Finding The Best People

Now, let\’s talk about finding the best people. There are a variety of ways that you can find the people that you need. Most business owners have used them all at one time or another. None of them are perfect, but as we say, cast a wide net. The more ways you have to find good people, the more probable it will be that you will find the people that you need at the right time.

Number one. Referrals. Fully 85 percent of key people are found through referrals and word of mouth. Someone knows someone who knows someone else and recommends that person to you. The way you tap into this invisible network of possible candidates is by regularly matching that you are looking for good people to join your company. The word will soon get out, and people will start to phone you to recommend someone who has just become available or to express interest themselves.

Number two. Business Staffing Agency. These companies continually advertise for candidates. They interview them and check their past histories and experience. They hire some and then send them out to you while keeping them on their own payroll. You should find one or two personnel placement agencies in your community and talk with them about your present and future needs. These companies vary in quality, so you must be selective in finding a company that you\’re happy working with. They may charge a little more, but they can save you many hours of time-consuming interviews and frustrating experiences in employing the wrong person.

Number three. Online Job Listing Advertisements/Online Newspapers. These will attract the greatest number of candidates, but you must use ads with care. You should be very clear in your ads about the results expected, the experience required, and the work responsibilities involved, even if you\’re careful and clear. Nine out of 10 people or 19 out of 20 who respond to your ads will be totally inappropriate. It\’s almost as if they are applying for every job advertised in the newspaper without even reading the requirements.

Number four. Candidates and what is getting better and better today is the internet. Whether it\’s Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com, Craigslist, LinkedIn, and so on, it seems that more and more people are going onto the internet to look for people and look for jobs. So you should be prominently placed in as many places as possible. Ensure the job description is complete so that you don\’t get tire kickers are the wrong people, but the internet can be an inexpensive and fabulous place for you to get many good candidates. If you advertise in the newspaper, create a 5 to 7 part questionnaire that someone, even your receptionist, can ask of anyone who finds you can use this for an internet candidate. A few questions about the specifics of your ad will screen collars very fast.

• What sort of experience have you had in this job in the past?
• What company or companies have you worked for in this job?
• What sort of results did you get?
• How long have you worked in this area?
• What is your educational background?
• What kind of salary or income are you looking for?

After a few of these questions, it will be clear to both you and the caller if there\’s a possibility worth pursuing if the applicant gives appropriate answers to these questions. Ask for a resume, either by mail or preferably by email.

When we advertise for a candidate, either in the newspaper or on the internet, we ask Have you looked at our website?

This is an excellent question because it screens out inappropriate candidates immediately. Fully 80 percent of the people who apply for positions that we have advertised on an internet job board who replied by the internet have not even looked at our website. This is an immediate indication that the person is unacceptable. If a person lacks the ambition and the intelligence to check your website before applying for a job, he or she simply lacks the qualifications to be successful with you. If we like a person that we have interviewed over the phone, we send him or her to a special website to take a personality profile. The result of this personality profile is to download it immediately to his or her website and into our website. This profile tells both the candidate and us immediately whether or not he or she has the personality we are seeking for the position. If the front side of the coin of business is hiring the right people. The flip side of the coin is de-hiring the wrong people.

• Rule. Hire slow and fire fast.

If you\’ve hired someone who is not working out, you must have the courage to let that person go. Any delay in firing an incompetent or unacceptable employee causes needless expense, stress, and motivation among the rest of your staff. If not among. Yourself as well,

• Rule. A manager who keeps an incompetent person in place is himself or herself incompetent.

The longer you keep the wrong person in the job, the worse you look to everyone around you, and every employee knows the truth about the others. Everyone knows everything.

Practice zero-based thinking with every staff member regularly. Ask yourself if I had not hired this person knowing what I now know what, I hire him or her again, today? Every person who works for you must pass that test every single day. If the person walked in and applied for his or her job today, knowing what you now know, would you hire that person? If the answer is no, then the next question is, How do I get rid of this person, and how fast? Sometimes riding an employee go is the kindest thing you can do for that person. Just because an employee is not capable of doing the job for which you have hired him or her does not mean that he or she is not capable. There are more than 100000 different jobs in our economy, and there\’s certainly a job somewhere for which that person is better suited. Your job is to set that employee free to find a job that\’s more appropriate for his or her talents and temperament. Once you\’ve decided that an employee does not have a future with your company, you must immediately make arrangements for him or her to go somewhere else.

When you decide to fire an employee, you never do it in anger or with resentment. Just because a person turns out to be an imperfect employee does not mean that he or she is a bad person, just the wrong fit for that particular job. Also, you must resist the urge to point out all the wrong things about the employee and how he or she is failed at the job. This simply leads to litigation and lawsuits for unfair termination. Instead, you sit down with the employee with the door closed and a witness present and say that you have decided that it is not working out, that this is not the right job for him or her, and that he or she is not the right person for this job.

You tell the employee that you feel that he or she would be happier doing something else, which is the truth.

