MBA1452 Should You Hire Friends and Family of Team Members? + Free Ride Friday

Let me tell you about Intuit QuickBooks. When I was starting out my business, I remember sitting at my desk late at night not working on my business but cleaning up numbers, tracking and reconciling payments and wondering how this became my life. But once I automated the admin side of things of my finances, those nights had disappeared and I felt a whole lot better. Outdo it with intuit QuickBooks QuickBooks is the trusted end to end solution that businesses rely on for getting paid, managing finances, paying employees, finding new customers, and more. QuickBooks provides a team of AI agents and trusted experts, so doing it yourself no longer means doing it alone. Their payment agent gets you paid faster, their customer agent finds leads, follows up and secures more sales, and the accounting agent automates and categorizes transactions. Get your critical business jobs done with QuickBooks on the Intuit platform.

Ready to save on new Tech? It's time for Dell Tech Day's annual sales event celebrating our customers with fantastic deals and benefits bring. Perks include Dell Rewards, free shipping, premium Support and more. PCs like the Dell 14 with Intel Core Ultra processors will help you do more faster and with a premium suite of monitors and accessories, you can upgrade your whole setup with amazing savings. Visit Dell.com deals.

Hey, today is Free Ride Friday so make sure you hang on to the end of the episode to hear who won this week's Free Ride. Every Friday we give away a lifetime membership to our course easy course, our 30 day course on how to build your your own online course. It retails for $500 over at EasyCourse Co or you can win it for free. Just leave us an iTunes rating and review and you enter our weekly random draw we call Freeride Friday. Just listen in on Friday to see if you won. It's that simple. It's our way to say thanks for leaving us love on itunes. All right, let's jump into today's episode. Heyo. Welcome to the $100 NBA Show Business know at its best every day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the $100 MBA, a complete business training and community online. And in today's lesson you will learn should you hire friends and family members of teammates. This is a discussion that has been going on for a few months now that I've seen in private groups and on Twitter. Many business owners will get referrals from their current employees for job openings that they've posted. Many of those Referrals are close friends of their teammates, of the person that's referring them, or even a family member, like a brother or sister or even a cousin. Is it a good idea? Some people worry that, hey, what if the relationship, the personal relationship, has a falling out? Like, say, for example, they're no longer friends. Are they going to be able to work together? Is it going to affect the work environment? Will there be nepotism? Do people feel the need to act differently around family versus strangers that they work with? Well, in today's episode, we address all these things as well as share my own example. In my company, early on in my entrepreneurial career, I actually hired my own sister. And for many years, we've had employees that work with us that were siblings as well as close friends. Were there issues? Were there challenges? Did we work them out? We get into all of that in today's lesson. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Hiring the best talent, the best people for your business, for your positions, is a challenge in itself. It gets a little bit more complicated when that person is close to somebody already on the team, whether they're a very close friend or even a family member. The first thing I want to address that should be obvious, but I want to make sure is obvious is that when it comes to the hiring process, everybody should be treated equally. Everybody should be treated the same, and no preference should be made based on the referral or the referee or who they are in their relationship to somebody on your team. Everybody gets evaluated the same way. Everybody goes through the same screening process. So that way you know for sure, no matter what the background is or the relationship, you're getting somebody that's qualified. Now, having said that, when somebody on your team refers somebody to a job opening, there is a distinct advantage to this. Whether they're a friend or not a family member, it doesn't matter. The reason why there's an advantage to this is that your employee, your team member, knows what it's like to work there or to work in your company. The expectations, the culture, how to succeed. And when they're telling them about the job, you best be sure they're gonna say all that stuff. They're going to tell them, this is what it's like to work here. This is what the bosses are like. This is what the culture's like. This is what the mission's like. This is what I like about it. These are the challenges you're going to have. They can give them some expectations. They can actually have Them be prepared so that when they get the job, if they do, they're not coming completely cold and they're only going to apply if all that sounds good to them in that regard. Any referee, regardless of their close friends or not, this is good. But obviously if they're close friends or their family members, they're going to share more. They're going to say, hey, I started this company, you know, this year and this is what I've experienced and this is what I love. And here are some stories, here are some of the things you're going to find challenging. This is what I found challenging. They're going to open up a little bit and give them an honest opinion and an honest overview of working at your company. Again, expectations are everything. So this is huge. When you're in the hiring process, it's really important to emphasize that, hey, you know that you are close friends with somebody on the team. You know that this person that's interviewing is a family member of somebody on your team. And you want to hear their reaction. For me, the reaction I'm looking for is for them to initiate and say, you know what? That is true, this person's my brother. But I don't want to be treated any differently. I wouldn't treat my brother any differently. I would expect him to hold me to the same standard. Whether they're colleagues or one of them is their superior. Somebody that makes it a point that they understand that this can a conflict and is making a point to say, hey, this is not something I'm going to abuse or take advantage of or, you know, I'm trying to find a great job, a great opportunity and, you know, my friend or my, you know, relative happens to work here. People that take initiative to address that are really people that are transparent, that are honest, that have some awareness about themselves and understand the sensitivity of the situation. And I really like that. So what do you do if the person passes the interview, they're highly qualified for the job, they're a great fit. But now you got to decide should you hire them because the relationship that they have somebody on the team. My opinion, you should hire them because they're a great fit. But you need to make it super clear what the policies are in your company, that there is no nepotism, that you're going to be treated just as like anybody else. And we expect them to treat everybody else just like a co worker. This is especially important if you're in a physical office. You don't want people to be in cliques. You don't want any kind of unintentional special treatment because they know each other. And you need to set the standards and the rules. That's your job as the leader of the company, to have these standards, to have that culture there. You can't just expect them to have all those things kind of set for themselves. You have to address the issue and say, hey, we know that there's a relationship prior to this working relationship. You know, we want to make sure you get the best out of you. We're going to treat everybody equally here. There are no preferential treatments in our company. You have to say these things. You have to address it. But if they're a great fit, I would hire them just like you would hire them if you didn't know that they had a relationship. Like I mentioned before, I actually hired my sister early on in my entrepreneurial career. It didn't work out. Actually. My sister decided to leave the company after about a month. It just wasn't a good fit for her. You know, she didn't feel like she was in her comfort zone in terms of the job and what she was required to do. And as much as it was painful for me that my own sister left my company, I knew it was the best thing for the company. I knew that she made the right choice, and I knew that whoever we found to replace her would be a better fit because of this experience. We've learned how to find the right person through this experience. Now, you know yourself, you know I know myself, and I know that it was hard for me to manage somebody who was a relative like my sister. Somebody was very close to me. It was an extra stress on me, extra stress on the company, something I could have avoided. And in hindsight, I probably wouldn't have done that. I probably wouldn't make that hire again because I did feel like when she left, it sort of. It didn't ruin our relationship, but it did affect it temporarily for maybe a few months. And the fact that it did meant that hiring a relative for me was not a good idea. Now, one of our first hires at Webinar Ninja is Cindy. She was with us for years, four years. And in that four year period, she recommended her sister C.J. and C.J. joined the team, and C.J. is still with us. And in fact, she moved up the ranks. She became a lead agent, and now she's the customer service manager for Webinar Ninja. Huge role. And it's all because we saw that CJ was a great hire, good fit for. We didn't feel like there would be any issues with, you know, Cindy and CJ Working together. Cindy made it very clear that that's not going to happen. She's the one who took that initiative and told me that. And because you know Cindy, and because Cindy really wanted a good person for the position at the time when we hired cj, we were able to acquire CJ as a team member, and now she's a superstar on our team. We're so glad that, you know, Cindy made that recommendation back in the day. Even though Cindy left the company, she started her own business. But the best thing she did is she brought in CJ into the team in the early days. So it really worked out for us because it was very clear what the expectations are. And we hired for the best hire. And CJ was highly qualified for the position we were hiring for, and she knocked it out of the park. And as you can see, she's a superstar. She moved up the ranks and her potential was amazing. So this is totally doable. You can make it happen. But number one, hire the best person for the job, regardless of the relationship. Number two, you got to make sure you address the elephant in the room. You have standards. You address this and make sure that this cannot interfere. Number three, if you know it's going to affect you personally, whether it's a friend of yours or you know that this is going to bother you in some way, like, you know, if things don't work out, like what happened with me and my sister, then don't go down that road. This is your business. You can do whatever you want and you can make the rules. That's best for you.

