WYODC

Write Your Own Damn Cheque!

Hi ,

Now, you probably have heard that there’s no time in history better than now to start a 7-figure one-man business…

I don’t want to break your bubble but… 

Running a profitable business is much more than just effective sales and marketing… 

This is especially true if you don’t want to be stuck in your business.

Because what happens to most entrepreneurs is that they get stuck in not just the sales and marketing, but also the administration, fulfilment and project management roles. 

Which can be a pain… 

If you don’t want to be a Chief Everything Officer.

It helps if you learn the Art of Scaling… 

Now, we all know hiring is a really broad subject… which is why in July’s session of Inner Sanctum, Kenneth brought his dear friend Josh to share about how he scaled his coffee company in China.

Josh is the Managing Director of an 8-figure coffee brand in China. 

This is pretty darn remarkable considering he isn’t a native Chinese.

One of the things that Josh shared with us in his 90-minute Keynote was the importance of hiring and team culture:

It’s extremely profound and mind-blowing.

Here are some of the notes I’ve gathered from the session. Enjoy

Joshua on Hiring & Team Culture

  • Hiring Practices begin with Team Culture.
  • As a founder, you have to think about Team Culture from Day 1. 
  • As your business grows and more and more people get involved, culture gets more and more important. 
  • Hiring practices are directly linked to company culture.
  • When it comes to hiring, always remember ā€œPrevention is better than Cure.ā€ 
  • It’s much easier if you bring someone good into your company rather than to hire carelessly where you let the new hire create chaos and then try to solve that problem out.
  • Hiring the right person and hiring the wrong person has a huge impact.
  • Hiring just even one wrong person can mess up your company’s culture.
  • Especially when you’re dealing with your first hire.
  • Hiring practices are directly related to company culture. Company culture is directly related to scaling and multiplication.
  • It gets a lot harder and messier when there are more people involved. Especially when the wrong people are brought in. 

Personally, I don’t really have a lot of experience with hiring and management but my biggest takeaway from the session with Josh was his insights on partnerships.

Josh feels that it’s extremely important to protect your equity as a founder and entrepreneur. 

Josh shared that partnering with people is something you shouldn’t force. 

You should only consider partnerships when the partner you’re considering is:

  1. Capable and trustworthy 
  2. Has mutually complementary skill sets which are aligned with you.

However, the bottomline Josh shared is to protect your equity because this is what gives you control over your business. 

So yeah, I think this issue is a great read next time if you’d like to hire a new staff or expand your team.

Sometimes, I feel that hiring/management is a completely different skill set from sales and marketing which requires you to look from a different perspective.

If I were to give an analogy… 

If you think of sports like basketball or soccer… there’s always an attacking component and defensive component.

This is true for business too. 

I think there’s an attacking component when it comes to sales and marketing because of the ideation and creation component. 

However, for hiring, management and operations… it’s more ā€œdefensiveā€ because it’s all about how you avoid mistakes and ensure that screw-ups don’t happen. 

Like sports, you need both attacking and defensive strategies for your business.

That’s how you win constantly and stay one step ahead of everyone else. 

Most people neglect the defensive aspect of business which gets them into hot soup.

Such as hiring the wrong person who doesn’t fit into the company culture.

Or not managing their cash flow right… which is a huge, huge issue.

While most of us in WYODC may prefer the attacking aspect of business (which is sexier)… 

You need to remember to cover your downsides too.Ā 

So stay tuned for that.

Cheers,

Zachary Tan

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