- Network, Network, Network!
(0) 04/16/2012Editor
Getting Hired
It is so hard to find a great job in today’s job market and it is so hard to find great employees in today’s job market. I know that sounds kind of crazy but it’s the truth. So many people are just taking whatever job they can get to pay the bills and employers are being way more picky about who they hire.
The good news is that in today’s job market only on average only four people are competing for the same job, when only a few years or last year that number was seven. New jobs are being created everyday thanks to the manufacturing and auto industries. I think it is important to like what you do everyday, but the harsh reality is most people do not get that choice. At the end of the day, they have to pay their bills and feed their kids. When looking for a new job think outside the box, maybe try something new that you have never done. Think about the things you were good at when you were younger or at a different stage in your life.
The biggest mistake I made when I was younger was trying to fit a mold or picking jobs that were in front of my face. There are so many jobs out there that we don’t even know about or ways to make money that you have never thought of. Most importantly NETWORKING IS KEY! The number one way to find, get hired or even know about a job is through NETWORKING! Making contacts and knowing people is the way to do it. You know that old saying “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know”, well seventy five percent of the time it’s true! Yes, you still need the skills to back it up but not always if you know the right people and can sell yourself.
If you are in college right now or even in high school, do internships with companies, meet people in the industry that you want to be in. Make those contacts, straight A’s alone will not get you that dream job. I am working with people I met in my late teens and early 20′s. I am working with a contact I made back in 1996, she needed an employee for three days and I only took the job to make contacts, I had already started my own business. That person who hired me for three days is Amy, and we are now business partners in one of the most fashion forward companies in the western industry, crossing over into the mainstream.
When I am hiring, yes I look at what the person has done, what their skills are, how they are dressed (professionally or not so much), all the things that you typically look for in an interview. The most important thing to me though is, what are they like as a person, how do they make me feel when I am around them, how are they going to make my customers feel when they talk to them? How do I know them and where do they come from? There are so many factors that will get you hired. Every person that works for Gypsy Soule has come by networking, from a friend of a friend, or someone that Amy and I have known for years. We have a fantastic tearm and I am very lucky to have the people that choose to come to work with us, everyday. They make my life so much better.
So let’s get to my to do list! Yep, get that pen and paper out of just print this off! NETWORKING IS KEY!!! If you need a job, go to party’s, functions, events, donate your time to something (church, charity). If you are not meeting new people, how are you going to find a NEW JOB?
Let someone new read over your resume, clean it up, change the wording.
Make yourself some cool business cards to give to new friends, so that they can contact you later.
Look at your Facebook. Remove everything that is lame. Sorry but people will judge you for that. If you post negative things everyday, what is that saying about you?
If you can get a new power outfit or borrow one from a friend! Wear things that make you feel fantastic from head to toe. If you are not sure what to wear to an interview do some research on the job, maybe see what the people are wearing there to work.
Do your homework. You need to do your homework for every job interview, know about the company, know why you want to work there.
Ask questions, be involved in the interview. NETWORK with the person that is interviewing you, just because they don’t hire you today, they might hire you later. Better yet, they might have a friend looking for someone exactly like you! Trust me that happens. Just the other day, I had a friend of a friend that was looking for a job call me, she wanted me to know that she wanted a job and reminded me on a regular basis. Meanwhile I got a call from another friend looking for someone just like her! Guess who has a great job that she loves now? That’s right, my networking friend!
Good luck and remember all the Gypsy Sisters are with you!
- Starting Your Own Business
(2) 03/14/2012Editor
I have always wondered, why I have never given owning my own businesses a second thought, but I always know I was never meant to work for anyone else. Or maybe I just never got that awesome job offer! LOL so I made my own…
Maybe I am just a huge risk taker? I never really even think about that part I just know I am in control of my own destiny and not relying on anyone else.
I get so may phone calls and e-mails about how do you start your own company? Where do you start? When do you start?
My answer is always the same “Just do it now”! However, you must take into consideration where you are in your life. You taking a huge risk might affect other people. People you support in your family or even you paying your own bills. If you are thinking about jumping off the cliff to be an entrepreneur you might just want to check out a few things.
