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The most important thing when you’re building a business

What do successful businesses have in common? Their employees, vendors, partners and consultants aren’t just good – or great – workers. No, these businesses only hire “superstar” employees. As Mark Ford explains this week, it’s the best and easiest way to start a business or grow it. So whether you’re looking to hire the best employees or become one yourself, read on to learn what makes a superstar employee…

The most important thing when you’re building a business

By Mark Ford

Of all the many things I’ve learned about being successful in business, the most important lesson came very late in my career.

It was not only a primary reason for the money I made but also a big factor in the enjoyment I got from business.

And it will also be the reason I will finally be able to make money in retirement, working four hours a week.

I’m talking about people – the people you pay to help you run your business.

What I’m about to say applies to every relationship of that kind: employees, vendors, partners and consultants.

This also applies to businesses of every size, from Fortune 500 companies to single-employee startups.

Management is an important aspect of business, and learning how to manage people is an important skill. But 100 times more important is the skill of finding and hiring a special brand of employee.

And the secret – the biggest secret – in making any business successful is to employ as many superstar people as possible.

The word superstar means many things to many people. I’m using it in a very specific sense: to define the kind of person who can supercharge your business’s growth. I don’t just mean someone who is very smart, hardworking and does a great job.

In trying to explain this concept in the past, I’ve sometimes suggested that business owners should rank their employees in four categories: bad, pretty good, very good and superstar.

It isn’t hard to identify the bad, pretty good and very good people. And it isn’t hard to understand that you should get rid of bad employees and do what you can to make the pretty good employees very good.

But what I’ve found difficult is explaining the difference between the very good employee and the superstar.

Think about the people who work or have ever worked for you. How many of them were superstars? You are lucky if you can count more than a handful.

Finding a superstar is not easy. But I can tell you this from experience. If you find one, you will know it. And if you let that person become the employee he wants to be, he will make you rich.

I’m not saying that you should seek to hire only superstars. That would be impossible. But if you could populate your business with 90 percent very good people and 10 percent superstars, your success would be all but guaranteed.

Let’s consider some of the differences between hiring good employees (both pretty good and also very good) and superstars:

Good employees…

  • Need help in understanding the scope and depth of their responsibilities. You need to define what it is you want them to do.

  • Need training to develop into the employees you want them to be. You need to teach them how the business really works and the skills they need.

  • Need constant and consistent feedback. They need encouragement and incentives in order to stay motivated, and they need negative sanctions when they fail to do their jobs.

  • Need help sorting out problems – particularly problems that are new to them.

  • Need someone to monitor and manage their workloads. They get stressed out if they are asked to do more than they can.

Superstar employees…

  • Do not need their jobs defined in terms of scope and depth because superstars have no interest in jobs with limits. They want the ability to grow quickly and take on more responsibility as they progress.

  • Require encouragement, a bit of mentorship and freedom, but not training per se. With a bit of direction, they can figure out how to train themselves.

  • Need feedback but not on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis. They will be grateful for your advice when you give it. But if you don’t give it, they will come to you and get from you what they need.

  • Need no help with being “overloaded” because they thrive on challenge and seek as much “load” as you can give them. If and when they get in over their heads, they will figure out a solution and come to you with it already worked out.

I am just covering the surface here. There are a hundred other ways that superstars distinguish themselves.

The bottom line is this: The best and easiest way to start a business or grow it is to hire superstars. If you make a practice of this in your business, it will grow faster and larger than you could possibly have achieved on your own working with “good” employees.

And as an added bonus, when you are ready to retire (sort of), you can let your superstars run your business(es) for you. You can come in once a week for four hours, chat with them and go home with a big fat check.

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