How to Identify the Right People to Work With in Business
It’ll take more than just yourself to grow your business to the next level. At some point, having talented and passionate partners and employees on board to keep driving your mission forward is necessary, and other times, co-creating with others is just more fun and interesting!
It’s critical that you take the time to bring on the right people because a bad business relationship could cost you a lot of time and money - not to mention major headaches.
In this blog post, we’ll discuss key factors to identifying the right players who are more likely to get on board with your vision and mission.
Why is it so important to get it right?
There is no shortage of real-life stories of broken and jaded business partnerships and employment relationships that ended in not only broken relationships and hurt feelings but in communication breakdowns, major misunderstandings, divorce, broken contracts, lost jobs, defamation, bankruptcies, lawsuits, and even criminal activities such as stealing from customers, embezzlement, and money laundering - to name a few. As an entrepreneur in any industry, if you skip due diligence when you’re bringing partners, employees, or contractors into your organization, you expose yourself to the possibility that any variation of these issues could enter your world. So, never skip due diligence!
The Stakes are HIGH
Even before you bring a new person into your business, you’re likely already incurring significant expenses in recruiting, hiring, and onbording costs - not to mention all of the work involved in hiring or partnering - that’s IF you’re doing your due diligence and know what to look for and what to avoid.
Tangible Costs
The cost of recruiting, hiring, and onboarding a new business partner or employee can be as much as $240,000, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. These tangible costs can be relatively easily calculated. These expenses add up quickly and often include:
Recruitment fees
On-boarding costs
Salary & Benefits
Training costs
Equipment
This is why many large-scale organizations hire in-house recruiters or outsource hiring to a professional recruiting firm - because they recognize that the stakes are HIGH and that an error in this area is both expensive and frustrating. If you’re running a small business, these options likely aren’t feasible for you, however, the stakes are just as high - if not even more-so - because most small businesses aren’t in a position to survive most of the employment and business breakdowns listed above.
“When it comes to bringing someone onto your team as a small business, the stakes are extremely high - you should take it very seriously.”
Intangible Costs
If you’re searching for a partner or hiring employees within the context of your own small business, you must also consider the intangible costs associated with building a very specific type of relationship known as a “business partnership” or “employment relationship.”
Your intangible costs are those you’re going to pay for with your time, energy, effort and other non-monetary resources. You won’t be able to calculate these costs with dollar signs, but you’ll most certainly feel the pressure of these costs adding up - especially if you bring an unqualified or dishonest person into your business as a partner, employee, or contractor - it can literally cost you your business - but before it does that - it’ll cost you your sanity. So it’s important to take the founding of a business partnership or employment relationship very seriously by first understanding what’s at stake and then doing your due diligence - up front.
Some intangible costs include:
Emotional Labor is inherent in the process of building any type of relationship - it takes work to find, connect with, and vet any particular person to determine if they could be a good fit for you and your organization all of which is necessary before you even start relationship building,
Time and effort spent on building out a position and a clear job description,
Time and effort spent on growing the person in the role - and the role itself,
Time and effort spent on refining the employee over time based on performance objectives for the role - and for your organization,
Retention costs
Attrition costs
Lost productivity, both during the time a position is vacant and during the time it takes a new employee to get up to speed
Tainted talent pool, in the case an employee's departure causes other employees to leave
Lost knowledge
So by now, it should be clear that it’s important to look beyond skills, education, and work history and find employees who also embrace less tangible principles and characteristics that you value within your organization - such as respect, loyalty, commitment, adaptation, and appreciation, among other qualities. This way, you can keep employee retention rates high, hiring costs low, and headaches to a minimum.
Primary Assessment Factors
When you’re looking for someone to partner with in your business, prioritize looking for these factors in your assessment of a prospective business partner, employee, or contractor:
Attitude
Values Alignment
Genuine Buy-in (on your business vision & mission)
Business Mindset
Work Ethic & Self-Discipline
Personal Ethics
Communication Skills
Relationships / Network
Past Performance / Track Record
Secondary Assessment Factors
Skills / Ability to “hit the ground running”
Education / Where they went to school
Professional Awards & Accolades
Financial Standing / Investment capability (if applicable)
What they describe as their strengths
Physical Appearance
Notice here that the primary assessment factors tend to be more intangible than the secondary factors. In this sense, you will not be able to make an appropriate assessment of these factors in another person without spending time in intentional relationship building with the purpose of vetting the individual for the role or position you’d like to consider them for.
In addition, notice that if you are unclear on what each of these factors are for yourself, and how they show up in your business, you will not be ready or able to conduct a full due-diligence assessment on a potential business partnership or employment prospect.
What do you need to get clear on within yourself, and within your business, in preparation to invite a highly talented individual into your operation to add value to you, your clients, and your business mission and vision? Join us for Unf*ckYour Mindset Friday at 12:30pm EST on February 25th where we’ll discuss in more detail and help you unpack this further so that you never miss out on an opportunity to partner with or hire amazing people in your business and so you’ll be able to avoid the most catastrophic employment relationship situations that are not uncommon in the business world.
Stay Edgy-
Coach Oriana Guevára, MHR, MBA
Co-Founder, The Edgy Entrepreneur
© Edgy Entrepreneur, LLC. • 51 E. Jefferson St. #3292, Orlando, FL 32802 • www.edgyentrepreneurs.com
