Partner Article

Karen Brady advises on taking on employees

Charlie Harry Francis, Founder of Lick Me I’m Delicious, which produces liquid nitrogen ice cream creations at events, using a portable nitro ice cream machine which resembles a steam powered Victorian machine, won the Nectar Business Small Business of the Year Award for Innovation of the Year. Charlie, who is working on a number of exciting projects such as glow in the dark ice cream and ice cream pottery, met Leading UK Business woman Karren Brady as part of the awards and asked her advice on hiring his first employee. Amongst her advice Charlie found out that universities have a lot to offer.

Karren Brady’s advice:

TAKE ON AN INTERN: You know what I would do at this stage, and I think it’s a good way to cut your teeth. I would go to your local university and get an intern. Someone who’s maybe in advertising, creative, finance, or whatever skill it is that you’re looking for and then bring them in as an intern. The other thing I think you should do is look for a mentor. Someone who is in your field, in dairy, that is semi-retired and is really interested in helping a local business. I’d write to them and ask for help.

WHAT DO YOU NEED HELP WITH? Well I think the first problem is that you want to employ someone to give them something to do, but you don’t know what that thing is. That’s the first aspect you want to address.

INTERVIEW YOURSELF: In essence you want to interview yourself. Ask yourself, what part of the business takes up too much of my time? What part of the business am I not good at?

THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE: Then you have to think about the future of your business. In your mind is the future of your business the next 90 days or the next 90 months? You need to be clear in what you’re offering someone to come into your employment.The important thing is not the first person, but working out what you need people to do to take the process and admin from you, to free yourself up to evolve and learn new skills. So you know what you want from the next person and the person after that.

CONSTANTLY EVALUATE YOUR STAFF: Then comes the really, really difficult part when you have 15 employees and you want to go to 50, because what happens then is that the business has really grown and you’ll look around the room and realise that people haven’t grown with the business. The really big mistake that people make at that point is saying “Oh, that’s Johnny. He’s been with the business since the beginning, he’s still going to be my finance director.” The fact of it is that Johnny can’t be your finance director. He was the finance director when you had a turnover of £100,000, but now you want to go to £500,000, £1 million, £5 million and you need a different skill set.

THINK ABOUT THE TYPE OF LEADER YOU WANT TO BE: The other thing I would say to you is to think of what kind of leader you want to be and who you want to surround yourself with? What are the key skills or personality traits that they need to have? Because skills are skills, but personality traits are what make an individual. Is it someone’s loyalty or honesty that’s important to you, or is it someone who is going to come up with ideas for you, or someone who is simply going to take instruction? And then start forming in your mind who that individual is.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Nectar Business .