The CEO Elite

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Three Signs Your Business is Ready to Take on Employees

Hire new employee

Small business owners often say to me, “I could really use someone else but I’m not sure I’m ready.” There are so many things to think about when hiring someone into your business, the first being, how do I know I really need someone else. Here are three signs that your business needs employees.

Intended Growth

The most important sign a business will need employees is that the business is actively looking to grow. A small, one person business may never need to take on an employee if growth and leverage are not in their goals. But, if growth is your goal then doing more with no more time means that you will have to start the process of evaluating how you can use another person (or people) to make you more money or save you time.

Turn Down Work

A clear sign a small business is ready to take on employees is when they have to turn down work because they are too busy. I have heard many small business owners complain that they cannot grow because they simply do not have enough time to do their current work let alone take on the extra work of training new people or handling more clients. They want growth, but they stop at actually doing the work to make the growth happen.

The Ownership Role

When a small business needs the CEO to step into their role full time, so that they can do the work that creates more business, the owner then needs to have someone else do the work they had previously been responsible for. This means they need to find other employees to take on their offloaded duties. Often small business owners feel they are the only ones that can do certain work a certain way and therefore cannot offload it to another, less experienced person. The challenge is, when a business is in growth mode and more growth is expected and wanted, the business owner will have to give up more of the work they did as a solopreneur so that they can make the company more money. After all, it does not make sense for a small company to pay the CEO to do work that they can get an employee to do at half the wage.

If more clients, sales, and growth is in your future, then more employees will be the key to accomplishing your goals.

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What Happens During Transition Determines Where You End Up (Good or Bad)

In the immortal lyrics of The Clash’s song Should I Stay or Should I Go,  “This indecision’s bugging me”.

One of the toughest things about business is the decision making. It often feels like one wrong decision and your ‘toast’, ‘the game is over’, ‘the fat lady is singing’. OK, too many metaphors, but I feel the looming outcome of a bad decision can stop many from making any decision at all.

If I go there will be Trouble – If I stay there will be Double

Recently, I have been in a transition.  I have made some decisions around my focus for the next 1 to 5 years. I used a tool from Warren Buffet described in a book I am reading [Daniel H. Pink: When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing] that took me through evaluating the 25 things I want to accomplish in the second half of my life and then narrowed it down to the top five priorities for now. Even with this type of clarity, it was still unclear to me what had to change to make these 5 core priorities my only focus. Do I give up everything I have built to put one of those five at the top of my list of five? Do I try to restart some of the programs I’ve let go of, to get back some of the successes I’ve had in the past that align with my top five? If I chose one of these, what happens with the choices I’ve already made? I really feel that if I go forward without clarity on the ‘what’ then I will be in trouble and if I don’t move forward soon I will equally be in trouble (or as the song says, “there will be double” [trouble]).

The Direction I Choose

One thing I have always had going for me is that my clarity comes from faith. Faith that the direction I choose, no matter what it is, will result in my future experience. “Well, dah!”, you might be thinking. The key here is that my future has always been where I want to be. Maybe because I am happy with a lot of different outcomes, or maybe because what I put my mind to I make happen. If the latter is the case then it doesn’t matter which choice is the right answer, it matters which one I choose. I can choose to follow a path, maybe one I described above or one I have not envisioned yet, or I can choose to not follow a path. By abstaining from choice I inadvertently make a choice that has the same consequences: I will end up going in the direction of my non-choice. 

The Business Key

Decision making is based on the knowledge and understanding of what choices are available. Making great decisions cannot be simply choosing from A or B if the choice turns out to be ‘E’ (not even C or D). If you have never invited the opportunity to explore ‘E’ then how will you get to the place where you make the best choice? I believe, from what I have experienced, we often rush to make a choice from options that do not adequately meet our needs. We can tell which of the two or three are better than the others, but we still feel challenged to make the call because unconsciously we know that none of the other three were the exact right choice.

So, over the past 3 weeks, I have been spending time looking for the exact right choice. I don’t usually take this long to make a decision. For me this feels like a failure, not making a decision. In fact, I would have made a decision already, if the opportunity had not disappeared at the time I was saying yes. This is likely because the universe knew it was not my option ‘E’, it was just better than the other options. Since then I have spoken with mentors, friends, peers, and spent time simply working on things that are my top five. From that has come an awakening to a new perspective on my business. For me, it was relatively sudden and came during meditation. For you, it may be subtle and repeated.

Sometimes we have to ride the wave of confusion and do the work to uncover the options that are not clear at first. If you feel like none of your options will result in an exceptional outcome than you too are likely trying to make a decision without all the information. Go find your option ‘E’.

Postscript

If you were wondering what my ‘awakening’ was, it was that; My business is not the business to grow & sell, it is the business that helps others get to a salable business. My business is me. Focusing on me in my business has never been my goal, but it shows up, over and over. I have had people say, “I want more of you”, “I was hoping to work directly with you”, “are you the one that does this work”, etc. The universe has been trying to tell me this for years and I keep working on building a corporation I can sell wondering why I can create millions of dollars for my clients’ corporations but not for my own. Hmmm, now I see it. Option ‘E’ choice made – Focus on ‘Me’ and my personal service as the product.