Interviews with terminated employees show that fully 70 percent of them have been expecting to be let go for a long time. Many of them have done everything possible to get their employers to fire them through poor work practices, shoddy performance, lack of punctuality, and so on.

Many employees have decided they don\’t like their jobs, but they cannot pull the trigger on themselves. They need the boss to be the bad guy and fire them. They will continue to provoke the boss with poor performance until he or she finally does it. When you decide to let an employee go, it will seldom be a surprise to that person or anyone else. Your job is now to protect his or her self-esteem and ego at all costs. Do not attack or embarrass the employee. Simply say calmly and firmly that this is not the right job for him or her. It just hasn\’t worked out surprisingly enough. Even an employee who hates the job and is doing poorly at it will often argue and defend himself or herself. An employee will offer or even promise to change, which you know will never happen. People don\’t change. He or she will make excuses for problems in the past. He or she will argue and appear to be deeply offended at your decision. These reactions are very much like waves from the ocean, and you are the rock. You simply let them pass over you without budging or changing your position.

You then repeat. I hear what you were saying, but I have decided that this is not the right job for you, and you are not the right person for this job. And I think that you\’d be happier doing something else. Repeat this statement word for word as often as necessary until the employee finally accepts that his or her career with your company is finished. You can then explain what will happen next.

You are not required to give or pay a terminated employee anything. As a sign of generosity, most companies will give a terminated employee one week of pay for each year of service. This is to help the employee financially bridge to another job. Dependent upon their relationship, either you can offer to phase the employee out over a few days or weeks, or you can terminate the employee immediately and lead him or her to the door.

When a business is growing and changing rapidly. Employees who were idle at one time become obsolete and no longer of use to the business. The requirements of the business have changed, and the responsibilities and expectations have changed as well. If an employee cannot continue to contribute appropriately, then he or she has to go. On one occasion, I terminated a good employee whose services were no longer required for my business, but because we had a good relationship. I allowed him to stay in the office and clear up his work. I allowed him to use our offices as a base of operations while he sought another job. He was always welcome to visit the offices and often attended company parties. This is the ideal form of separation.

In another case, however, the situation was so bad that I had the fired employee pack up their desk under the close supervision of another employee, who then led that person to the door. Within one hour, I had all the locks changed, credit cards canceled, and notices sent out that this person was no longer associated with my company. This is the worst-case scenario, but you must be prepared for it no matter what happens when it comes to firing people, which will be a normal and unavoidable part of your career, you must resolve to remain calm and unruffled. Never allow yourself to become angry or speak negatively about the person once he or she has gone. If necessary, you can explain to the other members of the staff that this person is no longer with the company but do not take the low road, explaining that you had decided that the employee was no longer the right person for this job, then drop the subject and don\’t refer to the fired employee again. Focus on the future and get everyone else focused on the future as well.

When you start a business, you will usually be relatively inexperienced in the cut and thrust of business activities; because of your lack of experience, you will go into business with the wrong people, hire the wrong people and get involved with the wrong people at many levels. This is normal and natural and to be expected at the beginning, and often after many years, there\’s a universal principle called the Law of Attraction.

The Law of Attraction. This law says you always attract into your life the people’s ideas and resources in harmony with your dominant thoughts. The fact is that you are a living magnet like iron filings are attracted to a magnet. You will attract the people who are in harmony with your current level of knowledge, wisdom, and experience into your life. The good news is that as you grow and mature as a business person, you will attract into your life better and better people. You will attract better employees, better customers, better suppliers, better bankers, and better associates. But you will always get the people you deserve based on your current personal and professional development level. There\’s another universal principle that I described earlier called the Law of Correspondence.

The Law of Correspondence. This law says that your outer world will tend to be a mirror image of your inner world. It says that wherever you look, there you are.

This is another way of saying that your personal business will largely be a reflection of you. It will be an extension of your own personality. Whatever is going on inside you will be reflected back to you by every aspect of your business. The people around you will always reflect your own level of maturity, experience, and character development.

“John Maxwell, in his book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, refers to what he calls the law of the lid.”

He says that you are the lid on your business. Your knowledge, ability, experience, and wisdom hold down or raise up your whole business. The more you learn and grow, the more experiences you have that you benefit from and the wiser you become as a business person. The faster and more consistently your business will grow as well. You will always attract that type of people who is in harmony with your level of inner development.

• Rule. Your life only gets better when you get better.

Your business only gets better. When you get better, your people get better only when you become a better manager; your customers get better only when you become a better salesperson. Your business gets better only when you become a better business person.

There are no shortcuts, and there\’s no other way.

Fortunately, you are in complete control of every aspect of your life by continually reading in your field, listening to audio programs, attending seminars, and sharing ideas in your mastermind groups with other people. You become a better and better person as you improve on the inside of your business, and every part of your life will improve on the outside. The only limits on what you can accomplish in your business are those limits you set on yourself with your thinking. You can go as fast and as far as you want on the road to wealth; it is completely up to you.