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Human Resources

the reason I wanted to do this here is I do. A lot of you don't have employees yet, so I don't want toe Don't want to waste your time with something that you don't feel you need. However, if you're going to the numbers that you all stated for the most part, almost four out of six of you, for sure are all in the category that you would require an employee to manage that kind of money because there there are actually numbers that I'm gonna give you that when you hit this number, you probably need additional help. And so we're gonna go through that. So So please listen very carefully because this is important to you If you don't have an employee now, having employees generally means that you're successful enoughto have an employee. There's also a point where you could have too many employees and where you're starting to work for them and not work for yourself, and we'll talk about that as well. Now, the first question is, how much of your business is actually photography being behind the ...

camera? Anybody have any idea of how much you actually what is the percentage of how often you're behind the camera percent 2010 to 20%. That's what most of us A. So so if 10 to 20% is how often you're behind the camera, what the heck are you doing the rest of the time? I mean, where's that other 80% spend? That's doing things like building, managing, marketing, branding a business. There is a problem in any industry in any business, and it's called paralysis by analysis. And this is the problem, the inability to make even small decisions quickly and a lot of a surprising a couple of smiles and sure smirks there. So I know you guys recognize that this is something we all have. This tendency we all fear the unknown. We're gonna talk about competition, things that we fear and how to work through those in the next couple days. So the question is, when do you hire do any of you have employees? Now? I don't think anybody does. You have had recently gotten through a process of hiring a couple different people to help me and didn't work out. And so that's why I'm hoping, you know, gain more information on how hiring the right people cause I had a lot of problems with They came and excited to work with me, but they didn't have the motivation, the passion that I had for my business or the commitment that I had. And so it ended up not working out and right now, place where I really do need more help. But I'm worried about spending all that time training someone just to lose them again because it doesn't work out. So the honeymoon phase is great. They're good for that 1st 30 to 60 days. They're amazing. And then all of sudden, there true personality comes out. We're going to show you some ways to circumvent maybe seeing through some of that faster. So obviously, one of the first things most logical things is on Bill. Put the financial side on it. But there are things that in our business we like to do and things we don't like to do their things that have to be done, like the phones, consultations, actually shooting the session. Usually we like that part, the sales that if he some people love to sell their own work. Most photographers hate to sell their own work. There very nervous to take money for what they love. Imaging, actually spending all those hours editing and working on those files. And then, of course, the production side of it actually putting it together, getting it from the lab and delivering it to the client. Those are all things that we would love to have help with, or some of those things. So the actual average in this industry and in most industries, by the way for small business owners is typically when you reach 100 to $150,000. This is about where you should consider hiring somebody. What this means is you're busy enough. You're making enough money that's keeping you busy, that you cannot accomplish all of the tasks. So this is kind of that turning point for most people. Where there you're feeling completely overwhelmed, that completely strapped and you just can't do it anymore. Now that's your standing on that offensive. Do you want to slow it down and cut back, or do you want to take that next level to gain that person that could take over some of those things so you can continue to produce and grow so that's that number. So some of you are not in your heads. I'm betting you're at that number. So you feel like Okay, that's why you're you're looking at this potential. Now, who do you hire? That's the next question. Where do you find these people? First of all, you want to find the thing you struggle with most on. Then you want to build from that? Most photographers. I found her uncomfortable with sales. We don't like to sell our own work, so sales is typically one That's very helpful. My first hire was more of a reception based. It was reception production. I was small enough that the person could handle both of those answering the phone, answering the door and putting orders together. That's a good place to start. Imaging is one that we're all overwhelmed with. But there are two sides to that. Number one. We take it very personal. We don't want people making our pictures pretty. We want to do it ourselves. Number two, it's that what you just mentioned, which is you, Traynham. You teach him how to be a great image artist, and then they go start their own company or they go work for somebody else. Now you're down a man and it's a real You've given that person all this responsibility so you could do all that when they leave your in trouble, because you have to do all that you've added. And now nobody but you can do that. Imaging. We'll talk about enabling yourself and believing that you can't live without a person is a really bad thing. So so I always say, reception slash production and then sales would be the 2nd 1 I think it's critical that every photographer knows how to sell their work well before they train somebody else to do it. We all have to overcome those fears. In fact, someday if I get to come back, I would do a full three day course on sales. I do it 10 day course on sales because I think it's so important. Understand how to sell the mechanical side of it and the