Building your Business Team

5 of the Best Job Interview Questions for Your Business: What You Need to Ask Prospective Employees

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best interview questions

When it comes to the best job interview questions that you should be asking potential hires, it’s all about determining whether or not the person to whom you are speaking will be the right fit. It’s especially true when your business is new because you might not have the time and resources to dedicate to the hiring process that larger, more established firms would.

You will want to make sure you get it right and ask the sorts of questions that get to the point as soon as possible.  Keep reading to learn more about what I consider to be some of the best job interview questions you can ask for your business. You will see just how important it is to ask the right questions when you’re considering bringing someone aboard for your business.

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Best Hiring Practices: 4 Things You Can Do to Hire Top Talent

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best hiring practices

Hiring.  It’s probably the single most important thing you can do for your business, so you’ll need the best hiring practices to ensure your decisions benefit you in the long run.

In a way, we’ll build on the previous post that talked about building a business team, with the difference being that this post will explore different steps in the process of finding talent rather than looking for qualities in an individual.

So keep reading to learn more, as we’ll be looking at some of the best hiring practices you can employ for the sake of your business.

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Workplace Conflict Management: How to Resolve Conflict

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workplace conflict management

As a business owner, workplace conflict management is something you will need as your company grows.  In this post, we’ll explore how doing so isn’t just to the benefit of the people involved, but to your business as well.  So keep reading in order to learn more about workplace conflict management, its effects, and how you can ultimately keep workplace conflict from doing harm to your business.

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Building a Business Team: How To Hire The Staff Your Business Needs

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business team

Building a business team that will keep your company functioning at its best is paramount to running a thriving company.  The challenge lies in the fact that you need to make sure that the people you bring into your business will be the best for what you’ve envisioned.  So how can you make sure that the team you put together to help oversee your company’s development is the one it truly needs?

We will explore that question in this post about building a business team and you will learn all about the qualities you need to look for in order to hire the right people.

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Improve Communication in Workplace: 4 Tips for Smoother Business

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improve communication

Whether your business is new or already established, it never hurts to improve communication in the workplace.  Since communication is so important to making sure your operations go as smoothly as possible, you want to constantly work at it and be one-hundred percent certain that everyone involved in your business has an understanding of how you want things to develop.  So what can you, as the leader, do to improve communication in the workplace?

Let’s take a look at what I consider to be some effective strategies on creating effective workplace communication and you’ll get a good idea of what has to go into making your operations as cohesive as possible.

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Key Leadership Characteristics: The Things You Need to Do to Help Your Business Grow

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leadership

No matter what your management style might be, there are key leadership characteristics that you should adopt in order to give your business the best possible chance at thriving.  From hiring the right employees, to having the right product, none of it will mean much without the right kind of leadership behind it all.

So let’s take a look at some key leadership characteristics and just what they mean for your business.  You will see how these qualities will positively affect your business both immediately and in the long term.

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CFO Interview Questions: What To Ask Your Chief Financial Officer

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cfo interview questions

When it comes to CFO (Chief Financial Officer) interview questions, you can never be too careful.

A CFO is an integral part of the business, so you want to be absolutely sure that the person you hire is able to meet your needs down to the last. But finding that candidate who fits the role perfectly can be a daunting task.

Let’s take a look at the following guide about hiring a CFO and you’ll get an idea for some strong CFO interview questions and how they can help you narrow down your search.

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Responsibilities of a CFO: What Your CFO Does for Your Business

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responsibilities of a cfo

If you’re a business owner looking to hire a CFO, then you’re likely wondering about the responsibilities of a CFO and how they help you move your company forward. The role that a CFO fills is an important one for a growing business, but not many entrepreneurs know exactly how such an executive keeps things moving forward.

In this post, we’ll take an in-depth look at the duties of a chief financial officer and what they do to ensure that your company continues following the path that you have shaped for it.

So keep reading this page to learn more about the responsibilities of a CFO. The information you find here will help you understand what you need to look for from the person who handles your company’s financial future.

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Why Hire a Business Coach?

