For much of 2008 we were on an adventure in hiring. Heart of Business had, sadly and wonderfully, outgrown our amazing virtual assistants and needed to hire someone as a real employee.
It was an expensive, painful, enlightening, and incredibly educational journey. My wife and I learned tons about ourselves, about the true needs of the business, about how to hire, and how to be employers. Mostly because the first two hires didn’t work out. Which was expensive and painful. But worth it.
Now we have Kate Williams. Kate is our Infrastructure Queen. She has been an entrepreneur for-evah! She was the co-owner and manager of a holistic medical clinic, she was hired entry level at the National College of Natural Medicine and quickly rose to a director’s position, turning the school bookstore around and quadrupling it. Then she went out on her own as a freelance writer and editor.
Which is where she found us. She was a client of ours for months, before she responded to our ad.
We hired her, and she’s been working diligently within HoB, helping us tune up, and put in place, all kinds of systems and support so that we can sustain growth and development beyond the natural limits that Holly and I had reached in terms of our ability to just get things done.
Here’s the Insider’s View
Kate is adding her voice to this blog, and she’s going to blog about her experience coming into a business that already has momentum and a foundation, as compared to trying to get her own business up and running. She’s going to talk about what works, what doesn’t, insights and lessons learned.
And, she’s probably going to embarrass the crumb out of me, because she’s going to say pretty much whatever she wants. And there are wonderful things about HoB, and there are things that are messy and don’t work according to plan behind the curtain here.
In these times, rough economy, business in turmoil, I think it’s important for you to know the truth- that business is messy, mistakes are made, and that just because I, you, or anyone has accomplished something, it doesn’t mean I, you or anyone has all the answers.
But Kate just might. So watch for her posts.
Posts In This Series
Impressions: Finding That Right First Employee
Getting Paid . . . Eventually . . . After Having to Ask
Good Employees are Independent, and Good Employers Show Up
Wrestling to Anchor Our Infrastructure
Operating By the Books; It Does a Business Good
Don’t Forget to Tend to Your Personal Infrastructure
6 Responses
This is awesome. Kate – I can’t wait. I love all of you and can’t wait to be doing work with you in 2009 and reading all of your posts will be such a pleasure!
What a great addition to the Heart of Business Blog! Kate, I’m looking forward to hearing your voice here, and to reading your posts.
Mark and Holly, as always, by being real and open and leading the way, you show us how heart-centered business truly works.
Love to you all,
Hiro
Hiro Boga
Welcome, Kate. And I think it will be good to hear more about the infrastructure side of things. There are tons of blogs about marketing out there but there is a lot to running a business beyond marketing.
Mark, I’d love to hear more about your experience of hiring and so on and what kinds of things worked and didn’t work. And maybe something on “how to tell you need an employee”. Not that I’m anywhere near that point yet, but I bet others are.
JoVE
I believe Kate is gearing up for her first post… I’m looking forward to it, too!
Hey There!
So good to get some response. I’ve just finished my first post, and Mark will look at it later tonight. I am so excited to be involved through writing. Can’t tell you how much it feeds my creative spirit and need to turn my insides out. I hope this brings a useful dimension in growing all of our businesses.
Thanks for your interest,
Kate
Kate:
I think you’re totally awesome! I love how you’re willing to turn your insides out as you say -how profoundly beautiful.
xoxox
Char