Hiring & Empowering Solutions

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Can I really make this work?

“I’m really worried about how hiring someone is going to work out for me. I don’t even know exactly what I need them to do; I have a vague list, but I know I need help. I don’t have a computer for the new hire to work with, then it occurs to me that there’s workers compensation, unemployment, office insurance, etc. etc. etc.  Yikes!  Calm my troubled heart!  Can I really make this work?”

What I love most about this message is that this solopreneur is realizing the need to plan for these things NOW, not after the new hire begins and is sitting on the payroll.  The anxiety and uncertainty doesn’t stop the fact that they can begin to plan (and budget) in advance instead of waiting until the hiring process begins.

You know you are on the right path when the heart palpitations begin. In our experience, this means you need to do something. It is time to take action, but when you have the wherewithal to allow “the power of the pause” and start to ask forceful, purposeful, intentional questions, it leads you to ask, “Can I really make this work?”

A path of intentional growth involves some combination of the following:

  1. Panic
  2. Summon powerful questions such as
  • I no longer want to be doing…
  • I really want to be doing…
  • If I waived a magic wand I would stop…
  • If I waived a magic wand I would start…
  1. Brain dump and begin a list of all the logistical issues
  2. Share your list with a trusted advisory team/person for feedback and input

When the above four things occur, you know you are on the right path ? the natural path of intentional, controlled growth without anxiety and uncertainty.

There is nothing more disempowering than knowing fully that you need to do something (like hiring help) while feeling so deeply stuck in “Can I really make this work?”

Making decisions that require time, money and changes to your environment can be scary, especially when you have already started taking action and want to pull back and say, “Wait, I didn’t really mean it.” But once you are aware of what you can no longer tolerate, you can’t “unknow” it. Taking the above actions will remove the panic and worry immediately. It will create space for you to breath and calm down about whatever the topic at hand is. It will allow you to relationally anchor into what needs to occur, how it might occur and where your next step is to find the resources to get started.

If you are struggling with being stalled or with identifying where your next action should be in your business, click here now and schedule yourself and your team for a complimentary 30-minute diagnostic call to get you started on a path of intentional growth that serves you and your business.

Molly Hall

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What Do You Think? 6 tips to crush expectations and get your clients and Facebook friends referring to you!

As an entrepreneur, I am worn out from hiring “experts” who speak in voodoo then ask me, “What do you think?” I don’t have a single thought about my funnel. I don’t know what my avatar is. I don’t know what a soap opera story is, that is why I am hiring you. I honestly understood outsourcing and hiring experts allowed for me to, for once, put my intellect into time out and let my heart and passion be in the driver seat. I expect that my role is to show up, be present, know my industry inside and out and be ready to provide them with all the industry-specific content they need. I expect for them to be in the driver seat and allow for me to be told what to do, and then work within their genius and get out of the way.

At least that is my dream, for someone to be telling me what needs to be done and they take care of the “how.” I don’t need to know the “how.” But when the “what” isn’t occurring, I find myself knee deep in the “how,” making a colossal mess of everything.

In our line of work, people outsource their hiring process. Because they are wring us a check, it is my greatest goal that, after our initial Discovery Call to hear their immediate needs and long-term goals and all the logistical details, I get in the driver seat and lead. Let me give you some advice if you are an expert. Ask powerful questions vs. speaking in tongue and then asking me what I think, because I don’t know, that is why I am paying you.

If you are an outsourced independent consultant or contracted worker, here are some tips for creating a remarkable relationship based on clear expectations and communication up front that leave your client checking the box “way beyond expected” and referring all their colleagues and Facebook “friends” to you:

  1. Have a process for your initial intake meeting/call after being hired. Send it in writing to your client 24 hours after being hired with a subject line titled “What to expect” and a professional, graphically appealing e-booklet that includes your process and what they can expect. You can hire someone on fiverr.com for roughly $25/hour to create this;
  2. Schedule a meeting within 48 hours of being hired for their “getting started” call/meeting. The appointment doesn’t have to take place within 48 hours, but the very act of scheduling it starts creating immediate value, especially when they see your first payment leave their already shallow bank account;
  3. Take immediate charge of the call and lead the call the entire time. Lay out how long your time together will take and the agenda and goals for the meeting. Ask them if they have anything they would like to add and make sure you acknowledge their goals and let them know if you will or will not be able to address them in your scheduled timeframe. If not, ensure them you will schedule a separate time to address those or you will handle them in a follow-up email after (if appropriate and easy). Otherwise they won’t be fully present at the start of the call and will have their questions and uncertainty clouding their presence because they don’t want to forget about it.
  4. Debrief the call by reviewing the agenda, making sure you hit everything (including their goals), and declare the next actions and their schedule. Have them rate the effectiveness of your time together on a scale of 1-10 (highest) and if it isn’t a 10, ask them what would have made it a 10.
  5. Send them a recap email with a simple “roadmap” that is consistently updated throughout the project, and reference it every step of the way. That way they can see where you started, how far you have come and what is left to complete. Email info@hiringandempowering.com and we would be happy to share what works very effectively for us.
  6. Send weekly updates with “State of the Union—XXX (project name). Send any reporting, analytics, status of work in progress and what you anticipate needing from them in the next two weeks (not yesterday), as most entrepreneurs are booked two weeks out and nothing will immediately diminish their confidence and value in your company and/or services more than a request for something “ASAP,” since that communicates that their file was a “oh crap” moment at 10 p.m. on your part.

