Lessons

Lesson Info

Class Introduction

This is another class in our build a standout business series, and in this class we're gonna tackle a really, what might feel like kind of an advanced subject, but what I'm going to teach you is that this idea of hiring is actually foundational to the way you set up your business, and the reason for that is simply that no matter how long you've been in business, whether it's been a month, whether it's been six months, whether it's been a year, six years, a decade, you're probably at a place where you feel like you're running out of the time and sanity even that you need to run your business, let alone grow your business, let alone go out and reach the goals that you have for yourself, those to do lists get longer and longer and longer and the days seem to get shorter and shorter and shorter, right? That's sort of the universal experience of running and starting a business, and what we're gonna tackle over the next two days, over the next eight segments is really a way of recalibrating ...

with all of that. It's not actually about hiring at all. Don't worry, we're going to get into the nitty gritty of hiring, but the basis of this is not about hiring, it's about discovering a new role for yourself, it's about discovering a new way you wanna run your business. It's about discovering a new vision for your business and how that's gonna actually help you meet your goal. So now I know you guys are all in on this hiring plan thing but if you out there are watching and you're here because you're curious but you're not sold on this whole hiring thing yet, you're here because you just wanna check it out, you heard about this cool new thing, you saw this live broadcast and you're like yeah, I'll check it out. I have a challenge to you: stick with me for just the first 90 minutes, just this first segment here because over the next 90 minutes I'm going to unpack the number one reason hiring is a big problem for small business owners. We're gonna have a really frank discussion here. This whole segment is gonna be really different from what you've seen from me here on Creative Live in the past. I'm gonna share a lot of really personal stuff, I hope these guys share a lot of really personal stuff so that's a challenge to all of you. They've come prepared. Because it's not about the paperwork, the money, or the legal issues. Those aren't the real reasons you're not hiring people. Those are the reasons people give me that they're not hiring people. When I ask my CoCommercial community, when I ask people like you, what are the reasons, what are your biggest fears about hiring? Why aren't you hiring someone to help you with that massively long to do list? That's what they tell me, you know, there's a lot of paperwork, there's a lot of management, I'm afraid of committing the money, I'm afraid of all the legal entanglements I have to get into when I hire an employee or when I hire a contractor. That's not the real reason you hesitate when it comes to hiring. The real reason is something a whole lot bigger than that. That's your teaser, we're gonna get to that in just a few minutes, we have a little more housekeeping to do ahead of time, but that's what we're gonna be talking about in this very first segment so as I said if you're curious but you're not sold on this whole hiring thing yet, please just stick with me for this first 90 minute segment, and I'm gonna show you why getting your business ready to hire, why making sure your business is taking care of employee number one, that's you, is gonna transform the way you do business, whether you actually decide to hire next week, next month, next year, or next decade, or never! Getting your business ready to hire is gonna make it so much easier to run your business whether you decide to hire or not. That's our whole thesis for this class, and really, this class is not a class. This is a campfire conversation. (laughs) As I said I'm doing something completely different with this class than what I've done in the past, I'm actually a little nervous about it so bear with me here. But what I've actually done is kind of create a guided discussion throughout the next two days. As I said we are gonna get into a lot of the nitty gritty around interviewing and evaluating candidates and creating your hiring budget and figuring all those things out but we're also gonna dive deep below the surface and address a lot of the mindset issues, a lot of the vision issues, a lot of the goal issues that keep you from moving forward with your business in the most effective, efficient way possible. So I'm gonna actually go ahead and take a seat so that we can kind of start setting, this is very weird for me, (laughs) so we can start setting the stage for this group discussion but I do, like I said, have a couple more housekeeping things before we get into that discussion. First of all this class is, this retreat, this campfire discussion is perfect for you if you've struggled to push past a ceiling in your business. Again that ceiling might have occurred after the first month, that first client, maybe you're having problems pushing past that first client, but much more likely it's happened maybe at month six or at the year mark or at the two year mark, and I see this with all sorts of different business owners and in all sorts of different stages and with all sorts of different goals. They run into that place that they just can't push past, and one of the big reasons for that are these kind of foundational issues that we're going to address on the path to actually talking about hiring for your business. This class is also perfect for you if you find yourself exhausted or heading in the direction of feeling exhausted. How many of you does that kind of resonate with? You're feeling real tired or you can see the burnout coming. Yes, that's pretty much everybody except for the couple of employees that we have in the class. Awesome! Good work us (laughs). Yes, so I mean exhaustion, it shouldn't be but it sort of is again a universal experience for founders and entrepreneurs, freelancers, small business owners and we're gonna address why that is and how we can turn that around. Again, whether you actually decide to hire or not. This class is also perfect for you if you worry that delegating is just another task on your to-do list, and this is one I hear all the time, that the process of actually bringing someone onboard, getting help, getting support, actually creates a bigger mental burden, a