Episode 350: 4 Ways Employees Take Away Your Power In Your Pet Business

Topics & Key Points

• Four specific problems with employees that lead to a hostage situation 
• Why you should not surrender your schedule: Allowing employees to constantly change their schedules can disrupt your business flow.
• A negative attitude can create a toxic work environment
• Always be hiring  even if there’s no immediate need
• Invest in hiring and onboarding: A systematic and professional onboarding process is crucial

Timestamps

[02:00] Letting the employee make or change the schedule always

[04:09] Attitude problems among employees

[08:52] Not hiring fast enough.

[09:50] Proper hiring and onboarding

[16:51] Mom Guilt and Summer fun

Notable Quotes

[00:05:41] “Attitude stops the flow of communication. This attitude creates not a good working environment. Attitude is disrespectful and you deserve respect in your company, provided that you’re giving it and being a good leader.”

 [00:07:43] “If you don’t address the attitude problems because you feel like you have no options, you are hostage in your own business.”

[00:09:58] “If your marketing is good, but your attitude and company culture is terrible, what’s going to happen? Your services are going to be terrible.”  

[00:16:07] “Your business does not have to run you, you should run your business.”

00:19:56, “What would happen to your business if you or someone you loved needed you right now and you had to step out of your business? Would it survive?”

Resources

• Podcast: Bella in Your Business: Pet Industry Business Podcast
• Join Mastermind
• Email Bella: bella@jumpconsulting.net
• Sign up for 20 minutes call

Connect with Bella

• Website
• Facebook
• YouTube

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Transcript

Welcome to another episode of Bella in your business. My name is Bella Vasta. And today, we are going to be talking about something that I see happen a lot. And I don’t think a lot of people are conscious of it. The thing is, is that if this is happening in your company, you need to be aware of it. And then we need to walk it back so that we can stop it from happening. If this is happening in your business, what’s happening is that you’ve given up all your power, your business controls you, your employees control, you, and most likely your relationships, finances and time are all suffering. And jumpers are better than that. I want you to be empowered.

And so today, I’m going to talk about four different things that business owners are doing with their employees. That’s creating a hostage situation. Now, yep, just think of the SWAT team right now. We are in a building, and someone is controlling us and we can’t do anything. And picture me as a SWAT team out there right now trying to save you. I want you to think about this stuff and find out if s there is any way that you can improve how you are doing your business because if so, it could lead to wonderful, beautiful things. It could be that mythical creature that when you started your business, oh, I want to start my own business. So I can be in charge of my time and my relationships and my finances. But at some point, we got away from that. And we become hostages e in our own business. And this is what I mean. So before I get into it, I want to thank all of you guys, who basicaly sold out the birthday sale last week, that was amazing. We did 50% off of the one on one coaching, and the intensives. I also had a couple of 20 Minute Calls last week with some of you, I was going through this girl’s p&l, and I was going through someone else’s why and their visions that they could figure out how they wanted to go forward. And it was also helping someone get from the stagnant plateau of about 250,000 or so to get half a million n, and the mindset change that needed to happen. So I love doing these calls. If you and I have never met, I do have a 20-minute complimentary session where it’s kind of pick my brain bring anything you want, all you got to do is go to jumpconsulting.net/20.

Now let’s get into today, the very first thing that I think I see business owners doing with their employees that creates a hostage situation, is they let the employee make the schedule, or change the schedule always, what is this mean? I’m talking about that employee that I say, Okay, who are your employees? And you give me a whole list? And I say, Okay, how much do they work? Are they working to the fullest of their capacity? And we get to those people where you go, Well, this one kind of works for me, you know, as needed, or whatever they can. And I always have to ask them if they can, if they can help me, which help versus work are two different things do. And when it comes to that, ad someone else is kind of in charge of the schedule always, or you’re always having to ask if they can work for you. That’s going to impact you drastically. It stops the flow of being able to schedule things, it gives them the power to say yes or no. And it takes away all your power to be able to strategize all of your people and the routes and all of this stuff. So if they are making their schedule or changing it on you all the time, I want you to consider does this work for me? If I were to give you that same person, and you knew exactly what their availability was no questions asked, Would you want that? That’s the biggest question I want you to consider. Because if we had that kind of thing, and that comes from hiring the right people, then you might be able to have a lot more success. In your company. Your clients be happier because they know who they’re always getting your scheduler or your office manager or you if you’re the one doing it will be a lot happier because they know exactly who they can rely on. And so if your schedule is constantly changing with your different staff, that is a nightmare. It is a logistic nightmare. And you can’t be doing that. Maybe you could implement something like every month. We can look at your schedule or every quarter. We can look at your schedule or every six months we can look at your schedule. Get them to somehow commit to a certain time frame at least so that you know what you can count on, it’s going to be incredibly difficult for you to run your operation if you don’t know where you can rely on people. Okay, so that first one is letting the employee make the schedule or change the schedule. Always.

