“Employees suck.” We have all heard this phrase a million times. Why do we say it? We have either been the employee the boss isn’t ecstatic with or we have hired the employees that we are not super happy with. At the end of the day, a company CAN NOT run without employees. You can get a DBA or LLC and clean windows alone; many people do it. The question is, do you want to be “self-employed or run a business.” They are very different things.
When your first start in this industry, employees are the last thing on your mind. You may think about all the big bucks you are about to make working alone. You also may think, “wow, marketing and branding are so hard. I had no clue it would be this hard to get customers.” As a new business owner, you have a million different things running through your head. You have to start turning down clients or hiring employees at some point. I have always heard it said, “ I can’t wait to work for myself. I will be the best boss I never had.” Then you realize you just quit your 40-hour-a-week job to work 90 hours a week for yourself. It’s tough. We all know it’s tough. I wish there were a “ how-to guide” on running a successful and profitable business.”
Unfortunately, once you step into this game of being an entrepreneur, you have to figure it out on your own through trial and error or find the right people in place that have gone before you and have already done it to help you. Most of those business coaches are not cheap. That is why most businesses fail within the first five years.
We try to do this all independently, and some mistakes are very costly. When it comes to hiring, we try to find the person just out of high school or college. Find people that enjoy doing things after work or people that have hobbies. If they have a passion outside of work, it usually will overflow into their work. This technique does not always work, but it’s a great start. You can post ads on Indeed or other service job engines. When you hire young and motivated employees, you can typically start them out at a reasonable rate and teach them all the proper steps when entering your business. The hard part about hiring is that even with many interviews, many of them either don’t show, show up late, or everything is perfect, and they slide through the interview as their “best self” and end up fooling you in the end. I once trained about 12 techs before they quit on me.
Once you have someone on board, the best advice is to take the time and train slowly. Don’t overflow your new hires with too much information on the first day. Start small and let them learn the basics first. It’s much easier to train them the first time. If you have import guidelines like no smoking or keeping the trucks clean, make sure you get them in the habit early.
When hiring, you have to look at the bigger picture. Many owners think whoever they hire will work for them until the day they die, which is not the case 90 percent of the time. Although it’s nice to allow someone the opportunity to turn a job into a career, you should be happy and respectful if they move on. You should train to have lifetime employees but expect always to be hiring.
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