A mistake I made early on was looking around at friends/family/people and seeing those who needed a job, hiring them, then trying to get them to fit in somewhere in the company. This always ends in disaster. This probably sounds so obvious but its something I still struggle with.
Its kind of like when your neighbor kid comes over and asks if there is anything he can do for cash. You have him mow your grass. Then you go outside and have to mow it again because he did the worst job ever.
Now if you would have just called a lawn service because your yard needed mowing then they probably would have done a great job.
I also understand sometimes its cool just to give the neighborkid some money cause.. well.. you want to help him. Just recognize that in business this charity although it feels good to you pisses off everyone else that works under you and with you (to some extent).
Basically before you hire anyone you should ask yourself, “am I hiring this person because I need them or because I want to help them?”
So hire people for jobs you have not jobs for people – Shoemoney Tip for success #11
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Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2416 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.
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{ 38 comments… read them below or add one }
A good tips.Hire someone that could get the job done rather than hire someone that could not do anything.I had many experienced in that situation.
Or even worse getting into business with them. I’ve had experience with setting up a business with some of my relatives and well it didn’t work out exactly as planned. Though here we were partners, which makes it even worse as everybody has their own opinion.
Hiring a family member can have huge consequences on the life of your business, as they fail to understand most of the time it’s actual MONEY that you are investing and not some monopoly version of it.
You’ve already tiped it out, here: http://www.shoemoney.com/2007/05/31/do-everything-yourself-if-you-can-tfs-8/
When you hire family members or neighborhood kids, and they don’t do the job well, then when they come back the next time you have to either bite the bullet and pay for a lousy job again, or hurt their feelings or worse yet piss of the parents. That’s a no-win situation. Sometimes it can work. Often times it doesn’t.
I agree completely I TRIED helping out a friend by creating a job for them luckily our fiendship wasn’t ended but i was pretty hot when the job wasnt even close to finished in the correct timeline.
I agree. I hired family member to be my ebay assistant. and really I couldn’t find someone cheaper and hard working. but I just want to give him a job to help him out.
yes, it ends in disaster, hiring frined or family members just not working. I rather just give them money and let them go away.
edit ShoeMoney: Nice try jackass spamming links with a fake sig…
You right.. Many problem will come when hire family or friend. they will not do that work well as we hope
Shoe
This is the second similar themed Topic from you in about two weeks,sending out messages internally.
just sweep the office out mate
Shoe speaks the truth here. When you hire friends/family things get especially sticky when you have to fire them. Hire slowly and fire quickly – and avoid friends/family.
After you realize and stay strong to not hiring family members, nothing is worse than a family member stalking you to hire them.
Hiring friends and family rarely works out.
He’s elaborating on the point. It’s well worth mentioning again.
I agree completely Shoe. Now how about hiring me for a job? I am qualified to write about how to be the best blogger on the planet about any topic.
…but I’ll take anything.
You know you are absolutely right. Sometimes I want to help my friends out but it doesn’t always turn out right. I still would like to look out for them somehow without messing up an opportunity only because I know they would do the same for me.
I personally like helping out the neighbor’s kid, and he does a fine job of cutting my lawn.
You won’t find him balancing my checkbook though..
In business, I think friends, family, and other “cheap labor” is a source entrepreneurs often tap into to get something off the ground.. But I wholeheartedly agree, that most of them do NOT make for good long-term employees.
Every situation is unique and carries different circumstances, so sometimes, the best candidate for the job or task is indeed right under your nose.
Nepotism is also a real morale crusher for your other employees without a personal connection. Because it sends the message that you value “connections” over merit.
Yeah that really true. Anyways professionalsim is always much more appreciated by one self then having something not turn out right by just trying to help someone.
Hire based on qualifications/experience, not relations. Have seen a lot of disasters where the whole organization is related.
The worst thing about making money online is your friends here about it and want to “help.”
When family members ask me about what I do, I just direct them to some good forums to start reading. If they’re serious, this gets them to where they can ask good questions. So far, only two have actually started sites, and only one of those is active about it. The other I helped to get hosting and a domain name, and two years later he’s done pretty much nothing with it.
Wow, mate I couldn’t agree more…I remember so many times I let my friends do the work when I can get someone WAY better.
This sounds like recent personal experience
Exactly, everyone wants you to hook them up with the “easy money.”
Shoe, Do you hire overseas people often for programming, design, etc..?
Good point, though paying a neighborhood kid to cut the grass is usually a lot better than hiring a family member for a job they can’t do. Cutting grass isn’t that difficult ( I actually enjoy doing it myself) and usually the neighborhood kid can handle. You don’t need an Xmark and a Doctorate to cut grass.
I too went with an inexpensive general contractor at one point and when I stopped by to check on him, I found him gabbing on the phone. He didn’t see me so I gave him 3 minutes and looked around the corner again, still gabbing. So I stapled his lips shut. That also takes care of those pesky questions they tend to ask too.
Well, I also had this problem, to help people around me this way, but indeed, usually they are friends, and working with friends is not a good business.
With “web related work” or people online in general most are open to the option of tryingout the work first before they get hired full/part time to do what you want.
Give these guys/gals a test run before it goes down hill.
You also hold family/friends to a higher standard because they “know you” and they “should” know better.
Be careful
Even hiring on qualifications in the family can go wron gor it can go right just go in not knowing how it’s going to go so you don’t let yourself or the other person down.
That is until you explain how much work it actually is then they want nothing to do with it. Just like the people on most of the forums are all for it then they hear how you have to actually *gasp* work and are not for it anymore.
I avoid having to work with relatives and friends especially if there’s money involved. I help out, I volunteer, and they do the same. But I’ve never hired family (or supplicate to be hired by them) because I know if things go wrong, I would have a really hard time firing them. Those were great points to ponder on, Shoe.
I am going to take the other side here. My brother has done my tech work for the last 5 years. I know he wont screw me and he is good too. I know several people, including myself, in internet marketing that got screwed by tech guys taking off while stealing technology/data thinking they can go on their own once they learned the business. I have also hired friends, who I knew were good and experienced to handle things like operations and finance.
Sure have personal relationships with people that work for you causes some issues when you have to come down on them, but in the end I trust them with my systems and my money. Tough to hire a stranger to do that IMO.
I know where you’re coming from. I have made some terrible recruitment mistakes. Once I hired a woman who was not a bit suitable when I interviewed her, but I felt sorry for her, because I knew she’d struggle to get a similar job elsewhere. As soon as we got really busy, she couldn’t cope, and quit, leaving us well and truly in the shit.
that’s one aspect of the problem: you start by wanting to help people, end soon end up destroying friendships.
This one hits home with me quite a bit. I have a site for cell phone info that I loved to work on, but have too many other projects to give it enough time. I hired someone to post a half dozen articles per week, showed her how to research, where to go, what forums to learn from, what feeds to read….she was just horrible! And she’s great at posting and working on other sites.
It just goes to show that you should stick with the “go with what you know” rule all the time, even for people that you hire. You know you’re doing “people for jobs” when it’s something that they are already excited or passionate about.
Absolutely agree with this one!
I have definitely lived that nightmare.
Other think is that if the person would be any good and overtaking you than you have problem. Or if you have some argue in business and than you have to be friend after work… I was thinking and asking my wife to help me sometimes but I think it is good that she prefers to sticj with her friends more than helping me a bit.