If you only have 10 people on your team and one of those is, at best, average then that means a full 10% of your workforce is holding your business back. No small business can afford that anymore. Here's why.
WORKetc is a small business. Tiny, really, compared to others in the CRM industry.
But still—we’re able to provide our services to over a thousand companies, big and small, all over the world.
How? Well, by using a complete business management solution to run day-to-day operations, for one, but also by obsessively making sure that there are no average people on our staff.
Because these days, no small business can really afford to have average employees. You need to hire slow, fire fast.
Here’s why…
Going By The Numbers
It’s just math, really.
If you only have 10 people on your team and one of those is a poor or, at best, average performer then that means a full 10% of your workforce is holding your business back.
That average performer isn’t the only one you have to worry about, either, as they’re not working in isolation. There’s an opportunity cost as well; they’re also holding back your top performers.
And the worst thing? That employee is probably a great person. In a large organization they would no doubt easily get by and even move up the ladder with the passage of time.
But then they’re not in a large organization. As the team leader or small business owner, you now have to fire a great person. Not because they did anything wrong, per se, but because they were just “average”.
The Costs of Firing People
It doesn’t stop there.
According to the Center for American Progress, replacing employees will still set you back a pretty big sum. One of their economic studies found that the typical cost of turnover was around 16% to 21% of an employee’s annual salary.
Except for the very highest-paid jobs, the turnover costs remain consistent across the board. Very complex and specialized jobs (doctors, executives, etc.) the turnover costs can even reach double that of the employee’s annual salary.
So even if you do eventually get rid of an underperforming employee, by that time you will have spent countless hours and resources training them for a job at which they couldn’t excel.
You, the employee who did the training, and the employee you eventually let go of—everyone’s time and money ends up wasted.
This makes it all the more important to find and hire the right person from the start.
Tightening The Hiring Process
While many small businesses may feel like they need to fill a position quickly, it pays to take the time to fully vet applicants or seek out better talent.
Even if you have to sift through a ton of resumes over the course of a couple of weeks, hiring the right person from the start will net you better returns in the long run than just going with the first person who kinda seems to fit the job.
We’ve only hired a handful of people over the years, but we’ve so far had a great track record at finding the right ones by using these techniques:
- Break through the noise on job listing sites and social media by getting creative with your job details. Use unexpected or surprising words, but make sure you explain the headline within the body of the job description.
- Keep the role explanation simple. Make sure it’s focused entirely on the task and explain how those tasks relate to what the role needs to deliver. You can also be personable by telling the story behind the role.
- Offer above industry rates to attract qualified candidates and fast-rising stars. Don’t be afraid to state a dollar figure outright.
- Promote the benefits that make working for your micro-multinational more desirable than an equivalent role at a big-name company.
- Set a simple task along with the how-to-apply info to quickly identify people that are truly interested in the role. If they can’t even be bothered to complete the task then they likely won’t be of help to your business.
Small Business, Big Profits
Now you might be saying, “But Dan, how is my business ever going to get any bigger if I hire so slow?”
What you need to keep in mind is that growth isn’t necessarily dependent on how many people you have working for you.
We work with a lot of small businesses, most of whom have experienced growth in leaps and bounds in the years they’ve been our clients even without them going on a hiring spree.
Case in point: IT support company Atcom Technology. They first became WORKetc users six years ago, and their customer base has grown seven times since then.
But—and this may surprise you—they still have the same number of support agents today as they did six years ago.
They already had the right people for the job, so they were able to grow their business without taking on new staff simply by optimizing their support process.
Those same agents, who were only able to help around eight people a day each because of inefficient tools, are now helping clients five times that number.
The Right Tools
So it’s not really a matter of size. Finding the right people for the job is the first step. Giving them the tools they need to do that job efficiently is the next.
This is where technology is giving small businesses an edge they never had even just a dozen or so years ago.
With WORKetc, you don’t have to create an end-to-end business management system piece by piece anymore. There’s no need to tear your hair out over app integration headaches, data getting lost in the cracks, or too many monthly app subscriptions.
Once you’ve got the right people on board, WORKetc helps them be more productive and efficient by automating leads and support processes and giving them easy access to the exact information that they need.