Six Success Factors – Your Ability to Manage

The final post in the series based around a Rich Schefren webinar I was fortunate enough to listen in to is based around your ability to manage. If you get this aspect of your business right, your business will not be dependent on any one person and will continue to grow and improve, regardless of whether you are involved or not.

These final four points conclude what has been an eye opening webinar and I hope you can take this information on board to improve your own business.

1. Results Description

When you hire someone or outsource a task then you need to clearly define the results you want rather than describe the “job” itself.

If you have a robust business plan or blueprint then you will be able to add in a list of responsibilities and enable that person to completely take control of that section of your business so you no longer need to be involved.

The more people you have who are able to take away one or two responsibilities from your plate, the sooner your plate is empty.

If you can clearly define what you mean by “success” and what you want from a particular person, the clearer the relationship between employer and employee will be and you will get the results you want.

2. Search Where Others Don’t

Whenever I have looked into outsourcing in the past, I have usually gone to the likes of Elance and oDesk and had to spend more time than I would have liked sifting through the numerous unskilled people who must apply for every available project.

While these sites do unearth a gem of a person every now and again, for the most part, it’s a slog finding someone reasonably competent.

Rich made a great point in the webinar to use Amazon to find highly skilled people who are passionate about the project you need completing. This is the second time he recommended Amazon outside of the usual boundaries of them being merely an online retailer.

For example, if you need a project coded in a certain programming language, take a look at the latest books which are written about it and see which users are leaving detailed, passionate comments. These are the people you need to get in touch with because they will be as excited about your project as you are!

For long term success you should remove your mindset about finding someone in the third world who can complete tasks for pennies on the dollar.

This is sufficient if you are looking to “out task” something simple but if you want to completely “outsource” an aspect of your business then you need to find a high quality “go to” person who is not usually found on such outsourcing websites.

3. Non Negotiable Standards

Rich discussed the concept of “non negotiable standards” which are standards not usually found elsewhere but are unique to your own company which can make you stands out from the crowd.

The first example he gave stemmed from when he ran a clothing business. In his store, it was a sackable offence if an employee asked a customer “can I help you?” because customers always say “no” even if they do need help. Instead of this well-worn line, the employees were give a selection of other ice breakers they could use.

The second is that in his marketing business, whoever receives any form of issue, whether it is customer or supplier based, then owns that problem until it is resolved.

I have not really thought about non negotiable standards before but one which falls into this category is in terms of any outsourced articles written for me, I will not put my name to anything which is not of the same standard as if I wrote it myself.

This way, only high quality articles are submitted to the various article directories and my name will be associated with high quality content.

4. Work the System – Their Role is to Improve It

Your ability to systematize was touched upon in a previous post but it is important because your employee’s job is to work the system.

At first, this may sound boring if all they are doing is “working” the system because they are not using their brain but you don’t want them wasting time thinking about how things should be done. You want them to think about how they can improve how things are currently being done.

By giving your employee’s the opportunity to do this your business will continue to get better as the system improves. Plus, since the processes have already been defined, whether the employee leaves or not, the business will continue to improve.