There are three key components of a successful business. Just three. They’re
1. a great idea;
2. great team of employees to turn the idea into a product or service and
3. great marketing and selling [creating demand and delivering the goods to eager customers].
Where a business fails to recognize the power of these three distinct components in creating profit, that business will struggle in the marketplace until it dies. And when I say business, I mean practically any type of business, large or small.
I don’t care if you are a multi-national business or a small husband and wife business, when one of these components starts to malfunction in your business, you’d better rush to the theatre and do a quick surgical operation on it to remove the cancerous growth.
Here, I’m going to confine myself to the second component which is about employee management.
Like any other thing that works, managing employees effectively to get maximum results is an art that needs to be learned. There are principles [I call them secrets because until you know them, they are hidden from you] that a business owner must know and operate with. Remember, if it works, somebody is working it, and that somebody is relying on proven, time-tested strategies or principles that a business owner must know and operate. So, here is…
Secret No. 1:
Recognize The Important Role People Play In The Success Of A Business
There is a rapid change going on in the workplace today. The buzzword is automation. Computers are doing many of the jobs that human beings used to do in the past. Yet, when you trace it to the end of the line or the beginning of it, you still find that a human being is involved.
The difference is that instead of 10 or 15 people carrying out a task, just one man and a computer may now be required to do it. What this means is that there is always human involvement in the process of creating ideas that will sell in the marketplace, producing them, and delivering them to the hands of the customer.
I do not foresee a future where man will be eliminated from the chain that starts with an idea and ends with a sale. Therefore, people will always play important roles in ensuring that businesses succeed. And if that is the case, you see why recognizing this fact is an important secret. And this leads to …
SecretNo.2:
For Every Job, Hire The Best Person To Do It
If you’re cash-strapped (as I was) when launching your business, you may be excused for making your townsman the circulation manager, your sister the marketing/business development manager, your cousin the circulation driver, and your brothers and sisters-in-law your accounting and sales officers.
These were the people I turned to for help in order to turn my dream of financial freedom into reality back in November 1984. But don’t count on these people growing the business into maturity from start-up, unless they can develop themselves to the standard of doing an excellent job.
So except in an unusual situation such as I was faced with when I went solo, you should carefully select your workforce. The success of your business rests squarely on their shoulders. If they do a good job, your business will be profitable. If they do a lousy job, the return on your investment will be lousier.
Today, you see some business owners who are not confronted with the same situation I described above giving job openings to family and township association members just to make them happy while the people so employed know little or nothing about the position they’ve been asked to fill.
Such an approach always leads to disaster. I had a terrible experience that forever changed the way I hire people to do a specific job in our businesses. In 1988 when we were about to launch Climax Magazine, we were, as the case always was back then, lacking enough capital to start it.
So I brought together mostly inexperienced employees – those who could be persuaded to get the sort of money we were in a position to pay. And guess what? When the magazine was released three years later, we were in the hole of more than N 6 million in debt, mostly money spent paying for the mistakes of our inexperienced employees!
I hope I’ve driven this point home. So…
SecretNo.3:
Treat Your Employees Like Human Beings
I’m sure you’ve heard that said before. The question is, how do you go about it? Let me confess to you, it is not easy. The reason why it is so is not so complicated: people are not the same. Treating your employees like human beings means, first and foremost, doing unto them what you would love others to do unto you.
Things like being respected; paying them on time; not paying them below industry average; providing them with the right tools to work with; a conducive working environment, and so on.
But in the workplace, you find that some employees will abuse some of the policies you put in place so that working with you will be enjoyable. As an employer, you don’t want any of your workers coming to work from under the bridge.
So, when an employee shows up at work and says his landlord has kicked him out of his house, your first instinct is how you can get another accommodation for him, even where your cash flow cannot support the housing loan you have to give him.
To your surprise, that same employee may be shopping around for another job (or may already have had one) before applying for the loan. A few months after he gets the loan and while the repayment may not even have started, this employee quits your business, perhaps sending his resignation letter from home (if at all).
I’ve had several experiences like this. But there is a particular one that still rankles me. This guy was my driver and his wife came one morning sobbing, alleging that her husband was arrested by the police and was in a cell. They needed money to bail him, she said, and she had none.
And how much would that be? She mentioned an amount that was close to her husband’s monthly salary. Not knowing what kind of employer of labor you will be if your employee is in a police cell and a certain sum, which you can readily afford, was needed to gain his release, and you now say let’s go and crosscheck first before we release the money, I promptly gave out the money.
Naturally, we were expecting the driver to come to work the following day but he didn’t show up. So, we sent another member of staff to go and check him up. He came back and said he found no one at his house. His co-tenants said the man had gone to work while his wife had gone to the market.
We checked on them the following day and confirmed that the man had gotten another job. His wife, meanwhile, didn’t concede that fact. She said her husband traveled to their town immediately after he was released from the police cell.
Now, I have a question for you: if the wife of another employee turns up another day and tells a similar story what would be your reaction? Would you remember the last incident and figure that this is another attempt to con you? Suppose, on this occasion, it is a genuine case. See why I earlier said it wasn’t easy?
You shall succeed.
Quote:
“For Every Job, Hire The Best Person To Do It”
