Life teaches lessons.
Most of us think of them as mistakes. But they're really lessons repeated until you learn them. The one that annoys me today is one that I thought I'd learned, but had inadequately remembered the details.
This is about hiring sales people. Good ones are very precious, and hard to hire. (Does that sound like an excuse? Ever done that?) Years ago, we had a sales slump of a couple of quarters in length and I hired "against type," as they say in the actor's studio. I hired a blustery "sales" guy who was really, in retrospect, a talker. But we "needed" someone right now, and he was miraculously available. So I hired him. Turned out he falsified the prospect list for months while he spent a lot of expense money on nonproductive trips. Guy #2 - two years later - much the same story. Found out he had falsified a resume, hired his friends as "sales people," threw lavish parties, and sold nothing and called on no one. Guy #3 - years after #2 - was falsifying time records and financial statements.
Trust But Verify
I think the lessons being taught here are - perhaps - obvious in retrospect but are also critical to entrepreneurs.
If you want to build an entrepreneurial business you have to build trust with your team and your customers and your suppliers and partners. But, call it plan management or call it verification, you must have systems in place that give you independent confirmation of what is going on. Whether that means talking to prospects yourself regularly, sending others along on sales calls, independently spot auditing time and financial records, or checking off planning goals, none of this implies a lack of trust. it implies a business need to set clear goals and independently verify they are being executed. Have the bank statement mailed to your home and bring it to the office - opened - so that people know you read it. Check a couple of orders every now and then to make sure they are accurate. There are a bunch of these simple rules you can put in place for your own business.
Don't Fight Fires You Don't Have
Entrepreneurs often feel that time is of the essence. We cannot wait because an opportunity will pass us by. And sometimes that may be true. But it wasn't - really - in these three cases. It was just my own impatience to get moving. (My partner hired guy #3 but he was the only person he talked to.) If we had described the position in outcome based objectives, diligently checked references (Read Hire With Your Head) and interviewed alternative candidates, if we had waited until we knew, none of this would have happened.
We were fighting a fire, which we really did not have. The rush of being fast blinded my ability to take my time, find the exact fit, and then set objective, measurable expectations properly to assure everyone of success. If the people we did hire had been the right ones, expectations and measurements would've made them more successful.
It's an interesting side note how consistently the wrong people object to verification, objective goals, or other measurements. if you find this, be worried.
A very successful entrepreneur speaking in one of my classes recently said that his principle is always fire someone when you first think of it because it never gets better. Another lesson for another time.