As a business owner, you want to build a team of superstars who all work together, giving their very best every single day, working hard for their own benefit and the benefit of your company. But service business owners who run smaller companies sometimes struggle with the mindset that their company is too small to attract the superstars.
This mindset convinces you that superstars only want to work with bigger companies – ones with a flashier brand and a few more dollars to spend on wages. I’ve seen business owners of small service companies accept this mindset as reality and end up hiring only “warm bodies” instead of the very best employees.
I believe this mindset is wrong! It doesn’t matter how small of a service business you run, you can attract the superstars. Here are some thoughts about hiring superstars to help you reset your thinking:
Superstars aren’t attracted to the size of a company. I’ve never met a superstar that took a job because a company was big or turned down a job because a company was small. They’re attracted by other things – what they can get AND what they can contribute.
Superstars want financial rewards (of course), and if they’re superstars then they’ll earn those and deserve them. So one way to attract superstars is to revisit your budget and make sure you’re not paying the absolutely lowest you possibly can for your team. Raise your wages (and your expectations!) to raise the type of employee you want. Don’t worry so much about whether you can afford it – if they’re truly superstars then the increase in what you pay them will be worth it from happier, more loyal customers.
Superstars are looking for other types of rewards as well, and this is where your small company can really shine: They’re looking for recognition and an opportunities to advance, and both of these are easier to receive in a smaller company than in a larger company. In a larger company, it’s hard to receive recognition because one person’s effort can be lost among everyone else’s effort, and it’s hard to advance because multiple people are vying for a single job opening. But in your small company, their efforts will quickly be obvious and there will be plenty of opportunities for recognition. And as your business grows, so will the advancement opportunities they seek.
Perhaps the most important piece of all is this: People quit their managers more often than they quit their jobs. An employee’s relationship with their boss is so important and will determine how long they stick with a company and how hard they work. Therefore, if you want to attract superstars to your business, you need to be the kind of leader who attracts superstars. So before you start looking for superstars to hire, take a long look in the mirror and decide what needs to change about yourself – perhaps your management style or how much you micromanage or how you act around your employees – and determine whether you are “superstar management material”.
There’s a massive difference between hiring… and hiring superstars. And even if you have a small service business, you can fill it with superstars to have a huge impact on your marketplace. And it starts by rethinking your ability to hire these superstars.
