Mission #3-3 Creating Your Winning Team

Objectives:

• To think of your business from a team perspective.
• To hire industry specific knowledgeable professionals.
• To appreciate the risks in hiring friends and relatives.
• To keep lines of communication open with your customers.

Background:

No matter how small your small business, you are going to need help. You are going to need to assemble a support team. David Ogilvy, the famous advertising guru, wrote "First, make yourself a reputation for being a creative genius. Second, surround yourself with partners who are better than you are. Third, leave them to get on with it."

Every business will need an attorney, accountant and one or more mentors. Start thinking immediately about who would be appropriate to these roles. As you conduct your research, you will have the opportunity to ask those in the industry whom they use. When you start hearing the same names, you will have your leads. Lee Iacocca, former CEO of Chrysler, said "Start with good people, lay out the rules, communicate with your employees, motivate them and reward them. If you do all those things effectively, you can't miss."

For your attorney and accountant, you will choose skilled professionals who will be able to do more than simply fill out forms. As both you and your business become more sophisticated, you will want to seek the legal and financial counsel of specialists who know the intricacies of your specific industry. From these specialists, you can expect both specific advice and specific networking opportunities.

You want experienced professionals who have seen it all before. Why pay for people who are going to learn or have no interest in learning the intricacies of your business from you? You want to be able to ask a question and get an answer. You don't want to have to go into a half hour explanation of how your business works every time you make a call. This can get very tiresome and expensive.

In most small businesses, you will not work alone but will require a staff of employees. There will be both state and federal equal opportunity guidelines to which you must adhere in your hiring. These guidelines will extend to how you can advertise and what questions you may ask prospective employees.

Be sure that you do your hiring carefully because it is a lot easier to hire someone than to fire them. At best, you want to hire a staff that shares your business vision and your commitment to customer service. As you continue to evaluate other businesses, you will find companies that take the mission of hiring appropriate personnel seriously and those who must have taken the easier route and hired anything breathing that walked through the door.

Refer a prospective hire to Success.org and the Action Principles®. Ask them to read the book and come back for a second interview. At the second interview, ask them which is their favorite principle. From their answer, you will probably have a good idea if they have completed the assignment, how smart they are, and how much they want the job.

You want more than warm bodies working for your business. You want representatives. You want people who can answer questions patiently. If they are selling, you want people who aren't intimidated by asking for the business. This confidence will come to them through your example, your training and your product knowledge.

You want people who will take the initiative and say, "Sir" and "Ma'am" and "May I help you?" and "Thank you" and "Please come again." You want people with a genuine smile to whom work is more an opportunity than a tedious task to acquire money for the weekend.

These days, politeness is becoming such a rare commodity that it can become your own quality control test. People will notice politeness and good manners to the extent that these characteristics exhibited by your staff will draw comment. If people stop commenting on the good nature and politeness of your staff, you'll know that you have a problem.

One pleasant helpful customer service representative is worth many thousands in print advertising.

This does not mean that some customers won't be rude and obnoxious. This does not mean that the customer "is always right." Sometimes, the customer is wrong. However, you and your staff must be guided by the Action Principles^®, which means to use common sense. You don't want to lose an established customer who may spend thousands of dollars over a one hundred dollar disagreement. This said, there are customers who may abuse your generosity and are better sent to your competitors. Of course, the decision to cut loose those few resource draining customers should only be made by senior management.

Be prepared. Working as an entrepreneur, the chances are good that you will automatically be seen as head and shoulders above your contemporaries. The ego boost is nice but comes at a price. Every lay-about relative and zoned-out friend will be looking for a soft job.

Here's an example,

"Dear, you remember your cousin, Mortimer. He's Aunt Sarah's middle son. Well, he's had such a rough go of it. But, now Aunt Sarah tells me that since the doctors have adjusted his medications, he's doing much better. And Auntie is very proud that he isn't drinking half as much. Maybe you could use him for deliveries?"

You will need all your time to watch over and baby your baby, your new business. You are not the family's or the neighborhood's or your old high school's social worker. Did you feel sorry for Mortimer and wish him well? Of course. Maybe you could refer him to Success.org and offer some words of encouragement. Do not; do not give him a job! You are a business and not the family's social welfare agency.

