The Centurion November 06, 2024
Mindy was a young lady I hired on gut instinct. She was a happy, confident gal who attracted people and she started off as a very promising jewelry sales professional… until things started going south. It turns out that her bright, happy demeanor came along with the kind of confidence that made her think that she knew everything, didn’t need to learn anything and that her personality was going to take her everywhere she wanted to go.
This was a real lesson for me because I hired her after the first interview with no other input or team member interviews. This put my sales manager in a sad position because I had stuck my manager with what was essentially MY PROBLEM, my poor hiring decision. We ended up having to let Mindy go but it taught me a very important group of lessons;
1. Never, ever hire someone and then pass them off to another person to manage, who had no say in the hiring.
2. Never hire someone without at least two, preferably three interviews with different people who would be working with them.
3. Never hire someone without a background check. Turns out she had prior legal history.
4. And finally, never bring someone into your business without training, a solid, written onboarding process and actual tests for them complete about the various areas and products of your business.
Mindy was an expensive mistake on my part and I ended up feeling very sorry we didn’t have the instruments in place for checks, balances, accountability and training. One of the first things we work on with jewelers is getting those instruments in place. It’s the only way to scale the business and ensure that the effective management and success doesn’t begin and end with just one person and his gut instinct. I want to take a moment to tell you about a new podcast Kyle Bullock and I have started called the Slow Growth Business podcast. Each week, we share real experiences from our jewelry careers that can really help independent jewelers. You can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. The podcast has a very high percentage of listeners that listen all the way through, so though we’re just getting started, we think we’re really onto something here. Subscribe to the Slow Growth Business podcast right here.