It truly is that easy. Something so simple as up-front expectations (on both parts) and consistent communication is worth its weight in gold. I would honestly never even think twice about how much I am paying any outside vendors if there is consistent communication and they are leading, so I am not forced to hop back in the driver seat. It’s when I have to send messages saying, “Where we at with” that I start questioning why am I paying you.

If you need support with how to incorporate empowered communication, where everyone leaves conversation #1 to the end of your outsourced time together aligned and on track, schedule a complimentary call by clicking here now.

Molly Hall

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The REAL Reason Entrepreneurs Don’t Grow Their Business

I had a huge “aha” land like a sour pit in my stomach today. My friend, who has joined a team in an admin capacity ? sort of virtual, sort of not was sharing with me how she was uncertain that her employer thought she was doing a good job. I asked her why she thought that. She mentioned that the employer tended to cancel meetings at the last minute, or to tell her to work from home that day, or to be noncommittal about the next step in projects.

So I started explaining to her how we entrepreneurs think and operate: Canceling meetings can mean anything from I’m busy doing something else, to I’m about to lose my sh*t about something so I can’t do a meeting right now, to I don’t think we have anything on our agenda to talk about. Asking someone to work from home that day (in a business that is mostly virtual) probably means the boss feels like working in her pajamas or she doesn’t feel like going into the office, not anything to do with the employee. And being noncommittal about project next actions might mean something or it might not – it could just mean the entrepreneur isn’t prepared and didn’t do their part to move the project forward. It might just mean they are tired, or stressed or decided to play hooky and spend time with the family.

And as I explained this perspective, I realized how often I do this to MY team. And more unsettling, I realized WHY I do it.

We became entrepreneurs for the sense of autonomy and freedom to be gained. Now we ALL know that doesn’t mean you aren’t working a ton of hours and find it hard to unplug from work. But it does often give you a certain authority to make decisions about your calendar and your next steps, and that feels like autonomy.

And you can certainly be an entrepreneur and operate that way.

But what made my stomach sour was the recognition that to really grow my business (and truly feel freedom by having my business be less dependent on me) I had to be serious about my it. I don’t mean getting serious about working hard, or about being committed to my clients and my team – we entrepreneurs have all that down already. I mean getting serious about releasing some of that perceived autonomy and putting some structure back in my life and schedule. I need to commit and KEEP weekly meetings with my team, even if I don’t feel like it at the moment. I need to review what my team asks me to review, even if I really want to work on something more exciting. In other words, I need to be a big girl and run my business like a business.

Does that mean I can’t flex my schedule? Of course not. Does it mean I become a slave to my team and my calendar? It doesn’t. But it means that being an entrepreneur is one thing; taking it to the next level so a team can support you (which is true freedom) requires sticking to some commitments, even if you want to sit in your pajamas and ignore that you promised your team you’d show up for a meeting.

If you aren’t sure where you need to show up more seriously, click here and let us help you in a 30-minute discovery call. 

Laney Lyons

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How to find a balance of what you are comfortable communicating with your team

At the end of our Monday huddle, I said, “By the way, we might go to Florida to visit family at the end of July, but I’m not sure yet.” This was met with dead silence. Remembering last summer, I added, “I promise I’ll let you know BEFORE we go, if we go.”

Last year I learned a crucial lesson: As a boss, you work hard to build a team of people who are committed and will support you and the company, who truly care and will step up. Then sometimes as a boss you do everything possible to isolate yourself from the support you worked so hard to create.

Last summer I planned to take my son to Florida to visit family, but at the last minute I wasn’t sure if we were going. We decided to go and drove out on a Saturday. I didn’t think to tell my team, since it was a weekend and I was distracted with packing for a road trip from Austin to Tampa with a 4-year-old. Well, life happened: We stayed midway over Saturday night at a friend’s. Sunday morning my son fell and hit his head, so we ended up at urgent care for incision glue. So we were delayed finishing the drive. More life (i.e. drama and such) ensued and by Monday I was in Tampa, but in that place of “I can work, but if I talk to one more person I’m going to lose it.” I put myself in a time out ? but I forgot to tell my team. So although I was available by email and they could see I was working, I sent brief texts to cancel our conference call meetings. And I hunkered down to take a deep breath and get it back together while not dropping the ball on clients. (I really hope that at this point in reading I’m not the ONLY boss who has been in this place!)