Does it feel like it's getting really hard to figure out the best way to save for retirement? Fidelity can help you find clarity so you can save the best way for you. With a free personalized plan, goal tracking, and timely insights, you'll be set to take on retirement. Your way. Get started@fidelity.com future expenses charged by your investments and other costs and fees associated with trading or transacting in your account. Apply Fidelity Brokerage Services Member NYSE SIPC.

Hey, Fidelity, how can I remember to invest every month?

With the Fidelity app, you can choose a schedule and set up recurring investments in stocks and ETFs.

Huh.

That sounds easier than I thought.

You got this?

Yeah, I do. Now, where did I put my keys?

You will find them where you left them.

Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC Member NYSE SIPC.

To wrap up today's lesson, it can get complicated when it comes to friends and family. So to avoid complication, you got to be transparent, got to be honest and get in front of the issue and say, hey, this is how we work in this business. These are the rules. This is how we treat everybody, regardless of other prior relationships. Also, knowing thyself is really important. You got to know what's going to affect you and what's not. Be honest with yourself. If there's any doubt. I always say, if there's any doubt, there's no doubt. So if there's any doubt, don't do it. Don't do something that's going to make you feel uncomfortable. Thank you so much for listening to the 100 RMBA show. Today's episode's not over yet because it's Free Ride Friday. Let's see who won this week's Free Ride. And the winner is Bookbumbs. Bookbums says. Great podcast. Five stars. I've been listening for two months now and I've gained so much useful information. Thanks so much, Bookbums, for that five star review. Your mission is to email me over at omar100mba.net so I can hook you up with the free ride with the Free ride to ezcourse, our $500 course over at Easycourse co yours for free lifetime access. Thanks so much for leaving us that review. If you want to win a free ride to Ezcourse, just leave us an itunes rating and review and you enter our weekly random draw we call Free Ride Friday. Listen in on Friday to see if you won. That simple. Thanks so much for being a part of this community, for being a listener, for being a subscriber to the show, hitting that subscribe button. It means so much to us. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. A lot of people say business is not personal. We separate the two. That's just not true. Okay? That's just not reality. The reality is we're all human and we work so hard on our business. It means so much to us. It's so close to us. We spend so much time on it. It's personal. Everything's personal. So understand that whatever happens in your business will affect you personally at some level. How much can you take? How much is too much when it's too close to the grain, like with family members, sometimes you just don't want to deal with that. You want to kind of separate the two. You know yourself best. So don't be too, you know, scared or bashful or embarrassed to say, you know what? I'm not down with hiring family because I don't want the drama. It's your business. It's your rules. Thank you so much for listening. And I'll check you in Monday's episode. I'll see you then. Take care. Of.

Hey, Fidelity.

How can I remember to invest every month?

With the Fidelity app, you can choose a schedule and set up recurring investments in stocks and ETFs.

Oh, that sounds easier than I thought.

You got this?

Yeah, I do. Now, where did I put my keys?

You will find them where you left them.

Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services, llc. Member nyse, sipc.