Where Did All of the Employees Go?

My wife recently took our 9-year old, Ava, to Orlando for a National Dance Competition. 

One thing she wanted to make sure that I did (other than keep the other kids alive) was to water her flowers.  They have been struggling all summer and needed extra care.

I wanted to ease her worry and stress.

“Sarah, don’t even think about those flowers while you are gone.  Don’t let them stress you out one bit.  Because when you get back, they will most definitely be dead.”

And I held to my word too.

I wasn’t a very good “employee”.

Many of the small business owners I am working with have the same problem with finding and keeping good employees. 

I wish I had a magic wand, however, with the unemployment rate of approximately 4% nationwide and 2.8% locally, there’s not much to choose from.

With that in mind, here are a few recruiting and hiring tips you may not be using.

Job description
Write a super clear and non-buzzwordy job description.

Every job description out there says something about teamwork, communication skills, ability to prioritize, blah, blah, blah.

While those things are important, EVERY JOB DESCRIPTION says just that, whether it’s for a CEO or porta-potty guy (no offense porta-potty guy.) 

Make sure the job description clearly lays out what the employee will be doing on a daily basis and what goals you have for them.

Recruitment
Be willing to turn over some rocks.  There are a lot of really good under-employed people out there waiting for you to find them.

• Ask for referrals from existing employees
• Look at existing employees in the service sector (restaurants, customer service reps, etc.)
• Ask friends and family about folks that are looking for a change

Phone Interviews
This is the easiest thing in the world to do, to narrow your candidate pool.  You will be surprised, and not in a good way, at how many people can disqualify themselves here.

• Keep it short and sweet
• Discuss salary and hours
• Ask everyone the same questions

In-person Interview
After the phone interview, you should only have to interview 3-4 people.

Ask behavioral style questions, i.e. “tell me about a time when you handled a stressful situation at your last job”, not “how do you handle stress.”

And don’t ask the following:
• Are you married?
• Do you have kids?
• What’s your religion or do you celebrate religious holidays?
• Are you pregnant?
• What’s your race/nationality?
• What’s your sexual preference?
• How old are you?
• Do you have any disabilities or health problems?
• Do you use drugs, alcohol or smoke?

You can ask
• Reason for leaving prior employment
• Perceived strengths and weaknesses
• Reasons for wanting to be employed with the company
• Work attitude and work ethic
• Background training and experience
• References from prior employers and info on how to contact
• Prior Education
• Do you currently use illegal drugs?
• Meet work hours and schedule

On-boarding
Once you hire this new employee, be sure to train them for an appropriate amount of time and have a 30-day and 90-day review. 

Yes, there will be some folks who tell you that is not needed or opens the door to trouble later (you fire them after giving them a good review), however it helps you and the employee know what is working and what could be improved on now, instead of you blindsiding them later when they don’t meet expectations.

And if you have any flowers that you like to donate, please be sure to drop them off at the TSBDC:).

Quit Wasting Your Will Power and Get More Done!

I’ve noticed a common theme among the business owners that seem to plateau.  

They get to a certain level and never seem to break through.  

It could be the economy, competition, or lack of skilled workers.

However, I think it is something much simpler.

The will power the small business owner has to break out of their comfort zone and to do the next thing necessary so that they may take their business to the next level.

We often think of willpower as this endless resource that keeps our fitness in check, but it really seems to be a depletable resource that we squander each day.

Some of the earliest evidence of this effect came from the lab of Roy Baumeister. 

In one early study, he brought subjects into a room filled with the aroma of fresh-baked cookies. 

The table before them held a plate of the cookies and a bowl of radishes. Some subjects were asked to sample the cookies, while others were asked to eat the radishes. 

Afterward, they were given 30 minutes to complete a difficult geometric puzzle.

Baumeister and his colleagues found that people who ate radishes (and therefore resisted the yummy cookies) gave up on the puzzle after about 8 minutes, while the lucky cookie-eaters persevered for nearly 19 minutes, on average. 

Drawing on willpower to resist the cookies, it seemed, drained the subjects’ self-control for subsequent situations.

This is the same reason most grocery stores will arrange their layout where you buy your fruits and veggies first and ice cream and junk food last.  You have already depleted your willpower buying carrots and kale, so you feel like you’ve been good and deserve a little cookies-n-cream.

And no, this does not mean eating cookies and ice cream will make you a millionaire:).

If your willpower is something that can get used up, you need to reserve it for your most important tasks.

