The Small Business Bible: Everything You Need to Know to Succeed in Your Small Business, 3rd Edition

Chapter 29

Training and Motivating Your Staff

Help me help you!

—Jerry Maguire

Some employees are hired, trained a bit, and expected to do their jobs competently. Others are hired, trained properly, expected to do their jobs competently, and the training continues. Which do you think will be more effective? Right. Even so, it is understandable when a small business owner fails to properly train his or her employees. After all, training takes time, and time is our most precious commodity (other than cash flow!).

Making the mistake of spending too much time working in our business rather than on our business is something that all small business owners are guilty of. It is easy to get so lost in the day-to-day minutiae of your business that you miss the big picture. Training and motivating employees is one way to counteract that. It ensures that your plans and vision are being carried out, even when you are busy doing other things.

Training

Good training creates better employees. The type and extent of the training that you offer will vary depending on your goals. It may be as simple as explaining a new policy and showing employees how to implement it, or it might be a several weeklong process whereby employees learn a new skill from scratch. Either way, adequately training your staff is vital to the continued success of your small business.

Example:

Nancy Clark owns two retail dance apparel stores, so it is physically impossible for her to be in both places at once. Therefore, ...