have an opportunity to entice today’s most desirable workers. But you need to understand their ever-changing needs and motivations.

People want:
• Meaning
• Purpose
• Understanding
• Family
• Health
• Self-expression
• Less “working”
• More “living”

Therefore, we must deliver:
• Flexibility
• Cooperation
• Empathy
• Opportunity
• Recognition
• Reward
• Education
• Training
• Communication
• Participation
• Less commanding
• More collaborating

Many small business owners fall into the trap of thinking it’s all about money. If they can’t pay as much as the next guy, they’ll be stuck with the leftovers. In a study conducted by Randstand Staffing, two-thirds of employers (there’s that two-thirds number again) surveyed believed their employees would choose more money over the opportunity to work at least some days at home. However, when the employees were surveyed, only half of them said they would choose the money. The other half would prefer the flexible work arrangements. If you think about it, their answer is a statement that time is becoming increasingly more important than money. This trend had already begun prior to this decade, but following the events of September 11, 2001, the trend has become even more pronounced.

Taken From:The 7 Irrefutable rules of Small Businnes Growth

YOU’RE NOT AT A DISADVANTAGE (2)

• They have “just some” or “not much” trust that their employers will treat them fairly (Peter D. Hart Research
Associates).

• Finding a better job would improve their quality of life
(CareerBuilder).

• They would switch sectors/industries for the right opportunity (Robert Walters).

• Their boss has “no clue” of what to do to be a good manager (Delta Road).

• They would work for two-thirds of their current salary if they could move to a rural community that offered ahigher quality of life and a shorter commute time. (I must admit that this one is my highly unscientific polling of fellow travelers who have been stuck on an airplane with me over the years.)

Big businesses are, by definition, bureaucracies. Bureaucracies, by definition, become increasingly inefficient, inflexible, and slow to change. Big businesses are also notorious for narrowly defining a person’s role in that company. Pigeonholing doesn’t meet the need for new experiences and new learning that the best and brightest crave.

Taken From:The 7 Irrefutable rules of Small Businnes Growth

YOU’RE NOT AT A DISADVANTAGE (1)

Many small business owners take a defeatist attitude to hiring from the start, believing they could never compete with the IBM office across town or the Toyota factory in the next city over. True, these are world-class companies, so if you are comparing only things such as benefit packages or pay levels, it can indeed be difficult to compete.However, a look at most of those big company employees shows that there are weaknesses you can and should exploit.

According to a Gallup poll released in 2004, 61 percent of U.S. workers say they received no meaningful rewards or recognition for their efforts the previous year. (Wow!) An amazing 71 percent of workers consider themselves “disengaged”— clock-watchers who can’t wait to go home.

If you still think you don’t have the means to lure people away from big companies, here are a few statistics to chew on. These are what I call the two-thirds axiom of the big business workforce. Roughly two-thirds of big biz workers say:

Taken From:The 7 Irrefutable rules of Small Businnes Growth

WHERE DO WINNERS WANT TO WORK? (5)

A few years ago, a sales manager at Honest Tea lost his father, to whom he was very close.At the same time he was dealing with this tragic loss, the employee was also fully immersed in a particularly complicated negotiation process with a wellknown, big-box retailer. Despite the potential for distraction, this manager hooked the big fish. Subsequently, and unbeknownst to the manager, the entire Honest Tea team decided to dedicate their latest product to the memory of the sales manager’s father. “When we announced the newest code would be for this guy’s father’s birth date,” says Goldman, “there were more than a few tears wiped away.”

Try looking at creative options that are easy for you to implement. Can you give high achievers something useful from your company’s inventory? Or, do you have a couple of seats for the local AAA baseball team? A prime parking space they can use for the quarter? Some product you can acquire though a barter arrangement with a partner? The reward has to be meaningful, but it doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Always throw in lunch with the company president as well. It makes your guests feel special, and you just might hear the best idea of the year.

One last note: Be sure your recognition and rewards programs directly tie back to performance. Too often, I see antiquated, complicated “bonus” programs that employees simply don’t understand.When it becomes difficult to correlate performance and reward, it becomes impossible to use the system as a motivator. I’ve seen employees who view their periodic bonuses as random acts of fate over which they have no realinfluence. The lesson seems to be “keep your head down and your hopes high.”

Taken From:The 7 Irrefutable rules of Small Businnes Growth

WHERE DO WINNERS WANT TO WORK? (4)

When it comes to recognition and rewards, you have to get creative. At Honest Tea, president Seth Goldman has developed a unique program that recognizes achievement and fosters loyalty. Total cost for the program is zilch. Here’s how it works. Each Honest Tea product has a 10-digit UPC bar code associated with it. The first five digits refer to the company itself. The second five digits are used to discern among their various brands and flavors. Most companies put their products in a linear, sequential order. In other words, if the most recent product’s last five digits were 32027, the next product to be developed would be 32028.

However, for an innovative company like Honest Tea, nonlinear thinking created an opportunity to motivate and recognize employees. When somebody does something truly outstanding at Honest Tea, the company allows that person to pick the next UPC code. These outstanding employees use their anniversary dates, birth dates, or lucky numbers.Whenever a new product is unveiled internally, the person who rose above and beyond the call of duty is also recognized. It may sound like a small gesture, but Goldman assures me the practice has had a serious impact on his ability to build loyaltyamong his employees. “Giving people a sense of ownership is critical,” says Goldman. “Sure, we’ve also done some equity sharing over the years, and that is very helpful, too. But in terms of immediacy, I’m not sure this UPC thing isn’t just as effective.”

Taken From:The 7 Irrefutable rules of Small Businnes Growth