Did you know that a few decades ago, labourers used to stand on the street corner early in the morning, waiting for the job truck to come by?
The driver would pull up in front of nearly 50 odd people and scream out that he needed 3 work men and was paying $X. All the workers were the same essentially; they were willing to work cheaply. The driver would then pick three random men and drive away, only to come back day after day to repeat the process.
Every business waits for the next customer to come along and pick their company.
Now, the old-school indoctrination most of us grew up with was that: if you show up on time, do your job, pay attention, follow instructions and stick it out, you will be taken care of: with a regular salary, maybe health insurance and most importantly, job security. And the benefit of this to the owners was that these types of employees were compliant, low paid and replaceable. “The essence of mass production is that every part is interchangeable” – Seth Godin.
See, as an owner, it’s cheaper for you to create a cookie cutter approach with interchangeable employees, able to be replicated. Though, it’s likely you won’t be the only one to replicate it, will you?
If you hire cheap labour only, then your survival will be reliant on lowering your prices in order to compete – CRACK. Starter’s Pistol.
The race to the bottom begins.
Understand though, your competition has been building a faceless machine exactly like yours. And when customers have the choice between faceless options (as they did when we all were waiting on the street for the job truck), they pick the cheapest, fastest, most direct option. If you want customers to flock to you, it’s tempting to race to the bottom of the price chart. But how much profit can be made here and how long can you last with little to no profit in the long term?
The other problem is that price conscious consumers are not loyal to ‘cheap’. You can succeed a while by being the cheapest for sure, but this is not a long term strategy toward success or financial freedom. You earn your place in the market with humanity, leadership and being remarkable.
To be good, and even reliable is no longer enough, as yesterdays ‘remarkable’ is todays ‘really good’ and tomorrows ‘mediocre’. “You can’t ‘out-Amazon’ Amazon” Now, in 2016, competition is rife, technology has outstripped elements of society in many ways and that original bargain we made; to show up and do our jobs; has fallen by the way-side.
Having read ‘Lynchpin’ by Seth Godin, I was so interested by the point he makes about employers not rewarding obedience any more. He says job security is a thing of the past. If anything, we now reward talent and creativity; because the compliant masses don’t help so much when they don’t know what to do next.
So now, what we want, what we need, what we must have are indispensable employees. A+ players. Game changers.
Original thinkers, provocateurs, invested and committed employees. We should all be hiring up.
It’s the 1:1n ratio. By hiring up, hiring better than yourself, you build a TEAM of excellence. “
We need marketers who can lead, salespeople able to make a human connection, passionate change makers… a new answer, a new connection and a new way of getting things done.”
We need A+ players, key staff, people difficult to live without, someone you can build something around. “The future belongs to chefs, not cooks and bottle washers.”
So now we choose.
Win by being ordinary, standard and cheaper… Or win by being better, connecting more deeply, being more invested in your role, more remarkable and more human? Seeing your marketplace as a place where in order for one person to win, another must lose. Or as a place where talent creates growth and the market increases in size?
By using your initiative, innovation and insight, with management attracting, motivating and retaining great talent, you have more leverage than the competition.
So, be remarkable, connect people and ideas, make judgement calls and have passion and energy, be capable of seeing things as they are, be flexible in the face of change, resilient in the face of confusion. What the boss really wants is someone who changes everything, someone who makes dreams come true, someone who can see the reality of today and describe a better tomorrow.
Hire the right people. Do what it takes to support them, help them grow. Be the right people. Be that A+ player.
An organisation of indispensable people doing important work is remarkable, profitable, and indispensable in and of itself.