 

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You Might Have to Walk Alone

sign pointing in two directions

To up-level and take your friends with you is very difficult as each person has their own view of what their future looks like. It is hard enough to grow and change and keep the same life-partner let alone five. It is also important that we appreciate our friends for who they are and what they mean to us. We don’t go into relationships hoping to change people.

So, as to up-levelling and your inner-five, it is not a goal to get rid of the people around you. You will find that, as you change, some people will not fit with your new views, your new goals, your new connections, your new ideas. You, as a person, will not have changed your core ethics or morals, but you will come at them in a different way. Your friends may not or will not see it that way and you will find yourself sometimes in conflict, sometimes in wonder, and sometimes simply exhausted with the work it takes to explain.

When I was in high school, I had friends that were considered “the cool” people. They were known by most in the high school. I was not cool but they liked me anyway. They also did not aspire to the things I wanted to aspire to. They did not do as well in school and all of them were only focused on grade 12 education. I, on the other hand, was in the academic stream. I loved the sciences and maths, and I did well in them. I was going to grade 13 and university. This made me feel equal to them (I’m not cool, but I am smart). As I started my work in high-tech, my friends and I went our own ways. No one had to say anything nasty or hurtful, we just did our own things independent of each other. We still see each other, and laugh about our shared past, but we don’t work together towards our future goals.

To truly reach a new level that you have not been at before, you must travel with people that want to go there, be welcomed by people that have made the trip, and be understood by people who are open to the idea of the journey required. If your current friends are not willing to walk with you, not already on the path, and not understanding of the possibilities, then you will simply find yourself spending less time with them. No apology required. You are walking different paths in life and that is OK.

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Where Expertise is Born

art-pottery-wheel-hands

You spend a lifetime studying, training, attending lectures, learning, reading, practicing, working, going to conferences, hiring coaches and mentors, and it is not until you make the mistake that you understand the big picture of what you can do. The failure is where true expertise is born.

Experts have experience in their area of focus, but they also know where things go wrong, because they have experienced the failures as well as the successes.

The challenge for so many business owners is to figure out how they can call themselves an expert. I have had so many people say to me, “well I don’t want to sound arrogant” or “I don’t like to talk about myself” or other statements that show they are afraid to admit to their expertise. There are likely one of two reasons for this: 1. They don’t think they have learned enough to be an expert or 2. They don’t feel they have the right to name themselves an expert. It may also be because they know people that are not experts that have given themselves this title and they don’t want to be lumped in with “that type of person”.

The problem is, if you don’t believe you are an expert, no one else will. So to get you started on believing you are the expert at what you do I want you to make a list of your failures. When have you failed and what did you learn from it?

Failure What I learned

Learning is important.
Doing the work is important.
But like the potter who molds the clay into pots and bowls on his pottery wheel, it is the empty space inside the vessel that makes it useful.
You mold your life with all your experiences, but it is your failures that makes your expertise useful to others.

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The Decision Matrix – Making Decisions Easier

Doors_decision

In my book the Entrepreneur Awakening – Making a Move from Employee to Business Owner I describe several rules and tools of decision-making. One tool I use all the time for helping people make any type of decision is the Decision Matrix.

The decision matrix is basically a way to evaluate your choices and their potential effect on your values. You get a score for each decision that will more clearly reflect how you feel about the option and how it may affect your life.

To use this tool, you need to know all of your options and all of the possible outcomes. I recommend you brainstorm ideas with a friend, colleague, or your accountability partners to ensure you get the full picture of what’s available.

The important point to recognize is that the numbers only apply to you and no one else. It is your decision and your outcome.

Start by drawing a table with five or more columns and rows. Down the left side of the matrix are the items that are important you and that will affect your decision. For example:

  • Avoid working on weekends.
  • Must be available to pick up kids when the husband is on shifts.
  • Cannot afford to buy a second car.
  • Pays well

Or other items about your business and your life that will be affected by the decision.

Across the top of the matrix is a list of all your options. When using this type of matrix, you must have more than two options. Look for all of the outcomes that could apply to you so you get a broad understanding of your expectations and your needs. For example:

  • Work from home office for self
  • Work from home office for someone else
  • Commute to city for job

Now we look at how each of your options affects each item that is important to you and rate it out of 10. For example:

“Commute to the city for a job” vs “be available to pick up kids” is likely less valuable to your desired outcome so you would rate it lower.

“Commute to the city for a job” vs “Pays well” is likely more in line with your desired outcome.

Use a higher number for combinations that are more desirable and a lower number for combinations that are less desirable.

Work from home office for self Work from home office for someone else Commute to city for job
Don’t work on weekends 2 4 10
Pick up Kids 10 8 2
Must pay for a second car 10 8 2
Pays well initially 2 7 9
Unlimited potential income 10 1 1
Totals 34 28 24

When you have completed the evaluation you simply need to add up the totals for your options. After doing the tally some options become front-runners and some are easily removed from the list.

This does not make your decision for you, it shows you what you see as valuable and how you rate your options against what is valuable to you in your life. If you still want to take the option that rates the lowest, then you need to justify that choice. When you do, you will likely have another “item that is important to you” to put in your matrix.

Check out my book for another decision tool and the other rules of decision-making.

Entrepreneur Awakening: Making the move from employee to business owner

Entrepreneur Awakening

Making the Move From Employee to Business Owner.

Now on Amazon (also in Kindle format)