The second thing is, is attitude problems. Oh my God, my daughter just turned nine years old. And let me tell you, I don’t know if this is like, delayed because she’s been so good. Or I don’t know if she’s like already a preteen at nine or nine years old. But she’s like, ah, that’s the way I want to do it. I’m like, Oh, God, where did you learn this? But guys, the attitude, the attitude stops the flow of communication, the attitude creates not a good working environment, the attitude is disrespectful. And you deserve respect in your company, provided that you’re giving it and being a good leader, okay? And so if you have people that have attitude problems, or you assign them something, and I know this from like, when I used to have my company, I made these mistakes, I would assign something to someone, and I would like, be so nervous, they’re going to do the job, right? Are they going to follow all the instructions I gave him? Are they going to remember to lock the door, all of these worries that you all have laying Awake, awake at night, come from that person with just the bad attitude, if they had a good attitude about it, they would be wanting to over exceed expectations and be like a star employee right. Now, if you are thinking of anyone right now, I want to encourage you to dig deeper on this. Because if you have attitude problems with your staff, and if allowed to rehire them today, you would not, then that is something that you need to be aware of. It is something that you do not need to live with. Because you feel like there’s no one to hire out there no one wants to work because that is not true. It’s that our pickers and the way that we are attracting them is not working. It’s like you’re standing on top of a building, and you’re just like noise noise noise, noise noise while a lot of that, and no one’s coming to you because your message is not something that is attracting the right kind of person. Who is that right kind of person? Oh, an animal lover, someone that loves pets? No, sorry. It’s way deeper than that. And we’ve talked a lot about that on the podcast, Two episodes ago, I think it was, I gave you my 10-step process for the whole hiring, onboarding, and training steps. And you know, it goes deeper than that. But you have to realize that just because you have people on your team if you’re having attitude problems, that’s not going to help move your company forward. It’s not going to make your life easier. It’s not going to make your fellow staff members’ lives easier. And if you have if you don’t address the attitude problems, because you feel like you have no options, you are hostage in your own business. And I want to encourage you to be better than that. You don’t have to go that far. I had a situation with a client, and who had this staff member who she wouldn’t always get back to her right away. And so she’d be waiting for answers on stuff but not no. And so then she would, she would email her because that’s how they were they would do it. They had company emails, and then she would, she would text her and she wouldn’t answer the text, then she would call her by the time she called her which added that the employee had the biggest attitude. And the employer was like walking on eggshells trying to appease her and not piss her off. Because she was like, Oh my gosh, if she quits and she gets mad at me, then I can’t go on my family vacation or I can’t do whatever it is that I want to do because I have to jump in. Does that sound familiar? Guys? You don’t have to run your business that way. I don’t want you to run your business that way. running your business that way is hostage to those people and I don’t want you to be hostage. Alright, the third one, kind of coincides with this. They don’t hire fast enough. So they don’t have any alternatives. Or they don’t have alternatives because they don’t hire fast enough. Same thing. So Alright, let’s say you’ve got MS bad attitude on your staff. Right? And you just stopped hiring because you’re like, oh, I need five people. I have five people that’s great. A B H always be hiring. Okay. Always, always, always, always always. I don’t care if you hire people and they don’t have work. That is not your fault, especially if you are very upfront with them, hey, we’re hiring a new person for the team. We are anticipating our needs, you know increasing for staff. We don’t have it right now. Here are some things you can do to work up to it. But now what you’re doing is you’re giving yourself the power back you’re you’re taking those handcuffs off of you because next time attitude has an attitude and she quits or better yet you decide to let her go. You now have someone else waiting in the wings that’s ready to come in. That is how you leverage your power. That is how you run a successful company. Because you if your systems are good if you’re smart. getting good. But your attitude and company culture is terrible, what’s going to happen, your services are going to be terrible, and you’re going to be afraid to ask these people for things because they’re not team, player, or because they take too long to get back to you, or they have attitude e when they get back to you. And I don’t want that happening to you do not be a hostage in your own business, this is your business. This is I want to remind you, why did you get into this business, most of you can agree it was for
time, freedom, and money freedom. Okay, that’s basically what almost everything comes down to.

