The 7 Habits of Highly Chilled Small Business owners
Hiring great staff: This is the fifth article in a monthly series on small business owners I have met or worked with over the years who developed beautiful successful businesses.
Stories of successful real business owners
In 35 years of doing business and working with some of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met, I’ve learned a very important lesson: Success in small business starts by building great habits. I call these practices the “7 Highly Chilled Habits” and I find they’re best illustrated with the stories of real business owners who I happen to have had the pleasure of coaching.
The articles are based on my E-book, The 7 Habits of Highly Chilled Small Business Owners. All of my books and other resources are available for free here
Habit #6:
Highly Chilled Business Owners Hire the Best Person for the Role
In order to build a Highly Chilled business, you have to put great staff on your team, give them every opportunity to shine and remove the ones that don’t fit.
BTW, You can read up on Chilled habit #1: Be dependable here
- Read habit #2: Be Specific here
- Read habit #3: Be On Top of the numbers here
- Read habit #4: Be Thrifty here
- Read habit #5: Be Clear here
The Hard Stuff of Hiring Great Staff
Small business owners often lament the fact they can’t afford to hire great staff because big corporates have so much deeper pockets. They also often complain that managing people (especially millennials!) is a nightmare because they think the world owes them a reward for turning up and as soon as you’ve finished training them, they leave again.
It’s true that finding, hiring, engaging and keeping good people is the hardest thing you’ll ever do in your business.
But it’s meant to be hard because employing people is also your greatest opportunity to build a Highly Chilled business that makes money. And generally, in business (as in much of life, I suppose), the hardest things are where the greatest opportunities lie.
Be Careful, Like Adrian
I know lots of business owners who have struggled with employees their whole life. I’ve also met a bunch of them who get it right. Adrian is one of those people.
Adrian owns a Highly Chilled retail design, development and store fit-out business in Sydney. This is his website. Things have been going incredibly well for Adrian since he started his business in 2010. He employs around 30 people and half of them are young millennials. They come and go, get paid the industry average and have their good and bad days. But they deliver. The culture of the place is buzzing, and they make lots of money for Adrian and his business.
Adrian’s secrets are simple:
- Hire the best people, not just the ones you can afford.
- Hire for cultural fit AND skills/experience.
- Set high expectations.
- Give everyone lots of encouragement and genuine personal attention.
- Get rid of them early if they don’t work out.
A couple of years ago, Adrian’s business had grown to the point where he needed a general manager. The temptation was to promote someone internally to the role. That would have been the easy, economical solution.
However, he was aware of the Peter Principle that says: “People always get promoted to one level above their ability.”
And Adrian needed someone with experience in fast-growing national and international business.
The answer was clear. The person in the business he’d considered for the role didn’t have GM experience and although a great team member, promoting this person was not what the business needed. Adrian actually knew exactly the person he wanted to have on board, a good friend, but she had a high paying job at one of the biggest corporates in Sydney (with all the perks and trappings of corporate success). What could he offer to hire her away?
She Jumped at the Opportunity
Long story short, Adrian took his friend to lunch, took the plunge and matched her corporate pay. He also offered her other financial benefits and options in the business down the track. The friend jumped at the opportunity, and they’ve been working together for 3 years with great success.
Your business is only as strong as your people. Hiring someone based on whether you can afford them, or because they happen to be there already, is a recipe for stagnation.
Adrian’s is a Highly Chilled business and Adrian is a Highly Chilled small business owner.
Your Homework (The Chilled Kind)
Here’s a short exercise you could carry out to start the process of making this habit your own.
Practice Highly Chilled habit #6:
You may not currently need to hire someone, but the next time you do need to find a new employee, resist the automatic temptation to consider promoting someone you already have on the team. First, take some time to visualise the person you’d ideally like to hire in the role.
Are you a small business owner who’s feeling the heat? Explore Highly Chilled habit #7 as soon as it is live on my blog here
People and the 7 Big Questions of Small Business
Business owners frequently ask 7 Big Questions about how to Build a Beautiful Business and Life.
The first of these Big Questions is: How do I grow my business?
To answer that question I have identified the 11 most important strategies to create Business Growth.
The third of those strategies is Grow your business with People. This is one of many more articles on this site that explain how People and Growth hang together, in some depth.