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why hire a business coach for your business

As someone who runs their own business, you may ask yourself “Why hire a business coach?”

While you may have a good grasp on running your company, you should know that you still have a lot to learn.

It could be argued that this is true for a business owner no matter what stage of development the company is in.

While someone who has never run a company before certainly has a lot of growing to do, you may not realize that someone who has been an entrepreneur for a while could also stand to consult an expert on certain matters related to the business.

It’s a common misconception that only the inexperienced could benefit from the insight that an outsider can bring to the table, but this blog post will illustrate just why that’s a misconception.

So, why hire a business coach?

Well, let’s take a look at several scenarios where such expertise could come in handy, and you’ll quickly see why working with someone from the outside could be to your advantage.

You’re New to Running Your Own Business

This is the most obvious scenario in which you might benefit from some coaching.

When starting out, it’s all too likely that you’ll have countless questions about how things should go. It’s no secret that getting a company off the ground, never mind making it a success, requires a lot of different things to happen.

Besides having a strong business plan that helps you define the path that you’re going to follow, you also need to be sure that everything you’re doing is in compliance with both local and federal laws. From making sure you have the right licenses, to being certain that you have the right marketing practices in place in order to get as much exposure as possible, there are a lot of gaps to fill in between coming up with your idea and getting customers to hand you their hard earned money.

If you’re new to running a company and you’re wondering “why hire a business coach“, then you should be thinking about roadblocks that you could potentially come across and how you’ll deal with them.

You could certainly find a way to remedy these issues yourself but, without experience, how long will it take you? During a company’s early days, resources are especially scarce and you can’t afford to let anything go to waste.

So why spend more time dealing with a problem than you would need to? In all likelihood, a good business coach has the experience necessary to foresee potential issues and help you deal with them as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Your Company Is Running and Bringing in Steady Revenue

If your company has been in business for a few years and you’ve been able to get a handle on how operations should run, it somewhat makes sense to ask “Why hire a business coach?” It makes sense, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider hiring one.

Business owners whose firms are beyond the startup stage, but ask “why hire a business coach”, may not have much to learn about what goes into getting the company on its feet, but they have much to learn about growth, development, and expansion.

With everything that it took to reach this stage, the last thing you want to do is get comfortable to the point where the business plateaus and growth stagnates as a result. As your company establishes lasting relationships with customers and adds to its staff, there will be greater demands on your time and money.

A good business coach can help you effectively manage your revenue to make sure that it goes to the appropriate places all in the name of continued growth. It’s also important to maintain strong ties with banks and other lenders, in case you need access to additional capital for a project that would be beneficial to your company.

This may also be the stage where you evaluate the feasibility of moving into new markets. If that’s the case, then the answer to the question of why hire a business coach is obvious.

Moving into a new market can be an alien prospect for you as an entrepreneur, and good executive coaching will help you determine what you can expect to see as you move forward. You will have to conduct thorough research and planning when expanding your business.

Having a good coach at your side during this stage can go a long way toward making sure that the process goes smoothly.

Your Company Has Been Around For a While

A business owner whose company is in a mature state may ask “why hire a business coach”, but they need to be aware of the fact that companies in the same sector may be looking for their own market share, and will be aiming for the established companies as a result.

During this time, companies can benefit from the services of a business coach in order to examine the feasibility of going back to exploring new markets and creating ways to retain customers and keep revenue up in the face of increased competition.

If increased competition affects business, good executive coaching can help with a turnaround in order to successfully restructure the company and become viable again. It’s important to remember that, as your business grows over the years, you have to do everything necessary to keep the doors open and revenue coming in.

With all of the uncertainty that is a part of entrepreneurship, you want to take every advantage that comes your way and use it to make your company a success.

The question shouldn’t be “Why hire a business coach?”

Instead, it should be “Why NOT hire a business coach?”

From helping a startup establish itself, to helping a distressed company reinvent itself in order to keep the doors open, a good business coach can do a number of things from an objective point of view that just about any business could benefit from in the long run.

Remember, running a business successfully does not need to be complicated.  Keep it simple!

For more solutions on successfully managing the challenges of growing your business profitably, please check out our website www.portalcfo.com.

