We all want them, don’t we? That employee that automatically knows what to do. They fix problems, save us money, make us money, and learns new skills every day that rinses and repeats this process. Are we just dreaming or does this really happen? The answer is yes and yes.
We are dreaming, and it does really happen. It is the dreaming that makes the dream employee happen, or at least part of it.
My point is, you should dream about what your ideal employee should be and do, then write it out and create a plan to find him or her.
Let’s say you want to find the perfect person to answer the phone for your HVAC company. You are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars making the phone ring, and you are not sure you have your best foot forward when it does.
First Step
Write an Avatar – A one paragraph or page description of exactly who you are looking for (we call it an avatar) or a story about you prospective idea employee.
Carol Henry is a 45 year old stay at home mom. She is active in the PTA, has a bridge club at her church and in the neighborhood association. She radiates warmth, grace and kindness. She has a great laugh, is a little bit sarcastic but in a way that both of us “appreciate it” and puts a smile on everyone’s face.
Carol went to College; she got pregnant and stayed home with her children. Her husband is a business owner and she knows the sacrifices that are needed to be made to get a business going because she has seen it and worked it first-hand. She longs for the days where she was part of the team of newbies getting the business off the ground. She doesn’t want the long hours just the feeling of connection and growth she had when she was helping her husband get his business off the ground.
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On to A New Year
Friday, January 20th, 2012January is one of my favorite months. The feeling of renewal and rebirth that this season brings can be life-changing for so many. For others, especially as we get older, we get stuck back in our grooves.
Why do people as they seem to get older find it tougher to reinvent themselves? To get out-of –the-groove so to speak? Why are the people that are able to reinvent themselves seem to be geniuses that change the world? Ghandi, Nelson Mandela, Muhammad Ali, Madonna, and even Tony Robbins seem to keep themselves relevant through the times when the “norm” is to have “your time, your glory days” and move on.
Steve Jobs had a theory that as people get older, they become more and more engrained in patterns, and these patterns cause them to start to limit their ability to think creatively. The range of their thinking would become smaller and smaller.
These patterns become our groove, they are comfortable and safe, at least we feel their safe. But are they? Is it safe to get grooved in a career, your role in a business, a business model, a certain kind of product or even an economy?
I love working in technology because the very nature of it forces you to turnover old grooves and think in different paradigms almost every day. You can’t get in a groove in this industry. If you do, the world just passes you by…which is pretty much the way it works anyway, right?
What I mean is, are you stuck in an old job groove? an old economy groove? an old business groove? an old relationship groove? or a even an attitude groove?
A new year is not just a new way to date your checks (if you are still stuck in the groove of writing checks, that is). It is the chance to commit to throw yourself into something new. You are not a train, you are built to create, to solve problems, to produce.
You are designed for greatness by your creator. If you are not making the impact of Mother Teresa or M and M, it’s because you are playing a smaller-than image of which you were created. A groove to deep could be your grave or worse yet, the death of your dreams.
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Tags: Business goals, indianapolis small business, New Year's Resolutions
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