How to attract the right people
My first job was in a hotel. I sat in the back office making reservations. I went on to work in sales for two other hotel companies; at which point I decided there was nothing more to learn - it was time to move on.
I decided I wanted to go into training as I really enjoyed the people side of my work. But when I went to interviews, they just wanted me to do more of what I already did, which was sales. They just looked at what I did at the moment - the technical skills. I knew how to negotiate, to build relationships, to convert leads.
They weren’t interested in what I actually wanted to do and had the innate skills for, which was supporting and training others. They also didn’t realise how important having the right attitude was to making something a success. I eventually managed to get a fantastic job. Not a hotel group but a student travel business.
My boss wanted someone who knew about hotels ☑️
He wanted someone with strong communication skills- ☑️
But more importantly
He needed someone who had the right attitude ☑️
He saw something in me that I hadn’t seen in myself - pure determination.
I had no idea what I was taking on but I knew I would put absolutely everything into it to make it a success. And that’s exactly what I did. Starting from scratch I negotiated with hotels all over the world, and set up booking systems (this was the very early days of the internet so based on airline global distribution systems - not user friendly!) I recruited a team of 10 and built the business to $10m
When I started, my management skills were minimal but my boss agreed to send me on a leadership development programme. I learnt a lot. I am forever grateful for this opportunity and the investment that was made in my training which taught me so much about people management and leadership. Although I had muddled along and worked extremely hard, the training was a big step change for me.
When it came to foudning my own travel business; we quickly realised after a few recruitment mistakes, that we didn’t need people with travel industry experience, we needed people who had travelled! People who had worked in hospitality so were used to dealing with consumers and were knowledgeable about the main destinations we sold.
We then sent them to those destinations within their 3 month probation period so they knew all the hotels that they would be selling as well as their locations.
So what have I learnt about attracting the right people to support your business growth?
Think strategically. Where do you want to be in three years time? What do you need in order to accomplish your business goals faster?
🔹 Do you need to free up your own time by delegating some of the tasks that you are currently doing so you can work on more strategic things?
🔹 Are you finding customers are being turned away because you are at full capacity or the service level has dropped? This means you need someone to help who has the same skills as you.
🔹 Do you want to expand your current product or service? This is when you need complimentary skills to help with the expansion plans
🔹 Do you need to achieve something that you don’t have the skill set for? You may need to bring someone in who can achieve this much more effectively than you would be able to do yourself.
Is now the right time?
When is the right time to employ? There can be a number of reasons, but these are the most common reasons
🔹 Is the quality of the work suffering?
This often happens when you get busy, as you no longer have the time to spend with the customer as you are rushing to get to the next one; and this can be fatal for many small businesses who are not prepared to delegate anything that they do
🔹 Are you working long hours and worrying about the business all the time?
Again this can be fatal as it will eventually lead to burn out
🔹 Are you ambitious to grow?
This is when you are confident in your business model and are prepared to take some risk; invest in the business so that you can get to the next level
🔹 Are you mentally ready?
This is again hard for new business owners, who set up in business because they love what they do and find it really hard to let go of doing the detailed stuff. Many of these business owners are happy to be lifestyle businesses
🔹 Are you no longer passionate about your business?
This often happens when you are no longer doing the things that you enjoy, but end up doing the things you have to do which do not fill you with joy.
Of course, not all roles need to be filled with employees. Bringing in specialist freelancers is a great way of testing a different marketing approach or to do a role which only requires a few hours a week. There are pros and cons of each approach, which need to be considered before making any decisions.
How to attract talent
Once you have decided that you need to grow your team; you now have to make sure you get exactly the right person or people. Too many business owners hire reactively; waiting til they are snowed under and don’t have the time for proper planning or an effective process.
This is what I have done and know how destructive and costly it can be to the business. So it’s important to think about what you want your business to look like in 2,3 or 5 years. Who will you want in your team then? What skills will be needed?
Recruiting the right people
It is essential that you bring in the right people. They need to be the right fit for the work you need them to do as well as the values that you have.
Skills are the first thing that business owners consider and these are what you will generally have on a job description, and are related to the type of job you want them to do.
Secondly, it is important to know how long they have been using those skills, and what success they had with using them. What have they accomplished?
Thirdly, do their personality and values fit with yours and your brand? Will they get on with the existing members of your team and will they represent you in the right way with your customers or clients?
Lastly, what are their innate skills? By this I mean the skills that they are naturally good at, that are part of them; so they love using them and find them to be effortless
The last two are the most important as they are the hardest to change. If you find people who fit these, they are much more likely to love their job and be committed to the company. People tend to either be driven by process and are great with detail and working using a system or they are relationship driven which makes them good customer facing roles. A mistake often made, and one I am guilty of is recruiting one person to do both these roles. One of my first employees was a bookkeeper who I also wanted to help out on the phones. It didn’t go well! This is when outsourcing can be a great help.
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When is the best time to recruit a new employee?
🔹 Who do you need now who will take you to where you want to be?
🔹 Assuming you can afford to do so, who would you hire right now?
🔹 What would they do?
Think about what would happen if you did hire them, and more importantly what would happen if you didn't.
The right person who is a great fit will pay for themselves pretty quickly either because they are directly bringing in more sales or they can do work that you are currently doing so you can concentrate on growing the business.
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