Small Business Articles on People

Red Flags and Solutions to Get Your Hiring Process Back on Track Bad hires caused by common hiring mistakes. So easily avoided, too. Are you guilty of making them? If you are, how do you avoid them? In this article, I examine the top 10 hiring mistakes employers make. You’ll learn how to spot them, and how not to make them – the red flags and solutions that will take your hiring process to where you need it to be. The cost of making a bad hire There’s a great piece of research by the National Business Research Institute (NBRI) that details just how costly a bad hire is. They have calculated bad hires to cost as much as $300,000, depending on the seniority of the hire you make. A bad … [Read more...]

Steps That Deliver Consistent Recruitment Results  I’ve developed this hiring process checklist for businesses who have consistently hired the wrong person in the past, and for those who are hiring for the first time. If you have never made a bad hire yet, then congratulations – you’re already using this hiring template. I’ve spoken with hundreds of business owners and heard hundreds of hiring horror stories. Managers who have only made a handful of good hires in all their time of recruiting for talent. Others who rely on luck, hiring as many candidates as possible in the hope that one works out. This checklist for hiring employees takes the guesswork out of … [Read more...]

Hire Creatives with These Executable Tips You need a creative hire. A designer, writer, artist, etc. An employee who will help you develop your brand and sell your services, doing the creative work that you have never mastered. But something is holding you back. You find the idea of hiring creative talent more than a little daunting. You won’;t find them in your usual networks. They speak a different language. How do you critique their work when it’s not in your sphere of expertise? 7 Tips for hiring creative talent Whether you need a copywriter to develop marketing material, a content writer to make your website pop, or a designer to create eye-catching websitesbrochures (plus a host … [Read more...]

Your Checklist for Hiring Employees Into Your Small Business To grow your business, you will have to hire people. There’s only so much you or your existing team can do. The problem is that you find hiring employees more than a little challenging. If the hiring process leaves you frustrated and fearful that your chosen candidate will turn out to be a failure, you’re not alone. I’ve had hundreds of business owners tell me their hiring horror stories. Others become so frustrated that they take potentially calamitous and costly hiring steps. Here’s a couple of examples: One executive told me that he has practically given up trying to predict who will be a … [Read more...]

Your Checklist for Hiring Employees Into Your Small Business To grow your business, you will have to hire people. There’s only so much you or your existing team can do. The problem is that you find hiring employees more than a little challenging. If the hiring process leaves you frustrated and fearful that your chosen candidate will turn out to be a failure, you’re not alone. I’ve had hundreds of business owners tell me their hiring horror stories. Others become so frustrated that they take potentially calamitous and costly hiring steps. Here’s a couple of examples: One executive told me that he has practically given up trying to predict who will be a … [Read more...]

Being an entrepreneur might sound like a glamorous and lucrative career, but the reality is that entrepreneurship is more of a roller coaster ride. If you aren’t expecting the ups and downs, then you aren’t prepared for the experience.  Running my own business has been nothing less than some of the best experiences of my life, along with some of the worst. And, unlike a real roller coaster at an amusement park, I haven’t been able to predict when those highs and lows will occur.  I’ve won big deals, then lost them. I’ve hired an employee who seemed like the perfect person for my business, only to have that person snapped up by a competitor. I thought I had the perfect marketing … [Read more...]

“What got you here won’t get you there!” ~ Marshall Goldsmith Congratulations, you’ve grown your business and achieved a major milestone, one million in revenue. Well done! It’s a huge achievement. Less than 4% of business in America reach this goal.  Now that you’ve celebrated, let’s talk about your next steps. Do you want to keep growing? If so, there are some major changes ahead. The skills and practices that made it possible for you to bring in a million dollars this year aren’t going to scale when you are at two million or five million. You’re going to need to do some things differently.  I get it, change is hard. And delegating can be hard, too. But learning to accept these … [Read more...]

As if living through a global pandemic wasn't enough — you're a business owner, so you have to become an expert on SBA loan guidelines and now learn all about CDC recommendations too? We're here to help you out. Here's the CDC's workplace decision tree and our advice about what to think about when reopening... Setting expectations By now, you should already be in near constant communication with your team on key office decisions in regards to how the pandemic affects your employee’s day to day work life. As you work on reopening it will be imperative to set crystal clear expectations. Reopening may provide some much needed financial relief for the company, your employees face … [Read more...]

I could tell he didn’t want to sell his company. My client had supposedly called me to talk about selling. But right away, it was clear that something else was going on. You see, his business was doing great—it had grown bigger than he’d ever dreamed. The real problem was he was exhausted. I glanced over at his computer and peeked at his calendar. All-day, every day, he was booked in meetings! On a hunch, I asked him, “What got you into this business in the first place?” He got this far off stare and told me about his love for crafting narratives. That’s what his business does—they tell incredible stories for brands that bring complex ideas to life. But he didn’t do it himself … [Read more...]