In my early years of business, my tips and lessons were all about hard work and dedication, and hiring the right people. But over time and after speaking to so many young entrepreneurs, and highly successful people, my number one lesson has changed to this: simply marry well or choose the right partner. In coming to this realisation, I look at my own journey and the support I had from my husband to be the best I could be. When I doubted myself, he was there to reassure me. When I came home stressed out of my mind, he was there to put it all in perspective. When we sold our family home, he was there to say we would make it work. He has always been there, supporting me and helping make me the best I could be. Without this support, we could not have achieved what we have. To have Jeff's honest feedback helps create the businesswoman that I am today.

But imagine the reverse: a partner who puts you down and says that it cannot be done; who says you're not capable because you have no proof that you can do it; who leaves you living in fear of losing everything. There is no way you could achieve or be the best you can be in this situation. Your greatest joy comes from hanging out with and marrying your best friend but the worst pain and stress comes from choosing the wrong partner. I have seen amazing men and women wanting to fulfil their passion but who have a constant battle with partners who may be well-meaning, but in the end stop the dreams. So this is my number one advice to my children. Pick your partner well.

Jeff and I are living proof of the power of a winning team. As a partnership, we're unstoppable. We complement each other's strengths and weaknesses and together we can achieve things that neither one of us would have achieved alone.

This is why it's so important to get the right team on board if you want to succeed in business. The right people are critical to the success of any business and, of course, this starts with you! But it will ultimately flow through to every choice you make about every person you bring into your business.

How do you find the right people? What do they look like? If I've discovered anything along my journey, I have learned that the most important thing employees can have is the right cultural fit. They have to fit in with your team. They must understand what it is that you're trying to do.

Secondly, they must have the right core fit. This is their attitudes: work ethic, ambition, self-motivation, passion, honesty and whether they're team players. Everything else is just mechanics — everything else you can teach them.

If you don't get the right cultural fit for the business, it just won't work. Unfortunately, in an interview situation, people will often tell you whatever they think you want to hear. It can be incredibly difficult to break down barriers to really get to the essence of the person.

Picking the right bunch

So, how do you sort the wheat from the chaff? We generally know within the first 60 seconds of an interview whether a person is going to fit in at Boost.

When choosing your team, it's important to ask the right questions. The culture at Boost and Retail Zoo is energetic, honest, passionate, sometimes funky, fun and always high performance. You can't fake those traits, so we don't need to ask an enormous number of questions to ascertain whether people will fit in — they either have it or they don't.

We have a rigorous selection process for employment at Boost's support centre and the ‘cultural fit' interview is the last part of the process. Within this interview, we have specific questions that we ask candidates to answer and we look for specific traits within these answers. The following are the questions we ask; underneath are some of the traits we are looking for within their answers.

Q: What do you know about Boost?

We want to employ staff who frequent our stores and are familiar with the concept. It's important to employ people who are attracted to our philosophies. You can't work at your optimum level if you're working for a company that doesn't fit with your own beliefs, or a business that produces something you're not passionate about.

Q: What is your ideal working environment?

The Boost workplace is fast-paced, dynamic and vibrant. Staff need to be comfortable working in offices featuring more colours than Play School and being around people who are, for the most part, bouncing off the walls with enthusiasm. If you work best in a library-style setting, where there's no buzz and no fun, you're not going to be comfortable or productive working at Boost.

Q: Why do you want to work for Boost?

We look for enthusiasm for Boost as a company, for someone ready to fully endorse the product range. Obviously, this relates back to the first question — you'd find it difficult to answer if you know nothing about us.

Q: Our slogan is ‘Love Life', and we live by the values of honesty, integrity and passion. How do these philosophies apply to you and your current lifestyle?

It's difficult to lie about your way of life. While you might be able to fake enthusiasm enough to answer the previous questions, it's much harder to answer this one without revealing a little of your true nature. This is another way in which we determine whether the values at Boost align with the candidate's values.

While several of the preceding questions might seem to be asking the same thing, it's important that we throw all of them in during an interview. It's a very old trick to ask the same question in different ways, and it's up to the potential employee to answer these questions consistently.

We look for people who fit the Boost culture, but it's also fair to say that the majority of employees in our head office are ambitious and self-motivated. This isn't a coincidence. At Boost, we're achieving twice as much as other franchisors in half the time; to keep up in this fast-paced environment, our employees regard their role as more than just a job. It may come as no surprise that many of our staff members are triathletes or are passionate about a particular sport; high achievers are drawn to Boost.