Word of mouth should rather quickly make your business a coveted place of employment. You will know what you want to accomplish and you will be specific in stating your high employee expectations. You will never ask anyone to do a job that you wouldn't do yourself. You will be fair and understanding and generous. Billionaire Richard Branson, Chairman Virgin Group, perspective is "What matters is working with a few close friends, people you respect, knowing that if times did turn bad these people would hold together."

You will attract and keep the best help because you will be constantly striving to make yourself and your business the best that you and it can be.

And most importantly, you will lead by example and many others will want to follow your example to their own successes. Probably the greatest opportunity that you can provide an employee is to become a mentor to him or her. As a mentor, you will have achieved success and respect.

Story:

Andy, As Broker

Andy's monthly newsletters gave him a channel of communication to his investors. He wrote and talked, but mostly listened and learned. His investors were his teachers.

He learned that about 20% of the investors did seem to have a bond with a particular investment broker or a particular real estate agency. In reality, 80% of investors were really unaffiliated and open to solicitation. The client field seemed open to Andy.

Don Nardo might have his thirty owners. Mr. Taylor had his eight trusted clients. And, Mark Cherry, another old hand in the investment field from Century 21, had 20 or so loyal clients. That was about it except for a few scattered brokers who might have a few investors each in their pockets. The rest, the overwhelming majority, could be considered amenable to Andy's overtures. The business was there for Andy to develop.

All business and all property is continually moving from old hands to young. Remember, on the day you die, everything you own will belong to someone else.

Andy also considered an important point. He was young. He could rationalize that since he was less than half the age of Don, Mr. Taylor and Mark Cherry, that time was on his side. He had 80% of the investors to work with now and, given his youth, eventually he could expect to work with the other 20% or their successors. The world constantly evolved.

The newsletters were a nice aside but Andy wanted to be able to provide an even more substantial service in his quest to develop investor loyalty. An obvious answer was to solve the contractor problem. For Andy, it was to provide a service that solved the contractor problem that he had been thinking about.

Andy wrestled with possible solutions. Suppose, rather than thinking about investors as individual property owners, the Newton investment property owners were considered as a block. Then, rather than one owner with one building and another owner with three buildings, there was one group of owners with a common interest and several hundred buildings. Working from this premise, there should be experienced, reliable, professional contractors in the community smart enough to realize that real estate investors, as a block, could be a plum for their businesses.

Andy considered his "investor block" idea from a contractor's perspective. Here are hundreds of buildings, some new but mostly old, that require constant attention which means a constant stream of work. There would be many large jobs and small. The large jobs could be planned and scheduled in advance. The smaller jobs would be excellent fill-ins.

The contracting business was prone to time wasting. The heating contractor wants to put in a boiler but the electrical contractor whose work must precede the installation of the boiler hasn't finished and won't finish for another three hours. Rather than having his crew sit on their hands and drink coffee for three hours, the heating contractor can send his people out on three hours worth of service calls. Efficiency.

And, perhaps best of all, all of the work would be local. The Newton plumber doesn't have to drive 40 minutes to Dover to do a job and forty minutes back at the end of the job. The Newton plumber would be working in Newton.

These were Andy's primary arguments and primary leverage points. If Mr. Contractor was willing to show loyalty and give priority to "Andy's" investors, the selected contractor would have plenty of work, plenty of local work.

Andy started his new research project using the Internet and the Yellow Pages. He listed all of Newton's plumbers, electricians, carpenters, roofers, siding contractors, glass companies, landscapers, tile installers, exterminators, framers, excavators, kitchen and bath companies, masons, rug companies, ceiling specialists, fence companies, waterproofing specialists, painters, wallpaper hangers, hard wood floor sanders, insulation specialists and appliance repair companies.

If he didn't have the bosses' names from each company, Andy called the company and asked for the owner's or manager's name. As a start, Andy wrote a general form letter to each contracting company outlining the potential for that particular company to provide service to Taylor Realty's investors. Using a simple, inexpensive mail merge program on his computer, Andy was easily able to personalize each letter. Andy asked each contractor or manager to call him to discuss this "exciting and profitable" prospect further.

Andy wasn't ready to give away "his" investors' business. There was too much potential business to give away. Andy wanted commitment and concessions.

He considered his options. He really had two.

