Hi Rick, I applaud your effort -- I totally emphasize and understand your perspective, as 8 years ago, I was a one man shop working out of my college dorm room trying to get a business started
There is an unfortunate reality that the one-man band is not a sustainable long-term operation -- for example, how will you ever go on a vacation? Or spend quality time with the wife without the ever-present threat / fear that lightening may strike...somewhere That said, all is not lost -- the good news is that unlike most businesses, the underlying business model of a WISP (e.g., the recurring revenue and ownership of infrastructure) has a lot of intrinsic worth -- so even if you're not able to scale and build an actual business (as I will outline below) -- you've still created an asset that has value and can be sold >For me, now as an owner/operator, good labor is the problem. I would argue that this is the challenge faced by every business owner (small or large) in every industry all across the country And as Jack Welch says it, the answer is simple -- just "hire good people who are A players" There's theory, and then there's reality; and the truth of the matter is that advice is as worthless as the advice my high school track coach would give me to help me win the race -- "Just run faster" he'd say -- "then you'll win no problem" Duh Now, back to "hiring A players" -- and a few cogent points that I've learned with the 40+ employees that I've hired/fired/scared off over the last 8 years 1. We (the business owner/entrepreneur/key guy) are all A players 2. We just need to clone ourselves and then we'll have the perfect employee =) Here's the kicker 3. Since we decided to work for ourselves because we didn't want to be "just another employee" -- chances are our that if an employee is truly a clone of us (e.g., an A player), they probably wouldn't be working for us but would rather go start their own business venture So, it becomes an interesting conundrum, how does one hire an A player when none of them are willing to be employees =) >I have >gone through dozens of guys in the past two years but none become long >term. It's not the pay because they tell me the pay is fair. The main >reasons are the lost work ethic and personal problems, at least in >this area. There are a few things that I learned over the years that I think have contributed to my personal and corporate growth...specifically 1. Although there are very few (as in 1 out of 1000) A players for hire "out of the box" -- with proper bumper rails, B & C players can be made to perform as well (if not better than) A players 2. To accomplish 1 requires the creation of business systems / processes / culture 3. To accomplish 2 requires a great deal of overhead that only occurs when an organization has significant scale (50+ employees) That said, to reiterate, there is nothing wrong with going the one-man shop route -- just don't kid yourself into thinking that you're building a business and be happy that the beauty of the WISP business model is that you also currently build an underlying asset (infrastructure and customer contracts) that has a pretty sizeable and appreciable value. And be happy you're not a consultant or a retail store =) -Charles -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
