Principle 5
Finding and Hiring the Right People
Determine that the thing shall be done and then we shall find a way.
—Abraham Lincoln
It's logical to want to attract winners to your team. In this chapter, I will help you develop the most logical, least risky compensation plan for your team. You will learn how to put this kind of compensation plan together: namely, a commission-only payout, meaning your teammates earn income only if they add revenue to your company's bottom line. Next, I will show you how and where to find this talent to help you build your empire. Finally, you will learn how and why Andrew Carnegie gave back to the people who helped him build his empire, and I will challenge you to do the same.
As a business owner, it is always challenging to stress and worry about making payroll every two weeks, so one way to combat that is only to hire people on a pay-for-performance plan. If you are in a service-related business or in retail, this plan will be very difficult. However, if you own your own business as a one-person show . . . look and hire people who can sell for you on a commission-only basis, and in doing so, pay them through a commission pay plan.
As a result of implementing this kind of pay plan, you don't have to babysit your employees, track their hours, or worry about whether they are actually working or playing on company time. Also by operating this way, you only attract the most determined, disciplined, and serious business partners to help you move forward. Currently, I have upwards of 60 joint venture (JV) affiliate business partners who market my products and services, and when they make or refer sales, they get paid.
This topic reminds me of the very first salesperson who came to me asking for an opportunity. Believe it or not, as a professional speaker, people ask to assist me in my business virtually every time I speak in front of a large audience. As we will discuss in a later chapter, I am a big advocate of focusing on marketing my business—not on advertising it. Therefore, whenever I am out and about and run across a community bulletin board where business cards are tacked up, I always leave one there. I rarely get any business this way, but I figure, what the heck, it is only a one-penny business card.
Well, one day about five years after I launched my business, I posted a business card on a community bulletin board at a grocery store in Poulsbo, Washington. To my surprise, about five days later, I received a phone call from a very nice woman named Mary West. She was so impressed with my card that she invited me to attend her weekly networking meeting. I politely declined since I travel too much to commit to a weekly meeting. I figured I would just send her a free book and that would be the end of her. Well, she read my whole book in one day; then she went to my web site and noticed that anyone could purchase 100 copies of my book at half price, turn around and sell them at full price, and keep the profit. She then called me up and asked me when she could come by and drop off a $700 check and pick up the books. Hmm, I thought . . . perhaps I should reconsider joining her networking group.
To make a long story short, Mary has worked her way up in my organization and has booked tens of thousands of dollars in new business for me over the years, and I have promoted her to VP of Sales on a commission-only plan. As a result, she is free to work when she wants, as often as she wants, or as little as she wants. I recommend that you too offer the same kind of compensation plan and find very talented people like Mary West.
Recently while visiting the East Coast for two speaking engagements, I extended my stay to catch one of my son's lacrosse games at Fairfield University. While on this same trip, I had the opportunity to stop in and speak to a group of seniors in an Entrepreneurship and Communications Business class at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston. The professor, Gail Lowney Alofsin (who happens to be a very inspirational and talented speaker in her own right) asked me to come in and speak to her class. She advised me that many of her students were worried about the next step in their lives once they graduated from college.
I accepted this opportunity to volunteer my time to help future entrepreneurs since I was passing through and already in the area for two other paid engagements. I spoke to the students for 90 minutes about taking an inventory of their top five passions, and then about going off and working a job for three to five years to gain the skill set, confidence, and connections needed prior to launching their own businesses. At the end of the speech, I held a Q&A session with them, and I was amazed by their willingness to ask questions.
The most memorable question was, “Mr. Snow, if you could give us just one bit of advice about how to transition to our next stage in life and create our own destinies, what would it be?” I chuckled and said, “I will give you my answer, but it needs to be a compound sentence.” They all laughed. My answer was, “No matter what kinds of influences you have in your life trying to convince you to pursue a career other than the one you want, write a list of your top five passions and then spend the rest of your life pursuing those passions. And never, never, never give up on pursuing your dreams!”
My answer went over well, especially because I told them how I had succeeded by following my own passions in life. I could tell I had gotten the message through to these students because of their enthusiasm and willingness to ask questions and be inspired by what I had to say. Too often as a professional speaker, I wonder whether I am having an impact on people's lives because of how I can tell that they often perceive me. Many audience members just assume that a speaker is a multi, multimillionaire who doesn't understand real people and has not had to deal with the same real obstacles and adversities as everyone else. That is not at all the case, as I made clear to the students. You can succeed despite the problems you have, large and small. For example, as I write this chapter, my lawnmower is broken, and my grass is way too long. Also, the furnace in our home is malfunctioning and needs to be completely replaced. These are perfect examples of what we as speakers have to deal with on a daily basis—the same annoying little obstacles that all real people deal with each day as well as larger issues from health and family to income and car problems.
One day, not long after I spoke to the students at the University of Rhode Island, I was on a ferryboat heading into Seattle to give a speech. I stopped by the post office just before getting on the ferry to check my mail. To my surprise, I had received a package from Professor Gail Lowney Alofsin with a nice thank-you note sharing her appreciation for my having spoken to her class. But what was even more of a surprise was that included in this package were 21 letters from 21 of the attendees at the University of Rhode Island who had heard me speak. All of the attendees had written individual one- to two-page letters on their own letterheads expressing gratitude for my coming into their class to speak. Furthermore, each student told me how much of an impact my message had made on their lives, futures, and dreams. This package was such a surprise for me to receive and such a reinforcement and affirmation that I was on the right track. You can understand why I was so moved by their gratitude from a few of their comments I'll share with you now:
“I appreciated your advice that day that jobs can be beneficial to make “seed money” for your future.”