Let's take the example of All County Siding. He could give his loyalty to All County Siding. He could say to All County Siding, "Listen, I have the inside track to several hundred real estate investors with whom I work on a regular basis. This group could represent a lot of potential siding business each year. If I call you directly with a lead and you close the sale, I expect to receive a referral commission equal to 15% of the job." This approach would give Andy an immediate payback. On a $6,000 siding job, Andy would collect a $900 referral fee. It was interesting and considering all the contracting possibilities, potentially very lucrative."

Or, Andy could give his loyalty to his investors. He could say to All County Siding, "Listen, I represent many of the real estate investors in Newton. We have the potential to give a siding company a great deal of business. I can't guarantee you that you'd be hired for any specific job but I can guarantee you that we will give you the opportunity to bid on many Newton jobs. In exchange for our showing All County Siding consideration, we'd expect special consideration from you, let's say a 15% discount. We'd call you directly and you'd have the option of writing the job yourself and saving the sales commission or giving the sale to a salesperson of your choice."

Andy weighed the choices. He could go for the front money and be immediately paid by the contractors or provide the service on a "goodwill" basis to investors. In theory, the goodwill approach should help stimulate investor loyalty and future for sale and rental listings and future investor purchases.

If just these issues were tied to the choices, Andy would have had a difficult decision. However, there was one overriding factor favoring one of the two options. Being a goodwill ombudsman (middleman) between investors and contractors might become a lot of work without immediate financial return to Andy. However, over the long run, the goodwill approach would definitely bring more buy/sell/lease/rent investment business to Taylor Realty. It would position Andy to be aware of and participate as an agent/broker in more deals.

The bottom line was that the more deals in which Andy was involved, the greater the likelihood that he could start to find ways to participate in deals as both an agent/broker and investor.

Andy reasoned that the real money was in being an owner, an investor himself. Andy felt that whatever avenue would best lead to this objective was the way to go.

In the Master Real Estate Course, you will start to become an expert at local real estate investing.

As Andy was working the contractor side of his investor service program, he was also sending feelers out to a few owners with whom he felt a strong rapport, giving each investor an overview of the service he intended to provide. The response, to say the least, was very favorable. However, when he tested the idea as a profit making venture by mentioning that he, Andy, might be receiving referral fees and/or commissions from the contractors, the responses immediately turned from favorable to neutral to negative. Andy felt that the consensus of investor opinion to his receiving fees was that he, Andy, would not be giving a service but selling a service. More than one investor talked about "kickbacks." A kickback was money paid by a company to a middleman without the knowledge of the buyer.

The talk of "kickbacks" was enough. Andy would run the service as a free service. Eventually the service was to take hold so well that the two full time rental agents hired by Taylor Realty were paid, in addition to their rental commissions, a $250 per week in salary to run what was to be called the Investor Service Program (ISP).

Andy supervised the Investor Service Program. Firms willing to participate were interviewed and asked to sign a letter of understanding that business referred by Taylor would receive a certain discount. Over the years of the program, firms were added and deleted. And firms moved up and down the pecking order on the Taylor Realty call list depending upon the quality and dependability of their work and their price. At first, Andy had to deal with some firms who, for instance, offered a 20% discount and then jacked their prices up 20%. Also factored into the equation were, for example, a firm who might charge $25 an hour for work and offer a 20% discount against a firm offering the same work at $18 an hour with a 10% discount. The better deal was obvious.

To participate in the ISP program, investors were asked to register with Taylor Realty. The registration required an investor to meet with Andy on a quarterly basis for a no-obligation Portfolio Review. The Portfolio Review, held at the office over coffee for some investors, or as a breakfast or lunch meeting with select investors, gave Andy an opportunity to discuss personally with each owner his or her investment progress over the previous three months. Was he or she interested in buying or selling, etc.? Had their rents changed? Did they have any current or pending vacancies that Taylor Realty could help with? Etc., etc.

From the Portfolio Review, which in and of itself was a valuable service to investors, owners could participate in the Investor Service Program. When they had a problem, from a leaky roof to a leaky faucet, they didn't have to call ten contractors. Instead, they could call Taylor Realty and Taylor Realty would not only find them a contractor but have the work done at a discount. When they had a remodeling project to be done, they could call Taylor Realty who would call all the necessary contractors to have all the work done promptly and at a discount. Or, they could call a contractor directly from the contractor referral sheet provided by Taylor and mention that they were investors registered with Taylor and also receive the discount.