bigger time suck than just continuing to do the work yourself. It should not be that way, it does not need to be that way, I'm gonna show you how to reorganize the way you think about things, the way you give people the work that they need to do, how you get them to take responsibility for it, so if that's you, if you're thinking oh god, delegation, management, na! You're in the right place. And finally, this class is perfect for you if your goals seem bigger than your personal capacity. One of the things we're gonna talk about in this very first segment is how our goals have changed. Again, over months, over years, over the decades, all of our goals evolve as we get new information, as we learn what more is possible. My goals have changed an incredible amount over the last mere decade I've been in business and one of the ways that I've had to reconcile the reasons I wasn't hitting some of the goals that I had was realizing that my personal capacity wasn't big enough to hit those goals, and you know what? That's a good thing. I want my goals to be bigger than my personal capacity. I want to build something that's bigger than me and if that's what allows me to hit my bigger goals then that's what I'm going to invest in, that's what I'm gonna do. So we're gonna talk through all of that. So by the end of this class, you're gonna identify a new operational vision for your business, in other words, you're gonna see the company that you're building for what it really is instead of what you used to think you need to do. You're personally going to occupy a whole new role within your company. We're gonna shift your identity as it relates to your business and we're gonna do that this morning, we're gonna get into that in the next segment with one of our guest experts and we're gonna really unpack how you think about your relationship to your business and what that allows you to accomplish as a business owner. By the end of this class you're gonna design your ideal team, your dream team for your business. Doesn't mean you have to hire them all tomorrow but you should know who is on your dream team. If you can keep your eye out for them, and so that you understand when you're performing their job and when you're performing your job, until you do hire them. By the end of this class you're also gonna remove yourself as the bottleneck. So remember when I was talking about how delegation can seem like just another task on the to-do list? We're gonna get away from that so that you can see how other people can actually support you without creating a burden for you. And then finally by the end of this class, you're gonna plan for hiring your first or maybe your next team member and your next, and your next, and your next, and your next. But don't wanna intimidate you, don't wanna get ahead of ourself. Let's take a look at the whole plan for this two-day class. Our first day is really about the foundations. Really about getting your business ready to hire. If you hire before this stuff gets done, you're gonna feel more exhausted, more burnt out, more stressed, all those negative things we're trying to avoid, and if you've hired in the past and it hasn't worked out, how many of you have hired in the past and just has not worked out? Yeah, like okay, that's like two third of you, excellent, good, we'll talk about that. You don't have to name names. (laughs) If you've hired in the past and it hasn't worked out it's probably because you haven't gotten those foundations right. It's because you actually haven't readied your business for bringing more people onboard, and we're gonna talk about why that is. But throughout this first day here we're gonna reexamine your goals and your vision, we're gonna look at the progression and we're gonna notice where things just haven't lined up. We're gonna design your ideal team, we're gonna develop your company culture, maybe something you've never really considered before in your company of one or maybe two or three that you need to have a company culture, but you absolutely do. The more time you spend on that, the better the work environment is for you and the better the work environment is for them and everybody is able to make more decisions more independently. And then finally we're gonna discover your business systems and how you can kind of navigate that whole process. On day two we're gonna prepare to hire financially, we're gonna identify that first hire you're gonna make or your next hire, we're gonna write a job description, we're gonna interview candidates, I mean we're not actually gonna interview candidates but you will be doing a mock interview, that'll be very exciting. We're gonna onboard new hires, and we're going to evaluate performance and manage performance, which is probably one of the scariest parts of hiring, right? And don't worry, we've got a guest expert for that, too, we've also got a legal guest expert. You guys are gonna be able to ask questions of so we have tried to cover the whole realm of scary things that are involved in hiring so that you again, whether you decide to actually take the step of bringing on a team member, you're gonna feel like you've got the bases covered, that your business is ready, and that when it's time and you'll know when it's time, you're gonna be on it. There won't be any procrastination, there won't be any hesitation, you'll be able to say yep, it's now. Now I've talked a lot without telling you who I am. These guys know who I am but you, out there may not. My name is Tara Gentile, I have been a small business owner since 2009 which seems like a really long time ago now, I'm the founder of CoCommercial which is your small business brain trust, we're a fluff-free social network for small business owners and I'll tell you more about that as we go on because we're providing some additional support there for a lot of these big-picture questions that are gonna take you some time to wrestle with. I'm also the host of Profit Power Pursuit which is a podcast about the nitty gritty of running a successful small company that I co produce here with the folks at Creative Live, and on a personal note, I have a goal of visiting all 59 national parks by 2027, this is my partner Shaun and I at Denali National Park in August, oh my gosh. If you can get to Denali, get to Denali, it is amazing. Alright, without further ado, let's actually get to the business of readying your business for hiring people. You guys ready? Yes. Oh, I like the energy here today, this is very exciting!