Don’t:

• Check your email first thing in the morning.  It is important, but not a priority.
• Wait until the end of the day to tackle a hard task.  Knock it out first thing in the morning, i.e. eat that frog.  If you don’t know what that means you should Google it.
• Deal with a lot of basic data processing tasks or errand running in the first half of your day.  

Do:

• Automate routine decisions, so you don’t waste willpower on it.  For example, Steve Jobs (yes, I’m sick of talking about him too) only wore a black turtleneck and blue jeans, he didn’t have to think about what he was going to wear.
• Block out 90-minute segments early in your day to make important decisions that will grow your business.
• Do your marketing and sales activities early in the week, because as the week eats away at your willpower, those sales call scheduled for Thursday will get moved to next week.

If you don’t start saving your willpower for the highest priority items in your business, you will be stuck eating radishes for a long time.

11 Things I Have Learned In 11 Years at the TSBDC

I started my Tennessee Small Business Development Center career on March 27^th, 2007. 

I provide free one-on-one business consulting and get to teach workshops for small business owners too.

Calling this job rewarding is an understatement.

I’ve seen the highs and lows of the economy and I’ve seen businesses come and go.

And I also learn something new, EVERY SINGLE DAY.

With that said, below are 11 things I have learned in 11 years.

1. You always have to start with a goal.  Trying to improve a situation is pointless without a goal because you won’t know what you are striving for and what steps are needed to get there.
2. Business plans are overrated by people that think they need one to even take step one in their business.  Business plans are underrated by people that think they should just fly by the seat of their pants and not document anything.
3. If you don’t have a target market you don’t have a business.  If everybody is your target then will get nobody.
4. Businesses that don’t have a distinct competitive difference are in trouble.  If you can’t tell your potential customer the difference between your business and your top competitor, your potential customer will not have a reason to use you.
5. Joining the Chamber of Commerce can be very beneficial for your business, if you are active in the chamber and make an effort to get to know people.
6. Business owners that read books make more money than business owners that don’t read books.
7. Nobody can find that awesome $10-$20/hour person right now.  I think we quit making them.
8. Don’t hire salespeople if you can’t personally sell and if you won’t train them.  That is setting someone up to fail.
9. Successful business owners really understand their financial statements.  And they outsource their bookkeeping or hire someone to do it.
10. I always ask someone that wants to start a business to attend a Starting a Small Business Workshop.  There I will answer most of their questions and then they will probably have 20 more questions that will pop up.
11. You MUST create a good culture if you have employees.  Untrained employees that you don’t engage regularly will kill your business.  

That’s just 11.  There are probably forty-eleven more (yes, that’s a number I made up) that could be added to the list.

Feel free to add any you would like to add in the comments section.

Daddy, will you read me a story?

It was late, and I was exhausted.

It had been a long day. 

I made breakfast, packed lunches, worked, exercised, dropped off and pick up for dance and gymnastics, made supper, cleaned dishes, picked up EVERYTHING off the floor, etc. 

Now Lilly looked up at me with her big brown eyes and asked for one more thing, “Daddy, will you read me a story?”

Ugh.  Yep.  One more thing.

I was very tempted to tell her I would tomorrow night, because Daddy just couldn’t tonight.

But, my wife and I had made a commitment to read a story to the children every night with very few exceptions.

So I put on a weary grin and said, “Of course pumpkin.  How about Llama Llama Red Pajama?”  I knew it was a short book.

She was thrilled and it only took 5 minutes.

This is a priority in my family. 

A keystone priority.

But why? 

It’s not like reading a short book each night will be life-changing, right? 

Because we feel like reading to our children at bedtime makes a difference.

While I would like to pretend to be the perfect Dad, I’m not close. 

My nerves get shot, I get impatient, and sometimes I really don’t want to pretend to be excited because Lane drew a picture of the dog…again.

However, a book each night, lets us end the day on a good note, no matter what happened that day. 

This priority makes sure they go to bed happy, which means they wake up happy.  Not to mention this priority makes sure we spend one-on-one with them with the educational benefits.

As a result, we have happier children that read a grade level above most kids.

So what does a Llama in pajamas have to do with your business?

The really successful business owners I work with, know that having just a few keystone priorities in their business is what really matters.

Throughout each day you have your own version of things that make you exhausted.

Emails, upset customers, missing employees, late shipments, marketing, networking events, sending invoices, collecting late payments, etc.

With all of that, do you have one or two keystone priorities that you really focus on? 

Are there one or two keystone priorities that will make everything else work, regardless of the trivial events of the day?

Take Alcoa for example (from The Power of Habit):

When Paul O’Neill took over Alcoa in 1987, he shocked investors and the board of directors with his decision to focus on one keystone priority - safety.  Not a new product line and not implementing Six Sigma.  Just safety.