To keep attracting high achievers, we make sure that each candidate's core fit matches ours. We look for passion, ambition, self-motivation and drive. You can tell how much potential employees have of each of these traits by asking them about their ‘achievements' in past roles, or in their personal life.

When recruiting for our stores, we always keep in mind that our customers are the most important people in our Boost world and that we believe we can create a customer experience like no other — and we know carefully choosing our in-store staff is the way to achieve this. We do not hire through traditional means, but, instead, mostly use an audition process. This is where we get about 100 young people in a room and we play games and do activities. People tend to relax and forget that they are going for a job when they are having fun, and this gives us a chance to see the true person. We are not just looking for fun, outgoing personalities; we are also looking for problem solvers and people with analytical skills — because the best teams are the ones that have a balance of personalities, not all one type.

Listen for the particular traits you value within your potential employees' answers. An obvious starting point is to say, ‘Tell me about one of your greatest achievements'. You then just have to listen for the traits you value. If they match your ‘core fit' — bingo! A follow-up question is, ‘What do you wish to accomplish in the available position?' If the traits that are in your core fit exist within that candidate, it's generally easy to hear. We take hiring people very seriously at Boost, and sometimes an applicant may have to go through five interviews before we make a decision.

Keep in mind that honesty, integrity and high standards are harder to determine in an interview. For these you often have to go on instinct or past employers, or from the candidate's CV.

Firing the wrong 'uns

Even with our well thought out approach to corporate and store hiring, we do sometimes get it wrong at Boost. Some people will tell you what you want to hear to get the job. It can be difficult to get past that before it's too late. Alternatively, people's particular idiosyncrasies may only come to the fore once they're working in a team on a daily basis, or they simply may not ‘get' what we want. I've learned that in these instances it is best to act quickly — not tomorrow, not next week, now! And act with a rigorous, not ruthless, philosophy. I received great advice once from a respected businessman, who said, ‘Hire slowly; fire quickly!'

I've never been great at firing people, although I have gotten better with time. It's not an enjoyable process. Essentially, you're sitting down with people and telling them, for whatever reason, that you don't want them working for you anymore. This inevitably affects their ego and incites that terrible fear of wondering where their next job is. In short, it's a horrible thing to do. That being said, it's also a good thing to do. You'll find that in the long run it's probably the best thing for them as well. If you don't act quickly to remove the wrong people, you stand to lose the right ones. As a company with high standards, we have to uphold those standards, or other staff members start to wonder. Why put up with mediocrity?

In 2004, we had to make changes in the business. At the end of the year, we asked the heads of each department to assess their teams and decide who they wanted to take into 2005 with them. Unfortunately, a group of people didn't make the cut. Were they bad people? Far from it. They were just not right for Boost at that stage in its growth. As a leader, you must have courage, even when you hate doing what you know is the right thing for the business.

What are fireable offences? Obviously, dishonesty is a big one. Accountability is another. I do not want to hear about why your stuff-up is not your fault; if you try to make excuses, I will immediately lose an enormous amount of respect for you. I like people who agree that they've made a mistake and then tell me how they're going to fix it. Even better, I like people who bring a mistake to my attention, even if they know I'd never find out about it, and give me the solution. The kind of people who are not victims but take responsibility for what they do. As you may have gathered from reading chapter 2, I break this down into two types of people: VERB (Victim, Entitled, Rescue and Blame) and SOAR (Solutions, Ownership, Accountability and Responsibility). So I am looking for people who can SOAR.

Of course, an actual firing never really comes as a complete surprise. It's not like one minute you're telling staff members they're doing a great job and the next they're out the door. That doesn't happen. At Boost we follow the law to the utmost extent, ensuring that everyone gets a fair go. However, people have different levels of what they believe is acceptable.

You can't afford to have people who sit around twiddling their thumbs; you can't have one department drowning in work and another department leaving on the dot at 5 pm. Of course, as I've mentioned previously, staying late is not a badge of honour. But you do need people to deliver on what's required to get their job done. I don't enjoy letting people go, but it is a necessary part of my business. A situation will get worse if you don't do anything about it.