Now, the next one is they don’t put in nearly y enough time and proper hiring and onboarding. Now, what I mean by proper is this, I see. And I understand it, because like, we’re all didn’t when you started your company, you probably didn’t even realize that you were going to be hiring employees. And now you find yourself in this managerial HR position that you know nothing about. And you’re just trying to keep all the balls in the air and keep everyone happy, right? And so you’re like, Well, I don’t care, I’ll invest all my time. So they start doing a working interview with you. And they’re out there for 3456. I’ve heard seven to 10 days, people are out there shadowing other people. And it’s like a firehose, it’s overwhelming. It’s confusing, it’s convoluted. Or let’s even just talk about the onboarding process where you have to get all the paperwork in. And I use paperwork loosely, because most stuff is done online, especially if you have Jaz HR now, with a click of buttons, and it’s just like really easy and streamlined. But your onboarding in your training process is still part of the selling process to get this person on board. If you show up and appear to be a hot, unorganized mess, then that is going to tell them that they also don’t need to be organized and that they can be a hot mess, or they could have chaos, what you give is gonna be what you get most of the time. Not always most of the time. And you need to appear very professional, you need to appear that they can trust you, you got to appear that you know exactly what’s happening. And all this is part of our hiring process. And first is the step then is the step. And here’s a guide. And here, here’s our outline and our routine. It’s why things like pet care team training work. So well Pet Care Team training.com. Full disclosure, I am the co founder. But the reason why that works so well is that in under two hours, they get video training in a really fun way on so many different things. So that when they show up to that first day of training, they’ve already seen it, they’ve already been tested on it. And they’re excited about it because these are not talking head videos, which means if you’re watching me on YouTube, right now, this is a talking head video. It’s just like mostly like from my chest up, my head is talking. These videos are are professionally shot. They’re edited there, there’s music to them. There are all these jump cuts, which means it’s constantly changing. Things are flying on the screen to like, keep your attention. It’s exciting and engaging. Then because it’s exciting and engaging. Everyone pays attention. And then there’s like this Mad Libs-style thing that they fill out. Imagine showing up to work for somebody. And first of all, your mom-and-pop company, they don’t know you from a hole in the wall, their biggest thing is, is this person can schedule me and are they going to pay me or am I going to get stiffed on my check? That’s what they’re wondering, Okay. And you they show up to you and you sit there and you just talk and you talk and you talk and you talk and you talk and you talk. And then you take them out on the field and you talk and you talk and you talk and you talk to me Doc, they are so overwhelmed. They don’t know if they’re doing a good job. And if one kind of person could be like, Oh my gosh, am I getting all this? I’m not good enough. Like there’s so much information. I’m overwhelmed. I don’t know if I can do this job. I didn’t know it. Was this involved? I didn’t know all of this stuff. I wasn’t sure. So you know what, I think this job is just overwhelming for me. I can’t do this. I thought this was just like love and dogs and cats. Other people might be like, oh, yeah, I get all of this. It’s not a big deal. I get all of it. And then they go out and they go do it themselves. And they don’t get it all. But they never had anything to rely back on to look at and I’m not just talking about your handbook and manual because that’s just written. That is like the basic basic. That’s like the basic Bible. But then you need to make the Bible come alive. Through video traininreallyg, on-the-job training pointed to specific training. I’ve talked about this before training days, I realy prefer like two training days, both focused on one topic, like maybe one is security. One is cleaning. And you have the 10-point checklist because it gives the brain something to focus on. And of course, they’re going to see all the other things that they do but it gives the brain something to focus on. So when you don’t put nearly enough time into proper hiring and onboarding, you will end up being a hostage in your company because you’re starting this relationship on on the shaky ground. It is not a specific, intentional systematized process. And if it’s not those three things, then the people coming on are not going to have respect for your company. and that will lead inttoo attitude problems that will lead to schedule changes that will lead to all of the things that we talked about.

So let’s recap quicquicklyk number one is, if you’re going to be hostage e in your company if you let your employee schedule themselves or change their schedule all the time. The second one is if you don’t address those attitude problems, then you’re going to be a hostage in your business. The third one is that you don’t hire fast enough. So you never have an option of letting go of those bad seeds or when it’s not working out, you’re literaly held hostage and you can’t do anything. And the last thing is not putting enough time into hiring and training. So jumpers, where does this leave you right now? Which one of those four, if not all of them? Are you thinking, damn, Bella, you did it again. You’re like, I’m feeling disappointed. I’m feeling overwhelmed. I don’t know how I’m gonna be able to turn the ship around. I don’t know how to make those things different. You don’t understand. There’s no one out there. And I just need someone that can do it. And I’m willing to work around their schedule because they’re just the best person ever. will let me tell you, that are you trying to rationalize your bad decisions? Yes, I said it. And I hope that you hear my heart when I say this, but your business does not have to run you, you should run your business. And it’s, and it’s one of those four things. Typically, it is I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and I’ve seen hundreds of your businesses, that’s typically what it is. So I want to encourage you to be that Boston charge that I like to call it and, and work on these things. If you’re in the mastermind, go ahead and post on your thread. And let’s talk about it. Let’s figure it out, I’ll probably end up video-replying to you. Because this is just such a conversation. If you’re not in there, then go post in one of the free groups and if I see it or you tag me, I might be able to help you there a little bit. If you are in better marketing of Bella, or you’re one of my intensive clients, obviously we can work through and just create the whole system for you. I am here to help you. I’m here to partner with you. I’m not here to get you to buy something and then disappear because your success is my success. If you don’t succeed, I don’t succeed.