emotional side of it, too. But once you acknowledge that you know how to sell, well, then you could teach. It's easy to teach somebody one of the advantages of having somebody else sell for you. Is there not the boss so they can't change or break the rules. Just kinda nice. My associates who sell for me, they sell very, very well. And the rules are the rules. And you don't have a client looking at them going. But I know you own it. I know you know what it costs. So there's that barrier there, which I like. Can I sell my own work? Yes. Did I like selling my own work? No. I learned how to do it. I studied from the best in the industry. I taught my associates how to do that. Now I can sit back and watch them do their jobs. Well, if I had to, I could walk in the cells room and do it though, because I wouldn't want to lose that ability. So when you're hiring somebody, the first question is, how much do you pay? First of all, you have to understand everything. Local climate is gonna be different. What you could expect out of that is different when you're starting. One of the most important things is you need to allow a structure for growth. It's not a stardom low and move him up. But in one sense is a bit since owner, I'll be really honest with you. We are kind of a starting low and move him up. We'll give you the education, you're gonna get a B C education. You're gonna start pay here. But if you do A B and C, you're gonna be able to increase with the company if you start if somebody walks in and tells you they want to make $20 an hour and you were planning on paying 15 If you decide you there so worth that, you pay them 20. When are you going to pay him? 2122 23? Because that's what they're going to expect in the next couple of years. And you're in the mindset of you can only afford 15. So it is important to be very honest and open when you go into this, one of the best things you can do is create compensation packages that will attract and keep employees. They have to be lucrative and competitive. And in any market in this economy, it's hard. I've had times where I could have done better and just I needed to get to it. And then I've been through really hard times and economic times where everybody on the team knows that, you know, just to stay in business, we all have to work together. So so again, I'm grateful that my track record having employees that have been with me for 10 to 17 years, many employees I know there's something good there. I know we're doing something right, but all of us want to make more money. All of us want to do better. Absolutely. Get what you pay for. If you are cheap, you're going to get cheap labor. You're gonna get the same mentality. So you so you need to be ready to invest. There are lots of resource is out there on bond. These are things that you could do some research you can actually figure out in your right down to your zip code. What people are paying for certain services. That's a good way to do it. Just that you have an idea of what to expect. Once you determine what the job is, then you're gonna determine what the base salaries. What can you afford to pay them? You have to decide if it's in your budget. If you bring this person on, is it? You can't afford them, or will they afford you the opportunity to make more money to pay for them? Because there is that gray area where you and everybody goes through it, where you think it can't afford him, but you can't afford not to hire them, too. So you'll have to go through that learning curve. That's where you get creative. That's where in the beginning I was trading services, and now you have to kind of go beyond that and see what you can do. You do have to research your competitors a lot of them place as they're looking for employees to read what they're saying, figure out what they're offering. That's a good way to do it. Aan den. You can kind of be creative with that Tuas Faras you know, is there some sort of incentive or bonus that your employees like? I've had employees that maybe would take less money, but they want to earn equipment because they're photographers and they want to have a side business Now we'll talk later about non compete contracts and how I really feel about that. But there are creative ways to work with people and make things happen. You should remember that retraining on employees is far more expensive than hiring are sorry. Re training a new employee than maintaining the ones you have. However, you want to make sure you have the right people on the bus, you have to be consistent. Onda always treat them the same one of the best books I ever read, and this is kind of This is one that may not apply, but there's a book called Good to Great, and it's actually a book about corporations that made it and corporations that didn't make it and why. And so when I first started reading it, I wasn't sure that it was the right book for my mental state. But some of the things I took about took out of it, really probably some of the things that have stuck with me longest, and that was the part about hiring people and where good employees come from. One of the things that it taught me and this is stuck with me so much is is if an employee, if you haven't employing and a lot of some of you haven't had in place. But if you have an employee and you may have that is not the right person, but you don't know how to let them go. One of the best things you can ask yourself and I got this out of that book is if they were to come to you right now and tell you that they were quitting, would you be, uh, relieved, or would you be sad? And that's like, right there. That should tell you a whole lot because I've had employees that I just wish would quit. But I don't have the courage to let them go. Every day they're on my payroll. It's taking from my company what's more important. And this book teaches this it's taking from their life by keeping them in a company that they have no future and that you're really not happy with them. You're actually taking time away from them, going out and living their dream, and that sounds weird, but it's a big responsibility. If you know they're not the right person, let them go. So the question was, would you be relieved or would you be