Do Business Well

“People are made up of 99% emotion and 1% reason. Take care of their hearts and their heads will follow”

Joy Madison

You arrive at work and turn on the machines - they work away day-in and day-out, producing a fixed quantity at a fixed quality. If they break down, it is simple to trace the problem and fix it. When your machines are old and fully depreciated, you simply replace them with new and improved models.

Your people are totally different - they can be complex, moody, temperamental, unpredictable and often secretive and insecure. They are known to report late, steal, break things, strike, sulk or just go slow. That’s just the way it is. And often it has a lot to do with the way you treat them.

On the other hand, you will have people who treat the business as if it is their own, work overtime, care, smile, go the extra mile and dedicate themselves to excellence. These are your stars. When you are lucky enough to get these people, do whatever it takes to keep them, motivate them and reward them. Give these stars all the recognition in the world, stroke them, massage their egos, boost their pay cheques - they are the reason why your business will thrive. Without them, you’re deadmeat - we just can’t say it any simpler than that.

We promise you that at least 80% of the problems your business will face will be people related.

One of the defining qualities of great entrepreneurs is their ability to spot and hire the right people — often they work on gut feel. But they back up their gut feel by checking out these people with great care. No-one can give you gut feel, but we can give you some tips on how to check out your most important assets:

• Check references — don’t only check the references given to you, because these people were probably pre-conditioned. Phone and check references not supplied. When you check a reference, be prepared by having a well thought out series of questions you would like answered.
• Consider conducting psychometric or personality tests — These tests are readily available and they are inexpensive. One well- known entrepreneur with whom we have worked even puts all her potential staff and franchisees through a handwriting analysis. When we asked her why, she said it was because she had her own handwriting analyzed and was amazed at how accurate it was.
• Match the personality and culture of the candidate to that of your company — A company is like an extended family to its staff. It is a group of people who behave in a certain way; they have certain beliefs, values and desires; and they live with each other at least eight hours a day. Inother words, every company, no matter how small, has its own culture. Some people may fit in and others won’t. Some people might have all the technical skills but they won’t fit into your company. It is therefore vital to try matching the potential employee’s personality to the personality of your company.
• Master the art of interviewing — Thejob interview is the most important meeting you will ever have with your employee. It’s where you ultimately decide whether you are going to build a relationship with this person or not. It’s almost like deciding whether you want to marry someone after one meeting. We recommend that you have other staff members interview job candidates. Get a second, third and fourth opinion. And decide on
• what kind of questions you are going to ask the candidate before the interview. Remember: in this country, once you hire someone, it could be for keeps.
• Give the candidate an assignment — One of the most effective ways to choose the right people is to ask them to prepare an assignment or presentation for presentation to you at a second interview. In this way, you will get an actual taste of what this person can do. In effect, you are asking the person to pitch for the job the way you pitch for your customer’s accounts.

Warning:

Small companies often fail to do the basics because they don’t have the resources of a big company. We find that these smaller operations often don’t bother with letters of appointment, leave registers, grievance procedures and other legal and procedural aspects. However, they are not above labour legislation. In fact, smaller companies have to take special care in legalities, since they do not have large in-house legal departments to handle any queries and cases that may come up. As we all know, legal fees alone can bankrupt you. So avoid landing yourself in legal disputes by handling human resources in a professional way.

More about: Choose your team carefully, turn your team members on and keep them happy by taking great care of them.

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