Hiring Employees (17)
I'm sure many people in the forum have setup their own companies and keep hiring people. I'm too somewhere on this path. However, one thing that I always keep wondering is how much exposure to your business that you give to your employees? how to retain people to work with you when they soon realize that if they play this game on their own they can make much more than whatever one can pay them as salary?
Do you share your tracking platform with your employees? It's like giving them online access to your bank account.
Do you share your offer network? It's like showing them how much they can do own their own.
All in all - I'm bit puzzled. Wondering how in the world, people are able to hire in our industry and retain them long term.
Any ideas welcome.
Thats especially actual question due to this trend - http://goo.gl/2hBRMx
In the article author talks that affiliate marketing will be switching more and more from individual work to small company (≈10 people) business.
I've hired a lot, but mostly outside of AM.
For AM the main rule seems to be
1. Find someone motivated and trustworthy
2. Then only give them a specific part of the pie, and make them an expert at that part through training
I don know affiliates who have hired partners and give a % of the operation, you need to find someone you know and trustworthy for this.
Otherwise follow step #2
From my experience you have to split test employees like you split test campaigns and cut the losers.
You will find a few good ones with which you can give access to tracker and affiliate networks. Without trusting them would be hard to use them to their potential.
I also want to add that if you're hiring people, you have to make an effort to be a good boss.
Most people quit their jobs because of bad bosses. The person you hire KNOWS that he or she should probably earn more doing AM on their own. But if you respect their expertise, acknowledge their good work, and pay them well, you will earn their loyalty and you won't have to worry about losing them or eventually competing with them. They'll keep working for you and other people will want to work for you if you give them plenty of reasons to stay.
Originally Posted by John Johnas
Salary is important.
But the
- quality of your management skills
- your ability to teach and inspire your team, and
- your ability to offer your team members a compelling career opportunity
are just as important and sometimes even more so.
Originally Posted by John Johnas
for the new office im building the request was pool table, and ping pont table.. thank god for the mega space it'll be a reality soon
happy workers = less headaches for me
I've pretty much experimented with every model over the past few years.
Here's what I'm currently doing.
I am 100% transparent with my operations. They see every single cent i make. Everyone knows what each other made. Hiding a lot of the information is pretty much saying, "Hey I don't trust you."
Could my employees run off with my campaigns? Sure. You can sign all the non-competes and contracts you want, but it's not going to stop them. It's not worth it for you to sue compared to just getting back to the grind. But I have a lot of leverage in the industry. Some of the offers I run are exclusive to me, and my partners wouldn't work with someone that screwed me over.
How can you keep employees?
There are three ways
a) It starts with the type of person you hire. Who's more likely to go rogue: the 19 year old hustler kid or the 30 year old mom with kids. Do you have a prior relationship with this person? What is their personality like? Screen your employees carefully.
One thing I like to do is make them work for me for free like an internship. I can tell who's real or not by their patience.
b) How much are they making. Imagine you're able to generate for your boss $10,000 profit a day but you only get paid $50k a year. You're a dumb ass if you don't go rogue. You have to compensate them fairly. Give them a fair percentage of the profits. Treat them like a partner rather than an employee.
My guys know they can make more money working for me than going solo. They have my knowledge, resources, etc. No matter what happens in the industry I'll find a way to adapt.
c) how well you treat them. Are you the type of person someone would enjoy working for? How do you treat them when they make mistakes?
Each person in my team grows as a human being. My work ethic rubs off on them. It's required to go to the gym 4x a week if you work here.
Affiliate marketing's weird because most businesses don't have such a low barrier to entry.
But yea good luck. These are just guidelines, you kinda have to hire and experiment to find your style.
Here's another piece to this that I learned 7 years ago.
The adage of "only give them a piece of the pie" is true if you're doing affiliate marketing, AND you're not hiring from the Philippines.
Years ago I hired 4 americans to help me with my AM stuff. Within a month each of them quit as they realized they could go do it on their own. I'm not saying all Americans will do this, but it's pretty common.
