In This Chapter

In the first few years of getting your business off the ground, having the right team will be critical to your success, yet your resources will likely be scarce. You’ll need team players—individuals who can pitch in to do whatever it takes to get the job done. You’re looking for flexible, energetic folks who are willing to wear lots of different hats, not card-carrying members of the “it’s not my job” club.

This chapter will talk you through the best practices of getting the right team in place for those crucial early years.

As a new business—and a small business—you’ll face unique challenges to getting the best people. You probably won’t be able to compete with the big guys when it comes to salaries and benefits, but you will be able to offer something else they may not: the ability to get involved in many aspects of the business from the ground up. The learning opportunities working in a small business are great and varied, which is a terrific selling point to candidates!

The best people to select for your business are those individuals who …

The best people are those who can think outside of the box and therefore can help you in building your business.

The first step in hiring these kinds of employees involves writing a good job description, which you’ll need to revise regularly as your business grows. We’ll look at job descriptions in much more detail in Chapter 13, but let’s discuss them briefly here.

The responsibilities you define for your employees should clearly focus on skills needed to help you in growing the business. Make sure the job description you develop broadly covers the goals and responsibilities of the particular role but also emphasizes that the individual needs to play many roles.

Selecting the best people requires an analysis of who you need in your business right now to accomplish your goals. Think about the behavior and attitude you need from your employees. In doing a job analysis for the role for which you wish to hire, think about the following issues:

Don’t discount contract, or temporary, employees to help out during particularly busy times or just as a stopgap measure. And certainly don’t discount family members and friends. Often small businesses get their start by calling on friends and family to help. Gina, one of the authors of this book, remembers when her brother opened a small deli in New Jersey many years ago. She took time off from work to help him get started—clearing and cleaning the counters, serving the customers, shopping for suppliers, washing dishes when the dishwasher broke—while he did all the cooking. Once he got the business off the ground and saved a bit of money, he was able to hire his first couple of real employees to help out.

When interviewing candidates for a job with your business, keep in mind two essential characteristics of anyone you hire:

Many hiring experts argue that a good fit with your organization’s culture is, as a general rule, at least as important as the skills the applicant brings to the table. Most skills, after all, can be learned. We don’t disagree with this advice but would recommend a balance, with a slant toward culture fit.

When thinking about whether someone is a fit for your business culture, consider the values of your business. What is most important to you and your business? Is it fantastic customer service? Is it a family feel among your staff? Is it a team environment? Look for individuals whose outlook matches these values.

Interviewing effectively requires preparation. The goal during the interviewing process is to determine if the person you are interviewing will be a good fit for your business—someone you can work with and who can help you reach your goals. Behavioral interviewing techniques are more difficult than regular interviewing but provide a much better picture of the candidate’s ability to get the job done.

Behavior-based interview questions provide you with the opportunity to understand the behavior of the individual you are interviewing when they are in specific real-life situations. You will learn how a candidate solves problems, handles stress, works with difficult customers, handles adversity, and whether they have been successful in their past roles. Probing, detailed questions asked of the candidate make it difficult for her to cover up her past and lie about her capabilities.

Frame your questions of candidates to get to the following information:

Effective behavioral interviewing questions might include the following:

Take the following best practice steps to ensure an interview with a candidate will get you the information you need to make a decision:

Have other people interview the candidate, too; don’t feel like you have to make the decision alone. It is nice to have another perspective, and other interviewers might pick up on things you did not.

When pulling together your initial team for your business, do not hire lone wolves—those individuals who do not work well with others and prefer to do their own thing. Given that in the first few years you won’t be able to hire vast numbers of employees, it’s essential that the individuals you do hire are team players.

When interviewing candidates, specifically look for instances where they have worked as a member of a team. Candidates simply saying to you they are team players is not sufficient; you’ll want proof. Ask questions to learn about how well the person can work in a team environment.

Don’t feel rushed to make a decision on a candidate; take time to explore options and ensure that the candidate you hire is the best fit for the role. Many business owners don’t have the time to be experts at hiring and interviewing, but you should not shortchange this process. Learn how to do it well!

Avoid these common mistakes business owners make:

Avoiding these common pitfalls will reduce the chances of you making a bad hiring decision; however, you should probably accept that some mistakes are inevitable. If you find that you have made a bad hiring decision, make a commitment to fix the problem quickly. Smaller businesses tend to find it difficult to let go of employees who are not working out. Often this is due to the close “family” environment that many small businesses have. You may feel a sense of guilt that you made a bad decision, or may not feel comfortable making someone else “pay” for your mistake. Bear in mind, however, that keeping the wrong person employed is simply bad for business—which means that you are letting the whole “family” down when you hold on to someone who is not working out.