Generals and foot soldiers

It might come as a surprise to hear this but your team needs ordinary people as well as extraordinary ones. Don't get me wrong — I'm not suggesting you develop a hiring policy of seeking mediocrity. Of course you should look for the best, most passionate people you can find. But not everyone on your team needs to be a gun who will one day rise to the top and be a great leader. A strong team is composed of a mix of people with a range of different skills, and that includes the superstars and the worker bees. Surprisingly, I learned this lesson from football.

Teamwork

I was fortunate to be the first female board member of the Hawthorn Football Club. I loved the years I worked with the club, and found the business of football fascinating. A key ‘ah ha' moment for me was when we were discussing getting the right team to win a grand final, and how getting the right team balance leads to goals being scored. It was exactly the same formula as creating a winning team at Boost (and obviously a successful formula, as Hawthorn's three successive grand final wins can attest).

The ‘recipe' for a winning football team was as follows: you need three to four superstars to start, and then you add your up-and-coming superstars. Next, sprinkle heavily with the solid team members (the ones who get their job done with no fanfare), while cautiously blending in the last group — those who need to move forward or move out.

The bottom line is this: a great team is a solid mix of different personalities, all working together to even out each other's weaknesses. A great team is healthily competitive, yet comfortable enough to truly celebrate each team member's individual wins. The right team can achieve the unachievable.

A good team mix could look like this:

• The leader: efficient, focused, ambitious, confident, honest, strong-willed and someone who can inspire. Leaders may, however, demonstrate little patience, a tendency towards bullying and a desire for personal success over team success.
• The thinker: analytical, concerned with detail, unassuming, precise, well organised, rational and a good listener. On the downside, thinkers may be perceived by others as aloof and negative — a killer vibe at the best of times!
• The ‘doer' or worker bee: hard-working, patient and keen to get the job done without much fuss. Worker bees can, however, be easily manipulated.
• The emotional creative: social, energetic and competitive, but prone to the odd tantrum, especially under pressure, and may lack the necessary follow-through. In other words, creatives can be high maintenance if their astrological planets are not aligned!

A good team mix includes all elements from the preceding mix, and manages to reduce the risk of any of the negative attributes associated with each element emerging.

When hiring new people at Boost, we know that the right person needs to fit into a team and the team needs to have a strong balance of various skills, so we hire to maintain this balance. However, we're also flexible enough to adjust the role to meet the candidate's skills.

Taking all of that into account, how do you pick the best team? It's important that you also recognise all the dominant traits in your team and balance these out — doing so will help to ease any frustration. You may have too many analytical types among your key personnel, for example, which means no-one will ever make a decision. On the other hand, if there are too many drivers and leader types, you're on a road that will be heavily paved with conflict.

If you're just starting out in your business (perhaps you haven't even got as far as creating a team yet), keep in mind that your first employee can really make or break the business. This time is when you are learning and focusing on growing the business, and confidence in your concept is what makes you grow. If our first employee had been a disaster, the growth of Boost Juice may have been very different, because timing in business is everything — at that stage of growing Boost Juice, we needed to quickly become the first option in the minds of the consumer. Luckily, we found Sharryn for our first employee.

Sharryn was the Australian speed-waterskiing champion — she had muscles on the muscles on her arms and, even though she could not be taller than 5 foot 2, she could scare a man twice her size. Sharryn had never worked in retail before but she had the drive and the passion we were looking for in our new concept. She understood what we wanted to achieve and was passionate about achieving it.

Sharryn found herself running not one store but a number of stores very quickly. She moved from store manager to area manager and then to project manager, running the design and development team in opening new stores around Australia in just two years. She had no experience in this area either, but took on each challenge with enthusiasm. Sharryn salary-sacrificed her early wages to obtain a share of the business, which paid off handsomely many years later.

Pro tips

Here's how to perfect your team:

• If you're having difficulties with a team member, ascertain not only the team member's personality traits but also your own. This will help you learn the best way to deal with your colleague and the best way to manage your response to them.
• The nicest people (or those most easy to manage) are not necessarily the ones who will produce the best results. Every organisation needs balance, and having a bit of ‘mongrel' in a group is essential.