All right, that’s true I tell everybody that because it’s the truth. I don’t think you’re gonna hear many other business coaches in the industry say that to you. But that’s truly what I feel. I want every single one of you guys to be successful. And for whatever reason you don’t feel like you’re successful. And you’re not even sure where to start. I want you to go to jumpconsulting.net/20. And I want you to get on my calendar. And let’s talk because talking to you guys is honestly the highlight of my day. It is it makes me very happy. So are there any other ways that you feel like you’re being held hostage that I didn’t mention today? You can put it in the comments. Wherever you saw this. The posting of the podcast or this video on YouTube. DM me, best way to get me is on Instagram honestly, it’s just at Bella Vasta. Or if you prefer email beall@jumpconsulting.net Guys, you can get a hold of me everywhere. Minus like a flare in the sky because I probably won’t see that. So anyways, as the summer comes to a close and all the parents said woohoo, at least here in Arizona, my daughter starts school back on August 3. Let’s talk moabout m guilt. I did this fun thing. I’m just literally just going off on a tangent right now. But because on Fridays, Mondays and Tuesdays I have her all day and I had to be on my videos with you or doing stuff. And I would tell her to go watch Spanish and then teach me five, five words when I was done with my meetings. And so that’s what we’re doing but we’re all Spanish out and I can’t wait for her to go back to school because she gets to see your friends and all that stuff. And I know all you parents out there also understand that part of it. It’s just hectic. We had a fun summer we just got back from Animal Kingdom and Epcot. And being on the beach. If you guys are on my Instagram, you probably saw some of it in the stories. We were riding waves and teaching her how to dive in and she was like diving for these like fish. And I say all this to you guys because you know nine years ago, my daughter’s birthday at the recording of this was yesterday she turned nine.

Nine years ago. I was in the hospital on bedrest from Memorial Day to o July 21. bedrest I stay in bed and only get up to go the bathroom or eat. And if I knew what I knew nine years ago, it just proves lie how much we can evolve and change and grow in our business in our life. I was in NICU for 182 days with her she was born at 12 ounces 10 inches that’s the size of like you know a soda can a Coke can and an inch shorter than a Barbie doll. She was translucent. Her eyes were still few shut. I was Runninrunningg my pet-sitting company, with 10 employees every day, I had an office manager that was amazing and had systems and processes that were amazing. But you know, it kind of goes back to my overall arching one of the biggest things that I say to people and on stage when I have the opportunity, it’s what would happen to your business. If you or someone you loved, needed you right now and you had to step out of your business, would it survive?
And if the answer is anything other than yes, we need to talk. Because you’ve built
what you’ve got right now out of your blood, sweat, and tears over months, months, and years. And for that, to all just go away without being able to have a reward for the fruits of your best labor, that would be really sad. And that’s why I preach all of this, like stop being hostage to it. If you have to step out. Let it all work for you. Make get in that mindset. Now you guys have to build these strong businesses, with good people with good systems, with good marketing for employees and clients on a steady thing that you don’t have to push the button to make it happen. It can happen. I’ve done it with so many companies. I have one company out in Maryland that’s got 60 employees. We gotta we got to start thinking bigger. We got to start thinking, What can I improve on in my company? And I want to see you fly because you’re a jumper and jumpers do that. You guys spend another episode of Bella in your business. Thank you so much for listening. Go ahead and listen to another episode if your time allows you right now. A couple of episodes ago the 10 steps of hiring was really good. Honestly, you can just go to jump consulting.net top right corner you can use the search bar and search for anything you want. We have like almost what 350 episodes right now. This is going to be I don’t even know what episode this is going to be. Isn’t that silly? I just lose track of the numbers. But there’s so much out there for you that I have created. It’s literally for what you’re taking so please make my day and take it. Alright guys, remember when life gets down, always keep jumping by now