How to Pay Employees: What You Need to Know About Pay Structures

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employee pay structure - Portal CFO Consulting

employee pay structure - Portal CFO Consulting“How to Pay Employees?” This is a question that many who are new to owning their own business ask themselves.

And why not?

The people who work hard to make sure that your company succeeds deserve to be compensated for their time and effort, but it can often be difficult determining how pay is going to be distributed among your workforce. This is because there are a lot of different factors that you have to keep in mind.

When determining how much an employee should be compensated, you need to keep in mind qualities like:

  • Your location and what the average person in your area makes for the same kind of work
  • The condition of the job market
  • The employee’s background and experience
  • The industry standard

Beyond that, figuring out how to pay employees also involves how frequently they get paid, the method through which they get paid and how things like benefits and company perks will affect that employee’s pay.

Let’s take look at many of the other factors that you have to determine when it comes to employee pay and, hopefully, you’ll be able to conclude what the best practices for your own company are.

Ways to Pay Your Employee

When it comes to how you pay the people who work for you, the most important thing to remember is that you have three basic methods for determining how they will receive their income:

  • Commission – When an employee gets paid on commission, he or she receives pay based on what has been sold. A percentage of the goods that the employee sells will be given to them as their compensation, so if you want to determine how to pay employees so that they stay motivated and you keep key talent then commissioned pay might be right for you.

While this structure has advantages like unlimited earnings potential and some degree of freedom, you have to be aware of the fact that this pay structure can also lead your salespeople neglecting good customer service in favor of chasing the biggest possible sale.

A salesman who only receives commission may not take the customer’s needs into consideration, or they may choose which customers they aid based on who they think will lead to the biggest payday.

  • Hourly Wages – This is by far the most common method of payment in our society. With this structure, the employee is paid a regular rate that gets multiplied by the hours that they work over a pay period. If you’re looking for a method on how to pay employees that will produce work when you need it and keep you from paying an employee when business is slow, then this is the kind structure that you should use. You may also get employees who are willing to work at times when others aren’t, like holidays, because they may need the money.

Some Disadvantages to Consider

As a business owner, one disadvantage you face with hourly employees is that labor laws state that you have to pay overtime (the employee’s hourly rate plus half) for every hour over forty that they work. If you don’t limit how often those employees work, payroll can start to encroach on your margins.

  • Salary – Through this form of payment, the employee receives a set amount of money per year, distributed in the same amount every pay period. Salaried employees typically don’t receive things like overtime, but the tradeoff is that they have a bit more flexibility about when they work.

One disadvantage that you face as an employer is, if this is how you pay employees, your ability to offer compensation as a reward for additional work is limited because of the employee’s fixed income. Salaried pay may also offer little in the way of appreciation shown for the extra work that an employee does. This could potentially affect morale.

Which of these structures you use to compensate your employers can have a lot to do with what kind of business you run and the size of that business, among other things, but the structure of the pay isn’t the only consideration that you need to take into account when figuring out how to pay employees.

Other Considerations

Besides the structure, you also have to consider the method of delivery (traditional paper check or direct deposit) as well as the perks that you can afford to offer.

In addition to adequate pay, many employees and job seekers also look for benefits to make their lives easier.

Some benefits that many people typically look for in employment can consist of:

  • Insurance like health, dental, and vision
  • Adequate vacation time
  • Employer sponsored retirement plans where contributions are matched by the company
  • Flextime to work at least some hours at their convenience provided the quality of their work doesn’t suffer.

Remember, when thinking about how to pay employees, it usually goes beyond what you offer in the form of a paycheck.

Your employees want to feel like they’re valued and their contributions matter in the larger scheme of things. Beyond that, you can retain loyalty by offering benefits that ensure security and promote a healthy work/life balance.

Show your employees that they matter and you’ll get quality work out of them in return.

Remember, running a business successfully does not need to be complicated.  Keep it simple!

For more information on business analysis, business planning, and ways to grow your small business profitably, please check out our website www.portalcfo.com.  Follow us on Twitter @portalcfo

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