3 Fundamental Actions Every New Founder Should Take (Before Hiring)

Most new business owners and founders fall into the trap of rushing to hire people without a plan. And the consequences are most certainly always the same, undervaluing the benefits of having a solid team and the hard and fast loss of the people they find with their haphazard hiring approach.

A lot of entrepreneurs indeed live on an unhealthy dose of hope(ium) when it comes to finding the right people for their startups. Praying the right person will find them or hoping that willing friends or freelancers will forever fulfil their ad-hoc tasks. At the same time, continuing to hide from the actions needed to build a team culture that enables their business to mature successfully.?

This is what I call “self-made” sabotage. The talk doesn’t match the walk, and the hero founder complex fuels the company growth (only to a certain point).?

It can be easy to stay stuck here, even when your business brings in 6 or 7 figures. Especially as many new founders forget that a genuinely successful and well-run company that grows and matures needs a well-oiled people strategy and a team of people who excel in executing specific tasks (that you might not be able to do alone).?

Hiring the right people takes time, the right questions and a healthy dose of curiosity - Sir Richard Branson.

So what do you do? What do founders of young companies need to do before jumping into the interviewing hot seat and getting flustered when it goes wrong?

You can take many steps to get it right, but there are THREE fundamental actions every new founder should take before hiring - especially if frustration and burnout aren’t for you:

1. Plan what you want your company culture to look like?
2. Create an employer branding strategy that attracts future hires
3. Develop talent or people processes that connect with your brand

Can you actually design company culture before people arrive??

Well yeah, of course, you can create a blueprint of what you want life to be like working at your company and who you want to attract. And early consideration and definition of your company’s environment will help you design systems and processes that engage and motivate the right people. Having this clarity and confirmation of what you want before you invite people to come to join you will ensure you spend more time doing what you’re all great at and less on trying to guess why things feel tense. Having a handle on your company culture early on helps you cement your company purpose, mission, values and how you’d like to see your community grow. You’ll also feel less guilty about saying no to what you don’t want in your environment.?

What many new Founders get wrong is saying 'yes, I’ll have anyone, as long as you laugh at my jokes and have some experience in x,y and z' then, later on, realise they didn’t ask the “what’s, why’s and hows” and struggle with guilt, unhappiness or frustration because of the outcome. Defining what and who you want in your work environment before putting out job ads is crucial - because what you don’t know usually makes for a frustrating lesson. Still, awareness of what you want your company environment to be like and what you want in your business gives you confidence (real confidence, not the fake it til you make it kind). It boosts everyone’s experience and interactions at your company, whether new employees, customers or partners.?This leads us on to why your employer branding strategy is pivotal.

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat - Sun Tzu.

Let’s imagine for a minute that I come to you and say I’m looking for a client just like you. I don’t have a plan to help you have a thriving company culture or any proof that what I do actually works, but I like you and really want to help you - and this is my price.?

Would you want to work with me? - if you answered yes, I’m not for you.

I’m guessing you’re sensible and answered no.? Like most sensible entrepreneurs, you want to see a clear plan of action, at least one or two proven results and values that complement your own before investing in me. Your ideal employees want the same deal and offer from you (even if they don’t say it as you would). But because many young companies don’t have an employer brand, they wing it and get frustrated. The frustration comes from not having a vision for what they want their people’s experience to be or an employer action plan that offers proof that their values are what they say they are.

So why is an employer branding strategy a pivotal part of your hiring process??

Your employer brand is your companies reputation and personality. It’s what people think of you as an employer (what they say about you when you aren’t in earshot) and is an asset that needs constant development, particularly in the early stages of your business. A well-designed employer branding strategy helps you identify what your company does well and how you’ll limit stress and frustration when things don’t go to plan - It prepares you and your people for failure as much as it does success. Having a scalable strategy that helps you to manage and influence your employer brand even before you start hiring is crucial because 69% of your ideal candidates will reject an offer from you if your employer brand is unidentifiable or bad. An employer branding strategy helps you to fear less about getting things wrong and gives you clarity and the steps to adapt to or make changes - with limited negative impact on your people, customers, and overall business ops. Your employer branding strategy supports your talent and people processes by ensuring they make sense.?

If people like you, they will listen to you. If People trust you, they will do business with you - Zig Ziglar

Having an employer brand strategy and awareness of what your brand says to people makes it easier to attract the right people, and once they’re in, your talent and people processes prevent them from wanting to jump ship fast. Your talent and people processes are the backbones of your company, and they help your company personality shine and shape communications with existing and future employees. Your talent and people process make discussions with potential employees less painful. They create an EVP (employee value proposition) or a “talent deal and offer” that helps the right people envision what life could look like working with you six months, 12 months even two years from now.? Not only that, but engaging, purposeful and mission-led talent and people processes mean better job descriptions, interviews, and employee onboarding systems that feel like welcoming new people to a five-star resort and less like you’ve both wandered into the Bates Motel. When you’re clear on your processes, you’ll have better conversations with future employees and less of those drawn-out interrogation types, where you’re trying to get the feels, but you don’t know what the feels are.

Having a pulse on your talent and people processes and how they may make people feel, interact and behave means having more honest discussions. Your interactions with existing and future employees then begin to centre around the steps you [are willing to] take and everyone’s expectations to ensure you’re all able to acknowledge milestones, achievements and challenges from day one.?

What's the solution?

My goal is to give new founders clarity to future form their businesses and create remarkable people strategies that move everyone forward. I want you to stress and fear less about bringing new people into your team and help make it easier for you to identify and work through challenges so you, your people and your business can thrive - and to do that, you need to stop the chaotic hiring without a plan.?

I have several solutions for this, but I’m not a one-size-fits-all type of culture coach, and I’m always keen to identify what solution is the best fit for you; for this reason, I run a Bi-Monthly (every two months) FREE Culture Readiness Clinic.?

It’s a 60-minute drop-in breakthrough session for groups of up to 6 new Founders (recovering hope-ium addicts) who are serious about attracting, hiring and sustaining the right people while they scale their business.?

What you get:

??A proven 30-day job ads and interview process strategy that attracts the right people?

??Steps to help you hire with less panic and worry and more time to grow your company.?

??A review and evaluation of your employee acquisition process (so you know what to improve and spend less time faffing).

Some of my results:

??I’ve Improved 12 startups hiring processes in 30 days (or less).?

??I reduced gender bias at a Film & Media Production Company (women can be editors too!)?

??I’ve created a startup wellbeing and inclusion program that all my clients love.?

You can sign up HERE; to join this month's Free Culture Readiness Clinic session.?

Or start a conversation with me at:? [email protected]?

About the Author         

Dannique Blake is a Company Culture Consultant and Founder of Cultured Insights.?

She’s on a mission to save 1000 UK startup founders time and money by making their employees happy, motivated and productive, by 2025.

Dannique walks startup companies through their company culture, employee engagement and performance enablement transformation to support their brand, culture and everyone’s wellbeing.

Dannique’s? Free Monthly Culture Club Digest, where she shares free tips, tricks and cheat sheets, is currently helping startup leaders and managers to build a good team culture.?

To learn more about her work, email her at [email protected].?