My experience with the Philippines is very different. I have people I've taught everything to. They do the niche research, build the website, write the content, join the affiliate programs, do the marketing....
Every month they send me an earnings report.
They know everything about my AM businesses because I've taught them everything.
The thing that's different about the Philippines than most countries is that they don't want to do it on their own. They're not entrepreneurs. They just want a job.
This isn't true of everyone in the Philippines...but it's true of most.
100% disclaimer, I own the marketplaces for finding and hiring Filipino workers (onlinejobs.ph and easyoutsource.com). Doesn't change what I said above. They're great workers at really affordable rates.
Also, for anyone reading this whole thread, I didn't make the first comment I made on this thread. One of my workers in the Philippines logged in as me and made it. That's how good they are!
Originally Posted by John Johnas
Guys, i'm in the same situation as mobexpert and the answers are really useful!
Q: Do you recommend any book worth reading for hiring people / starting a team?
I think trust,motivation, environment,salary is important
Lots of good points in this thread! one aspect not touched on so much though is that are at (least) two types of people, and I don't mean male and female
Entrepreneurs and salary, neither being better than each other or earns more, it's more the mindset.
That's from some experience 10 - 20 hires in UK, same in Dubai, Singapore and more in Philippines.
From that the hiding the big picture isn't a big concern. Yes you don't give it all on day one but if someone's mindset is to go it along they will get all the pieces anyway.
Thanks everyone for your inputs. It really helped. I'm chalking out my own unique plan based on the input of you guys. I'm all with a fixed salary coupled with variable component linked to profitability.
Yes, there are many more things go into the play than just the salary to retain people. However, it's difficult to retain over-ambitious people even though they are pretty outstanding in terms of their contributions.
I currently work for a network and bunch of entrepreneurs, who are millionaires in their own right.
I have become friends with the boss and he lets me just get on with my work and motivates me when needed.
Yes I could easily go off by myself and earn more money yes, but what I'm learning from some one who has already done all that has a certain value.
Originally Posted by John Johnas
Here is what I've learned so far in my foray into managing a performance marketing agency:
Hire Outside the US : If you hire people inside the US, you'll have to take much more minimal margins and treat them basically as in-house affiliates because the culture is so entrepreneurial. The margins that would keep someone around aren't worth it if you're at this level.
Hire People with a Wife: They'll be much more stable, predictable, and easy to manage.
Don't Reveal All Your Numbers: I disagree with Charles Ngo here. Not all employees dont need to know everything. I use an affiliate software for my internal employees and factor in a 25% margin, so my employees will think they're breaking even when we are actually making a 25% margin. This is important because this is both the minimal margin I want to be making, and it allows me to make more money without questioning what their boss is making and what they are making. My manager knows all, and yes, he is cut in, but since I dont intend to cut in my employees, they shouldnt know everything.
Don't Overpay: If you overpay employees, they will lose motivation, and be tempted to do things like: travel, not work, vacation, etc. Everyone has a number. Provide proper incentives though. Although you dont want to overpay, providing opportunities for the 'eagles' or the highest performers should be the most important thing as these are the individuals that will grow your business.
Give Learning/Recognition: Along the lines of what Charles Ngo said, you can give employees three things: Money, Recognition, and Personal Growth. Even though employees might be able to make more money somewhere else, they wont get as much personal growth. The more personal growth, and recognition you can give someone, the less money you can pay them. Im talking trophies (we have a 'hulk of the week' trophy, among other prizes), dinners, small raises, etc. Do a Google search for 'sales floor prizes' or 'ways to motivate a sales floor'; managers of cold-calling sales floors, teams of door-to-door salesmen, etc have been doing this for years. Our industry is really not new, there are hundreds if not thousands of companies across the world that are 'affiliates' for companies in the Cable TV (comcast), Telecom (at&t,etc), insurance and solar panel industries that have been selling customers to these companies on a cost-per-customer basis for over a hundred years. Our industry is not very new, its just the internet aspect that is new.
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