When you need to add a critical member to your team, whether because you’ve grown, or because you had a team member quit, the situation can feel desperate. Everyone feels overworked, especially you, the business owner. You are not just doing your job, but at least part of the job you need to hire for,…
In our last email, I asked you what you’d do if one of our best employees quits. The most common reply that I got was to try to win Nadir back, for example: “What can we do to keep you on the team?” ~ Frank McClung “Nadir, are you absolutely sure about this? Is there…
Recruiting great creative talent is hard. The best, most talented creatives are always in demand and have their choice of where to go work. Good creatives have high standards! They aren’t going to work just anywhere. If you need top creative talent, you need to build a culture that allows them to do great work. …
Just like children, businesses grow through predictable phases. We start life as baby startups, then progress to raging growth companies, before settling into a more stable “adult” phase. But as we cross each of those growth stages things change — and if we don’t change with them our growth can get stuck. Here’s my version…
As we discussed on Tuesday, it’s almost impossible to balance supply (people) with demand (client work) in a service firm. So how do you grow your firm without going through that see-saw? Here are 4 ways to grow your business without adding more people. 1. Stop Overdelivering. Yes, if you ask them, your team will…
What if I told you that the job you’ve chosen as the owner of a service firm is to balance a see-saw? A see-saw between your staff and your sales. The way service firm businesses work is that if either end of the see-saw touches the ground your business has brewing problems. But, both ends…
On Tuesday I talked about all the fears and stories we tell ourselves that make hiring hard, today I’m going to give you my best advice for making it easier. Tip #1: The truth is, it’s a LOT of work to find, screen and select the best people. Believe me. I’ve experimented with lots and…
All of a sudden I have a lot of clients who are hiring. Hiring should be something to get excited by—you’ve got new clients! You have the opportunity to expand your team! But, more of my clients are dreading the hiring process rather than embracing it. Even though their teams are screaming at them for…
Many business owners that I know will create job descriptions for their team members, but how many of us have a job description for our own job? We create job descriptions to set expectations with our team members. We want them to know what we expect them to do. Business owners need this too! I…
One article consistently stood at the top of the list of “Most Read Articles” on the New York Times website in 2017: Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person by Alain de Botton. In it, de Botton argues that we are looking for an ideal partner (without flaw or conflict), while ignoring the fact that, as human…