There is a considerable amount of discussion lately among organizations as to whether it’s better to hire generalists or specialists. Much of this conversation is among the big players—the Ciscos, Googles, and Microsofts of the world. In the case of smaller businesses, and especially in their early years, generalists are the way to go. The benefits of hiring generalists are that they …

As your business grows, you may need individuals with certain specialties, such as a marketing specialist or someone to manage human resources. But in the early stages, individuals who have a generalist background and experience in a variety of areas enable you to launch your business successfully without having to hire too many employees to meet all your varied needs.

It’s important to hire individuals who do not need to be micromanaged. Instead, find people who take the initiative to do what needs to get done. During the interview process, ask pointed questions to determine if the individual is self-motivated and has the initiative you need for your business. Here are some questions you might ask:

You are looking to determine if the candidate has the wherewithal to manage herself and tasks assigned to her.

Just as you are wearing multiple hats in your business, your employees will need to do the same! You’ll be looking for folks who can transition smoothly from task to task. You’ll also need individuals who are able to multitask. Any business will need people who can do marketing, sales, product development, finances, administration, operations, human resources, and training. As a small business you can’t afford to hire someone for each area, and it’s unlikely you need full-time employees in each area.

One small business owner, a magazine publisher, hired individuals whom she had worked with when she headed up the marketing department at a large organization. The problem was that the people were not used to a smaller business, were used to working from 9 to 5, and had gotten used to concentrating on one project at a time. Additionally, in their previous jobs they had assistants to help them out. They were unprepared for the hectic schedule and were not a good fit for a small business. The owner learned quickly that interviewing for fit was more important than anything else for her business!

As you are getting your business up and running, it is not easy to have a clearly defined set of roles and responsibilities for every job. In fact, it likely isn’t possible! The authors know of one small business that hired two employees to help out in the office. The employees had a variety of responsibilities: sales, marketing, administrative work, special projects, and following up with clients. When the business owner tried to develop job descriptions, she was at a loss for where to begin. The staff of three was doing everything for the business. She ended up not worrying about formal job descriptions for the two employees and instead used the mission statement and strategic plan for her business as a guide for her employees.

Chapter 18 focuses on how to hire the best sales team for your business. Here, we take a look at the kinds of salespeople you need when you are in the early years of your business.

As your business develops and you bring salespeople on board, you will likely have clients that you can pass on to them—customers they can contact who have already done business with you. Certainly, you’ll expect them to bring in new business, but you may already have some customers or prospects you can assign to them to get them started. In the early years, it is unlikely that you will have a pool of customers for your salesperson to call upon; rather, you expect them to get out there and find customers for your business! In other words, you need hunters—individuals who can seek out business rather than sit back and wait for business to find them.

Look for sales applicants who have already proven their ability to launch brand-new business relationships and manage a sales process from beginning to end—then give them all the support you can.

Of particular importance for new salespeople is to have an onboarding process in place to support them in those first few crucial days. One important best practice is to team a new sales hire with a more experienced mentor during this onboarding process.

Send newly hired sales personnel information about your products and services prior to their actual start date; once they start, train them in your sales process and spend time helping them understand the products and services you offer, the types of customers you are seeking, and your overall business approach. You want them to hit the ground running.

One very effective best practice is to provide the sales candidate with a mini scenario describing a specific problem to solve, such as a call from a customer who is unhappy with an order that has shipped. Give the candidate some time to read the case study and then ask him or her to respond to it. Ask what he or she would do in the situation. Much as with behavioral-based interviewing questions, you are trying to determine how the candidate thinks through problems.

The perfect candidate will have a resumé and references that show that she has experience …

While many businesses separate marketing and sales functions, as a business just starting off, it may not be practical to have both marketing people and salespeople. Your salespeople in the early years should have experience in marketing products through social media, business connections, networking events, and at conferences.

When evaluating candidates for a sales role, do not take their resumés or what they tell you in an interview at face value. Do your homework. Ask for specific examples of their ability to source new customers and close the deal. Get all the details.

A best practice proven in countless industries is to hire a salesperson on a temporary contract basis to confirm whether he or she can really do the job. For instance, you might offer a candidate a 90-day temporary contract with a promise to move the person to a full-time position if he or she meets certain clearly outlined goals. During those 90 days, the salesperson will be expected to secure new customers for the business and generate a certain amount in revenue. This approach is a low-risk way to try out the salesperson to see whether he or she presents a good fit with your business. One business we know of that sells clothing customized with company logos requires all new salespeople to bring on at least one new customer within the first 90 days at a value of $500, and to sell $1,000 worth of product to a minimum of three current customers during the same period.

Assign all new salespeople short-term goals for customer and revenue generation. Evaluate them against those goals within the first three months and then again within six months.