We are currently in the throes of hiring a new dispensing optician for Jones And Co., and knowing that you may be dealing with hiring or firing decisions yourself right now, I thought this dispatch on the topic would be timely. At this point in my career, I’ve figured out the kind of person I want on my team. I’ve been pouring over my previous notes from my recruiting campaigns over the years and I have it clear in my head that there are only three attributes I’m looking for in ANYONE I hire for ANY role. All of my existing team exhibit these qualities in abundance, and I continue to remind them of what’s required on a daily basis. That is, we actively work on further developing these three attributes constantly. Ask yourself how your team stack up on these three commonalities and start coaching and developing these strengths in every member of your team.
Number 1: A ‘Can-Do’ Attitude As a busy practice owner you don’t have the time to have someone on your team who has a negative attitude. This is the person who constantly complains, plays the victim, finds faults in others, takes responsibility for nothing, and unceasingly shoots down every new initiative with a long list of all the reasons something can’t be done. You either fix them (if it’s possible) or they’ve got to go. What I’m looking for is the person whose first thought is always ‘It can be done’ or ‘let’s find a way to make this work.’ A person with a good attitude will always be looking for ways to be helpful to you and to your clients. A no-excuses attitude is requirement number 1.
Number 2: The Ability To Solve Problems You can’t build a strong team and practice if you’re the only one who can solve problems. There aren’t enough hours in the day. Think about it and you’ll realise business is all about being presented with new problems every single day and then having to find solutions. That describes every day. If you’re smart and your business is growing, then your problems should be getting more complex and sophisticated with each passing year. That’s how the game of business and life works. Problems never disappear. Problems are replaced with bigger, better problems. Or, if you never stop to figure out an effective solution you have to keep living with that particular problem on repeat like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. Here’s what I expect of my team. I expect them to be able to come up with 3 solutions and options for ANY problem. I expect to be able to give them an idea, outline the strategy and why I want to do it, and ask them to go away and figure out how we could do this and make this work. They have to figure out the logistics not me. They have to find the ways over the hurdles and around the obstacles. I don’t pay my team to bring me problems to solve. I pay them to solve problems.
Number 3: The Ability To Sell The ability to sell themselves and our services is a must. They need to have enthusiasm for what we do. The last 4 letters of enthusiasm are i,a,s,m – that stands for ‘I Am Sold Myself.’ They need to be able to transfer their own enthusiasm for your services to the clients. Zig Ziglar said selling is the transference of emotion. Being able to sell means knowing how to listen really well to clients, how to ask really good questions, having the ability to clarify situations and find out what’s really going on, and then provide suitable options for the client that will solve their problems.