From the newsletters and the investor service, came several spin-offs. There were some investors who wanted full time property management services. They didn't want Taylor Realty just to make calls on their behalf. They wanted Taylor Realty to collect rents, hold keys, and to supervise both maintenance requests and property improvements. They wanted their tenants to be able to call Taylor Realty directly with problems since, under the more limited investor service program, only owners and not tenants were allowed to request services.

By keeping the lines of communication open with customers, you learn of new products and services that may prove profitable. You may also learn of products and services that you may wish to discontinue.

For property management services, Taylor Realty received a standard 6% to 10% of gross rents. As with the rental split, 40% went to the company, 40% to the property manager assigned and 20% to the property management lister, in most cases, Andy. The day- to-day property management for the 40% split went to the rental agents who now assumed the added role of property managers.

In the real estate business where weekly paychecks are rare, the rental agent jobs at Taylor Realty were to become coveted assignments. The rental agents received 40% of the rental fees, 40% of the management fees and the $150 a week for the Investor Service Program (ISP) work. After the second year in operation, both of Taylor Realty's rental agent/property managers earned over $30,000.

During the first year of ironing out problems and improving the ISP system, Andy was spending a good portion of his day on the telephone. Rather than writing to all investors via the newsletter insert or talking with individual investors on the telephone, why not get everybody together to talk? Why not have monthly meetings of Newton investors?

For the first few months, the meetings were held in the Taylor Realty conference office with attendance numbering in the teens. And, most of the discussion revolved around the ISP system which everyone liked and everyone had an idea on how to improve. However, as word spread investor to investor and from Andy's newsletter and Andy's monthly calls, attendance grew to average 40 to 50 investors per month. The meeting place had to be switched to a local hotel function room with complimentary coffee, snacks and a cash bar.

For each monthly "Taylor Realty Investors' Roundtable Meeting," hosted by Mr. Taylor, who loved the idea, and chaired by Andy, there was a guest speaker. Over the months, municipal officials spoke. The building inspector talked about the building codes pertaining to multiple dwelling and commercial property. The planning board chairman sketched Newton's future direction. The health inspector clarified health and safety issues. The assessor predicted tax rates. The calendar was easily filled by lawyers talking about legal issues pertinent to real estate investing. Accountants could be called upon to illustrate the tax advantages and consequences of acquisition, operation and disposition of real estate. There were bankers to speak about financing and architects about building and remodeling.

Four times a year Andy was able to hold a new investors' clinic at the hotel. The clinics were to explain the many benefits of real estate investing to homeowners who might be considering making a second real estate investment.

Andy also started a website to present listings, provide statistics, offer advice and answer questions.

This is the grunt work that leads to a successful business. It is one product or service at a time. It is one customer by one customer. It is solving one problem and then the next. It may not be pretty but it is the route to a financially secure early retirement.

In general, the established investors were interested in acquiring larger properties of four units and up, store blocks, office buildings and warehouses. Most of these purchases were beyond the budgets and expertise of homeowners. For the homeowner new to the purchase of income producing properties, opportunities were presented to purchase a two- or three-family house, or a condo or a second single family house. Andy always had a pitch ready for either group. As a further inducement to attend the clinic, the potential investors were given a "free" one-year's subscription to the company's investors' newsletter.

Operational Limitations:

• Most lawyers and accountants will not understand you and what you are tying to do. Most are competent and nice people but small thinkers. Listen to their words of caution. Be careful but keep moving forward.
• Most average people like the comfortable security of the status quo. You must live in the now while seeing beyond the now to what could be.
• Think very carefully about hiring friends and relatives. And then, think again.
• In any large concern, seventy percent of the people are just going through the motions and doing enough work to not get fired. These people can be replaced at any time. Ten percent of people are doing nothing or are a divisive influence and should be replaced. The top ten percent are your winners and you should spoil them and keep them happy.

Seeds for thought:

• What is meant by a team approach to business?
• What type of independent professional help will you need to run your business?
• Why should you work with professionals who have a specific knowledge of your industry?
• How can you find competent industry-knowledgeable professionals?
• Why must you be very careful in hiring friends and relatives for your business?
• How does the lazy man go about finding employees?
• What resources does a smart business owner use to find employees?
• How should you treat your employees?
• What is meant by a "kickback?"
• Why did Andy decide to make his contracting referral service a "free" service?
• How did Andy use ISP to gain new real estate business?
• What was the purpose of the monthly Roundtable Meetings?
• How did Andy get new investors interested in attending his new investor seminars?