Number one do you have a plan? Meaning what is your idea? How is it going to work? How are you going to make money at this? Are you ready to work 20 hour days and do everything yourself? I can remember when Gypsy Soule® was Van Glow. Van Glow meaning it was just me. I had no employees and no warehouse or office and I also had two babies, a husband with a demanding landscape business that I did all the booking for and a full time job as a buyer for a retail store.
Van Glow’s businesses days would start at 3 AM (ish) and go till the midnight hours doing billing on a kitchen table and packing boxes on my driveway. That went on for years but, I know that was what I had to do to get Gypsy Soule® where it is today.
It is very important to be real about what you can do and how you can work your dream into your current life. Especially is you have a family to support. You might have to do both at the same time, meaning work your current job and work on your dream until it can pay the bills. I have no idea who said that jobs were just 9-5 Monday-Friday because I have never had one of those. It is ultimately up to you and what you are willing to sacrifice to make it happen. Sometimes it takes years to get your dream rolling and making a living, so be prepared for that.
Here are few tips to get you on your way
(of course I am going to make you write or type a list of all the pros and cons of this new adventure you are about to start)
No you don’t need to write out a whole business plan now, but in time you will need to.
What steps will you need to take to get started?
Do you need money?
Will you have to keep your current job?
Will you have a partner and what will they do in this business?
Who will you be selling or marketing to?
Who are your customers?
Do you have a time line to meet?
Do you have the support of family members?
Do you have the contacts to make this happen and if you don’t are you willing to go out and get them?
Taking the first step is so hard and when you start, you will hit a few holes in the road but that is what I love about my adventure of owning my own business. It is a huge challenge everyday. Especially when I have an idea and in the end a better idea comes out of it.
I can remember just about 10 years ago Joel had taken this job in New Orleans, it was right after we got married. It was supposed to be this great job. The people we worked for were great, but they people they were working for where not so great. That made our job suck. For six months I was stuck in Louisiana not that I don’t love New Orleans or Louisiana, I just missed Texas and missed being in control of our life. Joel decided with what little money we had to start his landscaping business. He knew he was really good at design but he just thought we could make a good living at mowing lawns, fixing fence, trimming trees, etc. Well almost ten years later that is the least of the things he does. One of his biggest accounts that he has now, originally hired us to pick up rocks in their pastures. Of course we said yes, we where happy to get any job and would still pick up rocks for any account to this day.
What I am getting at, is you never know what could come of just picking up rocks.
Good luck and if you have more questions you can always e-mail me directly at lorinda@gypsysoule.com
(If you would like to see my husbands work www.vangardeninc.com)
- Partnerships
(5) 12/16/2011Editor
How do you make a partnership work? (especially a female partnership)
At the end of the day, I think the main reason it works with Lo and I, is that we always have each others backs and best interests at heart. I want the best for her and she wants the best for me; personally and professionally. There is a love and respect regardless of, if it is a good day or a bad day. You can’t ever let that change. You have to be open and honest with each other and never let it get to where you don’t trust one another, or are afraid to speak up. You have to keep the lines of communication open. It is not unlike a marriage, hell I spend more time with her than I do my husband! We laugh and say we are each others work husbands!
I think it helps that we are realistic about each other. Neither of us is perfect, we always don’t have the greatest ideas and neither of us is in a good mood everyday. I know you guys thought we walked around all day with martinis in hand and tutus and tiaras on, but sorry to disappoint you, that isn’t the case! We also have come to realize that we agree on a lot of things, but we don’t agree on everything. We compromise and LISTEN to one another. I feel that women owned businesses usually are created out of a passion for something, not an ego. For a partnership to work you either have to check your egos at the door or accept each others egos. At your core you both have to have that same drive and passion. You have to know that everything that you accomplish regardless of who is in the lead that day, is for the greater good of the company and is done as a team and done for each other.
