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I think that the forum needs a good "Care and Feeding of Employees and Contractors" discussion.
UPFRONT Declaration: I am NOT an expert. I do not claim to be infallible. Smack me around if this thread comes off as pompous or pedantic. I just want to share my (somewhat limited) experience and see if the real experts have any thoughts.
My background: I have one household employee (full time) and have contracted with something like 5 different independent contractors via Elance, Upwork, locally, etc. Less formally, I have pretty extensive experience in team building and getting maximal performance from team members (that I didn't hire). This spans several years in the Marine Corps as an NCO, helping my mother run her small business, and as a physician working with medical students, residents, hospital staff physicians, techs, unit clerks, and nurses and is ongoing.
I hear you! Yes indeed I do! But consider this:
This is a graph of the Normal distribution, also known colloquially as "The Bell Curve."
The TL;DR of this graph is that, under most circumstances, most everyone and everything in Nature falls within the bounds of -2 sigma to +2 sigma for what's being studied.
[Fun science note: this distribution is found throughout Nature for an incredible number of things: What's the average size of an insect population? Between -2 sigma to +2 sigma. Average batting score of Major League Baseball players in a given season? Between -2 sigma to +2 sigma. And so on.]
Given this, to the question of, "Will I ever need to deal with employees?" I would posit that, you will.
===========================================================================
Scenario 1: Traditional business with some brick and mortar (B&M) component. You need someone to do function X (warehouse, fill orders, phone calls, handle your schedule, build your network, engineer software, SALES). Real live human beings that you'll see often. YOU WILL NEED TO KNOW HOW TO MANAGE THEM.
Scenario 2: You run a supplement/ecomm c FBA or dropshipping and you outsource all of the work to third parties (web development/mgmt, lead gen, manufacturers/suppliers, fulfillment center, etc). Again, real live human beings who work for themselves by working for you.
In each case, you'll have to know how to effectively manage people in order to get the best performance out of them.
Discuss.
@Andy Black , @Vigilante
UPFRONT Declaration: I am NOT an expert. I do not claim to be infallible. Smack me around if this thread comes off as pompous or pedantic. I just want to share my (somewhat limited) experience and see if the real experts have any thoughts.
My background: I have one household employee (full time) and have contracted with something like 5 different independent contractors via Elance, Upwork, locally, etc. Less formally, I have pretty extensive experience in team building and getting maximal performance from team members (that I didn't hire). This spans several years in the Marine Corps as an NCO, helping my mother run her small business, and as a physician working with medical students, residents, hospital staff physicians, techs, unit clerks, and nurses and is ongoing.
I hear you! Yes indeed I do! But consider this:
- Human beings are social creatures.
- Nearly all (more on this in a moment) businesses rely on human beings to accomplish their goals
- Humans are irrational, emotional, often driven by hidden (to us, to themselves) motives and desires
- Nearly all business rely on human beings to buy their products/services (exception that comes to mind are trading "bots" that execute trades in microseconds based on pre-set rules)
- Therefore, I propose that learning to handle employees (should you need them) will help you sell better to your customers.
This is a graph of the Normal distribution, also known colloquially as "The Bell Curve."
The TL;DR of this graph is that, under most circumstances, most everyone and everything in Nature falls within the bounds of -2 sigma to +2 sigma for what's being studied.
[Fun science note: this distribution is found throughout Nature for an incredible number of things: What's the average size of an insect population? Between -2 sigma to +2 sigma. Average batting score of Major League Baseball players in a given season? Between -2 sigma to +2 sigma. And so on.]
Given this, to the question of, "Will I ever need to deal with employees?" I would posit that, you will.
===========================================================================
Scenario 1: Traditional business with some brick and mortar (B&M) component. You need someone to do function X (warehouse, fill orders, phone calls, handle your schedule, build your network, engineer software, SALES). Real live human beings that you'll see often. YOU WILL NEED TO KNOW HOW TO MANAGE THEM.
Scenario 2: You run a supplement/ecomm c FBA or dropshipping and you outsource all of the work to third parties (web development/mgmt, lead gen, manufacturers/suppliers, fulfillment center, etc). Again, real live human beings who work for themselves by working for you.
In each case, you'll have to know how to effectively manage people in order to get the best performance out of them.
Discuss.
@Andy Black , @Vigilante
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