Jargon:

Bid - to offer to purchase at a certain price.

Brainstorming session - a business meeting where ideas are presented and exchanged.

Client - a person who uses the professional services of another.

Commodity - a product that is subject to sale or trade.

Grandfathered - By the old rules

Initiative - to begin or introduce something new; to be creative.

Kickback - a percentage payment made to a person able to influence or control a source of income.

Lead - a prospective buyer.

Ombudsman - a middle man to handle requests and complaints.

The whole nine yards - Everything

Tongue in cheek – A joke, kidding

What makes him tick? – What is his motivation?

Questions and Answers:

You talk about small business, but what's wrong with dreaming about big business? Is there something wrong with wanting to be the next Bill Gates?

There is nothing wrong with thinking big, and good luck. But, if you set your goals unreasonably high, you may find yourself working so hard and for so long that you will be left with little time to enjoy the fruits of your success.

Making a decent honest living and securing your financial future are reasonable goals to achieve for anyone following the three principles and adopting a positive lifestyle. With your own small business, you may be able to earn enough money in 15 or 20 years, so that you can retire as an industry investor, pursue your personal potential, and relax.

The lives of the great financial achievers of the twentieth century are well-documented. You can read the biographies of people like Bill Gates and Donald Trump and Ted Turner. Often, in these and other such stories, you will find people willing to risk it all to move up to the next level. If you had $10 million, would you risk it all to make $50 million, and then risk the $50 million to make $75 million, and on and on?

To be successful, you have to be somewhat of a risk-taker, but with the Master Small Business course, those risks are calculated. Only you can decide if enough is enough.

I'm just completing an insurance salesperson's training course and I'm raring to go. What would you be thinking about doing during the first week?

One of the greatest motivational speakers and writers of this century was an insurance salesman named W. Clement Stone. You should get your hands on all his writings, and start reading.

Ask your company for a list of top producers and start making a plan on how you intend to network with these winners. Can you take one to breakfast, lunch, or dinner? Can you ask for ten minutes of their time for an interview? Will they allow you to watch them work the phones or join them on a sales call? You might be able to find profiles of super agents in your insurance industry publications, and you can write or phone them for advice.

Devote time each day to learning more about your products and how those products serve your clients.

The average person knows 250 people on a first-name basis. Begin your database of 250, and keep adding names. You're a new agent and you're enthused. Put that enthusiasm in writing, and make that the first of many direct mail pieces to the names on your database. And, make sure that you have business cards in your wallet and briefcase and car and pockets. You want to have those cards at the ready because everyone you meet from now on must know what you do for a living, and the quality product and service that you offer.


Can you recommend one or two books on success and motivation?

In the Status Reports at the end of each course, you will find a bibliography of recommended books. You should consider your reading on the topics of success and motivation to be a lifetime pursuit. And, these days, most of the great motivational speakers have audio and DVD tapes to keep you on track toward your own success.

Will there be a lot of repetition in the material? Yes, there will. Will you read over and over again that you need persistence and determination and hard work and objectives and goals? Exactly. Will the people doing the writing and talking be people who have risen from failure to success? Yes. Will they be coaches and teachers and preachers and business legends and millionaires and billionaires? Yes. It will be all these people telling you all these things that you already know but need to be reminded of all the time.

Action Plan:

• Pick a business and look in the Yellow Pages and see if you can find any attorneys or accountants which list your business as a specialty.
• In the course of your day, find workers who seem intelligent, enthusiastic, helpful and pleasant. Also, look for people who are pre-occupied, sullen and seem to be going through the motions. Start visualizing your team and how you will expect them to act.

Support:

• For demographic information: Census.gov
• For information on required employee benefits: http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/
• For information of businessand employee insurance: Insure.com
• For information on employee benefits: Smartbenefits.com/
• From the Business Owners Toolkit: Toolkit.cch.com/
• For information on employee hiring law: http://www.ahipubs.com/
• For information on salaries and other employee compensation: http://www.wageweb.com/

Inspirational Insights: