You meet a lot of great people -- and potentially great employees -- doing business. But until you're fully ready to engage them in a job, those great finds could end up doing more harm than good.

have a few friends who always have said, "If you meet someone and they're good, even if you don't have a position for them or work for them right away, hire them."

I absolutely do not believe in this "cart before the horse" theory for a few reasons. For example, why would you hire a salesperson if you don't have anything to sell yet?

If your company makes or develops anything, there is usually a timeline that tells you the type of people you need to hire. You might hire researchers that help you define your product or market first. Then you might hire product designers and developers to make the product. After you define a timeline on when the product will be ready to market, you should have pegged when you need to start marketing. Then you need salespeople and business development staff to sell the product.

Continue reading "Don't Hire Before You Need To"

Here's how you can make new employees feel like part of the family the first day they walk in.

It's never been harder to attract great employees than it is now, but in my opinion it's never been easy either. Getting a job is not as hard as it used to be, and potential employees have a ton of options. So when you finally hire someone, it's important to make him/her feel part of the family fast -- with a capital F.

Maybe it's because I'm a girl, or maybe because I'm a Virgo, but in the seven years since I started VerticalResponse, I have felt it is extremely important to make sure new employees feel welcome and were completely set up when they arrived on their first day.

I remember one of my "first days on the job," I showed up to work and my office space was set up Cagney and Lacey style with no divider. That would have been fine, however my officemate was a "loud talker" and even carried on multiple conference calls a day, with just him (and me) in the room. (If you do this, pick up the phone and talk please). I couldn't work my computer (it was a PC) so I asked if I could have a Mac. My boss gave me his credit card and said, "Walk down the street and get yourself a computer."

Continue reading "Welcome New Employees with Open Arms"

Put up boundaries before your friends get too cozy being the boss's buddy.

Have you ever hired a friend? Someone you may have worked with in the past? We all do it, and for good reason: We trust them and we think they'll do a good job. Otherwise we wouldn't do it, right?

Then a great thing happens. Your company grows and you find yourself working with new people you don't have a previous relationship with... a sign of good times! But what happens when your relationship with your "Friend from the Past" (FFTP) changes from business to personal, and they don't follow?

Have any of these scenarios ever happen to you?

Continue reading "Working With Your Friends"

Keeping the small company feel alive at your growing business.

Managing a growing company, I know how hard it is to maintain the close--knit small company feel. You know the feel -- the one when you only had five employees? You could scream your questions from one office to another and get your answers. Truth is, if you're a growing company, you can only hold onto that for so long.

Our company has grown 50 percent, in just the past year. We are now up to 45 employees. Up until a few years ago when we consolidated everyone into our new offices, the company was split in half: two offices across the hall from each other. Mistakes? You bet. Neither side visited the other very often. New hires didn't know each other let alone longstanding employees. It was painful. Now, as we're about to grow large enough where we'll need to be on a few separate floors, we've learned enough to avoid making the same mistakes twice.

I've developed a set of routines that help establish rapport among all levels of my company since I want to be seen as approachable and not standoffish, while giving the sense that they have overly capable managers to help them make decisions.

Continue reading "Relationships with Your Employees, at Each and Every Level"