But what O’Neill realized is that focusing on the company’s new keystone priority of safety would cause a trickle-down effect to the bottom line.  If employees work more safely, there are fewer injuries and production slowdowns resulting in improved productivity.

This gave the slumping Alcoa, record profits in 1988 and someone who invested a million dollars in Alcoa on the day O’Neill was hired would have earned another million dollars in dividends while he headed the company, and the value of their stock would be five times bigger when he left!

So, what is your keystone priority?

What is the one thing, which if done correctly, will make everything else fall into place?

As for me, I continue our nightly reading ritual and hoping for some new Llama Llama books to come our way soon.

Does Your Business Have a Love Life?

Let’s face it.

People start businesses for a variety of reasons.

You can follow your passion, make a difference, have independence, and go to work in your pj’s. 

However, the goal of a business is primarily one thing.

MAKE. MORE. MONEY!  

And more importantly, a profit.

In order to do that, you need good relationships.

Since Valentine’s Day is lurking around the corner (waiting to take all my profit), I thought it would be appropriate to look at relationships and profit.

There are three primary ways to make more of a profit, and it is more about relationships than it is accounting.

   1.  Lower expenses with great business relationships.

• Lease – Gotten to know your landlord?  Good.  If you are comfortable where you are, the landlord may be willing to offer you a lower rate to lock you in a lease over the next few years.  Especially if you have developed a good relationship with them.
• Vendor discounts – Most vendors will offer a 1% – 5% discount for paying within a certain period of time.  If you have gotten to know your vendor, they may do better than that.
• Insurance – Most business owners don’t really have a relationship with their insurance agent.  You should review what is necessary in your policy, consider raising your premiums, and don’t be afraid to shop with an independent agent with whom you have established a relationship.

 
   2.  Get more business with relationship marketing.

• Partner with another business in a different industry that has similar customers and send each other referrals.
• Call existing clients and ask for more work or referrals.
• Offer to do any type of speech or seminar on a specific topic (not a sales pitch) for free.
• If you are networking and prospecting, do it several times a month.  Not once in a while as you have time.  Also, make it a point to identify other people you want to work with and give them a reason to want to work with you.  

 
   3.  Sell old assets quickly to raise capital using existing relationships.         

• Do you have an old piece of equipment just laying around, not generating revenue?  Sell it to another business that you have gotten to know. And yes, you should check with your accountant before selling anything to check on the tax implicaitons.

What Did the TSBDC at Vol State do in 2017?

One-on-one advising and training get some pretty good results.

Find out how you can get the same results at www.tsbdc.org.

Andrew Finney, owner of Perkins Drugs, wins 2017 TSBDC Rising Star Award and SBA Rural Owned Business of the Year!

Andrew Finney of Perkins Drugs in Gallatin has been named the 2017 Rising Star by the Tennessee Small Business Development Center at Volunteer State Community College.

The pharmacy has also been honored as the Small Business Administration Tennessee Rural Owned Business of the Year.

The Rising Star Award goes to a small business that has had great success utilizing TSBDC resources. Finney became co-owner of the pharmacy, along with state Sen. Ferrell Haile and Sam Rickman, in 2009.  In 2012 he became the full owner and has since grown the business by 30 percent, hired multiple employees, and is currently building a second location in Gallatin.  

“The business goes back to 1895,” said Sen. Haile. “We were approached by chains to sell, but that wasn’t the direction we wanted to go. Sam and I were looking for someone who would be loyal to the heritage of Perkins Drugs.”

Haile and Rickman approached Finney, a recent University of Tennessee pharmacy school graduate, about taking over the business. Finney soon realized he needed help with business planning.

“Andrew was one of my very first clients at the TSBDC at Volunteer State Community College,” said local director Charles Alexander. “I’ll have to say he spoiled me, because I just assumed everybody would be as driven and as passionate as he is. Andrew has embodied what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur with his hard work, focus, and the way he treats people. Everyone that knows him, loves him and I can’t think of anyone more deserving of this award.”

“The TSBDC was the first step towards thinking through the process of buying into the business,” Finney said. “They provided me with invaluable counseling and education.”

Finney graduated from Vol State in 2000 with an associate of science degree. He serves on the foundation's Board of Trustees.

In 2016 the TSBDC at Vol State worked with 186 small businesses and clients, offering free and low-cost classes, and counseling and helped launch 18 new business. In all, the projects raised more than $2.2 million in capital and created or retained 129 jobs.

For more information and a list of classes contact Charles Alexander at Charles.alexander@volstate.edu or call 615-230-4780.