Lesson 8: Finding good people

First, I want to do a quick update on my $100 business challenge.  I’ve prospected another possible client.  I found out on Facebook that an old high school friend has started a small company selling canned goods.  They are selling their products at a local retail store in the town that I graduated high school from.  At the present time they do not have a website but they want one and would like to sell products from there as well.  As for the current client, Shoshone Nursery, it’s been challenging to hear back from the owner over there.  He also owns a landscaping company and this week was riddled with broken lawnmowers and trucks.  I’m waiting on him to get me the text that I need to write up the “About Us” page for his website.  The other client that I’ve been working on hasn’t been getting back to me either about the website.  This is the assisted living facility.  We did talk briefly about possibly branding ideas yesterday at an old car cruise.  We’ll see where that leads to but for now I want to keep him focused on the website!

As far as lessons learned this week.  Finding the right people is so important.  One of the things I learned in an Entrepreneurial Hero’s video was that even though we might not be able to hire 100% highly motivated individuals, it only takes a handful to make things happen.  When hiring, we shouldn’t hire for only the current pressing needs, we should look further down the road and hire strategically for future needs.  I know that I have personal aspirations and I don’t want to be a sales manager forever; therefore when I’m hiring sales reps, I’m looking for people that want to advance their careers and move into management. 

In the Jet Blue case study I was reminded of the need to make sure a venture is capitalized good enough.  Not only “just” good enough, but plenty good!  While there are those people who are great at shoe-stringing a budget to successfully launch a new business venture, they are few and far between.  Knowing how much to budget for takes a lot of work and a lot of planning to make happen.