Ramping up

Fine-tune your team with the following:

• Develop a core team for your business that consists of four or five people who work well together and whom you trust. Under good leadership (yours) this group will become a cohesive unit, creating a synergy that will make your company or department unbeatable. Pay these four or five key players more than market rates, and make sure every single one of them is extraordinary.
• If you're not confident enough to conduct personality tests, consider hiring an expert to evaluate your staff.

People

A staff member once said the following to me: ‘Imagine being paid to work here — it almost feels wrong'. These words are among the best I've ever heard. Your people are your company's greatest asset — reward them and reap the rewards for your business. There's no doubt that if you get the right group of people together, anything can be achieved. I believe that staff members need to share in the rewards. If you take the time to acknowledge a person's contribution, you will be repaid by their loyalty and hard work a thousand times over.

Public acknowledgement can be extremely motivating. Awards are held for store partners at our annual conference and we also present monthly awards at an informal afternoon tea, to reward and recognise exceptional achievements by employees. The awards have been developed to inspire individuals and teams to aim high. They are open to everyone in the company, regardless of position. As well as offering rewards for high performance, it's equally important to show genuine understanding and kindness when a colleague or employee is at a low ebb. Compassion will also be repaid by trust and loyalty.

At times, members of generation Y (and now millennials) get some really bad press and are blamed for all sorts of negative things. Although this perception is changing, if you do a search for ‘managing gen Y' online, you find millions of results on how to deal with this apparently ‘difficult generation'. We passionately do not agree with this perception, because we see some amazing, talented and focused generation Ys and millennials in our organisation.

Indeed, in 2010 we felt so strongly about this that we did an advertisement attempting to change the perception of generation Y. It was a risk for the business, but it paid off; the result was amazing. And when an ad agency did a spoof on our ad, my husband and boys thought it was hilarious. (Have a quick look here for that spoof: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlvYjIkk4e0. It's hard to find something funny when others are taking the piss out of you. However, I admit the spoof was clever.)

Pro tips

Here's how to get the most out of your people:

• Consider instigating a formal recognition and/or award program, in line with your company values, that will give your employees meaningful rewards for exceptional achievement. Acknowledgement is an excellent motivational tool.
• Recognise the fact that people respond to compassion as quickly as they do to encouragement.

Relationships

Learning to manage the various relationships you have should be a fundamental part of your ongoing strategy.

On a day-to-day basis, like most managers, I spend more time with my core staff members than I do with my family. Close bonds have grown between us over time; it's acknowledged that I would do anything for them, and vice versa. Together we have created and achieved amazing things, with plenty of hardship, stress and celebration along the way. In this kind of situation, you do develop a bond that's stronger than a mere employer-employee relationship. Not slipping over into complete friendship mode is a fine line, but one that I believe we now tread easily.

Being aware of this line is important, however, particularly for certain roles within your business. For example, Scott is the CEO of the company and, as such, he has plenty on his plate. He has hard calls to make every day. He said to me recently, ‘I really don't have any friends in the company — as in mates I would socialise with'. And I thought, Cool. That means you're doing your job right.

The higher up the corporate ladder you go, the fewer ‘mates' you will have in the office. Life and work is not a popularity contest — great people often have to make tough calls, and these calls are made tougher if a friend is involved. Sure, early in your working life, having workmates who are also friends can be super-important, and going out and being able to live and breathe the day-to-day dramas of work is all part of it. However, climb higher and get older and, trust me, you need to keep them separate — doing so is rejuvenating for both aspects of your life.

These days, I have very little free time to spend with friends, so I make sure that those people I do see are the ones who make me laugh, allow me to feel good about by myself, have my back and are honest. In business, you can be spoiled by the wealth of mental stimulation you receive from the people you meet. But in life, it is not what someone has or hasn't achieved that makes them interesting; it is who they are as a person. Friendships are vital to everyone. Nothing revitalises me more, or makes that bad day not so bad, than a good old belly laugh with trusted friends. Choose your friends wisely.

Pro tips

Here are some important elements for business and personal relationships:

• Business relationships are about give and take. If you give a lot of information to those who impress you, most will return the favour.
• When you're passionate about your work, it's easy to neglect friends and family. Don't! There are only so many people in the world with whom you can have a close relationship — keep in touch. Good friends are the best tonic for bad times.
• The world is full of people who believe that the glass is half empty, that they are owed a living, that they are hard done by and that nothing is their fault. You do not need these high-maintenance people in your business, or your life. You owe it to the others around you to get rid of those negative influences.
• The best friendships are equal friendships. Look at your relationships: are they two-way streets? Do you feel good about yourself when you are with your friends? Make sure those around you bring out the best in you, and vice versa.