More than likely, if you started your own company you have that ‘alpha’ female gene. You have to be careful how you handle your alpha tendencies if there is more than one alpha female in the group! Lorinda and I tend to sense when one of us needs to take the lead or is just going to take it! We have always trusted each others gut instincts and been each others cheerleaders when the creative process is flowing. We both have had to fight our way to the top of the male dominated food chain, we call the corporate ladder. We have a respect and knowledge of what it took for each of us to get here.
At the end of the day it is wonderful to have someone that gets you and your company like no other. You get to go through it ALL together ~ the good, the bad & the ugly. It is a bond that is unexplainable. You share the highs and you share the lows. Sure there are days when you think you can’t discuss one more thing or do one more thing together; then you have a story or a funny thing you forgot to tell each other in the day and you pick up the phone and you talk. Most of the times it isn’t even work related at that point ~ it is as best friends who truly get each other.
I always laugh and say that Lorinda and I are cut from the same cloth ~ just cut from opposite ends with some overlap. I think that is the key to our partnership working. We both bring something to the plate that is similar, but yet, just a little different.
-Amy
- Holiday Bonuses - Cash ins't your only option!
(0) 10/25/2011EditorThe topic of Christmas/Holiday bonuses makes a lot of business owners break out into hives and understandably so. It’s the Holiday Season and of course you want to do something for your staff, but are cash bonuses the answer?
This will completely depend upon you and the state of your business.
Do you give merit bonuses or sales bonuses throughout the year?If so then a holiday bonus may not be a viable option for your company and your employees should understand that, given that they have the option to work hard and earn their bonuses on a regular basis throughout the year. You may also want to time your merit bonuses around the holiday season, but be sure to still refer to them as merit bonuses as to avoid the whole “hey his was bigger then mine” fiasco.
Should employees expect holiday bonuses?No, no one should expect bonuses, they’re bonuses an added extra. However, this is more complicated than that. Most employees expect their employer to do something for them around the holidays and it is typically derived from their past experience with your company. So in other words if you have always given one then they will expect it. As my mother likes to say “don’t start something you aren’t willing to continue”. There are of course uncontrollable influences, bad economy, downturns in sales, things that may make it impossible for you to do as you have always done. As much as it sucks to have to tell your employees that have been with you through the good and the bad that you won’t be able to give them their normal holiday bonus, you should bite the bullet and tell them. They will appreciate the heads up and the honesty. The last thing you want is for Majorie in accounting to have anticipated her yearly bonus and come December 22nd, not have her kids christmas gifts bought, because she has been with you for ten years and she always gets a bonus.
There are also other options out there. You will never be able to please everyone and although common sense would tell us “who can complain about cold hard cash” inevitably someone will. Someone is going to complain no matter what you do that’s just the way it goes. You can do things a little differently for your staff. Close down from Christmas to New Years and the staff can continue to get paid. So it’s like an additional paid vacation. Some business owners obviously can not close down the entire shop, but for the most part most businesses are slow this time of year, so there might be some opportunity to run on a skeleton staff, work shorter days or close down for some of those days. With enough advance notice and posting on your part, anyone you do business with shouldn’t have a problem with it. If the holidays are your busiest time of year, maybe giving your staff time off after the rush is an option. We host a really nice holiday party for our staff with a White Elephant Christmas, the catch being we provide all of the gifts. These aren’t your grandmother’s white elephant gifts, we have been known to include great gift certificates from some of the staff’s favorite places to shop and/or massage-spa certificates.
You can also treat your staff to a shopping day or shopping half day. NO ONE likes to shop in a crowded mall, so let your staff, one by one, take a day or half day to get some of their shopping done.
In the small business environment most employees should realize that your not Bill Gates and the economy is rough, so bonuses may be smaller or non-existent all together. The important thing about ‘Holiday Bonuses’ is that your staff feels appreciated, be it cash, a gift card or a holiday ham a happy staff makes for a thriving business. In the end you can not afford to be Santa Claus, but you do not want to be Scrooge.
Now for those of you on the receiving end of the holiday bonus debate, try to be understanding and gracious with whatever your employer decides to do for the staff, it’s a tough economy out there and in some businesses not giving a bonus may save someone’s job, open up a new position, or fund much needed growth for the company you work for.
-Lorinda
