The Importance of Having the Right People On Your team | Rick Miller

Hey guys, Rick here from Elijah Tooling.

I have been thinking about the fact that we are getting ready to celebrate our 28th anniversary of this company. First of all, that just blows me away. If you had asked me 27 years ago whether I would have still been in business in 2018, I think I would have told you "no" or probably, "Hell no."

There have been things that I have learned along the way. Believe me when I say that I am no expert when it comes to businesses, I have stumbled my way through. But, i think that, specifically, for some young person starting out or thinking about starting their own business, there might be some things that I can help with; that I have done might be helpful.

Joseph here is the guy that is mostly behind this camera. He is the CEO of The Uptown Agency and he has been doing our social media and digital marketing and has been working on our website. We are just going to have a conversation. 

We are going to be releasing videos like these one at a time over a period of time. It is just going to be me talking about some of the things that I have learned along the way and it will be one thing at a time. I aim to keep it short and I also hope that it will be beneficial to you.

I was telling Joseph earlier that the very first challenge that I had in our business was; first of all let me tell you something. I was recruited by my brothers to run this company and it had absolutely nothing to do with my experience in running a company. I was the only guy that had a degree among us. Now, since then, things have changed but, at that time, i was the guy. They told me that I had to be the front man and be the guy that goes out there and does it. I didn't know anything about running a company.

So, when I first discovered the very first nugget of information that I am going to tell you today, it came as a surprise. The first thing that I had to learn was to fire somebody. So, as I think about over the years, I think about trying to build a team of excellence and you start realizing that it really matters who is on your team. Would you agree Joseph? 

100%, absolutely. It is everything.

I am telling you, I have gone in and out of this over the years because sometimes, you compromise. You go "I need to have somebody and I need them now!"

In this case, the person I had to fire was actually one of the founders of the company. But the problem was, and this is key to creating a company that you need to make and that is we were not on the same page. We did not see the world in the same way. And so, without being able to walk down that path together, in a sense hand-in-hand, you got a problem. And it reminds me of a biblical concept which is don't yoke with somebody who is a nonbeliever. Somebody who does not believe in your business, in what you are bringing to the world, they are not going to be a good choice for you. 

You literally, in a sense, need to be married not just to partners in your firm but also to every employee. They need to be married to your vision and to where you are going and also to the culture that you are creating. And, by the way, whether we do it intentionally or not, we create a culture around ourselves. Every single organization, including just as a symbol a family, has a culture. That is a key thing.

So, part of creating that culture is bringing people in that will build that culture and not tear it down.

Thank you for your time.

-Rick