Ramping up

Build even stronger relationships with these tips:

• Take the time to be curious about other people's lives and their wellbeing. Genuine interest will have a large impact on that person. Token measures will get token results.
• If you believe that someone has let you down, step into the other person's shoes for a minute. Could this person believe that you have let them down? Perception changes everything.
• We all have different energy levels. Find people who share yours and avoid high-maintenance types who will drain you of your life force.

Protégés

Your job as a business owner or an executive in a business is to continue to grow strong people so that, eventually, you are out of a job. So start training your next-in-line now. Insecure businesspeople hire below them so they have control. This never works. Hiring the right people and training those people so that they can one day take over your role is critical to your success.

How do you identify a protégé? The right person will have core values that reflect your own. They will have a willingness to follow your philosophies, even if their way of doing it is different from yours. Learn to recognise leaders among your staff. In my case, it's not necessarily about actively hiring the right person — rather, candidates for the job emerge and evolve. Don't be threatened by an up-and-coming talent. I once worked for someone who made sure he hired incompetent people because he wanted to run things his own way and didn't want to be outshone. That's stupid! The smarter the people around you, the smarter and better you are.

Encourage your protégés with training and counselling. Challenge them by occasionally throwing them in the deep end — this will help them to discover their own strengths and weaknesses, enabling them to work on their shortcomings. It will also allow you to examine their potential. Remember, however, that giving your protégé opportunities is very different from setting them up to fail.

A piece of coal placed under the right amount of pressure for the right period of time will transform into a diamond. Of course, it doesn't always work out. There have been times when I've felt very confident about an employee and it hasn't worked out. As a business grows, some employees can be left behind, unable to evolve with the changing business. In those situations, you have to consider your options and, sometimes, no matter how hard it is, parting company may be best for both of you.

Pro tips

Start recognising and building protégés with the following:

• Don't be afraid to replace yourself. It's your only opportunity to grow. By beginning early and training someone thoroughly, you will be placing your company in a better position for the long term.
• Identify and nurture your protégés; harness their enthusiasm to help them achieve great things.
• Good leaders surround themselves with smart go-getters. Bad managers choose inferior employees in an effort to bolster their own position or ego — which never works!

Leaders

Leaders may be born, but leadership is learned. What type of leader do you want to be?

My style of leadership has evolved through learning from my strengths and weaknesses. My business has evolved the same way. All leaderships must evolve, but the fundamental philosophy should remain the same.

The role of a leader is to inspire extraordinary performances from ordinary people. If you're the boss, your level of enthusiasm will be reflected throughout your company. The more people you can influence daily, the more power you will gain.

How are you going to do this? Study how to be a greater leader. Define yourself, your values and your attributes. Play up your strong points and work on your weaker areas. Importantly, you must avoid the need to be liked. If you have a great personal life and feel secure within yourself, why should you desire affection from everyone? This need makes you vulnerable and weakens your decision-making ability; it has no place in building a successful business empire. Instead, you should aim to gain your employees' respect; you want them to respect you more than like you.

It's also essential to recognise leadership qualities in others, and these won't always be immediately apparent. That timid worker whom you've always perceived as slightly introverted may roar like the king of the jungle when put to the test. In the same way, someone who comes across as self-assured and competent may buckle under pressure.

People may try to tell you that one person cannot change the world. The reality is great leaders can — the great and evil things that have been done in the world always start with one person.

Just think about all the great leaders out there, such as Mahatma Gandhi, President Kennedy, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr, Abraham Lincoln and the Dalai Lama — as well as leaders who people followed but who were far from great, such as Adolf Hitler, Attila the Hun and Joseph Stalin. What they all have in common is the passion and drive for what they believed in; their personalities are addictive, and people want to be them and be with them. They all had a very clear vision and would commit everything to achieve their vision.

The leader dictates the culture and, ultimately, the profit and growth of any business.

Pro tips

Boost your leadership skills with the following:

• Leadership is usually an innate ability, but your style of leadership can be chosen.
• Don't be the kind of leader you think you ought to be — be the best leader you can be. If you choose a style that's natural to who you are, you will be successful.