—Eli
“It was very interesting that you have been laid off two times and here you are taking action to believe in what you can do for the world. Your formula to success is amazing to use as a life tool.”
—Darnell
“I found your enthusiasm for life to be contagious. I left class that night feeling invigorated and ready to tackle all the projects that have been lingering in my head. You are right: why not start a business today?”
—David
“All my life I have wanted to produce music, but being such a risky business, I have never taken it too seriously. I think after your speech, I decided to stop trying to do what is safe and start doing what I am really passionate about, and I thank you for that.”
—Rory
“After listening to you speak about the different courses you have taken throughout your life, I realized that I never want to be under someone else's authority. I want to be able to make it on my own, and you have opened the door to a new set of possibilities for me.”
—Jill
My point in telling you this story is that 1 + 1 does not equal 2 when it comes to performance and measuring results. Instead, 1 + 1 may equal 3 or more. That is what masterminding is all about. I know the challenge you have is trying to build your business on your own. What I am suggesting you do is to go out and find a college student who wants to pursue a career in your industry and bring him or her on board to help you out. Some students might even be willing to volunteer 30, 60, or 90 days of their time to gain experience, add experience to their resumes, and learn the skill sets necessary to work toward eventually starting their own businesses. Perhaps you don't feel you can financially afford to add talent to help you. I would argue that you cannot afford not to bring on these additional resources. As I've already suggested, you can pay them on an incentive plan so that when they achieve or sell X dollars, they earn Y income.
I actually sent an e-mail to all of these students thanking them for their kind letters. I also offered all of them an opportunity to partner with me as JV Affiliates so they could actually make extra money while going to school. I would be surprised if those who replied back do not make some good extra money as affiliates, which they can use as seed money to fuel their passions.
For years, people have been talking about the importance of taking care of their customers, and obviously, I believe that is important. But management guru Joseph Juran points out that your internal customers are your employees, vendors, strategic partners, and anyone involved in the process of delivering the product or service to your external customer. I believe these internal customers are more important than the external customers.
Exercise
Therefore, I ask you to make a list of five people who are college students, or just graduating from college, who may have an interest in doing the type of work you do. Write out this list and then contact them to see whether any are interested in working with you to help you grow your business even more. If you don't know five college students, start asking friends, business associates, or contact your local university to find some
1. _______________________________________
2. _______________________________________
3. _______________________________________
4. _______________________________________
5. _______________________________________
Affluent Entrepreneur ProfileAndrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie was a businessman, industrialist, and entrepreneur who became a billionaire, mostly due to his success in the steel business prior to his dedication to philanthropy in his later years. He built the Carnegie Steel Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which became responsible for much of the steel production throughout North America, and his product was used to build many of the early skyscrapers, railroads, and infrastructure on which the United States was built.
It was Carnegie's belief and philosophy that his job was not to mine the coal. He did not mold the steel manufactured in his plant into rails; he did not operate the furnaces. It was someone else who did these tasks. It was his employees who manufactured the steel. Therefore, his challenge was to find and hire the right people to do the right jobs to manufacture the steel for Carnegie Steel. He considered some of his proudest moments to be when he found those right people and saw the differences they were making. As a result, he believed that he had not created the wealth; the people, workers, and the nation were its creators. Consequently, he believed that he needed to give back this amassed wealth to those who made it in the first place. My point is twofold: Carnegie had to find and hire the right people, and then as the wealth was created, he was committed to giving it all back to them.
By the 1890s, Carnegie's enterprise had become one of the largest, most industrial enterprises in the modern world at the time. He built an estimated net worth of close to $300 billion in 2007 dollars. Then in his last 20 years of life, he dedicated himself to giving it all away, back to the people who were responsible for creating it in the first place. He founded Carnegie Mellon University and ultimately gave away virtually all of his money to universities, schools, and libraries throughout North America and the United Kingdom.
Exercise
Who are the right people whom you can identify, hire, train, and delegate to help you build your empire? In the space below, write down the five key people already in your organization who will help you build your empire. Then beside each one's name, write in what you can do for that person to reward him or her for helping you to become an Affluent Entrepreneur
1. _______________________________________
2. _______________________________________
3. _______________________________________
4. _______________________________________
5. _______________________________________
Finding and hiring the right people who believe in your vision to build your empire is one of the most difficult challenges you will face as an entrepreneur. If you can tackle this challenge, then you are destined for success. However, one of the biggest mistakes many entrepreneurs make is hiring people and promising them a salary. I firmly believe a salary is a recipe for disaster (at least during your business's early days).
One of my well-known speaking mentors has 47 employees on his payroll. He advises me that he has to speak virtually every day of the first three weeks of the month just to make overhead and payroll. Then, whatever engagements he does in the last week of the month he gets to keep as net profit for the company.
A better way exists. I firmly believe the better way is to pay on a performance basis, meaning that when your team members drive revenue to your company, they get paid. When they don't, you need not worry about babysitting or taking care of them. As a result of implementing a commission-only plan, you are going to attract only the best, brightest, and most determined business partners to help you achieve your revenue goals.
Where can you find the right people? Look around any and all college campuses, and you will find a multitude of talented, eager, and willing individuals to help you achieve your goals and visions. However, remember, just as Andrew Carnegie did, to do everything you can to take care of these internal customers; give back your wealth to those who made it, and you will not only achieve your financial goals as an entrepreneur, but you will also transcend your profit to give back to those in need, make a difference in this world, and leave your legacy.
