Mike Arce — October 20, 2017 — October 20, 2017
089photoshootings / Pixabay
The secret to an unstoppable, loyal team of people who always give 100+% is to develop them as “entreployees.” This creates a team of top performers who help your business be better than any other in the industry. Here’s how:
WHAT IS AN “ENTREPLOYEE”?
An entreployee is exactly what it sounds like: the combination of an entrepreneur and employee. These are people on your team who are innovative, always think on their feet and have new ideas, and operate as if they’re independent.
While entreployees are technically employees of your team, they act as if they’re the owner or CEO of their own business in their role and that the customers they work with pay them directly for their service. When they adopt this mindset, your team members get better at their role and provide greater value to your business. They innovate. They think big bigger. And they implement.
TEST BEFORE YOU HIRE
While it’s important to ask candidates questions about their qualifications and skills during the interview, you’ll have a better understanding of how they’ll perform in their role if you actually put them to the test.
Have them come in and do an in-person assignment that tests the skills required for their role. For example, if you want a top-notch videographer, give them an hour to edit video using your editing software and footage in office. Or if you want to hire a salesperson, roleplay and have the candidate sell to you during their in-person interview.
We’ll also test someone before hiring them by putting them on the spot with a more unique question:
“In one minute, give me 10 similarities between a cat and a refrigerator … time starts now!”
The point of this test is to see how they:
- Act under pressure
- Think creatively
- Handle time constraints
- And truly respond to unexpected situations
Another great test is to take someone you’re interviewing out to lunch with a few team members they’d work with. See how they engage with everyone and if it’d be a great culture fit. Notice how they interact with servers at the restaurant. Gauge their communication in more of a relaxed setting with the people they’d be working directly with.
TRAINING THE ENTREPLOYEE MINDSET
So how do you encourage your employees to adopt an entreployee mindset? First, set expectations. During the interview process, explain what an entreployee is, what you expect of them, and ask if they’re okay with having an entreployee mindset in their career. Set these expectations from day one.
Then, consistently motivate your team to have their entreployee hat on. A great way to do this is to ask them questions like,“If you wanted to run us out of business, how would you do that? What would you do to make your own business more successful than ours?”
Your entreployees should constantly think about these questions and find ways to improve and be better than your competition. Provide them with tools and resources that will help them accomplish this. These include access to online courses, sending them to industry conferences, or hiring mentors for them.
TRACK EVERYTHING
And I mean everything … including your company’s annual goals, your team members’ performance, the results you get your customers, all of it. Then fill your team in on those numbers and the progress you make. When your team is in the know with all of this, it motivates them to work harder to accomplish those goals.
Here are some things our company tracks:
- Individual Employee Scorecards: On a monthly basis, managers individually meet with the members of their team to go over the entreployee’s scorecard. This tracks either KPIs or metrics and keeps them accountable.
- Record Breakers: We have a slideshow that plays daily in our office to display the record number of leads that our team gets for our customers. This includes most leads we’ve gotten a customer in 24 hours, 1 week, and 1 month.
- Annual Goals: We have a Facebook group with everyone on the team in it. In that group is a pinned post that shows the company’s goals for the year, including how much time we want to donate to charity through volunteer hours, total number of customers we want by the end of the year, and more.
When you have a team of entreployees, your business will accomplish much more than just a team of employees.
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