On Wednesday, when I showed up for my call with my key team member, she said one of the most powerful things anyone has ever said to me: “I’m trying to support you. But you aren’t telling me what’s happening or what you need. Let me help you.”

And I realized I was blessed to have a team member who truly cares about me and would (and was) going the extra mile while life was kicking my butt, but she had to wing it because I wasn’t communicating. Does that mean I have to tell her the nitty gritty details? No. (Unless I wanted to, because she would have listened if I needed her to.) But I could have communicated that my son and I were OK, but that I was overwhelmed and needed to limit interaction as much as possible for a day or two (which is my way of collecting myself). She would have happily covered any interaction needed by me, but with some clarity and security that everything was OK – and some info on what she needed to do.

I left her completely alone and guessing what was happening personally and professionally.

I realized that we train team all the time to be honest with their bosses about what’s going on in their lives. Again, that doesn’t necessarily mean sharing anything too personal, just letting them know if something is happening so any distraction or change in attitude isn’t misread. Now I realize that works both ways.

And while we also must be conscious, as bosses and leaders of our teams, to not overshare to an extent that we cause uncertainty or chaos, we must be responsible that our team is in tune with our habits and attitude, and when those abruptly change it leaves them in the dark, guessing and unable to support us, which is why we can feel so isolated as business owners.

Find a balance of what you are comfortable communicating with your team to avoid this in-the-dark guesswork and for goodness sake, if you leave town let them know!

If you need help finding a team that can provide you support like this, consider scheduling a complimentary 30-minute discovery by clicking here now.

Laney Lyons

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Lack of clarity for assistant = more work for you

“OMG, my assistant is creating more work for me, not less!”

We hear this complaint at least once a week. Today, a business owner wanted to talk with me because he was completely frustrated. He’d stretched his budget to bring on an assistant because things were falling through the cracks. Emails weren’t getting responded to, and appointments weren’t being put on his calendar, causing missed meetings. He felt he was in constant disarray. So now he was paying one more person and seemed to have MORE to do than before – and none of those problems he was having were solved.

He launched into an analysis of his assistant: She is so smart, he said, but everything still seems to require me. She is a hard worker, but I’m not exactly sure what she is doing.

I realized after a few moments that if I, as a hiring and training expert, was having trouble following what exactly his assistant was supposed to be doing for him, then this wasn’t an employee issue, it was a clarity issue. The boss had “problems” he wanted solved and had listed out duties for his assistant to address those problems, but there was no process under it.

Here’s what I mean:

  1. Problem: Appointments aren’t being put on the calendar so they are being missed.

Assistant’s task: Should handle the calendar – add appointments and confirm them the day before.

What’s occurring: Boss feels the calendar is out of control and is reviewing it constantly to see what was put on there and correct it (i.e. not a person who should meet with him, not the right length of meeting) and the assistant is constantly asking questions about scheduling meetings, so he might as well just schedule them himself.

Questions to boss: How do appointments get on your calendar? Do you add them during meetings with people and when people email or call to schedule appointments?

What’s the process to alert your assistant when you are at a meeting and schedule a meeting with someone so she can make sure it’s on your calendar, not double-booked, and it’s on her radar to prepare you for?

What are her boundaries for scheduling appointments for you when someone calls/emails? What’s permissible to schedule a meeting for? (So you aren’t ticked when you see that something stupid got on your calendar.) How long should meetings be? How early and how late in the day?

  1. Problem: No one is following up on team meetings to make sure assignments are completed.

Assistant’s task: Take notes during meetings of all follow-up actions and provide them to the boss.

What’s occurring: The assistant is taking notes of meeting follow-ups and emailing them to the boss, but the boss has no time to look at them and feels like he is paying her for a waste of time.

Question to boss: Why have her prepare these meeting notes and send them to you? Isn’t this now one more thing to do? Can’t she at least touch base with each person and confirm IF they finished their follow-up so you have a detailed report of the current status of each item? Then you can identify how she responded to anyone who had not completed an item. Take the follow-up off of the business owner.

There is a trend. The business owner identified problems, listed tasks he wanted an assistant to do, then hired someone. He never stopped to figure out how to totally transition the problem and solution to the assistant – he just gave her a task to do that would bounce back to him.

So if you are hiring, consider thinking through the entire process or problem that you are hoping a new employee can solve and what YOUR part of that process is.

If you aren’t sure, click here and schedule a complimentary discovery call with us.

Laney Lyons