Launching the Business
All the work has been done and it’s time to turn on the Open sign! Are you ready?
In this session, we’ll consider what needs to be done before, during, and after your business’ launch. We’ll also talk about setting up an organizational chart and recruiting the right people.
Getting Off the Ground
Just Like the Movies!
Your business’ launch should start well before your website goes live or you turn on the “Open” sign for the first time. Chris Guillebeau, author of The R100 Startup, puts it like this: “A good launch is like a Hollywood movie. You first hear about it far in advance, then you hear more about it before the debut, then you watch as crowds of people anxiously queue up for the opening.”
Pre-Launch
In the days, months, and weeks before you start your business, let people know what is coming. Use your 30-second pitch to share what your product is and how it will help the customer. If you’ve got the budget, this is the time for big events, like mock commercials, flash mobs, public stunts, and teaser websites. Increase your presence and your efforts as launch day gets closer.
If you have a team of employees, keep them informed of the launch progress. Make sure that your plans for launch day are clear. If possible, do a trial run with mock customers. If you have an e-commerce website, test, test, and test some more. Make sure that your system can handle at least ten times the projected customer volume. As well, make sure that support systems are in place, so that employees (and customers) know where to turn for help.
The Launch
Typically a product launch lasts about a week. During this time, marketing efforts are at their highest point to generate maximum interest. You need to be on hand to handle issues, resolve glitches, and make sure that everything is going according to plan.
Post-Launch
After the launch, take a breather and step back. Ask yourself, your employees, your customers, and your stakeholders (if applicable): What went well? What could we do better? Then, plan your improvements, execute them, and continue to work on building the business. Keep everyone informed about what’s coming next, too.
Setting Up Your Organizational Chart
Establishing the right organizational structure will help you focus efforts in the right places and adapt to changes in the business environment. In addition, although we speak of structure, we have to keep in mind that the work is performed by, and relationships are developed with, people. If you forget the human part of your business, you aren’t going to find much support for it.
When you start out, it may just be you. As time grows, it might be just you and one other person:
As the company grows, you will run out of hours to get all the work done as well as doing the management tasks that are needed. Let’s say that you secure a big contract and need to hire eight people to do the work, including an accountant and someone to do the hiring and people management.
Again, as the organization grows, we tend to add layers of management and workers to meet the business’ needs. Some companies will try to stay flat in order to provide those workers with the authority they need to carry on the work. At other times, they look like large, layered pyramids, like the one below. As the organization grows, people at the front line get farther away from the decision maker at the top of the pyramid, and the decision maker also gets farther away from the customer or client.
It’s essential to make sure that you have the right people on board and that your business grows in the right way. In the next session, we’ll share some tips for building a great team.
Recruiting and Engaging the Right People
When you know you are stretching beyond your capacity, or you need some additional expertise, it could be time to grow your team! Here we will present a step-by-step process, from thinking you may need someone to bringing that person on board.
Step One: Determining That You Have a Position to Fill
Look at your organization with a long range view and review your goals for growth and development. This will help you to create and fill the right position, rather than creating a position that is perhaps serving you in the short term but doesn’t give you the results that you intended.
Step Two: Doing Your Homework
Once you decide on the position to fill, you’ll need to create a position profile or job description so that you know the type of expertise you will need to recruit. This will put you through an exercise of determining what tasks can be completed by this person, and whether you will hire the person full time, part time, on contract, or as a consultant.
Step Three: Recruiting
This is the process of finding and attracting the people that you want. Whether you do this yourself or use the expertise of a recruiter, it’s important that you find the right people. In many cases, the people that you want to hire are already working, so you’ll need to find a way to reach them specifically.
The way that we recruit and hire has changed dramatically in the last several years; we don’t always advertise in the classified section of a newspaper anymore. Companies almost exclusively want e-mail and electronic submissions, but there are plenty of people who do not search the Internet looking for work if they are happy in their job. You have to find them, rather than expect them to be looking for you. In a tight labor market, or when highly specialized skills are required, your ability to network, research, attract, and retain people becomes an essential skill.
Step Four: Selecting
The next step is to sort through your candidates and select the best candidate. Interviewing is the standard for determining if the person might be a good fit for your company. Formal testing helps to assert whether their claims of certain abilities and skills are valid, although there are legal issues that can arise if you use invalid tests. The other challenge to testing is that some people are really bad at writing tests, and you might pass on a candidate who could be a great fit for the company and has the ability to learn what is needed just because they do not test well. Reference checking, which is becoming more and more difficult due to privacy concerns, is still relied upon and necessary to validate a person’s work experience and their formal education.
Step Five: Offering
You know who you want, and in this stage you offer them the job. During this conversation, you need to know the salary you are willing to offer and terms of employment (such as contracts the candidate will have to sign, benefits, vacation, hours of work, expectations of the job, etc.). You also need to know to what extent you are willing to negotiate the contract, since your candidate may have some ideas about what they are willing to agree to.
Step Six: Orientation and Onboarding
This is both the final step in the recruiting process and the first steps that the individual takes as a part of your organization. When employers do this badly, good people (whom they spent a lot of time and resources to find) leave the organization. Or worse, they wish they had left but continue to collect a paycheck from you while they keep their eyes open for new opportunities.
Be prepared for the new person before they start their new job, and then be ready to provide them with a welcome so that they start off on the right foot. This means that their workstations are ready (whether this is a cubicle, a position at a cash register, or the cab of a truck), people know they are coming, and that orientation forms are ready for them to sign.
People take from two to six weeks to decide whether they have made a good decision in starting a new job. Your job is to engage their interest and commitment during the recruiting process, which might be well before they actually start work with you. If they arrive on the first day and cannot enter the building because they do not have an access pass, things are already off to a rocky start. The orientation period includes that critical first week or two that the person is on the job, while they adapt to their new surroundings, and get familiar with their position and the team.
Onboarding is something we look at with a slightly longer lens than orientation. Onboarding is about the development of the individual’s career within the new environment. Depending on the job itself, it can take from six months to a year or more for someone to feel fully competent, which may include experiencing a full cycle of the business. Your responsibility in the onboarding process includes providing the newcomer with appropriate feedback, ensuring that they are developing the skills and expertise to succeed (which benefits your organization), and that they are engaged in the work they are doing.