When you are building your business there is one stumbling block of any strategy. You might have the BEST EVER business plan, but it could still fail. The worst part is, avoiding this fatal flaw can be very difficult, and yet you need to overcome it if you ever want to scale your business into profitability.
When you build your own business the number one factor that can ruin your business plans is quite simply hiring the wrong person. The list of flaws is endless. People can be lazy, they might not care, they might not be as good at something as they claimed to be, they might just love to waste time. The big problem is, when you are a young company you simply cannot afford to pay someone who won’t do the job right.
It took me a while to figure this out, and even longer to figure out how to solve the problem. However the solution did come to me, and it came by accident.
When I first set up my company I needed someone to perform all the day to day admin, it was part time, moderate pay, and boring work. This seemed to be reflected by the quality of job applicants I received. The first employee seemed good on paper, but I quickly found out that he was using my time to run his own ebay drop shipping business. My second employee seemed to think that staring into space for hours on end constituted work. As for the third… Well his browsing habits definitely were NOT related to his job role.
Then a friend called me, he had left the army and for the last three years had been using his GI Bill benefits to attend Pennsylvania Strayer University Online as part of a business course. I had never wanted to risk work and friends before, but I have to admit, by this point, I was desperate. I brought him on board, and I was amazed. His military training had given him a great work ethic, with perfect organization, time management and discipline.
Furthermore, after using his GI Bill benefits to pursue higher education, he now had plenty of business knowhow, which did more than just help with administration, it improved my company’s processes and workflow.
After this absolute hiring success I found another military veteran looking for work, I made sure that he had used their GI Bill benefits (Which I think shows drive). I had one more fantastic employee!
Now I am not saying that all veterans make great employees. There is a risk that they may have psychological issues after being in battle (PTSD and similar disorders are common). However if someone has successfully used their benefits to complete higher education, this reduces the risk that a potential employee might cause problems.
Remember that the military is not just the infantry too. Look at the jobs potential employees had during military service!
You might easily find a person who has experience in a role that could have huge benefits for your business.
