If you’ve recently set up your own business, you’re not alone. The past year has seen many people change career paths and decide to run things themselves, gaining control over their position and taking the wheel in regards to the industries, products and services they are dealing with. However, if you’re running your own business, chances are, you’ve also realised just how much time, effort and money you’ll need to invest to keep things up and running. You may be wondering exactly what it takes to make a success of a business, so here are some suggestions of things you need to help your business become the biggest success possible!
Quality Staff
When most people start up their own business, they’ll run things entirely by themselves. THis is understandable. As things start out, funds tend to be limited and you may need to invest this into areas your business needs such as product development, product manufacturing, setting a website up and more. However, eventually, you will find that you need to take staff on to help with running the ship. At the end of the day, there’s only so much that one person can do and if you attempt to do it all yourself, you’ll quickly find that things get missed and your business can’t progress and grows stagnant. If you’re dealing with order fulfilment and answering customer queries all day, you’re not going to be able to develop new products and services to keep up with the marketplace and to maintain demand for your brand. Of course, finding the right people for the job is extremely important and there’s a huge process that will go into achieving this. Here are a few steps that you should take to find the best quality staff for the positions you require.
Advertising Positions Effectively
First, you should start out by advertising positions that you need staff to fill. This is the first step on your journey and, while it may seem like one of the most straightforward ones, it’s absolutely essential to get it absolutely right in order to draw in the right individuals for your business. When you start advertising positions, you need to make sure that you know exactly what you’re looking for so you can set the job description and requirements for the position clearly. This will ensure that only qualified individuals who genuinely want to do the role you’re asking of them will apply. Now, figuring out where and how to advertise vacant positions can be relatively difficult. If you’re running a traditional brick and mortar store, you can go with the age old advertising tactic of sticking a sign in the storefront or window that lets people know about available roles. This will draw in a local audience and you may get to meet people who are interested from the get go, as they’ll actually be in your store. A more common way to advertise for staff nowadays, however, is to use online jobs boards. This is where the majority of job seekers will be looking. Sites like LinkedIn, Indeed and Monster are often good places to start. Make sure to list the job title, job responsibilities or what the role entails, previous experience or qualifications required and information on how to apply. If you get a lot of applications, you may want to use a recruitment agency to sift through them for you and to pick out the most appropriate candidates.
Conducting Interviews
Once you have received resumes and picked out your candidates, you need to start planning an interview. You should invite people who have the relevant education, qualifications and experience to meet you and discuss the role. See the interview as an opportunity to determine whether the candidate is right for your company, as well as allowing them to determine whether your company is right for them. It is a two way negotiation. Interviewing will give you the opportunity to meet applicants on a face to face basis and get to know them a little better. It’s often easy to craft a great CV, but interviews give you genuine insight into a candidate’s knowledge, character and whether they will be a cultural fit within your company. Prepare plenty of questions relevant to the role and that will help you to see their personality more. Also be prepared to answer any questions that they may have about your company and the position.
Making an Offer
At the end of your interview process, chances are, you will know which candidate you’d like to take on board. This is where you can make a job offer. Offering a position to a candidate is relatively simple – they have applied for the job, so chances are that they will want to accept it. However, it’s important not to be presumptuous. Send them a congratulatory email or make a phone call offering them the position. This can then be used as an opportunity to negotiate contracted hours, salary and other terms and conditions of employment.
Rejecting Individuals
Of course, bringing the right member on board is extremely exciting. But make sure that you thank other candidates who weren’t successful for their time and effort too. Chances are, they’re eagerly waiting for a response and you need to provide them with one – even if it’s bad news. Be polite and request to keep their information on board in case another relevant position becomes vacant later down the line.
Quality Equipment
Your staff are going to require a whole lot of equipment to work to the best of their ability. Right now, we’re living in a technological age and, chances are, they’re going to need a whole lot of tech to complete their roles to a high standard. It’s up to you to provide them with this to ensure that the cogs of your business keep turning as smoothly as possible. Now, some of the most important equipment you will provide your staff with will be computers, laptops, tablets and even smartphones. These will allow staff to research, complete work, communicate with one another and more. Now, these items tend to be quite costly. So, if you are unable to buy them outright, or simply need some of the items for a short period of time, you should seriously consider rental services. You can rent a macbook, PC, ipad, smartphone or anything else you may require.
Quality Software
It’s all good and well having the tech, but you’re also going to need the best quality software available on it too. This will allow your staff to do their jobs effectively and with the highest levels of productivity. Now, when you first start out, you’re likely to use off the shelf software as you grow to learn your business’ needs and requirements. But as time goes on, you may find that you need custom software to help you and your staff carry out the precise tasks and practices that are required to maximise your business’ productivity and profits. Software that is ready to download as and when you purchase it is created with the mass market in mind. It is often effective and will complete basic functions. However, custom software goes above and beyond in that it is not generalised. Instead, it is quite literally built with your business’ individual needs in mind and will be extremely specific to your company and how it runs. It can streamline processes, save time and help you out immensely. Of course, this is going to be an investment and will generally cost more than off the shelf software. But more often than not, it’s more than worth the investment. Get in touch with developers who will be able to discuss your needs and provide a quote.
Quality Management
A final area to focus on for now is management. When your business first starts out, you’re likely to manage everything. But as your staff base grows, as projects increase in number and as things generally expand, you’re going to have to find a way to manage everything. This generally means putting a management hierarchy in place. Having managers over different groups of staff will give everyone a point of contact and will ensure that problems can be resolved and that work can be kept on track. It’s a good idea to offer managerial staff training in their position to maximise their management style and techniques.
As you can see, there are a number of different factors that can have a profound impact on your business and its success. Those outlined above are just a few, but hopefully, the information will come in immensely useful for you!
