Book Available in Pre-Release: Chapter 6 Excerpt

One of the most taboo small business subjects, especially when involving technology based businesses, is that of hiring. Many say they don't ever want to hire people because they like being a 1-person show. But most are really thinking about the possible headaches, pressure to pay/keep them happy, and other of the other joys of employees.

But what many don't realize is that they already use other people to help their business out and to truly maximize profitability, they will need to use more. That's why although Chapter 6 is about not only employees, because you can certainly live without them , but about vendors and subcontractors as well. Read on to get a taste:

Chapter 6
Employee & Subcontractor Management: Recruiting, Hiring, Retention & Firing

Some of you reading this book might be asking yourself why I’m talking to you about hiring employees when you either just opened your doors not long ago or you are a one person show and plan on continuing as one.

It’s simple. No matter the structure of your business, you just will not be able to do everything yourself. That is unless you are terrific at all aspects of business plus the technical side of your business and truly do want to work 70+ hours a weeks forever.

If that’s the case, you’re right, you can skip this chapter. If it’s not the case then you will be using vendors for things such as website design and accounting, sub contractors to take part of the work load or parts of a job not in the realm of your business, virtual assistants to take over admin and other time consuming issues you don’t need to do yourself and yes, maybe some actual employees.

Although the hiring/retention/firing process may be slightly, and I emphasize slightly, different for each one of these cases, they are still there and you will be able to pick up pointers as I concentrate on actual employees.


If You Already Thought Hiring Was Scary…

Hiring and dealing with employees is one of the most difficult things a small business deals with, especially for the business owners who will almost always have a hand in any recruiting, hiring, firing or retention process. Why is it so difficult?

•Huge decision regarding each and every employee (need, timing, money, training, etc)
•More involvement in the hiring, retention, firing than when an employee elsewhere
•Very rare to have all skills involved in every phase of the hiring through retention process without some outside help
•Involves more personal contact in every phase than as an employee
•Realization that one employee could cause enough problems to ruin your business

Let’s go over some very important facts about using others to help you grow your business. A bad hire can potentially cost a business 15 times that person’s salary after 1 year of employment.
Of course this takes into account:

•wasted time in the hiring process,
•wasted cost of training time and resources
•lost dollars due to the employee’s mistakes (such as losing your best client or causing good employees to quit),
•unrealized money due to the employee’s mistakes (such as botching a big deal to land a new long term client),
•actual salary and benefits costs,
•severance cost,
•possible lawsuit costs and
•a few other possible money headaches.

Can you see where this will start to add up?

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The chapter goes on to talk about subjects for hiring anyone to help you out such as:

Recruiting- It’s Not What You Think
Hiring is a Process, Not a Search for a New Friend
Employee Retention- Protect Your Investment
Firing- How to Make It the Least Painful for You and Them

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There are many aspects to your technology business that are better suited for others to do the work for you regardless of whether or not you every want to give up doing the work on the technical side of the business. Grab the book and see the whol big picture.

http://consultantscoach.com/byobbook.php


To Your Business Success-

George J Sierchio
The Consultant's Coach