People make or break your business, so this subject gets its own headline, because if you get this wrong, then your business will be one of the four of five businesses that fail in the first five years.

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. Do not get me wrong, if you are single or have married a dud, it does not mean you will not succeed. But I have come across so many people who have not had the support of their partners and it made the journey either so much harder or it simply failed. 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 their 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 most important thing we are always looking for is someone who is solutions-based and ‘can-do’, not ‘can’t-do’ or always needs help. Hire on type and train the rest. And, most importantly, fire fast when you get it wrong.

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’re 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, Rescued 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.

Leaders

I believe 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. The business has evolved the same way. All leaders 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 John F. 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 believe 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.

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.
• Make decisions decisively after listening to all the facts; if you need to change your mind, make sure you communicate effectively.
• Communication is the best tool that you need to be a good leader.

Teamwork — business and sport … same same

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 list, 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 five-foot-two, 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.

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.
• You are never going to get it right every time, but put systems in place to make sure you find out quickly.

Relationships

If you want to learn about relationships, compete on Survivor . It does not matter how strong or fast you are — the best quality you can have is interpersonal skills. It is about being interested and interesting, making sure you listen and give that person 100 per cent of your attention when you are talking to them. When you are living on an island with no other distraction, relationships are everything — it was the people with the strongest relationships who actually made it to the end of the game, never the strongest physically.

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

On a day-to-day basis, 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, the CEO of the company 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 are 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 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.

Here are some important elements for business and personal relationships:

• 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.

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. 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. Many insecure leaders hire people significantly weaker than themselves so they feel safe in their job. These leaders are limited and will ultimately fail. The great leaders are the ones that are always hiring people who can be their successor, and in truth make them look good.