The following is meant to spark your creativity and give you some things to think about on your journey to finding great employees!
A crucial part of running a business is finding a person or multiple people to help you. No one succeeds alone. You will need to work with others to have a successful business. At some point, you will exceed what you can do on your own. That could be a simple as using a lab to handle the printing and delivery of photos. Or, you could grow to the point where you need a full-time staff working for you in various roles, both in-person and virtually. Now, let’s look at how to find great employees!
At Olie’s Images, we did all of that. At one point, I had 15 people working for me on location, 1 virtual social media manager, 1 virtual team member fulfilling online orders, and a small team in India to do bulk editing and cutting out of images for custom collages. So wherever you’re at in this journey, if the title of this article caught your eye, then chances are that you need help like yesterday.
There are a bunch of different ways that I’ve found great employees. Be sure to listen to this podcast episode about how to find great employees!
How to find great employees
I like to start with my circle of friends first. Usually, I know someone in my circle who is trustworthy and who would appreciate a little extra money coming in. By selecting from your group of friends, you’ll find someone who already cares about you and wants to see your business succeed. Those two qualities are critical, especially at the early stages of your business. These friends will work harder, longer, and with a better attitude than some random person you pull in off the street. You’ll be wise to keep these friends close; they are very valuable.
Note: I’ve lost a few great friends along the way because of differences in how we thought my business should be run. So, be careful hiring friends and even family can go against you if you’re not careful.
Family is similar to friends and could be great. But, there are pitfalls with everything so just be aware that family might be on the same wavelength as you mentally. My sister, for example, couldn’t handle being in my booth. She isn’t made for that kind of constant customer interaction. Totally ok, by the way, but just be aware of people’s personalities, starting with your own. My mom and I are alike; we can work for long hours and understand what it takes to make a business work. So, for a long time, she was my second shooter and would run the booth sometimes. Good help at first, but eventually, keeping her on the payroll wasn’t the right fit for either of us. You’ll have that too. People will be great at first, and then you’ll need to go your separate ways. Others will start at the bottom and work their way up.
Next, I reach out to my social network. This is as simple as making a post on FB/IG/etc. Be clear in these posts. I’ve been too vague and just asked for help. Then people get worried and think you’re having difficulty. But, now I say things like:” I’m looking for someone to show/sell photos in my booth at [Insert Place] [Insert Dates]. It’s a paid gig. Message me for details.” Or, you can list the pay. We can talk about how much I paid later on. This was a great strategy later on in my career when my circle of friends and family didn’t stretch to the far-away places I was going to shoot at. But, a post can be shared, tagged, and spread to the people who need to see it. I would start by posting on my personal page because those people are closer to being your friends than strangers. But, after a day or two of not fulfilling all the spots I needed to hire for, I would post on my business pages.
This next part is probably the reason you clicked on this blog post in the first place. At this point, I’m usually a little desperate for help, and I’m out of my area of influence. So, if there is a college with a rodeo team within 100 miles, I’ll reach out to the rodeo coach. Sometimes I get such good help with this approach that I wish I had just started here. I’ve had so many great team members come from asking the local rodeo coach. They almost always had 1-3 students top of mind that they send your way. At least 9 out of 10 times, this student could use a little extra income and is a wiz on the computer. (Projecting my inner grandma here, LOL) You know college kids don’t need too much training on the computer. I’ve even gotten so lucky as to have a couple of students that were taking photography classes. SCORE!
Almost as good as asking the coach but kinda my last resort is to ask the producer. Chances are that they are scraping around looking for someone to help them too. However, they don’t often get the computer nerds to come work for them. So, they might know someone more inclined to work in your booth than working their chutes. The best part about these last two options is that they likely already know the sport, or at least they are familiar with the horse/rodeo world. So, they probably know a lot of your customers already, and they can talk intelligently. I can’t say that about most of the friends I’ve hired. [FACEPALM]
On more than one occasion, I’ve had youth contestants or other customers come into my booth and understand my system more intuitively than by hired staff. So, I usually offer them a job if I need more help and haven’t filled the position. Even if they don’t work right then, I’ll take their contact info so that I know who to ask for when I come back!
The hardest part for me was remembering who worked, where their names were, where they actually lived, were they any good, do they want to work again, do I want them to work again, and many more questions. It wasn’t long before this list of people I have hired around the country became more extensive than what I could recall off the top of my head. Finally, Apple’s Reminder App became my go-to app of choice, but there are hundreds of similar apps if you don’t use that one. My second choice is Evernote.
I kept track of their names, locations, notes on what they did, how well they did it, where they worked for me, and anything else that would help me in the future. I then organized them by location to find help near the venue of the upcoming event. After you get this list made, it just builds and builds. I would note any people that I didn’t want to hire again. This list was a great place to start once I headed back to an area I had shot previously. If no one on that list could work, then I’d ask them if they have any friends that would be interested.
Spreadsheets are great too, but I do so much work on my phone that having an easy-to-use mobile app was the way to go for me.
I promised we would talk about how much to pay your employees too. First, let me mention that I’m not a CPA or a lawyer, so this is not tax or legal advice. Check with a CPA and lawyer, so you know and understand the laws.
At Olie’s Images, we started new employees at $10/hour. These are part-time workers just for the weekend showing and selling photos. Usually, they do not earn enough to even bother collecting their info for tax purposes, but sometimes we had to for long events. At that rate, I could always pay them more at the end of the weekend if they went above and beyond my expectations. (My expectations were pretty low after all because I’ve hired A TON of people!) It’s easy to give someone who is a rockstar employee a big fat bonus! They are excited, you’re happy, everyone wins! But, if that person isn’t very good at their job and didn’t even live up to expectations, then you’re not out much, and they won’t want to come back anyway.
The next step up was returning sales staff. If they did a great job and I asked them to come back, I usually gave them a raise to $15/hour. Of course, they might not get the raise right away if I felt like they needed more training. But eventually, the best ones were worth the money. I would also start out my booth managers at $15/hour when I started. Often these were my friends who I trained on running my booth right from the start. Brenna started there; she was a booth manager on day one. Eventually, the booth manager position because a $20/hour job because of all the extra work and responsibility that came with the title. Brenna was the only one to make it to that level.
Other indirect payments:
I would pay for travel to and from the venue. Although I typically didn’t pay for more than just a plane ticket or fuel, sometimes, for those really long travel days, I would pay them an hourly wage on top of the expense to travel. Almost everyone stayed in my 5th wheel with me. My last one had a guest bedroom with queen bunk beds and a full second bath; it was very comfortable for up to 7 of us. Some employees had their own RV or Living Quarters trailer, so I’d just pay for their RV spot. If we needed more people, then I’d pay for the room too. Ok, technically, Olie’s Images paid for everything, but it feels like I did it. Every night that it made sense, we would go out to eat as a group. I can’t emphasize this enough as a team-building activity. This almost instantly made all my new employees part of the family. We would cut loose and just hang together. Then I’d pick up the tab making everyone feel better about having to do it all over again tomorrow. Haha, Typically, lunch was on Olie’s Images too, as we couldn’t leave, and packing in our own food was often frowned upon.
Hiring people can feel like it’s expensive and that you can’t afford it. The way I see it, you can’t afford to. In my experience, there has only been a handful of times when I lost money at an event where I hired someone, but the other 99% of the time, the gain far exceeds the cost. The best part is, you don’t have to have the money upfront. You get the money because they generate enough income for themselves and you. So, are you ready to start hiring a crew now that you know how to find great employees?
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