sad? And the second question you would ask yourself is if they quit and then came back. Would you re hire them? Because if the first question didn't answer it, then that 2nd 1 definitely would. If you wouldn't rehire them wires, they still there. And that's something that I probably am the worst at letting people go. I will be miserable. I will avoid them. I won't even look them in the eye if I feel like they're really doing. But I cannot have. I just don't didn't have the courage. Let them go. That's why you hire a Brandon used Make him do know he's like things. Thankfully, in my history, we've had to let very, very few people go the first, probably 15 to 20 years. I don't think I ever fired a single person the last seven or eight years because of our growth. That incredible growth that we've had we have in an emergency situation brought on people that weren't right. And I hurt my company by doing that. And then you have. That's where you start to go. Okay, this is this is at that level. With that many employees, it becomes draining on 30 people, not just, you know, two or three of you. So it is important when you're looking for a new higher. There are some important things that you need to Noah's faras writing the ad. I'm just gonna quickly brings through this because this is just a sample of how we write the ads you want. Teoh. We typically remain anonymous. We don't necessarily want people to know who we are, but we give a good outline of what we're asking for. We want to outline what our future employees will be doing for your company. Want to be very specifics, the duties, responsibilities in the qualifications? Usually you're going to summarize that because you want to make sure it's very clear what they're going to do. I could tell you horror stories of hiring people. I mean, when I first soap in my 1st 2000 square foot studio, I had employees and we had to maintain that little building, and I was shooting all the time. So this company meeting I just turned. Everybody said, Hey, the bathroom. You know, it's it gets dirty sometimes. If you see that the trial, I don't mind doing it. If the trash is full or whatever, let me know. I'll clean a but just, you know, make sure that if you go there, just check it up from a client spaces. I had an employee who wasn't a very happy person. Anyway, right after that meeting, come up and just get in my face and say, You know what? I'm giving you my notice because I was not hired to clean toilets in my head. I'm going ask you to clean the toilets. I just have to ask you to be a part of the community, like care about it. Enough to let me know that the toilet needs to be clean. But in her mind, she took it as a personal, you know, threat that I was threatening her. What she was. She was a sales person. She was not a toilet cleaner. So I learned something about people because I realized even how you say things. I don't want to work with people who wouldn't clean my toilets. I know that sounds weird, but I mean, I'll clean them and I don't expect people to clean them. We have somebody that we pay to clean them, but I would be the 1st 1 to solve it. A toilet problem, and I know that the people who have been with me for a long time, they would be right in there with me for the if the toilets flooding, we would all be saving the toilet. And that's something That's the kind of people you're looking for, not easy to find, but we're gonna tell you how. So we're gonna cover also their qualifications, what they need to do, what they need to be or do before they could accept this position. Be very clear on this stuff because it's always as those gray areas that gets you. So you want to follow by restating your goals for the position and outlining how they can actually contact you. So here's Justin example. We're looking for an individual who has a passion for marketing and a drive for sales. If you love to sell in, are motivated to exceed your goals, we provide an amazing product. Doesn't say photography studio etcetera because I'm not necessarily, I find when I put the word photography in anything, I get a whole bunch of people who want to be photographers on, and they just want to work for me so that they can learn to be a photographer and they come to be with I wanna be a photographer. But all the sales I know darn well when they come into that room with they want to be a photographer. They don't want to be a sales person. They want to touch a camera. I mean, I need people who like the sale who like to be with people who like to talk to people, and it's a totally different animals, so So we don't necessarily know that we're a photography studio. Etcetera were looking for sales motivated people. In this case, what's more important than the ad is the interview process, because this is the one where I always see a lot of light bulbs go off, and this is sort of where I think if you're considering it, this is how you're gonna find the right person. There's several interviews that are required to come if you're gonna work in my studio. The 1st 1 of course, is a phone interview. We will contact you, and we will talk to you on the phone. One of us will have some great conversations with you very quickly. We can weed through candidates, and as you know, like if you put an ad on Craigslist, you get 150 resumes in less than an hour is typically what we see. It's just flooded with resumes so we can look at them. Wade through some. We get down to the top 2030 and we will make phone interviews, will call him and talked him on the phone easily. You can weed out another 10 just from talking to people asking them a few questions, listening to how they speak. Because when you can't see their faces, you could make a lot of decisions. Could my client speak to this person? Are they articulate? Are they educated? Do they sound comfortable? Do they sound engaging? Those are the kind of things you're looking for. So then you're gonna weed it down to maybe the 10 or so or whatever the number is that you want to meet with. Then you're going to set up a face to face meeting. Now the face the face, of course, is important because then you could see their personalities, their choice and clothing were trying to be. I'm certainly not one to judge what people wear, but I also recognize that I shoot with no shoes and I you know, I have piercings and a few other things, and that's my personality. My cells associates, though they have a standard dress. They have to dress and look a certain way, and we are very high in studio. We expect to make thousands of dollars when they go in that room. I am not the right representative for that type of sales. I have beautiful people that take care of that. And when I say beautiful, I'm not talking about clothing. And look, I'm talking about hearts. These are people who love what they dio and they look the part and they look well. So when somebody comes in for a sales appointment, I'm gonna be looking at them trying to make that decision. I can clearly see you have to give some room for nervousness. Everybody's nervous in an interview, so you're not going to judge them based on their shakiness. But are they looking you in the eye? Are they comfortable? Are they asking questions? It's more important to hear questions than to ask questions, because if they're engaging, they're going to say we could do this or I this or they're going to give you information that you're not, that you're not soliciting. Somebody who's engaged will tell you things that they want to know. Are they talking too much? Can you not get a word in edgewise? We just went through a great hiring where this particular woman would not stop. So I look up and after a while like because I just couldn't speak to her and she was just excited. But it was too much. I knew that my clients would absolutely shut down on her and it just wouldn't work. So so, are they confident but not overconfident or they verbal? Can they communicate? Are they dressed appropriate, though those those decisions could be made in 1/10 of a second. Every hire I ever higher you can ask every employee I've ever had. I've personally hired them in less than five sentences because I hire from the heart. I don't care what's on your resume, because, frankly, I think you could make that stuff up. But I hire from the heart. Brandon's a good example of he was a Craigslist find, uh, Craigslist bonus. And when he came in, um, the person that was interviewing him, came out, said He's great. I walked in there. I think he said five things to him and I said, OK, start tomorrow, walk down He's like, but I did it because his heart was in it. The things that he responded, his heart was in it. One thing that is important, though, is if you're hiring and you're going to go through that process, you definitely want to meet with these people. On a business level, interview is very different because everybody's kind of staged and dressed and ready to go. One of the most important things you can do is what we call the visiting interview, and this is what I want you to take out about the new hire process in after the verbal interview. We do require that every person that we hire has to come in for a visiting interview. You can call it what you want. We do pay these people. We pay the minimum wage, whatever that currently is on DWI. Tell them it's 3 to 4 hours. You're going to meet with every person in the building. You're going to sit with him for about 30 minutes, asked them about their job. You're going Even if it's not what you're gonna be doing, you can ask them questions. They can ask you questions. Just get to know us. Because, frankly, we tell people we're a family and we want you to fit into the family, want to be a part of our family. So So when they come in for the visiting interview, this is where the rial this is, where you circumvent that, that whole honeymoon crash. Because what we find is if we get it down to five people that were really interested in every time, if I'm involved in that part of it, I will pick the one that I think it's for sure going to be the right one when it comes to visiting interviews. And every time I'm wrong. If I do it this way, because what happens when somebody comes in, you learn a totally different side to them. You see, the people will give you information that they shouldn't, and they don't realize that they're doing it. As an example. In a visiting interview, one of the first things were looking for his cell phone usage. We tell people when they come in, can have a cell phone, has to stay in your car unless you have Children. If you have Children, you need to keep it on vibrate and you cannot be on it. So you know when you have somebody comes in and they're on their cell phone underneath there, only there for 30 minutes per desk. And they're texting. And then you come to them and say, Hey, you know what? We don't allow cell phones. You need to put that away. And then 10 minutes later they're on the cell phone. This is typically that younger, 20 and under or ish. They're on it again. And by the third time, we just asked them. We just let them know that it's not gonna work out because of that, So that's an easy one. But there are other things that people say, and my staff is really good at asking questions. If you're the only person that you need to be asking leading questions because when people are working for you, they get a lot more comfortable. They say a lot more to examples. One girl bless her the whole entire time. She kept telling everybody about how six she'd been, that she had mono and that she's been out of work for months and months and months, and then she keeps getting sick and it's hard. I mean, I don't I certainly am not being judgmental. I mean, an illness like that is pretty serious, but from a perspective of somebody who's going to be paying for it, you have to look at it. And the more she kept telling us she was sick and never at work, the more we're like, OK, that's not gonna work for us. I'm sorry. You know, I'm very sorry this happened to you, but it's not gonna be a good fit. So So you start to hear this is my favorite all time ever was. This guy that came in, wanted to be a photographer was adamant he was going to be amazing. And he came in an interview. Processing was so brash, and he was telling me all about this other company that he worked for. They were my competitors. Of course, he wanted to talk about about him when I kept stopping him, saying I don't want to hear anything about them were a separate company. I said. You are there my competition and I respect that. But I don't want to hear anything that gives. That's not how we do things here. But he really was pushing for this, and at one point he finally turned to me. He said, Oh, I asked him about how he left this company and he turned to me and he tells me the story about Christmas time. He's like, This guy was booked solid. He had five sessions day through the holidays, and he made me so mad one day I totally quit on him and walked down. Totally screwed him, is what he said. And I was like, You want me to hire you? And he was so proud because I think in his mind he really believed that I would be excited that he holds my competition, so to speak, in a reality. I looked at the big picture that well, if you did not to him, you do that to me and it was just a complete shutdown. So a lot of times, like I said, the interview, people won't say things like that. They'll only say that kind of stuff when you give them personal time when you drop your guard and you're not the boss interviewing Now you're a friend you're sitting next to and my staff because in this case, they have to rotate through everybody. Everybody's gonna ask questions because they have to work with this person to on it becomes important. So if you just if you're by yourself and you're starting to toe higher the active interview, bringing them in for 1/2 day and working with them is the best thing you can dio probably 80% of the people you think you would hire. You won't hire just through those conversations, so that visiting interview will help you. Ah, whole lot. I always get asked about non compete contracts. And how do I handle non compete contracts? First of all, I don't believe in non compete contracts. I don't believe Just like I don't believe you can take a dream from somebody. I don't think you can force somebody not to follow their dreams. So I'm not a big fan of non compete contracts. Have I been burned? Absolutely. I've had about 40 photographers work for me. I only have three that I consider friends still, and I don't mean that a negative. Like I hated them when they left. I just mean there are people who This is what I found. When you hire someone, it's kind of like what you said. You train them and you give them the world, and there's a point where they realize that there is there is good as you are that their talent, like they came in, is not very good photographers. And after five years of telling them what to do there really good photographers and then they go, Hey, I don't need you to do this on my own. That's fair. My opinion is all right. If I know you're gonna leave, if I know you're gonna go work from somebody else, let's let's make this good for both of us. So in our studio, I don't have a non compete contract. We do not allow our employees to have side businesses like full fledged side businesses. However, I do know that you know, in the past photographers to photograph their friends on the side. I just don't want to know. I'm not gonna police it, but we don't let them have full fledged businesses on the side. non compete contracts, says. Basically, when you leave my company, you can't work within a so many square miles. So a 20 mile square radius or something like that. I can't really do that to people. It's not really logical to try to do that to people. So my opinion is, let's leave on good terms. So when you work for me, we when we hire a photographer because that's what everybody wants to be, is a photographer. You have to work for me for a year and non photography related something. You have to either be a cell. That's what we usually it's. You have to be a receptionist. Then you have to be an image artist, and then you have to be a salesperson. You put in 18 months working for me before you'll ever see a camera. Then, from there you will be an associate. You'll be an assistant in the camera room, so for about six months you'll work with us. You'll be our assistant. You'll help us, and then by the second year you should be at the point where you're an associate photographer Now. Some people have shortened that curve because they've excelled and They're great and we love him when we know they're in. Other people have had to go through that whole process. But here's my opinion. So if it took you two years to get behind a camera, it's gonna take you probably a year or two more to get good at using that camera. So at the end of that four or five year period, you've put about four or five years in my company. I feel like that's fair. I feel like a four or five years if you've given me four or five years of your time. And I have given you a couple of years of my education, more parity if you're gonna go open another company, Go, go. I mean, honestly, yes. You know my marketing. Yes. You know everything about me. I'm okay with that because I would think after four or five years, maybe six or seven years for sure. Why wouldn't you do that? If you can see how successful we are, why wouldn't you want that for yourself? Now, thankfully, I have photographers who have not done that. Helen's been with me for years because she also has. You know, I mean she knows what it's like to own your own business. It's not as easy as it looks. Sometimes it's just nice to get a guaranteed paycheck and do your job and have fun and go home. So that's that's that Other security is when you're thinking hiring a photographer, create a structure so that you're not burning yourself the only time I've ever been truly burned or when I've seen somebody that was so talented that I circumvent my own structure and said, You know what? They're so intelligent. That's a waste. Let's put him in photography. They've come in for six months to a year. They've learned my marketing, my ideas, my concepts. And then they bounce and they become and they become fierce competitors. They lose that respect because they took what they wanted and they left. So so keep that in mind. So non competes for me are a no go. We do have sort of a a a synopsis of what we do and don't like, but we don't force it on anybody. Now you've got a higher So what are we gonna do with that person? Well, obviously there's a few things that are legal. You have to fill out the job application. You have to sign the W fours, and they have to be eligible to be an employee, that you have to prove that they are a citizen of the United States, etcetera, those air just standard rules that apply. You do have to create an employee manual. In fact, I believe that is in the book. I don't know if you guys have that you don't have the seating in there, but I know they are. Employee Manual was a bonus for the book, so I will get that to you guys. And for those watching the employment manual is important because that's where your rules and regulations are. You want to make sure you have that in place for those who don't have an employee manual, even if you don't have employees, you should start one now because it's just like a business plan. If you started now, as you evolve in tiring, you'll add more things to it, and eventually you'll have a really nice structure there. Once you hire them, you're gonna wanna have structured evaluations. This is where you determine if they're the right employees. We do have a 30 day, 30 days just to determine whether or not you're gonna stay with this company. The 90 day is your official review. This tells us if your if your ex selling in the company, this could potentially have a pay increase. As I said, we start a little lower, hoping that in 90 days we can increase that person based on what they've done. And then, of course, your traditional one year reviews are very important as well. You have to treat people very fair across the board. You'll hear it all day to welfare, firm and consistent across the board, and in fairness to them, they need to have performance reviews. That's actually one of the worst things. I think that's one of my biggest clauses. My employees are my family, so it's really awkward for me to sit in a room and talk to them like, Okay, let's talk about your doing. You've been here 17 years. Are you gonna do your job? You know it's not like that. It's very informal, but in fairness to them, they deserve your time. They deserve to be told what they're doing. Well, they deserve to be told what they can work on two. So that's really important to have that structure and to follow it. And again, I have a bookkeeper that now handles human resource is because I just didn't I failed people by not. I just think it's one of those awkward things that it just feels weird to me. But I forget to that person. It's telling its validation. It's saying you're a great person. You doing a great job, Keep going. I mean, and that's where I needed to work a little harder. You will want to eventually have benefits for your employees. Things like vacation, sick days, holiday pay. Are you flexible? If their parents, if their kids are sick or you're gonna punish them for going home, I mean, you have to decide what type of business you're gonna run. Do you have insurance options on for a one case, things that will work towards their future? You have toe have accountability. You have to track their productivity, determine How do you keep track of what they're doing and what they're not doing? You have to find their strengths and work to their strengths. And then, of course, find a way to improve their weaknesses. Again, this goes back to those structured evaluations. If you don't give them that time, they'll never know that they need to make improvements in a company. It's like a domino effect of one person is not in line doing their job. It actually affects everyone right on down the line. So it is important that you keep that in mind. Your employees are your greatest asset. They are everything in company. If you look at this list of all the things that happen in a company, once you have an employee, you'll find that you're a very small percentage of the actual day to day. They take the heat on a lot of things. They are the front line of your business. They are in some cases, it. I mean, it could be tough. I had a Christmas. This is that busy $1,000,000 a year that 1st 1,000,000 a year phones were ringing off the hook. This was December, it was getting close to Christmas and people were waiting for their orders and panicking and the phone was ringing off the hook and I do not answer the phone. Not that I don't want to, but I'm a something of a talker. My clients want to talk to me. And so what would normally be a five minute phone call is like a 25 minute phone call for me, and we were just too busy. But the phone was ringing so crazy that I finally picked it up and I said, Expressions, photography. Can I help you? Oh, no, I said, Expresses photography. Can I put you on hold? And the minute I said this, this woman came on good. She's like, No, you cannot put me on hold. Somebody just put me on hold and they forgot about me. Don't you dare, But she's like yelling at me, and I am like, shaking and I'm listening. I recognized her voice, and I said, I hope he's not watching. I said, I said, Jamie, and she said, Sandy, I am so sorry. I didn't know it was you. I never would have talked to you like that. If I would have known it was you and I literally sat there went, Oh my gosh, But you would talk to my employees like that. She had no problems talking to my employees that way It's only when she knew it was me that she was embarrassed and I was a really good thing for me because I didn't realize my staff have been saying how stressful on how frustrated they were with certain things. It wasn't until I had somebody scream at me that I went Oh, my gosh, you guys take a lot of heat for me, you know? I mean, it's not your fault that this is late, but yet you're standing on that front line. So So you really want to make sure that, you know, um, that they know that you know what they're actually dealing with. However, you don't want to become that needy boss if you think you can't live without them. The worst employees I have ever had are the ones that do a job for me that I think I can't replace, because I keep him and keep him and they take advantage. And then I become vindictive. They become vindictive, and it's a horrible, horrible situation to be in. And that's where you you become an ineffective employers. So you want to make sure you understand that your staff represents you. You have to train the well and treat them well. You have to know what they think of you and what they think of your work. I had an awesome personality, employees. She's great. People loved her. She was super outgoing and so funny. Put her in sales. I didn't realize she thought we were really, really expensive. It wasn't until I was sitting in the cells room once and the client was like, Okay, let me go ahead and see that size And she said something to the effect of Well, that's really big. And the way she said it, my heart sunk to the floor because then the client went, Oh, is that too big? Oh, yeah, You know what? Let me see it a little smaller in my head. I'm going. Oh, my cash. That employee was basing it on the price. She knew how much it was, and it was really expensive. So in her mind, she's like, Whoa, don't go there. I realized I have a huge problem here. I never realized how she was always in the client's favorite, trying to get them the best deals. When I started to really look at what she was doing, she was like telling them about discount offers we had in the paper, you know, and it's these people who would have paid money. But she was helping them by saving them money and and again, Is that right or wrong? I don't know. I mean, it felt wrong to me because it was taking away from my family and everything that I was doing in her mind. She was saving the money. She was. She was a pro client. There has to be some balance there. I've got great associate to give a little, but we gain a little too. They say You know what you're spending this much we can get. You know, here's a bonus item here if there are ways to benefit your clients without hurting your business. But she just wasn't the right employees because I didn't realize she thinks. I mean, she couldn't afford us and she thought we were just too expensive. So it's that fair, firm and consistent. If it works for your clients, it has to work for your staff as well. I have used professional resource is before to hire people. That is one way to do it. I have found that those air nice in the sense that you are protecting. You pay a premium, you pay more. But they do. First of all, they do all that. They do all the interviewing. They get you down to the best options. You interview the best options. And then if you hire one of those people, and then 30 days later, you realize it's not the right person. They replace them and you don't have to do the legwork. So there are some advantages as faras time management money. But on the other side of it, we've been equally successful with Craigslist and things like that. It's just more legwork. It's less money, but a whole lot more interviews and legwork. Once you have a staff, I don't care if it's a staff of one or just you and your mom or whatever. Whoever you're working with, you want to create a professional environment. One of the best things you can do is create a company meeting in our studio. Everybody has a meeting agenda form. They have to fill it out and turn it in. The day before the meeting. That's questions, concerns, thoughts, things that have happened that we could review. What happens is it takes a company meeting. When I first started having company meetings, what they became was like a free for all toe talk about clients, you know, have you sit around and like, Oh, my gosh, Mrs Jones came in, Did you see blah, blah, blah. And it was just a waste of company time and money. And once we created the meeting agenda, it became a very direct look. We're gonna follow this agenda. We're gonna go through this if it's not on here, we're not talking about it. And we way we were able to cut cut in an hour and 1/2 meeting to a minute very direct meeting. We now have daily meetings because we're moving so quickly that we have a meeting every day at one o'clock with different departments to make that happen. So from those meetings, that's actually how I built my studio policy manual, by the way, is I would learn things that people would Santiago, we need to put that in the meeting or the policy manual, and that's kind of how that was built. It is your responsibility to take charge, and again, I know a lot of you don't have employees. But if you want the numbers you stated, you will. And you want to know this stuff sort meeting is the most effective way to interact with your staff. One of my favorite things is if I see a problem, I can publicly state it with everybody in the room. You always know who's in trouble cause they're sinking their seat, but you're not calling them out individually. Sometimes you can solve a lot of problems by publicly stating something and not looking at, you know, you look it over everybody and you don't meet anyone's eyes. Then at the next level is if you have to pull somebody into the room privately than they know they've crossed the line. But sometimes you can eliminate a lot of problems, like stupid things like cellphones on eating at your desk, liquids at your desk that don't have lids on them, things like that. You could just publicly say it in the three people who are guilty. Kind of go. Okay, that was for me. Got it? Now the termination. We talked a little bit about this. Those questions you can ask yourself. I I just think that's such a for me reading that book with such an important turning point because there was somebody in my company at that time that I absolutely knew should be off the bus. But I didn't have the courage to do that, and that helped me. It helped me realize that what I took out of it wasn't that they were hurting my company. I took out of it that I was hurting their life, that every day they spent with me they had no chance for a future because they were not the right employee for my company, and I was taking away from their dreams and their life, their vision. It made it easier for me to terminate somebody based on that, then the I didn't like you because I'm a try harder. Let's try to work it out. We can do this. You can't change people's personalities. There are certain things that people will only be as good as they want to be, and you cannot make them. No. No amount of money you can offer them will make them better than they want to be. All right, holding on to the wrong people will only make matters worse for you, your employees and your business. A termination does have to be a plan process. You need to make sure that you have a list of what they would have. That's your property and anything you need to get back for them, such as keys or laptops or things like that. You do have to do the process of changing all your passwords. I know this sounds like a lot, but trust me, anybody that leaves our company, it's one employee takes almost one employee an entire day. Entire work, dammit! Eight hours to change everything that we would have to change. So we work hard to keep them if we can, Um, last, but not least, and then we'll move on When you let somebody go. Should take no more than a couple of minutes. You need to be understand. There's actually an entire human resource. There's a legal side to this or what you can and can't say when you're terminating somebody. If you've emotionally had a relationship with him, it's hard to look somebody in the eye and just say We just want to let you know that your job is no longer secure here. Get out. You know, it's hard to say the words. It's hard to find the right words, but what happens? What happens is you start to apologize and you say too much. You're putting. There's a liability there. There's a legal risk to what you can and can't say when you're letting somebody go, so you just want to be very clear. Keep it simple. Make it about the reason that they're going. If you've done your job well, you should have backup information. They should have had at least 2 to 3 warnings, so they should know it's coming. At that point, it shouldn't be a surprise. You don't want to read about offer any advice. You don't want to sugarcoat it. You don't want to offer false praise because you're nervous and you're saying too much. You don't want to defend your company or sink sympathy for yourself. You just have to be clear and consistent and cut those ties because ultimately I again it's one of those After this many years, you can get sued for the dumbest things and often times in that firing process, that liability of are you discriminating against that person without that paperwork without having those notifications, those warnings and then a very simple, clean and concise firing is the way to go. Anything else you say sounds silly, but can and will be used against you if somebody wants to do that. So So keep that in mind. All right? We have a pop quiz. We're almost done. Guys, this is good. So we're gonna page 1 23 I'm so excited, cause the heaviest part of this class is now almost done. So with this tomorrow, we get to get into the fund moneymaking part. That is, of course, after you do all your homework. So all right, so we're gonna go through these. There are quite a few these air goals and affirmations. These are the things that we want you to look at in the big picture. You need to complete all of you with the book. Need to complete all of these. Those of you in the virtual audience, you don't have the book. You need to pull out two or three things that you can accomplish and let's get those done. So number one, I have reached my target Gross and I feeling ready to hire employees. Number to have researched options to finding good employees. Number three have determined what type of employee I need, and I have laid out a clear outline of responsibilities and job descriptions. Number four. I've researched pay scales in my community, and I know what the expected hourly salary rates will be. For the position on hiring number five, I have determined what future pay increases, bonuses, benefits and holidays that I will offer to a new employee. Number six. I have created a new hire packet that includes all legal forms, employee manuals, job descriptions and the non compete contract if legal in my state number seven I have written a help wanted ad that has been proofread by someone else for clarity. Number eight. I have a script prepared to handle phone interviews. Number nine. I have a script repaired for handling a face to face interview number 10. I'm prepared to do a visiting interview with candidates that I feel might work well with my company. Number 11. I have researched all forms and documents that the government requires for business with employees. Number 12. I have a complete employee manual that clearly explains all policies and procedures. Number 13. I regularly check my manual with my state guidelines to make sure that all stated policies are legal. Number 14. I've researched human resource legal issues, and I understand what I can and can't be said to the employees. Number 15. I've created a structured evaluation process for my employees that includes both performance and pay reviews. Number 16. We're doing good. I have selected a time each month that I will conduct a mandatory company meeting, regardless of how many employees I have. Number 17. I've created a training program that will ensure that my new hire has ample understanding of the job and expectations Number 17 I have created. I'm sorry, Number 18. I understand that I need to document all problems and issues that arise within A with an employee. I need a detailed record of everything. Number 19. I have a termination plan and number 20. I know that keeping an employee that does not perform to my expectations is not good for me, the company or the So I know that's a lot just in f y. I all of those forms that I just said you need to have you all happen in the book, so you don't even have the right of also. So a lot of your homework is done for you, for the rest of you. Pick a few things and let's make this happen. All right, so we got through the hardest part of this class. I'm not going to say I think it's more engaging tomorrow, but it's equal amount of information, the differences it gets into the arty stuff, the marketing and the build, customer service sales, all the fun things we'd like to talk about rolling into the next. The following day. The third day is going to be covering everything about all kinds of different genres, like getting into the video market. There's Oh my gosh, there's tons and the organizational side of running a business. It's all the production side of it, which is good