Summary: In today’s podcast episode, Stephen Halasnik and Frank Riordan discuss their experience with hiring employees at scale and cultivating company culture. When it comes to running a business, it’s important to be able to have a plan and execute it reliably. Having the right team behind you can help put your plan into action, accelerate your company’s growth, and allow you to scale your small business or startup. However, finding the right people for new positions to hire isn’t always an easy task, and sometimes it’s hard to know when you actually need to fill job openings in the first place. It is crucial to have a clear vision of how you want your company’s workforce to look, feel, and act as your company expands.

Living with Unknowns

There are three things a business owner must be able to weather in order to be successful. The first is to be able to live with the unknown. The second is to accept luck as a factor in your business. The third is staffing the right people. Whether your company is preparing for an expansion or bracing for a recession, you need to be cognizant of certain pitfalls that you can fall into as a future manager. One of these things, which is especially hard for many first-time entrepreneurs to understand, is dealing with ambiguity.

Nothing in the world of business is ever absolute, it is all about taking calculated risks. Whether you are creating a new product line, pivoting your company’s service, or hiring a new employee or team, decisions have to be made with a certain degree of unknown. When you are hiring, you want to be sure to give yourself the most certainty you can when it comes to sourcing and picking a candidate for the new job.

90% of the people you interview will not have a significant impact on your company. This means you have to be extremely meticulous during the interview process, ask the right questions, and find the 10% of people that are willing to do the work that needs to be done for you with passion and enthusiasm. You want to hire job seekers that will stick with you in the long run and increase your employee retention and decrease your employee turnover.

How to Hire the Right People

Systems are an important part of any successful business, and this extends to the hiring process as well. Focusing on the hiring process and onboarding is crucial to any business’ expansion. Successful business owners must also be exceptional recruiters and hiring managers. Most employees lack the discipline to focus on the job at hand, and it is up to you to find the people who do. Before you can even begin to consider bringing new people on, you first need to establish what you want your company culture to look like. This is no easy task, and requires a lot of self-reflection and listening to your clients and customers. Deciding what core values your company wants to reflect allows you to create better systems for training, create and grow your company’s brand, and find the best candidates to support your vision. Hiring and training employees to share your company’s values will allow you to create an image of what your consumers can expect with your products and services. An average company hires average people. An exceptional company hires exceptional people. Do not settle for the first job candidate on job board sites like LinkedIn or Glassdoor; someone who can just get the job done. Find the potential employees who will excel at what they do and reflect the core values of your business. At the end of the day, you are a company of people first. Your company culture becomes your advantage which becomes your tagline. Make sure your job posting description is also well detailed and accurate, so your potential employee knows what they are getting into.

The System of Employment

Once you hire the right full-time or part-time employees, you then need to cultivate them into a productive, well-oiled machine. The larger the team you have, the larger the bureaucracy you create. This is why it is important to create effective job training and candidate experiences. It is equally as important to have a good understanding of which of your current employees will excel at managing the people you can’t look over the shoulder of every day.

You want to make sure you hire smart and place smarter. This comes back to the idea of having a strategic plan in place for your business. Having a one-page plan that your business operates on and revolves around is the key to creating a business that scales. It also helps you analyze what approaches you may be taking that are working and some that may not work as well.

Pineapple on pizza may be yummy for some but disgusting to others and approaches to your business work the same way. That is why it is important to listen to your new hire and their ideas, and decide how to properly execute your company’s values with the help you have. Have metrics in place to measure exactly how well your employees are performing, while giving your employees the autonomy they need to go above and beyond your expectations. Allow them to gain drive, mastery, and purpose within your business. Open positions in higher parts of your company and entice your current employees with job offers and enticing job descriptions.  It is through this method that your employees will reach their full potential and ultimately make your business stronger.

About the Guest, Frank Riordan, DMC

Frank Riordan founded DMC, a project-based engineering solutions and software development firm, in 1996.  DMC develops and implements solutions for a wide range of industries using a variety of technologies and platforms. It grew from the first two employees in Chicago to nearly two hundred employees and several offices around the country. Since the company’s inception, Frank’s guiding motivation has been, “What can I do to help everyone at DMC reach their potential?”

About The Host Stephen Halasnik, Financing Solutions

Stephen Halasnik is the host of the popular, The Entrepreneur MBA Podcast. The Entrepreneur MBA podcast’s purpose is to help small businesses get over the $10 million per year in revenue mark. Mr. Halasnik is the Co-founder and Managing Partner of Financing Solutions. Financing Solutions is a leading provider of Lines of Credit to small businesses and nonprofits

Mr. Halasnik is a graduate of Rutgers University and has an Executive Masters from the MIT Birthing of Giants Entrepreneurship program.Mr. Halasnik has started and built 6 companies over 25+ years with 2 of those businesses making the Inc 500/5000 fastest growing list. Mr. Halasnik is a best selling Amazon author on business and regularly tweets about his ideas about growing a business. You can also find Mr. Halasnik on youtube talking about Entrepreneurship.

Mr. Halasnik loves small business. He lives in New Jersey with his best friend, his wife Gina. Mr. Halasnik’s number one purpose is raising his two boys, Michael and Maxwell, to be good men.

About Financing Solutions

Financing Solutions provides an easy-to-setup unsecured business line of credit to small businesses. The small business financing product is a great cash backup plan that costs nothing to set up, nothing until used, and is inexpensive when needed. Financing Solutions is rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and 5 stars by the BBB/Google Reviews.

Unlike a traditional business bank loan, our business credit line requires no collateral or personal guarantee (except in cases of fraud) making it an excellent alternative business financing option. Small businesses often used their line of credit for short-term expenses, working capital, to make payroll, or for a business investment especially when business cash flow is temporarily down.

Get a free, no-obligation business line of credit quote by filling out our simple 2- minute business line of credit application here.

Remember: The time to set up a credit line is when you don’t need it.

Note: Financing Solutions donates 10% of its profits to various nonprofit charities