Start-Up On The Right Foot – A No BS Guide To Making Your Start-Up Run Smoothly

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Finances are a tricky thing to keep track of, especially at the start of any business.

And while you may spend so much time penny-pinching or looking at your outgoings to see what you can cut back on, it belies a very glass-half-empty mentality.

We all have financial concerns, but if you are concerned about your business going under at any point, this probably means that it’s not the house that you should be concerned about, it’s the framework!

What makes a great business? It’s your staff, and you need to be focusing on making your staff work to the best of their ability.

This doesn’t mean ruling with an iron fist, but rather making sure that you have made the right choices at the inception of the company.

The importance of the right staff member is something that barely needs mentioning, but there are some people who are so anxious to get up and running that the quality of staff is compromised.

What can be done to make sure that you are starting off on the right foot when it comes to finding the right staff members?

 

Focus Your Recruitment Methods

Hiring off a job site that thousands of people scroll through every day means that you could get a surge of applications, many of which will not be relevant at all!

What’s the solution? Being very strict in your criteria and setting out the ad in a manner which leaves little room for interpretation, because there are so many applicants that will try to wiggle onto their CV that they have experience in “accounting” when they did an accounting course 35 years ago.

Instead, if you state that you need someone with “3 years’ experience” and really nail down the finite points of what you are looking for, it leaves little room for interpretation from the applicant.

If you need someone with very specific experience, it can be difficult to find someone that won’t charge a huge amount of money, but there are outsourcing websites like ListingDock.com where people advertise their specific skills so you can find exactly what you are looking for.

This is especially handy if you are looking for someone to complete a short-term task and you are operating with a very specific budget.

 

Delegate The Sifting Process

While this can sound like an expensive process, the task of going through CV after CV is a big drain on your time and efforts. If you are working on getting a company started and there aren’t enough hours in the day, you could delegate to a recruitment agency that will do the hiring for you.

That way, you don’t need to waste time on basic details and the whole interview process is done on your behalf.

You can make the process as strict as you would like, especially if you’re looking for someone with a unique set of skills. The downside of this is you don’t have much input in the whole process.

If you have a few staff members in a small company, delegating it to one of them means that they will be looking for the right person with the necessary experience, but also that their profile fits in with your business.

Experience is one thing, but you need to make sure that the prospective employee is a good fit, and is someone you can work with.

If you hire a person who makes ¼ of the company and they are difficult to work with, then you will be going through the hiring process again, but with the added pressure of wasted time.

 

Use Your Website To Entice People

If you hit a brick wall in going through the regular channels to find the right people, make them come to you instead!

Applicants will look at job adverts to see if they are a good fit for the company and there is only so much information you can put on an ad, which means they will go to the website to get an idea of your company style, substance, and ethos.

It is very important to make sure that you are presenting your business that suits the company personality. If you are running a business that communicates the values of friendship and honesty, you should make it known that you are looking for that type of person.

If you are aiming for a relaxed atmosphere with hard-working candidates, your brief and your site has to communicate this.

Not only does having a website help to put across your exact personality, but it can also drive traffic to your site even if you are not looking for staff.

Applicants are a lot more direct in their job searches now because of the extra competition.

And even if you are not looking for a candidate now due to budget constraints, the right employee that comes to you can be put on file, or you can make a role for that person.

 

Networking… The Dying Art

It’s almost too easy to make CVs attractive and to have the right covering letter that it completely hides the personality of the applicant.

If you are looking for the right person and they are not necessarily experienced, but you can see potential, it may be easier to promote your company through a business event or networking fayre.

The positive of using this means that you can get a better “feel” for the right person, and networking in the right circles means that you are able to approach the right person, or they are more likely to approach you if they are on the hunt for the right job.

And hiring internally, via a current employee, is a massive time-saver. It’s common sense to go for recommendations instead of the hiring process if you are really stuck for time and need to get the business trading ASAP, which makes it a great money-saving technique.

While there are many ways to get your company out there to receive numerous applicants, it is a case of quality instead of quantity, so by being strict, flaunting your business personality, or by simply networking in the right circles, you can acquire the best employees.  

So what tips and advice can you give to making a start run smoothly?  I would love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments below.

Cheers!

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